DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY AND THE FREE WILL DEFENCE

Thomas P. Flint*

*University of Notre Dame, U.S.A. In an article in this journal {"Christian Theism and the Free Will Defence," Sophia 19 1980, pp. 20-33), David Basinger has charged that the Free Will Defence (henceforth, the FWD) cannot be used b y the orthodox Christian as a means of countering the atheological argument from evil because the adoption of that defence forced one to deny God the kind of power which traditional Christianity insists he possesses. As I see it, though, Basinger's attack is based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the FWD. In this paper, then, I shall first recount Basi n g e r ' s a r g u m e n t and t h e n a t t e m p t to i s o l a t e t h e misunderstanding which underlies it. According to Basinger, the F W D is an a t t e m p t to show that God can be exempt from moral responsibility for the existence of evil because he may have had no choice b u t to create a world in which such evil exists. If the libertarian analysis of freedom is correct, then God cannot cause any free creature he might create always to perform good actions. Though God would presumably know how any creature he might create would fre~ ly act, these actions would not be within God's control should that creature come into existence. Hence, it may be that God knew prior to creation that he could not make a world in which his free creatures would always do only what is right. Indeed, it may be that he recognized that our world {i.e., the world he ultimately did create, containing the free agents and situations it actually does contain) would be better overall than any alternative world containing other free agents and/or situations. B u t if this was so, then God had no choice b u t to create the world as we see it. For since

41

{1) The existence of a created universe which contains moral agents who freely perform both good and evil actions and contains more good than evil overall is a more valuable state-ofaffairs than the existence of a created universe containing only robots who must always do what is right or a state-of-affairs in which there is no created universe at all. and {2) A wholly good God must bring about the most valuable state-of-affairs which he can ~, it follows that God's goodness would have compelled him to create our world if (as we have assumed) no better world containing free moral agents was available to him. So it is possible that God's omnibenevolent nature left him no choice b u t to create our world, and hence left him no way to prevent the actuality of the evils that world contains. And since no agent can be considered morally culpable for states of affairs he cannot prevent, it follows that it is possible that God is not morally culpable for the evils we experience. So much for Basinger's formulation of the FWD. As Basinger sees it, perhaps the major problem with this defence concerns the degree and kind of power which it permits God to possess. For according to Basinger, the F W D excuses God from responsibility for the actuality of evil only by, in effect, denying God's ability to control the occurrence or non-occurrence of particular states of affairs. This restriction on divine providence, Basinger suggests, is a consequence of God's being required to create the best world he can: ...the Free Will Defender can.., not assure us that, even in the " b e s t " creatable universe, what God desires in any specific situation will actually come about. Since the F W G {Free Will God) cannot causally determine the free choices of created moral agents, it m a y be t h a t a n y given occurrence in this universe is simply the undesirable, b u t unavoidable, by-product of the creation of that set of co-possible free moral agents which is part of the " b e s t " universe overall. We can only say that at best the F W G possesses general control {sovereignty, providence) over his creation. {p. 23)

42

Though Basinger has doubts about whether a God whose control was thus restricted could properly be considered omnipotent, his major contention is that this notion of divine providence is at variance with that required by orthodox Christian thought. Though the meaning of divine omnipotence may always have been and still remains variable among Christians, such is not the case with regard to God's sovereignty over specific events. Here, according to Basinger, a clear orthodox Christian position exists. When orthodox Christians contend that God is in control of each contingent action IX) performed by a moral agent they mean (have meantl that, if God did not desire X to occur, he could prohibit it. Or, to restate this point in terms more explicitly related to our discussion, orthodox Christian theism has never interpreted the free agency of moral agents as a limitation on God's sovereignty. Man is accorded freedom of a sort, b u t God is clearly seen as a being who, if not the cause of all contingent events, at least possesses total "veto power" over all such occurrences (i.e., GOd is accorded specific sovereignty). (p. 25) After quoting Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin in support of his contention that an acceptance of God's possession of specific sovereignty is incumbent upon orthodox believers, Basinger states that this places the orthodox Christian proponent of the F W D in quite a quandary. To remain orthodox, it seems he must affirm God's specific sovereignty; yet to endorse the FWD, the most he can allow God is general sovereignty. Hence, Basinger concludes, the F W D is not a viable means of defending orthodox Christian theism. As I see it, Basinger is absolutely correct in one part of his argument. If the F W D did commit one to a denial of divine specific sovereignty, then it would indeed be difficult for the traditional Christian to endorse such a defence, for the belief that God has control (at least in the sense of "veto power") over particular events does seem to be firmly entrenched within that orthodoxy. However, the defender of the F W D need not be alarmed by the fact of this entrenchment, for Basinger's contention that the F W D is incompatible with more than general sovereignty is erroneous. His error stems, I believe, from a serious misinterpretation of the FWD, a misinterpretation which I shall now a t t e m p t to explicate. 43

According to Basinger, the FWD depends upon the two premises which I have enumerated above as (11 and (2}. If Basinger were correct in holding these two propositions essential to the FWD. we would have little choice but to reject t h a t defence as an adequate rejoinder to the problem of evil, for there is good reason to doubt t h a t either (1) or 12) is even possibly true. However, it seems clear to me t h a t Basinger is misguided in thinking t h a t the FWD requires the t r u t h of either of these propositions. On the contrary, when properly understood, the FWD is seen to be fully compatible with the falsity of both I1) and (2). And as we shall see, the Free Will Defender, when freed from a commitment to (1) and (2), can rather easily reconcile his endorsement of the FWD with his belief in God's possession of specific sovereignty. Let us begin with (1). For {1) to be true, any world exhibiting an overall balance of good over evil which also contained free agents would have to be better than any world not containing free agents. When carefully examined, such a claim apears to be exceedingly questionable. For consider two worlds W and W*. Up to time t, W and W* are virtually identical: though each contains no free agent, each is replete with non-moral goods and relatively lacking in significant evils of any sort. After t though, W and W* diverge. W continues ever onward to be a world in which no free creatures exist, but also continues ever onward to be a world in which good vastly outweighs evil. In W*, on the other hand, free creatures come into existence at t. But alas, these creatures are terribly naughty: whenever faced with a moral choice, these creatures always go wrong. However, despite their untiring efforts to make the world as bad as they possibly can. W* nonetheless remains a world which contains {though j u s t barely) more good than evil overall. Now I have little doubt t h a t most of us would not hesitate to rate W as a state of affairs far more valuable than W*. If I1} were true, though, such an evaluation would be in error, for I1} entails that, so long as W* exhibits more good than evil, even in the tiniest of degrees, its inclusion of free agents lalbeit exclusively bad ones} makes it a better world than W. Since such a conclusion seems eminently dubitable, {1} would not appear to be a very plausible premise.

44

I suspect, though, that (1) can be slightly amended so as to play the same role which it plays in Basinger's presentation of the F W D without succumbing to the counterexample we have just examined. What {1) fails to recognize is that the proponents of the F W D view freedom as valuable primarily as a prerequisite for the existence of moral good. Should such good fail to materialize consequent upon the existence of free creatures, most Free Will Defenders would probably grant that the freedom of those creatures had failed significantly to increase the value of the world. In other words, the F W D actually seems to presuppose no more than that freedom is valuable if its presence results in more moral good than moral evil. Hence, we might amend (1) to (1') The existence of a created universe which includes moral agents who freely perform both good and evil actions and which contains more moral good than moral evil, and more than evil overall, is a more valuable state-of-affairs than the existence of a created universe containing only robots who m u s t always do what is right or a state-of-affairs in which there is no created universe at all. (1 ') is immune to the counterexample to (1) discussed above and would seem to be far more plausible as a candidate for one of the premises of the FWD. Hence, since its use would have strengthened Basinger's argument, let us pretend that he had used (1') instead of (1). Of course, any problems we m a y see with accepting (1') would simply give us additional reason to doubt (1), for (1) entails (1'). Are there problems with accepting (i')? I think so. For (i') could be true only if it were true that every world containing more good than evil which also contains free agents w h o do more good than evil was better than any world not containing free agents. Now, it seems to m e that this could be the case only if moral and non-moral goods were in some sense incomparable. For if the value accorded a world due to the good action of a free agent were commensurable with the value of some non-moral state of affairs, then it would appear that, no matter the balance of good over evil a world with free creatures contained, an equally good {indeed, a better) world lacking free creatures can always be conceived. Perhaps the world contain-

45

ing only non-moral goods would have to contain many more instances of good le.g., one might require hundreds of contented cats to equal the value of one freely spoken kind word}, but this, of course, is no barrier to a world of the former type being equivalent to a world of the latter type so long as moral and non-moral goods are commensurable. Only if such goods are n o t commensurable, then, will (1 ') be true. Now. perhaps moral and non-moral goods are incomparable, b u t it is far from obvious that this is so. If I believe that the performance of good actions by free beings has a markedly positive effect upon the value of a world, am I committed to holding that no multitude of non-moral goods could have an equally positive effect? Am I forced to say that a world containing free agents and exhibiting more good than evil {and more moral good than moral evil} is better than a n y world lacking free agents -- even if the former world contains an abundance of evil and only a marginally greater amount of good? On the face of it, a negative answer to these questions would hardly appear unreasonable. And consequently there seems to be more than sufficient reason to doubt (1'). So the F W D would rest on a rather dubious foundation if, as Basinger contends, it depended upon (1'). B u t does it? In fairness to Basinger, it must be conceded that some formulations of the F W D do appear to endorse something like (1'). For example, in the article b y Plantinga to which Basinger refers, we find the following: A world containing creatures who freely perform both good and evil actions -- and do more good than evil -- is more valuable than a world containing quasi-automata who always do what is right because they are unable to do otherwise 3. Such an assertion would surely appear to be Httle more than a variant formula of (1'}. Hence, it might be that some proponents of the F W D do endorse (1'). But even if this is so, it hardly follows that the F W D r e q u i r e s such an endorsement. On the contrary, it seems clear to me that the F W D is fully compatible with the denial of (1 '). For let us recall what the F W D contends. The existence of evil, it says, can be seen to be compatible with the existence of God by con-

46

centrating on the nature and potential value of human freedom: though God can causally determine the free acLions of his creatures, he might well be justified in permitting such actions because freely performed good actions, provided that they sufficiently outweigh freely performed evil actions, would greatly enhance the value of a world. Now, such a defence clearly presupposes that moral good isa valuable feature -- that, other things being equal, the presence of moral good makes a world better than it otherwise would be. B u t it hardly presupposes that moral good is the only valuable feature, or one which is commensurable with other goods. One might hold such a position, b u t there is nothing in the F W D itself which requires one to do so. Thus, the tenability of (1 ') is irrelevant to the tenability of the FWD, for the latter can be endorsed regardless of one's position on the former 4. Now, it might be thought that, once the Free Will Defender is freed from the shackles of (1'), Basinger's argument with respect to the F W D ' s implications for God's sovereignty collapses. Unfortunately, such is not the case. Though Basinger himself seems not to realize it, the crucial point in his general argument is the contention that the F W D is dependent upon the truth of (2). For consider what would be the case if the proponent of the FWD, albeit liberated from the grasp of (1'), were committed to (2). In conceding (2), the theist would be admitting that God's essential goodness left him no choice but to make the best world which he had the power to make. Suppose we let W represent this world. If (2) is true, then, whether or not W contains free creatures (or, indeed, any creatures at all), God had no choice but to actualize W. But if God was powerless re the actualization of W, he was also powerless re the actualization of any of the individual states of affairs which W includes, for in preventing the actuality of any of them, he would have been preventing the actuality of W. So (2) entails that God has no control over which individual states of affairs are actual. And this, of course, is t a n t a m o u n t to saying that God lacks specific sovereignty. So, if the F W D does require one to affirm (2), Basinger's allegation that it also requires one to deny God's specific sovereignty could still be maintained. Though I can see nothing amiss in this line of reasoning, I suspect it would leave Basinger a bit uneasy. For as he presents

47

it Ion p.

21), (2) is n o t so m u c h a p r e m i s e as a definition. If this were so - - - - - i f it were definitionally true that a wholly good God creates the best world he can -- then a n y o n e , r e g a r d l e s s of his attitude toward the FWD, would be forced to affirm (2). And since, as we have j u s t seen, it is (2) which provides the argument against God's specific sovereignty, it would follow that no o n e could reasonably ascribe such sovereignty to GOd. Such a consequence would probably be displeasing to Basinger for at least two reasons. First although his argument against the F W D would technically remain sound, its raison d ' e t r e would have disappeared. Why chastise the Free Will Defender for denying God specific sovereignty if such a denial is entailed b y a definitional truth which no o n e can escape? And secondly, if, as Basinger contends, the concept of a wholly good God possessing specific sovereignty were central to orthodox Christian belief, I suspect that he would be less than elated to recognize that his argument had in effect shown that concept (and hence that belief} to be incoherent. So the definitional truth of (2) would have consequences far more drastic than Basinger seems to recognize. Fortunately for Basinger land for orthodox Christian belief}, though, I think there are good reasons for doubting that {2} is true b y definition. Indeed, it seems to me that there is no good reason to think that {2) is true at all, or even possibly true. For {2} presupposes that there is some state of affairs which qualifies as the most valuable one God can actualize. Now, is there any reason to think that this presupposition is a necessary truth, which it would have to be were {2} a definitional {and hence necessary} truth? No, there is not. On the contrary, it seems clearly possible that this presupposition of {2} be false. For why could not the set of possible worlds which God had the power to actualize be such t h a t there simply w a s no best world in the set -- i.e., such that, for any possible world W which was a member of the set, there was some other possible world W* which was also a member of the set such that W* was more valuable than W? H a d this possibility been actual --i.e., had the set of worlds which God had the power to actualize been what I have elsewhere called an a n a r c h i c G a l a x y 5 -- there would have been no best world for God to actuMize, and hence (2) would not have been true. 48

And indeed, is it not reasonable to think that (2) is untrue -- even necessarily untrue -- for precisely this reason? Is it not plausible to think that, whatever the moral value of the actual world, God could have made a more valuable world in innumerably different ways -- by creating more free agents whom he knew would be basically good, say, or by throwing in a few additional contented cats? Since the things which make a world valuable seem to be such t h a t there is no upper quantitative limit to their exemplification in a world, and since God would have at least a large degree of control over such matters, is it not reasonable to conclude t h a t there is no upper limit to his creative power? In other words, is it not plausible to think t h a t God actually was (even necessarily was) presented with an anarchic galaxy? And is it not hence equally plausible to view (2) as false, and even as necessarily false? Though I have discussed these questions in far more detail elsewhere * , it should be clear t h a t an affirmative answer to them is at least prima facie reasonable. The orthodox theist, then, need not be concerned about the conceptual uproar (2) would engender, for he is apparently well within his rights in rejecting it. And this is so whether or not he endorses the FWD, for the F W D in no way presupposes t h a t (2) is even possibly true. Indeed, it is in contending t h a t the FWD does make t h a t presupposition t h a t Basinger reveals his most basic misconception of t h a t defence. The FWD does not (or at least need not) a t t e m p t to excuse God for the existence of evil by arguing t h a t God had no choice but to create the world containing t h a t evil. In fact, part of the orthodox Christian faith which the FWD is fashioned to support is the belief t h a t God is a free creator - - t h a t each and every contingent being owes its existence to a truly and fully gratuitous act on the part of God -- and such a belief would, of course, be rendered untenable were (2) embraced. Rather than a t t e m p t to " j u s t i f y " God by denying his freedom, the orthodox proponent of the FWD merely maintains that, by recognizing the relation between one of the valuable features which a wholly good GOd might want to see exemplified in the world (viz., moral good) on the one hand and creaturely freedom on the other, we can come to see t h a t there is no necessary incompatibility between the existence of such a God and the existence of evil. Hence, the FWD does no more than suggest a possible reason for God's

49

having created a world including evil;it in no way presupposes (as Basinger seems to assume that it does) that such a reason, even ifit was God's actual reason, was in any sense compelling or determinative of his creative action. Far from requiring (2),then, the F W D , ifit is to be employed to defend orthodox Christian belief,seems to require the denial of {2).A n d indeed, it is fairly easy to see how, once freed from the restrictions imposed by (2),the proponent of the F W D can also be a believer in divine specific sovereignty. For suppose that G o d was presented with an anarchic galaxy. Let G stand for this set of worlds and A represent the world G o d actually created. N o w suppose it were the case that, for any contingent event e such that e's occurence is entailed by A, there was some world B such that B is a m e m b e r of G and B entails that e not occur. In that case, G o d would indeed have spcific sovereignty, for he would have had the power to prevent any contingent event which actually occurs. Hence, provided it is reasonable to think G o d was presented with the type of galaxy just descril~ ed, it is reasonable to think that God possesses specific sovereignty. B u t is it reasonable to think t h a t God was presented with a galaxy of this description? I think so. Fo r it seems highly plausible t h a t none of us contingent beings was 9indispensable to God's plan to create a good world. H a d H e so desired, God could have refrained from creating any or all of us; other creatures -- perhaps even other t ypes of creatures -- could probably have been created in such a w ay as to result in a world at least as good as ours. Thus, it seems plausible to believe t h a t any contingent event involving a contingent being was preventable b y GOd, for he could have simply decided not to create t h a t being. And so it seems t h a t the p r o p o n e n t of the F W D can plausibly maintain God's specific sovereignty over his creatures. 7

Though Basinger's argument against the F W D would thus appear to be a failure, it should be noted that his mistake is an understandable one. For in m a n y discussions of the F W D , something like (2) does seem to be taken by both sides as an unstated -- perhaps even an unconscious -- assumption. As I have tried to show, though, the F W D in no way depends upon so theologically suspect an assumption. Once this is recognised, Basinger's attack collapses. 50

References 1. (1) is a gramatically respectable equivalent of Basinger's (14). His (17) has been altered to my (2) so as to accommodate the fact (acknowledged by Basinger on p. 32) that there are possible worlds which God cannot create. 2. Basinger's attack upon the F W D actually continues beyond the point where I have ended my summary. In section V of his article, Basinger contends that, even if the merely general sovereignty required by the F W D were compatible with orthodox Christian theism, the F W D would still be of little use as a response to the problem of evil, for such a response would be either irrelevant (as an answer to the traditional question of how a God possessing specific sovereignty could allow evil) or trivially true (as a response to the less frequent question of how a God possessing only general sovereignty could allow evil). Since I think Basinger is mistaken in holding that the F W D denies God specific sovereignty, I have not discussed this lengthy section in the body of my paper. Still, it is perhaps worth noting that Basinger's reasoning here seems misguided. If the F W D did presuppose that God has only general sovereignty, and if such sovereignty were compatible with orthodox Christian belief, it would not be the F W D which was irrelevant, but rather the traditional argument from evil, for it would be arguing against the existence of a being (viz., a God with specific sovereignty) whose existence the orthodox theist need not affirm. Similarly, as a response to an atheological argument against the existence of a God possessing only general sovereignty, the F W D would remain true, but it is far from clear that its truth would be trivial, for in the situation hypothesized, such an argument from evil would be the only relevant deductive one available to the atheologian. 3. Alvin Plantinga, "The Free Will Defence", reprinted in Baruch Brody (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of Religion (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1974), pp. 186-200. The sentence quoted above appears on p. 187 4. It should be noted that, despite his apparent endorsement of (1') in the sentence quoted above, Plantinga in his more recent writings has added a phrase to similar sentences which makes his position with regard to (1') less obvious. In The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), Plantinga says:

51

A world containing creatures who are sometimes significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. (p. 166; my italics) The addition of the italicized phrase would appear to be superfluous were it not the case that, when all else is not, a world lacking free beings can be more valuable than one containing free creatures w h o do more good than evil. 5. Cir. Chapter III o f m y dissertation, Divine Freedom (University of Notre Dame, 1980), unpublished. 6. Ibid. 7. I have assumed here that certain divine knowledge states --. e.g., God's knowing that Adam would freely have done A had he been placed in Situation C -- do not qualify as contingent events, If they did so qualify, then one who accepts middle knowledge would have to grant that there are some contingent events which God cannot control. However I doubt that such a concession would entail an abandonment of the doctrine of divine s o v e r e i g n t y , for the latter doctrine need not be seen as holding that God would have control over events which it was logically impossible for him to control.

52