Professor Guthrie,
First, I wanted to thank you for building and maintaining this excellent site.  As a Christian interested in philosophy, I thoroughly enjoy reading the articles posted.
I know you are quite busy, but I had two quick questions that I wanted to ask you.  If you don't have time I completely understand.
A) Could God create a world without evil?  I know you wrote about this topic, but is the only  troublesome assumption that of free will?  If we relax that assumption is it possible? 
B) Was Jesus' death the only way to reconcile God with man? That is, could an omnipotent God have used another method to achieve the same result? 
Thanks for your time and may the Lord bless your work mightily.

-Erik

 

 

(A) Could God create a world without evil?

 

            The short answer to this is No, but some explanation is surely required.  Purely on the matter of it being strictly logically possible to have a world without evil, an omnipotent being could certainly create such a world.  However, we also have to include the fact that free creatures are also part of such a world.  When we understand that there is a logical incompatibility between “Human beings freely choose to do X” and “God makes human beings do X” coupled with the possibility that

 

Under no circumstances will a human being do X

 

then there is no way to guarantee that the designated human being will do X unless God makes them do X.  But then the creature is no longer acting freely.  Therefore, it remains possible that

 

Some people will freely choose to do evil.

 

This means that, therefore, it may not be possible (not actualizable to use Plantinga’s term) to create a world with as much good in it as the actual world but with no evil.  Think of my illustration of Ivan’s decision to enroll in Philosophy 101.

            I also want to briefly suggest that neither would God want to create a world without evil because it is possible that

 

Only in worlds where no evil exists, the population levels are radically small.

 

Perhaps in those possible worlds only about 15 people exist (perhaps Adam and Eve decide those few are enough and their children simply become uninterested in procreation).  But if God desires to create millions of people whom He knows would refrain from doing evil (and, consequently, enjoy communion with God) then it may require a certain amount of people within the population who would freely do evil.  And we also need to appreciate that God is simply required (via His omnibenevolence) to create a world where, on balance, there is more good in it than evil.  Given all of these factors, perhaps the actual world is such a world after all.  What the skeptic would have to prove is that, necessarily,

 

God can create a world with as much good as the actual world but with less evil in it.

 

But how could the skeptic possible prove that??  It is far too ambitious of a thesis to think that any evidence or discursive reasoning would ever show that this claim is true (and true necessarily!).  And given that we’ve shown how it’s possible that God cannot create such a world, it serves to show that the skeptic’s claim here cannot be made necessarily true.  If you would like to hear my two-part series on the problem of evil delivered in 2008, click here:  Part 1, Part 2.

 

(B) Was Jesus’ death the only way for an omnipotent God to reconcile God with Man? 

 

            I would argue that this is in fact true.  But our ultimate answer will be the result of an acceptance of the following premises:

 

Premise 1:  If justice entails equality between action and dessert (the lex talionis), then only a corresponding punishment can justifiably satisfy a penal requirement for a human committing sin.

Premise 2:  Justice entails equality between action and dessert (the lex talionis).

Premise 3:  Only a blood sacrifice can justifiably satisfy a penal requirement for committing sin.

Conclusion:  It follows that this one being is the only blood sacrifice that can justifiably satisfy this penal requirement.

 

On a normal adherence to the principles of retributive justice, the first two premises will unlikely be questioned.  Premise 3 requires the following theological commitment:

 

“For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life.”

(Leviticus 17:11; NIV)

 

The controversial premise (I think) will be premise 4.  Here, it might be contested that there are other possible candidates for satisfying the requirements of justice.  But by “all persons committing sin” we simply mean the universality of sin – the sin of not only actual persons but of all potential persons as well.  Thus only one with the dignity of a potentially infinite number of sinners could satisfy this requirement of justice.  Since no being fits this category apart from God Himself and it is surely infeasible to employ a one-to-one sacrifice correspondence in this way, then it follows that only God Himself can fulfill the demands of the moral law.  This was the approach the early Church Fathers took as well in their assessment of the exclusivity of Christ as the only way to God.  Their logic on this was quite impeccable here.  And as an added benefit, it has the double effect of proving the deity of Christ!