Response to Paradox for Soul-Building Theodicy

While there may be some merit to the Soul-Building Theodicy, it certainly isn't the only justification God must have for permitting the kinds of evils we see in the world.  In any case, the point of this response is not to solve the problem of evil, but to resolve the paradox inherent in the claim that God never acquired his virtue via suffering and temptation whereas according to Hick it is better to acquire virtue in exactly the way humans do.  But then, it seems that humans are more virtuous then God in some way.

Another article that brings up a similar issue:
http://stripe.colorado.edu/~morristo/whats-so-good-about-moral-freedom.pdf

I disagree with Hick's claim that it is better to acquire virtue by trial and error as compared to never acquiring it.  Instead, I think that there is a relevant difference between the nature of God, and human nature that makes it necessary for humans to acquire virtue in order to be morally responsible for their moral character, whereas God would not have to suffer and be tempted in order to acquire His moral character and be responsible for it at the same time. 

Consider the following excerpt from the IEP (Moral Character): "If moral responsibility is impossible, however, then agents cannot be held responsible for their character traits or for the behaviors that they do as a result of those character traits. Why might one think that moral responsibility, and thus moral character, is impossible? Galen Strawson (1994) summarizes the argument, which he calls the Basic Argument, in this way:

1. In order to be morally responsible, an agent would have to be a cause of itself or causa sui.
2. Nothing can be causa sui.
3. Therefore, no agent can be morally responsible.

The idea behind the Basic Argument can be elaborated as follows. In order for an agent, Allison, to be responsible for some action of hers, that action must be a result of the kind of person that Allison is. We might say, for instance, that Allison is blameworthy for eating too much chocolate at time T because she is a gluttonous individual. But in order for Allison to be responsible for being a gluttonous individual at T, she would have to be responsible at some earlier time T-1 for being the kind of person that would later become a gluttonous person. But in order for Allison to be responsible for being the kind of person that would later become a gluttonous person, she would have to be responsible at some earlier time T-2 for being the kind of person that would later become the kind of person that would later become a gluttonous person. According to Strawson, this line of thinking begins an infinite regress: “True self-determination is impossible because it requires the completion of an infinite series of choices of principles of choice” (G. Strawson, 7).

A similar argument has also recently been advocated by Bruce Waller. According to Waller, no one is “morally responsible for her character or deliberative powers, or for the results that flow from them…. Given the fact that she was shaped to have such characteristics by environmental (or evolutionary) forces far beyond her control, she deserves no blame [nor praise]” (Waller, 85f).

I do not intend to argue about whether or not moral repsonsiblity is impossible for human beings, but I bring this issue up in order to point out the relevant difference with respect to God's nature and human nature in relationship to an individual's moral responsiblity for his/her character.  Whereas humans are created, embodied beings that are influenced, if not causally determined, by genetic, environmental, and other shaping forces beyond their control; in traditional Western theism, God cannot be created, controlled, or shaped by any other force or being because God is uncaused, immaterial, and self-existent (not self-caused).  God is not shaped by genetic and environmental pressures as humans are.  Lastly, God is the supreme case of agent-causation, which means his choices are self-determined, and so there is no infinite regress of choices of principled choices.  Moreover, given Frankfurt type scenarios, God doesn't have to have the ability to choose otherwise in order to be morally responsible, especially since He is the ultimate source of His decisions.  So, since God is causa sui in the relevant sense, and we are not, then it follows that in order for human beings to be morally responsible for there character, a different program must be used in our case as compared with God's situation.  In other words, unless our natures were identical to God's, we cannot be created (caused, or uncaused; e.g. Morriston's Betas and Alphas) with virtue ab initio, and be morally responsible for that character like God is, because we are not uncaused, immaterial, and self-existent.  So, what we need is some sort of semi-libertarian and semi-determinsim combo view that allows the right kind of ability to choose A or B over time such that your decisions are not ensured to happen, but over time you can also have your character formed.  That way, God can be responsible for His actions given His aseity despite not having the ability to choose otherwise whereas human beings (whether created by God or not) need something like the following to be true in order to be morally responsible given external influences (given our current understanding of the universe I think this view is very plausible): The statements that either compatiblism is true of libertarian freedom is true is more probable than the statement that moral responsibility doesn't make sense.  So, think about how dice work; each toss is independent of the other whereas decisions are not like that.  Decisions you made in the past have a bearing on how your life goes (over time, your 'decision dice' become weighted); you can learn and adjust from your decisions so that past decision have effects on your future decisions.  Given an indeterministic universe, perhaps agents can shape the probabilities of future decisions so that they become weighted.  If you look at people over time, rather than just as snapshots, you can get a robust enough sense of moral responsibility that something like the free will defense can be seen as plausible still while retaining God's essential goodness.

http://www.closertotruth.com/video-profile/Is-Free-Will-an-Illusion-Al-Mele-/1976