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Theodicy and the Free Will Defence: Response to Plantinga and Flew

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

J. E. Barnhart
J. E. Barnhart
Affiliation:
Professor of Philosophy, North Texas State University
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Extract

Although Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College, Alvin Plantinga has developed a theodicy that is fundamentally Arminian rather than Calvinistic. Anthony Flew, although the son of an Arminian Christian minister, regards the Arminian view of ‘free will’ to be both unacceptable on its own terms and incompatible with classical Christian theism. In this paper I hope to disentangle some of the involved controversy regarding theodicy which has developed between Plantinga and Flew, and between Flew and myself. The major portion of this paper is devoted to showing that Plantinga's theodicy contains some serious flaws and undesirable implications.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , December 1977 , pp. 439 - 453
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

page 439 note 1 Cf. Plantinga, Alvin, God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967)Google Scholar, chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 6 in particular is a reply to Flew, Anthony, ‘Divine Omnipotence and Human Freedom’, in New Essays in Philosophical Theology, Flew, and MacIntyre, Alasdair, eds. (New York: Macmillan, 1955)Google Scholar, chapter 8. Flew, , ‘Compatibilism, Free Will and God’, Philosophy, 48, 185 (July 1973), pp. 231–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is in part a reply to Plantinga's chapter 6 above. My article ‘Omnipotence and Moral Goodness’, The Personalist, 52, 1 (Winter 1972), pp. 107–10Google Scholar is evaluated by Flew, , ‘Possibility, Creation and Temptation’, in the same issue of The Personalist, pp. 111–13.Google Scholar Plantinga's latest book, The Nature of Necessity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974)Google Scholar contains chapters on the problem of evil and his recent defence of the ontological argument.

page 439 note 2 Plantinga, , ‘The Free Will Debate’, God and Other Minds, p. 134.Google Scholar

page 440 note 1 Ibid., p. 137.

page 440 note 2 Ibid. p. 138.

page 440 note 3 Ibid. p. 141.

page 440 note 4 Romans 3: 23.

page 440 note 5 Professor Norman Geisler of the Trinity Divinity School of Chicago suggested this in a debate with me at North Texas State University on 25 January 1974.

page 441 note 1 Plantinga, , God and Other Minds, p. 154.Google Scholar

page 441 note 2 Ibid. p. 153.

page 443 note 1 I will deal with this point later when discussing freedom and free choice.

page 445 note 1 Plantinga, , God and Other Minds, pp. 152f.Google Scholar

page 445 note 2 Carrell, E. J., A Philosophy of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), pp. 380–1.Google Scholar

page 446 note 1 Popper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton University Press, 1950)Google Scholar offers keen insights into the worship of power. Milgrim, Stanley, Obedience to Authority (New York: Harper and Row, 1974)Google Scholar reveals some rather shocking studies regarding the way people can under certain conditions give up their basic morality toward others in order to yield to someone thought to be in authority. Bao Ruo-Wang (Jean Pasqualini) tells of the Chinese communist labour camps in which inmates are made to praise the treatment which they receive from the government ( Prisoner of Mao [New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, Inc., 1973], p. 283).Google Scholar

page 446 note 2 Cf. Plantinga, , God and Other Minds, p. 118.Google Scholar

page 447 note 1 Cf. This is a major theme of both Romans and Galatians.

page 447 note 2 Cf. Barnhart, J. E., The Billy Graham Religion (Philadelphia: Pigrim Press, 1972; London/Oxford: Mowbray, 1974), chapters 7 and 8.Google Scholar

page 448 note 1 Cf. Barnhart, , ‘Omnipotence and Moral Goodness’, The Personalist (Winter 1971), pp. 107 f.Google Scholar

page 448 note 2 I was citing Ninian Smart, ‘Omnipotence, Evil, and Superman’, Philosophy, 36, 137 (1961), 188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 449 note 1 Cf. Flew, , ‘Compatibilism, Free Will and God’, Philosophy, 48, 185 (July 1973), 231–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Plantinga, , God and Other Minds, pp. 134 f.Google Scholar

page 449 note 2 Ibid. p. 134.

page 449 note 3 Flew, , ‘Divine Omnipotence and Human Freedom’, in New Essays in Philosophical Theology, p. 153. Italics added.Google Scholar

page 449 note 4 Ibid. p. 167.

page 449 note 5 Flew, ‘Compatibilism, Free Will and God’, pp. 234–6; Plantinga, , God and Other Minds, p. 132.Google Scholar

page 450 note 1 Barnhart, J. E., ‘Wants and “Real” Wants’, Journal of Value Inquiry, 6, 3 (Fall 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Freedom, Progress, and Democracy’, Southwestern Journal of Philosophy (Summer 1971)Google Scholar; ‘Egoism and Idealistic Freedom’, Idealistic Studies (May 1971)Google Scholar; ‘The Question of “True” Freedom’, Harvard Theological Review (1971)Google Scholar, ‘Human Rights’, American Philosophical Quarterly (October 1969)Google Scholar; ‘Persuasive and Coercive Power’, Process Philosophy, 3, 3 (Fall 1973).Google Scholar See also Gill, John G., ‘Definition of Freedom’, Ethics, 82, 1 (October 1971), 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brandt, Richard and Kim, Jaewon, ‘Wants as Explanations of Actions’, The Journal of Philosophy, 60, 15 (18 July 1963)Google Scholar; Audi, Robert, ‘The Concept of Wanting’, Philosophical Studies, 24, 1 (January 1973).Google Scholar