Your argument presupposes a universe where a choice for evil cannot be made.
Then you didn't read it carefully.
The argument to which you responded says that "free will" doesn't answer the question of theodicy. Even if you are free to choose evil actions, the universe could have been constructed (assuming an omnipotent creator) so that evil actions never present themselves, and your freedom is effectively to choose among "good" actions.
If it could have been constructed that way, then a maximally benevolent creator would have preferred to create it that way, rather than the way it is now.
So the choices are: the creator is not sufficiently powerful to create the "good" universe, the creator is not sufficiently perceptive to distinguish that universe from this one, or the creator is not sufficiently benevolent to prefer that universe to this one, which together show that no being can be simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and maximally benevolent.
Such a universe would preclude true free will. Unless one can CHOOSE evil and chooses NOT evil, there is no choice available, and thus, no free will.
Such a universe does not preclude free will. Let me offer you the same thought experiment I offered Brandon on the subject: Take out your checkbook, figure out the balance on all your accounts, write a check for that amount, and send it to me. Now, ostensibly, you are "free" in some sense to do so, but there is no possible sequence of events in which you would actually choose to do so.
In other words, you could do it, but you can't want to do it. I would argue that whatever factors lead you to want to take some action are entirely out of your control. They're either environmental factors, or they're hereditary factors, or possibly (if you believe in such things) they're an inherent part of your "nature" (your "soul", if you will).
But in a "created universe" scenario, the creator is very obviously the cause of whatever "nature" you possess. The hereditary factors are presumably genetic and thus represent a function of the initial gene pool (for which the creator is entirely responsible) and the free choices made by your ancestors. The environmental factors are similarly a function of the initial conditions of the universe (the creator's responsibility) and the free choices made in the past.
An omniscient creator can presumably foresee the free choices that will be made, and so can select the initial conditions and gene pool as a function of how the free agents will choose. A maximally benevolent creator will choose the initial conditions so as to give the least amount of evil possible.
So, to come to a conclusion that evil is somehow necessary, you must assume that there is no possible universe in which there is less evil than in our actual universe. So you'd have to hypothesize that, for example, a universe in which 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina never happened would necessarily be a worse one than our own. That a universe in which Hitler died in an accident before coming to power could not possibly be better than our own.
On what justification could you believe these things to be true?
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RE: An answer
Your argument presupposes a universe where a choice for evil cannot be made.
Then you didn't read it carefully.
The argument to which you responded says that "free will" doesn't answer the question of theodicy. Even if you are free to choose evil actions, the universe could have been constructed (assuming an omnipotent creator) so that evil actions never present themselves, and your freedom is effectively to choose among "good" actions.
If it could have been constructed that way, then a maximally benevolent creator would have preferred to create it that way, rather than the way it is now.
So the choices are: the creator is not sufficiently powerful to create the "good" universe, the creator is not sufficiently perceptive to distinguish that universe from this one, or the creator is not sufficiently benevolent to prefer that universe to this one, which together show that no being can be simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and maximally benevolent.
Such a universe would preclude true free will. Unless one can CHOOSE evil and chooses NOT evil, there is no choice available, and thus, no free will.
Such a universe does not preclude free will. Let me offer you the same thought experiment I offered Brandon on the subject: Take out your checkbook, figure out the balance on all your accounts, write a check for that amount, and send it to me. Now, ostensibly, you are "free" in some sense to do so, but there is no possible sequence of events in which you would actually choose to do so.
In other words, you could do it, but you can't want to do it. I would argue that whatever factors lead you to want to take some action are entirely out of your control. They're either environmental factors, or they're hereditary factors, or possibly (if you believe in such things) they're an inherent part of your "nature" (your "soul", if you will).
But in a "created universe" scenario, the creator is very obviously the cause of whatever "nature" you possess. The hereditary factors are presumably genetic and thus represent a function of the initial gene pool (for which the creator is entirely responsible) and the free choices made by your ancestors. The environmental factors are similarly a function of the initial conditions of the universe (the creator's responsibility) and the free choices made in the past.
An omniscient creator can presumably foresee the free choices that will be made, and so can select the initial conditions and gene pool as a function of how the free agents will choose. A maximally benevolent creator will choose the initial conditions so as to give the least amount of evil possible.
So, to come to a conclusion that evil is somehow necessary, you must assume that there is no possible universe in which there is less evil than in our actual universe. So you'd have to hypothesize that, for example, a universe in which 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina never happened would necessarily be a worse one than our own. That a universe in which Hitler died in an accident before coming to power could not possibly be better than our own.
On what justification could you believe these things to be true?
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