Post by Eva Yojimbo on May 3, 2020 21:11:54 GMT
A) No, obviously not. There may, indeed, be no practical difference, but no practical difference doesn't mean no real difference.
B) Depends on how you define "free will." I don't see how the two are compatible under libertarian free will, where humans are not effected by deterministic physics. It's also hard to square omniscience in the absence of deterministic physics because how else would a being "know" what was going to happen? However, the two are compatible under compatibilists interpretations of free will where free will is less about physical determinism and more about, as you say, agency free from certain constraints.
C) I've never understood how free will is supposed to "resolve" the problem. Free will is about choices, not desires. As Schopenhauer said, we can do what we will, but we can't will what we will. The real question with the problem of evil is why would a God give us the desire to do evil things to begin with? I've used this example before: if there's an old lady crossing the street, I could have two conflicting wills: help her, or ignore her. Whichever I choose could be said to be free will, and one is certainly more moral than the other, but why would me having a will/desire to push the old lady into traffic increase my free will? The obvious answer is that it doesn't, and yet there are plenty of people out there who have the desire to do great evil to people. It makes no sense why a loving God would give us a will to be malicious, as opposed to having the choice between goodness and indifference. Further, the problem of evil isn't just about human actions, but natural ones; subjects like why children are stricken with horrible, natural diseases. Such things have nothing to do with human will, yet still cause us humans great suffering for no apparent reason.
B) Depends on how you define "free will." I don't see how the two are compatible under libertarian free will, where humans are not effected by deterministic physics. It's also hard to square omniscience in the absence of deterministic physics because how else would a being "know" what was going to happen? However, the two are compatible under compatibilists interpretations of free will where free will is less about physical determinism and more about, as you say, agency free from certain constraints.
C) I've never understood how free will is supposed to "resolve" the problem. Free will is about choices, not desires. As Schopenhauer said, we can do what we will, but we can't will what we will. The real question with the problem of evil is why would a God give us the desire to do evil things to begin with? I've used this example before: if there's an old lady crossing the street, I could have two conflicting wills: help her, or ignore her. Whichever I choose could be said to be free will, and one is certainly more moral than the other, but why would me having a will/desire to push the old lady into traffic increase my free will? The obvious answer is that it doesn't, and yet there are plenty of people out there who have the desire to do great evil to people. It makes no sense why a loving God would give us a will to be malicious, as opposed to having the choice between goodness and indifference. Further, the problem of evil isn't just about human actions, but natural ones; subjects like why children are stricken with horrible, natural diseases. Such things have nothing to do with human will, yet still cause us humans great suffering for no apparent reason.