# Does it violate free will if the person was never given the desire to do something in the first place? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 2, 2025, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339 "2025-12-02T22:09:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/221 "2026-01-11T14:18:20Z")
So again, just to put it into one sentence: your position is that even if we lived in a _literal hell_, we would have no basis, it would be _irrational_, for us to doubt the existence of an omnimax including omnibenevolent God? Yes or no? ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/222 "2026-01-11T14:38:59Z")
No. The free will defense tells us nothing about whether it would be rational to believe in God. It does tell us that the existence of evil is not in tension with their existence. I get that this is counterintuitive and upsetting to you, but appeal to intuition simply doesn’t have any logical force. No matter how hard you intuit that 1 + 1 equals 3, it still doesn’t. As to the actual arguments presented, I note you still haven’t so much as acknowledged them, nor attempted to offer a rebuttal beyond stating that you intuit the opposite, like, _really_ hard. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/223 "2026-01-11T17:35:16Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > No. The free will defense tells us nothing about whether it would be rational to believe in God. It does tell us that the existence of evil is not in tension with their existence. You can _say_ that, but no matter how many times you do so it isn’t true. Both because it clashes with the definition of benevolence, and because “free will” is a nonsensical concept in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/224 "2026-01-11T17:46:08Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > You can _say_ that, but no matter how many times you do so it isn’t true. Both because it clashes with the definition of benevolence, and because “free will” is a nonsensical concept in the first place. I’m not just saying anything, but giving a detailed argument that’s widely accepted in philosophy and theology. In response, you have offered nothing but blanket dismissal. And if you think that anything hinges on the existence of free will, you simply haven’t understood the basics of the argument. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/225 "2026-01-11T18:16:31Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > I’m not just saying anything, but giving a detailed argument that’s widely accepted in philosophy and theology. Which means little, since not laughing off the entire “tri omni” concept shows they are _already_ biased in favor of looking for fallacies to specifically support Christianity. This is not the kind of subject where “argument from authority” works, because the authorities have a millennia-long history of dishonesty and sophism. When they can’t just resort to outright force. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/226 "2026-01-11T18:35:39Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > So again, just to put it into one sentence: your position is that even if we lived in a _literal hell_, we would have no basis, it would be _irrational_, for us to doubt the existence of an omnimax including omnibenevolent God? Yes or no? > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > No. Which is not consistent with what you’ve been saying. You had a choice here between biting the bullet and inconsistency, and you went with the latter. Your claim has been that the existence of (apparently unnecessary) suffering in our world gives us _no reason_ to doubt the existence of an omnimax god. However, when I show how absurd the entailment of this logic is – that even if we lived in a world of perpetual suffering and a visibly callous god we would still have no reason to doubt his benevolence – now you’re saying it _would_ be rational to doubt. So which is it? Can we use empirical observations to gain / lose confidence in theological claims, or not? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/227 "2026-01-11T18:44:06Z")
It’s a bit hard to answer because my brain can’t really comprehend the concept of an omniscient, omnipotent God or how, from his perspective, we humans would be fundamentally different from, say, termites and ants. So does that mean that God would literally know the outcome of every possible event down to the path of every last subatomic particle? Does applying human concepts like “laughing”, “smiling”, “enjoying”, or even “good” and “evil” even apply to such an entity? Why would one animated carbon blob permanently rendering another non-functional be any more or less evil than a lion taking down a gazelle, ants devouring a rotten orange, or a meteor wiping out the dinosaurs? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/228 "2026-01-11T19:45:45Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It’s an inherent consequence of attributing multiple _infinite, absolute_ qualities to a being; you end up with paradoxes as they conflict with each other (and themselves). Such as, can God change the world in a way he can’t foresee? Any answer violates either omniscience or omnipotence. Yup. We can’t disprove god in general, but we can disprove the tri-omni god through its internal contradictions. None of my Hebrew School teachers ever tried to convince me that god was omnibenevolent, but then they (and we) actually read the Bible, something it appears most Christians don’t bother to do. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/229 "2026-01-11T19:59:54Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Again: being unable to do something _and_ remaining omnibenevolent isn’t the same as being unable to do something simpliciter. Being unable to have sex and remain a virgin isn’t being unable to have sex. Oh, good grief. That’s my point exactly. God can increase suffering, but if he does so he is no longer omnibenevolent. Requiring that a woman remain a virgin destroys her ability to have sex, just like requiring god to remain omnibenevolent destroys his ability to do certain things that increase suffering. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Where do you get the idea that it doesn’t? Again, just from the etymology, it is connected to _volition_, to _wishing_ to act a certain way, not to being constrained or forced to do so. If a being were simply _unable_ to do bad, then there would hardly be any need to refer to its intentions or wishes, since no matter what those were, it would do good. There would hardly be any moral credit allocated to such a being’s acts, whereas benevolence is typically thought to entail a good intention shaping good actions. That’s because benevolence in humans is neither associated with omnibenevolence or with omnipotence. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > So here, to, the emphasis is on not _choosing_ evil, rather than on being unable to _do_ evil. Now of course all AI answers should be taken with a hefty grain of salt, but I’d say it’s at least statistical evidence that the connection between omnibenevolence and choice is indeed present in the training data. No, the passage says that God is able to do things that seem evil if they increase global good, which I’ve agreed with way back. I also will agree that God could have a range of possible actions which minimize suffering, he has free choice among them. But nowhere does it say he can choose to act to increase global suffering. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Again, it seems to me unreasonable that to have a power, one needs to exercise that power. An omnipotent God could presumably destroy the world at any time, but that doesn’t mean he has to do so. Powers are about what one _can_ do, not what one actually does. (See shin-kicking etc.) Exactly, but that is not what your position holds. God can make a die come out any value between 1 and 6, even if he chooses it to come out with just one value. But, as I said above, if you tack on the quality of omni-evenness, he cannot cause a 3 to come out while maintaining that quality. If he throws a trillion times, and it always comes out even, maybe he is choosing to do that, but the obvious inference is that he cannot do it, and is constrained to produce certain rolls. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2026, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/230 "2026-01-11T20:12:00Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It’s an inherent consequence of attributing multiple _infinite, absolute_ qualities to a being; you end up with paradoxes as they conflict with each other (and themselves). Such as, can God change the world in a way he can’t foresee? Any answer violates either omniscience or omnipotence. Yeah, I’ve said that omnipotence and omniscience are mutually contradictory many times before, but that is a harder concept for theists to grasp than the contradiction between omnipotence and omnibenevolence, which should be a dunker. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/231 "2026-01-12T09:05:04Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Your claim has been that the existence of (apparently unnecessary) suffering in our world gives us _no reason_ to doubt the existence of an omnimax god. However, when I show how absurd the entailment of this logic is – that even if we lived in a world of perpetual suffering and a visibly callous god we would still have no reason to doubt his benevolence – now you’re saying it _would_ be rational to doubt. Nonsense. As I elaborated in the part of my response you clipped, and apparently neglected to take into account, the free will defense can’t give you reasons to either believe or disbelieve in God, so even accepting it, it’s perfectly rational to not believe in God. However, the existence of suffering and evil, in hell or anywhere, isn’t a rational reason to lower your credence in God, whatever it may have been beforehand. It is _always_ rational to doubt the existence of God, the free will defense doesn’t change that. > [@Mijin](#): > > So which is it? Can we use empirical observations to gain / lose confidence in theological claims, or not? As always, that depends on the nature of the claim. If the claim is empirical, then yes; if it’s not, then no. Since there is no empirical component to the fact that the existence of God and evil are consistent (absent defeaters of Plantinga’s argument), there is no evidence that can refute it. You can _add_ empirical premises that are inconsistent with the conjunction of God’s existence and that of evil, such as e.g. ‘a tri-omni God allows 5 evil maximally’, and then, gathering evidence against that proposition—e.g. showing that there is 7 evil in the world—would count as evidence against the existence of such a God. But this changes nothing about the fact that the existence of evil and that of a tri-omni God are compatible; it introduces a further premise, to be legitimized on its own grounds, that then is amenable to empirical investigation. That is, you’d have to argue that believing that there is maximally 5 evil in a world created by a tri-omni God is reasonable, _and then_ offer empirical evidence that there is more than 5 evil in this world. What you have been claiming, however, is that the existence, or sheer magnitude, of evil in this world gives us reason to believe that a tri-omni God and the existence of evil are incompatible: but this is simply confused. > [@Voyager](#): > > Requiring that a woman remain a virgin destroys her ability to have sex, just like requiring god to remain omnibenevolent destroys his ability to do certain things that increase suffering. Nobody’s requiring an omnipotent entity to do anything, though. A person may remain a virgin through their own volition without that destroying their ability to have sex; likewise, an omnipotent entity may refrain from doing evil (and hence, be omnibenevolent) from their own volition without that destroying their ability, in principle, to do so. Otherwise, it’s you who’s lessening an omnipotent entity’s powers: you’re saying that they could not simply choose to only use their powers for good, so to speak, because that is all omnibenevolence takes. > [@Voyager](#): > > That’s because benevolence in humans is neither associated with omnibenevolence or with omnipotence. The omni- here doesn’t do anything special; it just means to be benevolent to the highest possible degree. It doesn’t magically conjure up divine guardrails that prohibit an entity from doing evil, it just means that such an entity _never_ chooses evil over good. > [@Voyager](#): > > No, the passage says that God is able to do things that seem evil if they increase global good, which I’ve agreed with way back. You’re misreading this. It says, first: > Philosophically, an omnibenevolent (all-good) God is generally considered unable to will or choose to do evil because evil contradicts perfect goodness, even if omnipotence (all-power) technically means possessing all possible powers So this means that omnibenevolence entails not choosing evil. This is then qualified through: > however, some theological views suggest God can allow evil for greater good (like free will) or use “evil” acts (like destruction) as part of His ultimate good Which means that, _even though_ such an entity doesn’t _choose_ evil in general, it may be that they can do so for ‘the ultimate good’. > [@Voyager](#): > > If he throws a trillion times, and it always comes out even, maybe he is choosing to do that, but the obvious inference is that he cannot do it, and is constrained to produce certain rolls. So if a person does only good, you’re saying that the obvious inference is just that they were unable to do bad? That there is some unique metaphysical quality that stops them from ever doing bad? That doesn’t strike me as reasonable at all. I’d just say that they made better choices than others would have in their place. It seems sort of unfair to strip such people (if they exist) of their own agency, just because they never fuck up. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/232 "2026-01-12T10:29:08Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > If the claim is empirical, then yes; if it’s not, then no. Since there is no empirical component to the fact that the existence of God and evil are consistent (absent defeaters of Plantinga’s argument), there is no evidence that can refute it. The claim is at least partially empirical: whether an omnimax god exists or not is something we can support or not with empirical data. This isn’t your thread, and the attempt to steer everything into a “logical argument for god vs plantinga” is a hijack in my view. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > What you have been claiming, however, is that the existence, or sheer magnitude, of evil in this world gives us reason to believe that a tri-omni God and the existence of evil are incompatible: but this is simply confused. What I have said is that the existence and magnitude of suffering gives us reason to doubt that an omnimax including omnibenevolent god exists. Your position at this point is beyond absurd – that even if we lived in a _literal hell_ we would have _no reason at all_ to doubt we lived in a world made by a maximally kind, maximally powerful god. But go ahead and pretend again that I said something about the logical problem of evil. ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/233 "2026-01-12T10:31:12Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > we _know_ that evil and a tri-omni God are compatible. To me, Plantinga’s argument is fairly clear, though I don’t mean that in an arrogant way. What I’m really curious about is whether this reflects your own position. A more delicate issue, in many people’s view, concerns the sheer magnitude of evil we see in the world. Many of us might be willing to accept a logical defense like Plantinga’s if the amount of suffering were not so overwhelming. But when the scale of evil feels unbearable, it becomes much harder for us to see how an omnipotent God could coexist with such a seemingly “flawed” world, or how an omnibenevolent God could allow or permit so much suffering. I think this is because human beings struggle to accept intolerable realities even when those realities can be framed in logically coherent terms. Logic is only one of the tools we use to understand the world. It’s a powerful tool, but its structures don’t always map neatly onto lived experience. And beyond that, logic is not the sole dimension of what makes us human. Some define us as rational animals, but others emphasize our capacity for empathy, for helping others without expecting anything in return. Our emotions, intuitions, and moral sensibilities shape us just as deeply as our reasoning does. We feel we’re on the right path only when all these elements (reason, empathy, intuition) come together to form a coherent moral outlook. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/234 "2026-01-12T11:04:17Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > The claim is at least partially empirical: whether an omnimax god exists or not is something we can support or not with empirical data. Possibly (e.g. finetuning arguments and such), but that’s of course beside the point: your claim has been that we have empirical reasons to see the existence of a tri-omni God and suffering as incompatible, which Plantinga’s argument shows is false. > [@Mijin](#): > > This isn’t your thread, and the attempt to steer everything into a “logical argument for god vs plantinga” is a hijack in my view. You do not need to argue against the points I bring forward if you don’t wish to, but I’m not going to be silenced by either this tactic or you alleging that I’m being unreasonable in not budging. You may wish to grasp for such metadebate strategies in the absence of any convincing arguments of your own, but that doesn’t prompt any action on my side. > [@Mijin](#): > > What I have said is that the existence and magnitude of suffering gives us reason to doubt that an omnimax including omnibenevolent god exists. And I have pointed out that this is a logical error (absent introducing further premises to reason from, e.g. a limit on the evil you think a tri-omni God might permit). > [@Mijin](#): > > Your position at this point is beyond absurd – that even if we lived in a _literal hell_ we would have _no reason at all_ to doubt we lived in a world made by a maximally kind, maximally powerful god. You’re free to show how the argument fails to entail exactly this; in the absence of such, this is just childish foot-stomping. You’re pointing to evidence that (validly) argues that (3) is false, _but its truth isn’t needed for the free will defense_, and hence, evidence that (3) is false simply isn’t evidence against the compatibility of evil and a tri-omni God. Even if we know for certain that we don’t live in the best possible world, that doesn’t defeat the argument. I don’t know, maybe this is the thing that isn’t clear? Again, the structure of arguing _q_ (‘there is a tri-omni God’) and _p_ (‘there is evil in the world’) to be consistent is by showing that _q_ and another premise _r_ entail _p_. But that doesn’t mean that _r_ has to be true! And all you’re arguing for is that _r_ seems probably false. There can be innumerable other premises _r’_, _r’'_, _r’‘’_ and so on such that they entail _p_. It just needs to be shown that there _exists_ one, and then, we know that _p_ and _q_ are consistent, and _no evidence against r can change that_! > [@Mijin](#): > > But go ahead and pretend again that I said something about the logical problem of evil. I’m not claiming you’re saying something about the logical problem of evil, I’m pointing out that Plantinga’s argument has implications on what you are saying (that the magnitude of evil ought to lower credence in a tri-omni God) that you aren’t taking on board. > [@PlaceboTarget](#): > > To me, Plantinga’s argument is fairly clear, though I don’t mean that in an arrogant way. What I’m really curious about is whether this reflects your own position. Well, I think the argument is obviously sound, and its implications are clear. But of course, there’s no problem of evil for me in the first place, since I don’t think there’s any such thing as a god. > [@PlaceboTarget](#): > > Many of us might be willing to accept a logical defense like Plantinga’s if the amount of suffering were not so overwhelming But again, this isn’t a factor in deciding the mere consistency of evil and a tri-omni God. It doesn’t have to be _true_ that we live in the best possible world for the defense to work, it works just as well in a world that is sheer relentless suffering. Plantinga’s argument establishes the consistency of evil and a tri-omni God unconditionally; thus pointing to certain conditions doesn’t work against the argument. One can, as I’ve pointed out several times now, of course add other premises that one might want to hold, such as that there is ‘gratuitous’ evil in the world, which no tri-omni God would permit (as in e.g. Rowe’s evidential argument). If one has reasons to believe these extra premise, which may in part be empirical (as for the question of how much evil there is in the world), then one has similarly reasons to disbelieve in a tri-omni God. But crucially, this still does _nothing_ to refute the consistency of evil with a tri-omni God, as @Mijin keeps claiming! > [@PlaceboTarget](#): > > Logic is only one of the tools we use to understand the world. It’s a powerful tool, but its structures don’t always map neatly onto lived experience. Sure, but logic is the tool that ensures that a conclusion comes out true, if the argumentation is sound. If one’s intuitions then still militate against that conclusion, one’s intuitions just are wrong—as they often are! ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/235 "2026-01-12T11:16:10Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > your claim has been that we have empirical reasons to see the existence of a tri-omni God and suffering as incompatible, which Plantinga’s argument shows is false. 1. I said it gives us reason to doubt: I was not talking about the logical argument for God, which I knew you would again try to mischaracterize my position as being. I couldn’t be more clear about that. 1. Plantinga’s argument has nothing to say about empirical reasoning. If we made your error of conflating logical possibility with having reason for doubt, then all of science is flawed. I, according to you, would have _no reason_ to think that atoms exist and _no reason_ to doubt that the ether does. 2. Your responses are getting longer because they are just about deflection and obfuscation. Note that my last two posts asked direct questions and all you’ve done is avoid answering or, in terms of the first question, give _both_ answers in successive posts. ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/236 "2026-01-12T11:35:53Z")
I’m not a believer either. In my opinion, the key to the contradiction in the concept of the tri-omni God is God’s omniscience: How can a tri‑omni God freely choose a world containing suffering, given perfect foreknowledge? ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/237 "2026-01-12T13:56:28Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I said it gives us reason to doubt: I was not talking about the logical argument for God, which I knew you would again try to mischaracterize my position as being. I couldn’t be more clear about that. And as I said in my last post, I fully recognize you’re not meaning to talk about the logical problem of evil, but that changes nothing about the fact that you’re making a claim to which Plantinga’s argumentation applies, namely that there are evidential reasons to believe the existence of evil incompatible with that of a tri-omni God. Whether you intend to speak about the logical PoE or not, Plantinga’s argumentation shows this to be false. > [@Mijin](#): > > Plantinga’s argument has nothing to say about empirical reasoning. Again, Plantinga’s argument establishes that evil and tri-omnihood are compatible, which directly entails that one can’t have valid reasons—including empirical ones—that this isn’t the case. > [@Mijin](#): > > If we made your error of conflating logical possibility with having reason for doubt, then all of science is flawed. I, according to you, would have _no reason_ to think that atoms exist and _no reason_ to doubt that the ether does. This is simply hyperbolic nonsense. I’m not saying that there are no empirical reasons to affirm or hold certain convictions, I’m just demonstrating that you are incorrectly inferring from empirical reasons to doubt that we are living in the best possible world that we also have reasons to doubt the existence of a tri-omni God; but this depends on a logical inference that is simply invalid. > [@Mijin](#): > > Your responses are getting longer because they are just about deflection and obfuscation. My responses are getting longer because I’m at pains to express myself clearly and simply. There is evidently some disconnect between the two of us, so I’m trying to be as explicit about what I’m saying as possible, so that you have the opportunity to spot exactly where the issue is; so far, you seem rather disinclined to do so, however. > [@Mijin](#): > > Note that my last two posts asked direct questions and all you’ve done is avoid answering or, in terms of the first question, give _both_ answers in successive posts. I’ve tried to answer as best I can. If you feel I left something open, just point out where you need further clarification. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/238 "2026-01-12T15:44:49Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Why does benevolence have to be moral? Anything that God does is moral by definition, if you accept objective morality. Which of course means that drowning most of the world was a moral act. You have me confused with someone who thinks the god of the Bible is consistent with being tri-omni. You are correct that by Christian assertion that god is omnibenevolent, then the great flood was a moral good. And so was telling the Israelites to slaughter the babies of their enemies. So was killing all the Egyptian firstborn, and all the other plagues. I was discussing the trait of omnibenevolence, not its inconsistency with the Bible’s god. @Half_Man_Half_Wit , let me see if I can summarize your position to clarify what is being argued. You are outlining Plantinga’s argument that a tri-omni god and there being evil in the world is not incompatible. The logical premise is that if we can establish one _potential_ way to make them consistent, then they are by definition not inconsistent. The potential way identified need not be true or possible, it just has to be logically consistent. If one potential way exists, there may be other potential ways that the two are not inconsistent. One way is sufficient to disprove they are mutually exclusive concepts. @Mijin is arguing that the logic might be sound, but we poor humans evaluate the world for ourselves based on the information we have. We have a moral sense (given by god through the tree of G&E or by natural evolution or whatever) that we use to evaluate our world and the actions of others in the world. Using that moral sense, the tri-omni god as presented by Christianity does not seem consistent with the definitions of the omni’s. In particular, trying to determine the likelihood of there being a tri-omni god, our own moral sense rebels at the idea that this is the best an omni-benevolent god _could_ do. You yourself keep saying that free will does not need to be plausible or even exist, just that the principle that it could provide a means of justifying the inconsistency means the apparent inconsistency is not mutually exclusive. Mutual exclusivity is one argument. Evaluating the level of moral evil in the world as inconsistent is a means of looking at the plausibility of the tri-omni god. It could exist - how likely is it? You’re saying “you can’t say no”, but @Mijin is saying “but I can say I doubt it”. I also want to lay out what I think I understand your conception to be as to how the god thing might work under the concepts for the logical argument. God existed. He/she/it wanted to create a world to have a place to create companions and wanted these companions to have a moral sense, an ability to choose morally meaningful actions. To do so, there has to be the possibility of bad actions to make the good ones morally meaningful. This tri-omni god, being atemporal, could create this world as a continuous simultaneous event, allowing this god to experience the whole as a single event. Thus there is no before or after, no this before that to the experience. Seeing every choice available and seeing the creatures making their moral choices and knowing what those outcomes are is all simultaneous for this god. But us mere mortals are temporal. We have a before, now, and later perspective. Thus grasping the ability of being omniscient seems conflicting with the idea that choices can be known prior to their being made. Not just expected, but _known_. Being omniscient is an outcome of the state of complete atemporal experience of the world created. Knowing events as they unfold and choosing to intervene is simultaneous with them occurring in the first place, and thus is not a change to the world, it is a part of that world unfolding. Is this anywhere near the conception you are using? I don’t say believe, just using as a model. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > None of this follows. A world is some sequence of events; depending on those events, a world has some amount of total evil, and some amount of moral value, i.e. of good deeds chosen over bad ones. Some world has the least overall evil with the greatest overall value, and this is the world (read: sequence of events) God instantiates. Any change of the events within this world then can lead only to a worse, less morally valuable, or otherwise impossible world. This isn’t changed if some of the events within the world are godly interventions. So the best possible world may (but doesn’t have to) include these interventions, yet God can’t change anything about this world without it no longer being the best possible one. What is the difference between some included interventions and changes to the world? What is the distinction? This is logically inconsistent. The world as created includes some godly interventions, but only some. Sometimes god won’t intervene because _reasons_. God intervening sometimes is a part of the world but sometimes intervening is not a part of the world? If the world is a systemic creation, then interventions break the system. If the world is whatever God wants it to be, then God wants it to have natural evil in it. Not allows some people to make moral choices, but actively chooses not to intervene in many (most) cases, even for things that are not outcomes of moral choices by humans, but natural events or random chaos. _That_ is logic. Either god won’t intervene because intervening changes the world to make it worse, or god chooses when to intervene and when not to invervene, meaning there are times he/she/it could and does not. To argue that the choices are made by God based on seeking the best moral outcome is assuming the consequent. Saying that is equivalent to saying “God has a master plan that you can’t know, shut up and stop trying to understand/judge god, you’re not fit to,” or “God works in mysterious ways”. It’s saying any moral inconsistency is not really inconsistent, but we are not allowed to understand why just know that god is omnibenevolent by definition and therefore it must be for the greater good. It means that we are assuming omnibenevolence and then justifying the inconsistency by pointing to the assumption. You can’t use omnibenevolence to justify god’s choices as moral when you assumed the omnibenevolence in the first place. Maybe that assumption is wrong. Maybe god isn’t that omni. Saying that evil _can_ coexist with a tri-omni god doesn’t mean we have a tri-omni god. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > > [@Irishman](#): > > > > But apparently by increasing the greater moral good, that evil doesn’t count as evil. That’s the direct meaning of what you said. > > I can’t see how anything I said could be interpreted this way, could you elaborate? I said e.g. that whether evil acts for ‘the greater good’ are evil is a matter of debate (see the Kant example), and I said that some theologians have held that God may permit evil; but this doesn’t make such evil ‘good’, somehow. Bullshit. If god is seeking the greater moral good, and god makes a decision to do something like flood the earth to kill everybody but a specific chosen few, that somehow is still evil but god did it but god is omnibenevolent and won’t do evil but just did evil because good would come from it. Permitting evil to occur _might_ be within omnibenevolence (arguable), but doing an action that would be regarded as evil if done by somebody else (assuming someone else could do it) is not seen as doing evil, or else is not disqualifying for omnibenevolence. Omnibenevolence means it can’t be evil. But only because god did it, because if a non-omnibenevolent being did it we would outright call it evil even if good did come in the wake of the event. The same event, the same choice for the same reason, and the only difference is who did it. God or Satan, one way it’s good the other it’s evil? Or God can do evil and yet still be called omnibenevolent? > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > No. The free will defense works even if this is not the best possible world. Again, that “God is omnipotent and it was not within his power to create a world containing moral good but no moral evil” (premise (3) above) “need not be true or known to be true; it need not be so much as plausible”. For _free will_ to be the argument, it requires this be the best possible world. That’s right there in the justification for how god can be omnibenevolent and there still be evil. God made the best world he could and there is evil because he wanted moral choices available. If god didn’t make the best possible world, then the omni-benevolence is in question. God could change the world to make it better, but didn’t, ergo god is not tri-omni. You can argue that the free will argument proves there is room for other justifications that provide compatibility between tri-omni and evil, but the free will argument relies on the best possible world as an inherent step of the process. If you kick out the best possible world, then the free will concept is logically inconsistent with itself. It is mush, and can’t be used to justify anything, because it isn’t a coherent concept. > [@msmith537](#): > > Does applying human concepts like “laughing”, “smiling”, “enjoying”, or even “good” and “evil” even apply to such an entity? Why would one animated carbon blob permanently rendering another non-functional be any more or less evil than a lion taking down a gazelle, ants devouring a rotten orange, or a meteor wiping out the dinosaurs? According to christian theology, god made us moral creatures. He gave us the ability to make moral decisions. We are special to god because he made us in his image. Without christian theology, we aren’t discussing tri-omni gods. It’s just not a thing. > [@PlaceboTarget](#): > > I’m not a believer either. In my opinion, the key to the contradiction in the concept of the tri-omni God is God’s omniscience: How can a tri‑omni God freely choose a world containing suffering, given perfect foreknowledge? The premise is that god wants a world, and he wants agents in the world that have moral choice. Why does god want a world? Apparently there is more moral good in the \_\_\_verse (whatever God lives in) with a world in it than without. Thus the omnigod seeks greater moral good, he therefore makes a world with us mortals in it. The great suffering of the masses of eternity are offset by the value of having a few people choose some good acts and get into heaven, and a bunch of people choosing bad acts but still getting into heaven because they ask for forgiveness and believe in the unbelievable (Trinity). Those poor suckers who can’t believe in the unbelievable and do bad things are SooL. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/239 "2026-01-12T18:56:14Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Nobody’s requiring an omnipotent entity to do anything, though. A person may remain a virgin through their own volition without that destroying their ability to have sex; We’re talking about what God or the virgin is able to do while maintaining a property, not what they choose to do. It doesn’t matter that the virgin chooses to not have sex - she cannot have sex and still be a virgin in any possible world. Are you saying that she chooses not to have sex in all possible worlds? Do you think that a married bachelor is not a paradox because the bachelor chooses to not get married, so what’s the problem? > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > The omni- here doesn’t do anything special; it just means to be benevolent to the highest possible degree. It doesn’t magically conjure up divine guardrails that prohibit an entity from doing evil, it just means that such an entity _never_ chooses evil over good. A human can inadvertently do evil while still being classified as benevolent. An omniscient god cannot since he can do anything without knowing the consequences. A person who gets good grades might go up and down a point or two and still keep that characteristic. A person who gets maximally good grades cannot go down and keep that characteristic. And him choosing to get 100s has nothing to do with anything. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > You’re misreading this. It says, first: What part of “unable” are you missing. He is unable to choose to do evil. Says it right there. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Which means that, _even though_ such an entity doesn’t _choose_ evil in general, it may be that they can do so for ‘the ultimate good’. Something I’ve never objected to. I’ll agree that there is some minimal, but non-zero, level of suffering or evil in the optimal world. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > So if a person does only good, you’re saying that the obvious inference is just that they were unable to do bad? That there is some unique metaphysical quality that stops them from ever doing bad? That would be the way to bet, especially if the person is claimed to have the property of always doing good. On the other hand, if the person does do bad, (defined as increasing overall suffering) we can falsify the claim of always doing good. Now your person could be excused because of his limited power. He does not have the power to stop an earthquake, so one happening is not a case of him doing bad. An omnipotent deity, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2026, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339/240 "2026-01-12T19:03:53Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > You have me confused with someone who thinks the god of the Bible is consistent with being tri-omni. > > You are correct that by Christian assertion that god is omnibenevolent, then the great flood was a moral good. And so was telling the Israelites to slaughter the babies of their enemies. So was killing all the Egyptian firstborn, and all the other plagues. I think the problem is that I was talking about omnibenevolence only, and you extended it to benevolence. Omnibenevolence gives an entity a limited choice, between options that all lead to maximal good. Just benevolence involves a lot more choice. A benevolent god can do all sorts of mischief, but an omnibenevolent god can’t really act like the one in the Bible does. I certainly didn’t intend to accuse you of believing in that nonsense god. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-violate-free-will-if-the-person-was-never-given-the-desire-to-do-something-in-the-first-place/1025339.md?page=13)