Can God create humans with free will who never commit evil?

HTS Theological Studies 76 (1) (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Can an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God create humans with free will without the capacity to commit evil? Scholars have taken opposite positions on the contentious problem. Using scripture and the rules of logic, we argue that God cannot create impeccable creatures because of his ‘simplicity’. God cannot create gods, because God is uncreated. Peccable humans freely choose to disobey their creator and thus cannot blame him for the horrendous evils in this world. Concerning the belief of sinless humans with free will in heaven, we suggest that such an impartation of God’s impeccability can be accomplished, not through creation, but by the marriage of Christ and the Church, for the two shall become one. Believers will become children of God and partakers of the divine nature.Contribution: Theologians and philosophers have argued whether God could create humans with free will who never commit evil, and if he could, why did he not do so? The primary contribution of this article is the argument that God could not create impeccable humans with free will for God could not create gods.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 93,867

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Can God Be Free?William L. Rowe - 2003 - Clarendon Press.
Can God Be Free?William L. Rowe - 2002 - Faith and Philosophy 19 (4):405-424.
Compatibilism and the Free Will Defense.Jason Turner - 2013 - Faith and Philosophy 30 (2):125-137.
Evil, Freedom and Heaven.Simon Cushing - 2017 - In Heaven and Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. pp. 201-230.
Must God Create the Best Available Creatures?Mark J. Boone - 2021 - Philosophia Christi 23 (2):271-289.
God and the Problem of Logic.Andrew Dennis Bassford - 2023 - Cambridge University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-10-23

Downloads
30 (#519,559)

6 months
6 (#700,930)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Evil and omnipotence.J. L. Mackie - 1955 - Mind 64 (254):200-212.
Incompatibilism, Sin, and Free Will in Heaven.Kevin Timpe & Timothy Pawl - 2009 - Faith and Philosophy 26 (4):396-417.
The logical problem of evil: Mackie and Plantinga.Daniel Howard-Snyder - 2014 - In Justin P. McBrayer & Daniel Howard-Snyder (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to The Problem of Evil. Wiley. pp. 19-33.
Transworld depravity and unobtainable worlds.Richard Otte - 2008 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78 (1):165-177.
Transworld depravity, transworld sanctity, & uncooperative essences.Alvin Plantinga - 2008 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78 (1):178-191.

View all 10 references / Add more references