A RATIONAL RESPONSE
One of the most important theologians in the history of the Christian church was St. Augustine (354‑423). In his book On the Free Choice of the Will,4 he provided in seminal form what has become a powerful response to the problem of evil. Contemporary Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga has reformulated the argument (which is commonly referred to as the free-will defense5). Here is his most concise formulation of it:
A world containing creatures who are 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. Now God can create free creatures, but He can’t cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren’t significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can’t give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God’s omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.
It is reasonable, then, contrary to the atheist perspective, to believe that an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God coexists in a world filled with evil, if we grant that His created world contains creatures who are free. This freedom must be a real ability to choose one way or the other—what is called “libertarian” freedom—though; it cannot be a sham. Fortunately, both the Bible and our own experience affirm that we do have such free will. Without believing that creatures have free will, though, the Christian would have a serious problem, for if evil didn’t emerge from the free will of created persons, then where did it come from? God? If God were the author of evil, the atheist would be right—we would have a real conundrum on our hands.