No Perfect Worlds?

If you are reading this blog hoping to be enlightened in matters of theology or philosophy, caveat emptor. Scott Adams at The Dilbert Blog has made it clear that you shouldn't always trust opinions in print. "You’ve probably noticed that opinion pollsters go out of their way to include as many morons as possible in surveys. That’s called a representative sample. And what it means is that the opinion of Einstein, for example, counts as much as the opinion of the guy who thinks The Family Circus comic is sending him secret messages via Little Billy."

What a laugh! The Family Circus stopped sending secret messages years ago.

So here is the secret message from Plantinga's FWD – the following is possibly true:

(4) God is omnipotent, and it was not within His power to create a world containing moral good but no moral evil.

OK, it's not secret, it's a quote. And at this point, I think I buy it. So, Charlie or anyone else can feel free to pick at this claim. I will not say, "But that's not what I believe." I'm standing behind Alvin.

So why couldn't God make this "perfect world?" First P. shows that there are some worlds that God cannot actualize (create). Are we agreed here? P. then explains why a world with moral good but no moral evil is one of those worlds. Is it possible that all people suffer from “trans-world depravity” (TWD)? I.e., for every person, could there be at least one set of circumstances in which they will go wrong in every possible world? If the answer is, “Yes, this is possible,” then it is also possible that there is no world that God can create in which there is no evil.

The concept of freedom is consistent throughout the argument. Consider Eve. It is possible that no matter which world God created, Eve would have freely gone wrong at some point (TWD). Now I don’t have to prove that this is true, just that it’s possible. If you think I’m wrong, then you must show that it is impossible for this to be the case. It is possible that there is a sinless world, but it’s also possible that there isn’t.

How does this translate into ordinary language? This world has evil because God wanted us to be free, and we freely made some evil choices. Why didn’t God create a world better circumstances that would preclude evil? Maybe it’s because there is no such world. I can’t prove this, but if it’s a possibility, then we have a possible solution, and that’s all we need.

Now, some atheists have pointed out various problems with the FWD in general, but if we are talking about Plantinga, we’ll want to stick to what he says. Otherwise, we have no way of arguing.