God, Freedom, and Evil

Plantinga brings some of the best thought done recently in the philosophy of religion down to the level of anyman willing to think. His free will defense appears to refute the problem of evil on at the very least a strictly logical ground. The ontological argument is probably one of the most enjoyable and strange things for me to read about, and while I know Plantinga's treatment of it will not be the last word on it, the argument from Anselm to Plantinga comes close to convincing me. Another interesting benefit of the book is that I became familiar with thinking modally about subjects which has been surprisingly helpful. My only complaint might be is that some specific objections or perhaps the evidential problem of evil could have recieved a little more attention, but doing so would have made the book longer and its shortness is one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much. This book is not for emotional comfort or anything like that. This book is strictly dealing with philosophic issues at an intellectual level. Very short and very rewarding I would suggest this book to anyone who wants to think seriously about God.

I think many of the reviewers here express much better the pros of Plantinga than I could. The only new thing I coud add is that Plantinga only offers a draw. I think in the past a reviewer said this is not a 'theodicy', which is right. My conclusion was that all he was saying is that it is not illogical to give the benefit of the doubt to God for allowing evil. I especially enjoyed this book because my wife is taking a class in philosophy and we have talked about many terms about false argumentation. Indeed those who accuse God for allowing evil certainly use false argumentation.

Some have called Alvin Plantinga this, and, whether you agree with him or not, the title is certainly warranted. In this book, 'God, Freedom, and Evil', Plantinga analyzes several mainline arguments of both natural theology and natural atheology. He finds all atheistic arguments wanting and most theistic arguments wanting. However, Plantinga eventually settles to the crux of the matter: the problem of evil. After showing that the problem of evil is obviously NOT a deductive problem--that is, from the existence of evil is does not necessarily follow that God doesn't exist--he utilizes the Free Will Defense to combat inductive arguments against theism. Plantinga ultimately concludes that the Free Will Defense, modified and elaborated to include considerations of possible worlds, successfully answers the problem of evil.The arguments in this book, especially Plantinga's account of Transworld Depravity and other complex issues regarding possible worlds, are quite cumbersome. Still, if one is willing to take to work to a quiet corner and faithfully think through its contents, he will not be disappointed.Adam Glover

Alvin Plantinga, O'Brien Philosophy Professor at Notre Dame, shook the philosophy of religion world with this book when it was first published in 1978. His debunking of the atheistic evidential argument from evil is strictly a DEFENSE, not a THEODICY. A defense is merely a logical way out. A theodicy would attempt to give the specific reasons God allows evil. Plantinga does not claim to know the thoughts of God, so by offering a defense, he modestly shows that it is logically compatible for God to coexist with evil. His argument is NOT one by analogy (contra another reviewer), rather it is a strict application of the rules of logic.Even though the book is more accessible to the public than most of his others, I imagine that someone without any basic training in philosophy may struggle with the read (but a struggle is not a good excuse not to read a good book!). In addition to the defense against evil, his exposition of the Ontological argument is very interesting, and worthwhile for anyone who intends to properly understand that argument. Those in the field of philosophy have almost universally accepted it as the theistic solution to the problem of evil. If you are an atheist, I challenge you to study his arguments to understand the rational case he is making. This will definitely be an exciting and fun read for the philosopher, as well as to the thinking and outspoken theist and atheist.(By the way, if you are looking for a good THEODICY - try MAKING SENSE OUT OF SUFFERING by Peter Kreeft, philosophy professor at Boston College.)

I've read this book but do not own it currently.Probably one of the best books on the free will-type argument. I'm not so sure an explanation for evil is needed, myself. It appears to me that if God does not exist then real evil does not exist. So if God doesn't exist then the argument from evil is useless, the premise that evil exists is invalidated. But if God does exist then obviously the argument is useless. This is the only thing I think presuppositionalism has right.The reviewer with the diatribe below misses important points and basically represents the bad argumentation of atheists perfectly. The biggest problem is that free will and determinism may, indeed, be compatible, but to program humans so they would freely choose only the non-evil choices would be to invalidate that freedom altogether. There's no real freedom in being told "Jump off the cliff or get pushed off the cliff". This basically treats human beings as a means to an end, and it would seem that that is morally inferior to REAL freedom(i.e the ability to do both good and evil). The second problem is that the Cosmological argument NEVER says ALL things need a cause. The Kalam version says that all things that have a beginning need a cause, and the contingency variations say that all wholly contingent facts need a cause, mixed contingents and necessary facts don't need a cause, necessarily. For the writer to bring up Bertrand Russel is amusing because theists put his arguments away decades ago. The great thing is that Russel's argument admits the premises, things that begin need causes. He escapes by saying that theists say God is eternal and thus doesn't need a cause. So he says, why couldn't the universe be eternal and therefore be uncaused? It sure could be eternal! But it's not! It's funny that Russel should even suggest that it could be eternal when he was one of the earliest supporters of relativity theory, which had invalidated the idea that the universe was eternal a couple decades before he wrote "Why I am not a Christian". Possibly our detracting friend could pull out the more sophisticated objections of Mackie in "The Miracle of Theism". Quite frankly Mackie is the only objector that I take seriously. It's too bad he's no longer with us. Another thing is the absolutely weird idea of calling a natural disaster "Evil". It would seem to me that evil is something that can only be actualized by a mind, something with intent. Does the universe have intentions!? It would seem not. Natural disasters, like earthquakes, hurricanes, all serve very good purposes. In fact, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc, are all elements in your standard argument from Fine-Tuning. Earthquakes sifting minerals up from the earth's crust and the ocean floor allow for more diversity of the types of extant life. So basically you can only argue against the free will argument by invalidating your premises, setting up a straw man, etc. And argue against the Cosmological Argument by setting up a