# Does it violate free will if the person was never given the desire to do something in the first place?

**URL:** <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>\
**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:** 40

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**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:** [April 2, 2026, 4:52am 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/1025339/781 "2026-04-02T04:52:38Z")

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> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> Consider the hypothesis: if unnecessary suffering exists, all observed suffering will appear unnecessary. Therefore, observing apparently unnecessary suffering is _evidence_ of unnecessary suffering.

I’m not sure if there might be an ‘only’ missing in the antecedent, because otherwise I don’t see why this would follow. Besides, as you note, affirming the consequent does not prove, and need not even probabilify, the antecedent. For it might well be true that only necessary suffering exists, and nevertheless all suffering appears unnecessary. At least this is what @Mijin appeals to when he says that we can take _all_ suffering as evidence against a tri-omni God (because it _may be_ unnecessary).

But then, in a world where all suffering _is_ necessary, and there in fact happens to exist a tri-omni God, this would mean that such ‘evidential’ reasoning ends up supporting the _wrong_ conclusion that God doesn’t exist. This would, of course, be devastating: since that world could well be ours, there would then be just no reason to accept such reasoning as reliable, and hence, the argument can just be thrown out tout court.

> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> If A is the culprit, A’s fingerprints will be found on the scene. Finding A’s fingerprints does not prove A is culpable, but per the hypothesis, it is evidence.

This doesn’t follow. Let’s again take Bayesian reasoning as the most widely accepted model of how evidence ought to influence beliefs (some would say, of rationality itself). Then, the probability of A’s innocence I\_A, given that we have found A’s fingerprints F\_A (on the scene), evaluates to:

P(I\_A|F\_A) = \frac{P(F\_A|I\_A)}{P(F\_A)}\cdot P(I\_A)

Thus, the evidence lowers our confidence that A is innocent, i.e. it is the case that P(I\_A|F\_A) \< P(I\_A), where P(I\_A) is whatever estimate of A’s innocence we had before, if and only if \frac{P(F\_A|I\_A)}{P(F\_A)} \< 1 \Leftrightarrow P(F\_A|I\_A) \< P(F\_A). Thus, only if the probability of finding A’s fingerprints on the scene in the case that they’re innocent P(F\_A|I\_A) is less than the probability of finding A’s fingerprints independently of guilt or innocence P(F\_A) do we have grounds to lower our belief in A’s innocence upon finding A’s fingerprints. Merely _finding_ A’s fingerprints on the scene does not give us grounds to believe this. The same analysis works, of course, in the other cases.

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**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:** [April 3, 2026, 8:33am 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/1025339/782 "2026-04-03T08:33:29Z")

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> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> I agree with these statements:
> 
> > [@Mijin](#):
> >
> > [O]bserving Freddy Kreuger doing apparently sadistic acts would give us reason to suspect he is a sadist …
> 
> > [@Mijin](#):
> >
> > [paraphrasing **Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit** :] "No amount of suffering, in itself, with no additional knowledge of whether it’s necessary or not, gives us any reason to doubt that God is omnimax”

I don’t see how you can agree with both of those statements; they are in opposition.  
I can make it clearer by making it like-for-like:

1. [O]bserving Freddy Kreuger doing apparently sadistic acts would give us reason to suspect he is a sadist.
2. [O]bserving God doing apparently sadistic acts (like destroying a school in a mudslide, or giving someone cancer etc) would give us reason to suspect he is a sadist.

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**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:** [April 3, 2026, 12:12pm 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/1025339/783 "2026-04-03T12:12:13Z")

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> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> I don’t know what you mean by ‘absolute knowledge of clauses’, or where you think anybody required that, could you elaborate?

What I mean is that I don’t need to claim knowledge of whether Freddy Kreuger’s actions are necessary or unnecessary; it’s sufficient for his actions to appear unnecessary to give us some reason to doubt his omnibenevolence. And, if we’re being consistent, we should apply the same reasoning to god.

> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> Because you have background knowledge that renders the presence of these fingerprints surprising, namely, that the vast majority of people shouldn’t be expected to have been at the scene. Remove this—say, by making this a kind of dinner party mystery where you don’t know who might have been where for legit reasons—and that ceases to be valid.

I started replying to this but found I am just repeating what I said in the last post. Put simply: no, we don’t disregard circumstantial evidence. If you were at the scene of the crime you need a reason to have been there; we don’t need to have made a prediction ahead of time that you wouldn’t have been at the scene.

> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> Only with an assumption to the effect that ‘apparently X probably means actually X’ does the above follow.

No, that’s not right. Apparently X means more reason to think X than without that observation. That’s all.  
I’ve been very clear that “having reason to think X” =/= “making a determination that X is true, or probably true”.

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**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:** [April 3, 2026, 1:03pm 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/1025339/784 "2026-04-03T13:03:00Z")

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> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Put simply: no, we don’t disregard circumstantial evidence. If you were at the scene of the crime you need a reason to have been there; we don’t need to have made a prediction ahead of time that you wouldn’t have been at the scene.

(missed edit window)  
I’ll head off the obvious retort here. When I talk of “needing” an alibi, I mean as to whether it counts as circumstantial evidence. I don’t mean it is necessarily compelling evidence, in itself.

So, for example, if a murder is committed at grand central station, then the fact that you were there is extremely weak evidence, in itself. But it could still stack with other circumstantial evidence, if you didn’t have any reason to be there that day.

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**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:** [April 3, 2026, 4:29pm 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/1025339/785 "2026-04-03T16:29:05Z")

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(accidentally hit submit)

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**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:** [April 3, 2026, 5:28pm 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/1025339/786 "2026-04-03T17:28:39Z")

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> [@Mijin](#):
>
> What I mean is that I don’t need to claim knowledge of whether Freddy Kreuger’s actions are necessary or unnecessary; it’s sufficient for his actions to appear unnecessary to give us some reason to doubt his omnibenevolence.

Not if, as in the case of God, thanks to the failure of the logical PoE, we ought to expect an unknown amount of ‘apparently unnecessary’ actions despite this omnibenevolence. I think it’s really easiest to see if we leave out all misleading intuitions from unanalyzed implicit background assumptions and reason this through formally. So let’s try this again.

If we want to say that the observed evil E decreases our belief in tri-omni God G, then we must have that P(G|E) \< P(G), where P(G) is our prior belief in such a God, however high that may be. As noted, we obtain this as follows:

P(G|E) = \frac{P(E|G)}{P(E)}\cdot P(G)

Thus, we must have that P(E|G) \< P(E), that is, we ought to believe that some evil E is less likely if a tri-omni God exists than it is independently of their existence. This is not generally true. For _necessary_ evil, whether God exists will make no difference to the likelihood of that evil occurring, hence, P(E|G) = P(E), and P(G|E) = P(G). Observing necessary evil should not affect our belief in God.

That’s the same as when, e.g., the fingerprints in the study turn out to be the butler’s: whether they’re innocent has no bearing on whether the fingerprints are to be expected, thus, finding their fingerprints isn’t grounds to lower our belief in their innocence. If we find fingerprints of some random person, however, we have grounds to believe that in the case of their innocence, finding those fingerprints should have a very low probability, hence, we’re justified in adjusting our faith in their innocence downwards. But we absolutely need to have such grounds in order to reason validly.

Now, in the case of fingerprints on the scene of a murder, background knowledge will tell us that there are vastly more random schmucks than butlers, so in all probability, it’s a good guess that we can lower our expectation of innocence. But without that background knowledge, we need a reason to believe that (in the case of God’s existence) P(E|G) \< P(E).

Otherwise, we face a collapse of evidential reasoning. Take again the case where we actually do happen to live in the best possible world, and God exists: on your reasoning, the available evidence will nevertheless probabilify the _wrong_ conclusion that God doesn’t exist. But an argument that only ever achieves one conclusion, regardless of whether it is true, is obviously useless.

So we must establish a reason to believe that, for some given evil E, P(E|G) \< P(E). Just observing that evil can’t give it to us, or can only give it on the basis of an assumption that we can readily discern whether evil is necessary. (This would make your argument valid, but to me seems unreasonably strong.)

That is exactly what arguments from evil in the real world try to establish. They first argue for a _factual premise_ by e.g. example cases, such as Rowe’s Sue or Bambi. If your argument were right, that would be superfluous. Rather, the consensus in the literature is that simply pointing to evil in the abstract is insufficient; only making a case that some instance of evil is probably gratuitous (which does exactly argue that P(E|G) \< P(E), i.e. that one probably would not observe that evil if God existed) has some hope.

Anyhow, to make this short, only evidence that disagrees with a hypothesis, that is surprising given a hypothesis, serves as evidence against that hypothesis. The mere existence of evil, if a tri-omni God exists, is not surprising, because the result of the failure of the logical PoE is that it is possible that evil exists. Hence, we need to make a case that some particular evil is not to be expected if God existed. Otherwise, there simply are no grounds to believe the evidential reasoning, and in general, it will fail to point towards a true conclusion.

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**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2026, 8:09am 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/1025339/787 "2026-04-04T08:09:29Z")

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> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> For it might well be true that only necessary suffering exists, and nevertheless all suffering appears unnecessary.

There is no requirement that a hypothesis accurately describe the world. A hypothesis is a proposed relationship. The utility of a hypothesis comes from comparing real-world observations against predictions.

> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> Thus, only if the probability of finding A’s fingerprints on the scene in the case that they’re innocent P(F\_A|I\_A) is less than the probability of finding A’s fingerprints independently of guilt or innocence P(F\_A) do we have grounds to lower our belief in A’s innocence upon finding A’s fingerprints.

That is the definition of evidence built in to any hypothesis.

~Max

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**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2026, 8:13am 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/1025339/788 "2026-04-04T08:13:59Z")

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> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> > [@Mijin](#):
> >
> > [O]bserving Freddy Kreuger doing apparently sadistic acts would give us reason to suspect he is a sadist …
> 
> > [@Mijin](#):
> >
> > [paraphrasing **Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit** :] "No amount of suffering, in itself, with no additional knowledge of whether it’s necessary or not, gives us any reason to doubt that God is omnimax”

> [@Mijin](#):
>
> 1. [O]bserving Freddy Kreuger doing apparently sadistic acts would give us reason to suspect he is a sadist.
> 2. [O]bserving God doing apparently sadistic acts (like destroying a school in a mudslide, or giving someone cancer etc) would give us reason to suspect he is a sadist.

I agree with the two new statements. I do not see a contradiction.

~Max

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**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:** [April 4, 2026, 8:32am 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/1025339/789 "2026-04-04T08:32:48Z")

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> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> There is no requirement that a hypothesis accurately describe the world. A hypothesis is a proposed relationship. The utility of a hypothesis comes from comparing real-world observations against predictions.

You’re saying this as if you’re disagreeing with me on something, but I can’t seem to figure out what you think I’ve said that’s contrary to this. Could you elaborate?

> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> That is the definition of evidence built in to any hypothesis.

I don’t know what you mean by a definition of evidence being built into a hypothesis; a hypothesis gives us certain expectations of what we ought to observe, if it were true, and observations matching or disagreeing with these expectations yield confirming or disconfirming evidence. Which is why we can’t without further consideration of what the hypothesis of innocence entails for the presence of fingerprints say that it yields evidence against innocence.

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**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:** [April 4, 2026, 10:42am 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/1025339/790 "2026-04-04T10:42:25Z")

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(misread a post, hold on)

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**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:** [April 4, 2026, 10:46am 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/1025339/791 "2026-04-04T10:46:26Z")

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> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> I think it’s really easiest to see if we leave out all misleading intuitions from unanalyzed implicit background assumptions and reason this through formally. So let’s try this again.

Let’s not. Because I put very specific points to you, and I don’t feel that this diversion (one again) into set of universes is trying to elucidate. I think it’s the very opposite.

Let’s start with this question from my previous post: If we see Freddy Krueger (I finally spelled it right) committing what appear to be sadistic acts, do we have any reason to think he’s a sadist?

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**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:** [April 4, 2026, 10:56am 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/1025339/792 "2026-04-04T10:56:39Z")

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> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> > [@Mijin](#):
> >
> > 1. [O]bserving Freddy Kreuger doing apparently sadistic acts would give us reason to suspect he is a sadist.
> > 2. [O]bserving God doing apparently sadistic acts (like destroying a school in a mudslide, or giving someone cancer etc) would give us reason to suspect he is a sadist.
> 
> I agree with the two new statements. I do not see a contradiction.

Well these two statements are of exactly the same form, so you should agree (or disagree) with both. The problem is, the second statement is opposite the one you agreed with before. To clarify, these are the two statements you’ve agreed with:

1. _“No amount of suffering, in itself, with no additional knowledge of whether it’s necessary or not, gives us any reason to doubt that God is omnimax”_
2. _“Observing God doing apparently sadistic acts (like destroying a school in a mudslide, or giving someone cancer etc) would give us reason to suspect he is a sadist”_

The only difference is that I swapped out “causing unnecessary suffering” with “apparently sadistic”, so I could put it side-by-side with the statement about Freddy Krueger. But what qualitative difference is there between these concepts?

Can I redeem Freddy’s reputation by saying that when he was ripping children to shreds he was merely _causing unnecessary suffering_?

More to the point: how is either sadism or causing unnecessary suffering compatible with omnibenevolence?

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**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:** [April 4, 2026, 1:11pm 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/1025339/793 "2026-04-04T13:11:53Z")

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> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Let’s not. Because I put very specific points to you, and I don’t feel that this diversion (one again) into set of universes is trying to elucidate. I think it’s the very opposite.

I don’t know what you’re on about with ‘sets of universes’ and whatever. This is just bog-standard Bayesian updating, which is the near-universally agreed upon method to rationally update one’s beliefs upon encountering new evidence. It’s simply the most clear and direct way of seeing that, in order to rationally lower credence in the existence of God, we need to make a case that the evidence we have disagrees with that hypothesis. You can’t just assume it does, because then, evidential reasoning doesn’t tell you anything anymore.

> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Let’s start with this question from my previous post: If we see Freddy Krueger (I finally spelled it right) committing what appear to be sadistic acts, do we have any reason to think he’s a sadist?

Ok, let’s make a deal: if you get to demand what I should answer, after ignoring my points again and again, then so do I.

So first, to your point. In the Freddy Krueger case, you have reason to believe the following statement: the probability of observing sadistic actions given that Freddy is perfectly kind is lower than the probability of observing sadistic actions in the general case, independent of whether Freddy is kind or not. Hence, yes, you do have grounds to doubt his kindness. But of course, if you don’t have such grounds, you could not make the same argument.

So, my turn: if it were the case that, as you say, any kind of evil suffices to make an argument against the existence of tri-omni God, why do you think that every actual argument in the literature instead makes a case that certain evil is gratuitous? Why does the literature explicitly say that it _doesn’t_ suffice to point to evil in the abstract?

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**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:** [April 4, 2026, 2:33pm 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/1025339/794 "2026-04-04T14:33:12Z")

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> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> I don’t know what you’re on about with ‘sets of universes’ and whatever. This is just bog-standard Bayesian updating, which is the near-universally agreed upon method to rationally update one’s beliefs upon encountering new evidence.

Well “set of universes” was the way you originally described it.  
And has anyone other than me even _attempted_ to engage with this description? – and I think it’s obfuscation. So, even if you are honestly trying to clarify the discussion, it’s not working.

> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> Ok, let’s make a deal: if you get to demand what I should answer, after ignoring my points again and again, then so do I.

The point is, that I asked first, it wasn’t dodging your question. But sure: deal.

> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> So first, to your point. In the Freddy Krueger case, you have reason to believe the following statement: the probability of observing sadistic actions given that Freddy is perfectly kind is lower than the probability of observing sadistic actions in the general case, independent of whether Freddy is kind or not.

Sure but not because of knowledge of what Freddy is. Freddy Krueger is a fictional supernatural character, so in the context of this discussion, it’s unclear exactly what kind of entity he is. But you didn’t ask follow up questions, you **rightly** agreed that we would suspect he’s a sadist when we saw him hacking up kids and laughing.  
_If we were being consistent_ then, of course we would say the same about God.

> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> if it were the case that, as you say, any kind of evil suffices to make an argument against the existence of tri-omni God, why do you think that every actual argument in the literature instead makes a case that certain evil is gratuitous?

I can’t even parse this sentence. Is your claim that all literature on the problem of evil makes the claim that gratuitous evil exists? Honestly, what?

> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#):
>
> Why does the literature explicitly say that it _doesn’t_ suffice to point to evil in the abstract?

Again, is your claim that all literature on the problem of evil says that apparently unnecessary suffering doesn’t imply evil? IOW that the problem of evil is completely solved?  
This is a pretty easy position to refute, I want to double-check that this is the claim you’re making.

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**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\
**Post date:** [April 4, 2026, 11:25pm 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/1025339/795 "2026-04-04T23:25:35Z")

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> [@Mijin](#):
>
> The only difference is that I swapped out “causing unnecessary suffering”

You swapped “apparently sadistic acts” for “suffering … with no additional knowledge whether it’s necessary or not.”

> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Can I redeem Freddy’s reputation by saying that when he was ripping children to shreds he was merely _causing unnecessary suffering_?

No; infliction of unnecessary suffering is inconsistent with benevolence. Sadism is also incompatible with omnibenevolence.

~Max

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<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [April 5, 2026, 6:56am 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/1025339/796 "2026-04-05T06:56:45Z")

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> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Well “set of universes” was the way you originally described it.

I had hoped a simple visualization might help build some intuition. It’s a common way to depict the logical relations between possible settings, with an easy segue into probabilistic arguments, since you can directly see that “probability that _A_” = “number of cases where _A_” / “total number of cases”. If you don’t find it helpful, just ignore it; but there’s no use pretending it’s some extravagant or contentious metaphysics or whatever your problem with it is. It’s a perfectly standard method used everywhere in science.

> [@Mijin](#):
>
> And has anyone other than me even _attempted_ to engage with this description? – and I think it’s obfuscation.

How can trying to be perfectly clear and free of implicit background assumptions be obfuscation? I honestly don’t know what your problem is, here. Where do you actually disagree with the argument? Or are you just looking for an easy way to dismiss it out of hand?

> [@Mijin](#):
>
> The point is, that I asked first, it wasn’t dodging your question.

🤣 🤣 🤣

> [@Mijin](#):
>
> But you didn’t ask follow up questions, you **rightly** agreed that we would suspect he’s a sadist when we saw him hacking up kids and laughing.

Exactly. Because unlike in the case with God, we have no reason to expect an unknown degree of evil despite Freddy’s best intentions. With God, however, thanks to the failure of the logical PoE, we know such suffering is possible, hence, it’s not in and of itself surprising to see it. We need to introduce further argumentation to make that case.

This is what I mean: you keep introducing specific cases that are disanalogous to the one in question, then get hung up on them and complaining that the God case is handled differently. Hence, it’s best to first work through the logic independently of prior judgment, and see what it then yields applied to each specific case. Do that, and you’d see that it’s exactly the same logic in every case.

> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Is your claim that all literature on the problem of evil makes the claim that gratuitous evil exists? Honestly, what?

The claim is that every actual argument from evil first makes a case that some evil is gratuitous, then goes on from there to use this as an argument against tri-omni God’s existence. Take again the IEP (sorry no links, I’m on the phone, but they’re readily available in the thread):

> [@](#):
>
> The probabilistic nature of such arguments manifests itself in the form of a premise to the effect that “It is probably the case that some instance (or type, or amount, or pattern) of evil _E_ is gratuitous.” This probability judgment usually rests on the claim that, even after careful reflection, we can see no good reason for God’s permission of _E_. The inference from this claim to the judgment that there exists gratuitous evil is inductive in nature, and it is this inductive step that sets the evidential argument apart from the logical argument.

An evidential argument from evil introduces a _factual premise_ to the effect that some evil is gratuitous. This premise is missing from your version, which hence remains formally invalid.

> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Again, is your claim that all literature on the problem of evil says that apparently unnecessary suffering doesn’t imply evil? IOW that the problem of evil is completely solved?

No. The claim is that the literature explicitly says that just pointing generically at evil as evidence against God, as you do, doesn’t do any work. Here’s e.g. the article you posted:

> [@](#):
>
> Mackie makes a non-specific formulation about evil (the datum is only that evil exists). Due to this, theists may levy criticisms against the argument [referring here to Plantinga’s FWD] that work in virtue of this non-specific datum. […] Mackie’s non-specific formulation of evil (only stating that evil exists) harms his argument, as this non-specific formulation lends itself to criticism regarding the possibility of God allowing for the existence of evil. […] As a result of the free-will defence and the subsequent defeat of Mackie’s logical argument from evil (1955), the debate has shifted to the evidential problem of evil. […] This may be for a particular reason: as established with the example of Mackie, it is notably difficult to defend a logical argument from evil with non-specific formulations of evil.

And here’s the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for good measure:

> [@](#):
>
> [I]t is fair to say […] that it is, at least, very doubtful that one can establish that there cannot be cases where some evil is logically necessary for a greater good that outweighs it without appealing to some substantive, and probably controversial, moral theory.
> 
> The upshot is that the idea that either the actuality of certain undesirable states of affairs, or at least the possibility, may be logically necessary for goods that outweigh them, is not without some initial plausibility, and if some such claim can be sustained, it will follow immediately that the mere existence of evil cannot be incompatible with the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect being.
> 
> How does this bear upon evidential formulations of the argument from evil? The answer would seem to be that if there can be evils that are logically necessary for goods that outweigh them, then it is hard to see how the mere existence of evil—in the absence of further information—can provide much in the way of _evidence_ against the existence of God.
> 
> […]
> 
> The prospects for a successful abstract version of the argument from evil would seem, therefore, rather problematic. […] A much more promising approach, surely, is to focus, instead, simply upon those evils that are thought, by the vast majority of people, to pose at least a prima facie problem for the rationality of belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person.
> 
> Given that the preceding observations are rather obvious ones, one might have expected that discussions of the argument from evil would have centered mainly upon concrete formulations of the argument. Rather surprisingly, that has not been so. Indeed, some authors seem to focus almost exclusively upon very abstract versions of the argument.

All of these resources essentially mirror my stance: pointing to evil in the abstract does nothing in terms of an argument against God, rather, one has to make a case—as e.g. Rowe does with the Sue and Bambi-scenarios—that there is some evil that one shouldn’t expect with a tri-omni God. This is also what drops out of the formalized reasoning: we need for the probability that some particular evil is observed, given that God exists, to be lower than otherwise. Without that, there simply is no rational case.

On the other hand, if you were right, all of this would just be superfluous. But nobody seems to think it is.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [April 5, 2026, 12:56pm 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/1025339/797 "2026-04-05T12:56:17Z")

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> [@Max\_S](#):
>
> You swapped “apparently sadistic acts” for “suffering … with no additional knowledge whether it’s necessary or not.”

But I have asked you what is the critical difference between these terms, because right now this seems to be where you are trying to give a carve out for god.

You’re agreeing with the observation of sadism giving us reason to think someone is a sadist.  
But observing someone causing apparently unnecessary suffering _doesn’t_ give us reason to think it’s an entity that causes unnecessary suffering?

But this really is just semantics – in many cases the same action could be labelled with either term.  
If I trap a deer, and wait and watch as it slowly starves to death, whether that’s called “sadism”, “causing unnecessary suffering” or other things like “torture” largely comes down to a person’s manner of speaking. But regardless of the word, pretty much everyone would agree that it would give us reason to think you aren’t omnibenevolent.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [April 5, 2026, 12:57pm 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/1025339/798 "2026-04-05T12:57:49Z")

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@Half_Man_Half_Wit I’ll come to your post in the next couple of days. I thought I’d give some response so you know I am not ignoring you, but I don’t have time to go through it right now.

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**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2026, 5:09pm 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/1025339/799 "2026-04-05T17:09:56Z")

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You drive by an alleyway just in time to observe a woman sternly tell one child, maybe three or four years old, “you aren’t allowed to eat”. The woman and the child wear matching colors and matching hairstyles, and both have thin bodies. It appears to be a birthday party for another child on a restaurant patio, and they were passing out slices of cake. You see this woman forcibly snatch the cake from the child’s hands. The child cries. You are gone after two or three seconds and observe nothing further.

IMO, you have observed “suffering” without enough “knowledge” to determine, even provisionally, “whether it’s necessary or not”. Therefore, you have _ **not** _ observed “apparently unnecessary suffering”. So you have no reason to doubt the woman’s benevolence.

~Max

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<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [April 6, 2026, 10:44am 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/1025339/800 "2026-04-06T10:44:20Z")

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Firstly, the most testing case is the situation where we _don’t_ have outside knowledge.  
And when we did that, you agreed that seeing an entity causing apparent unnecessary suffering would be reason to doubt their omnibenevolence…until I suggested that entity could be God. I don’t see how this new hypothetical rectifies the contradiction.

Secondly though, looking at the example you’ve given, there’s a few points I would make:

1. I have said repeatedly that something is apparently unnecessary until we become aware of outside knowledge that might provide a reason. In this case, we already have that knowledge – we know that cake is an unhealthy foodstuff that is often eaten to excess and that parents often consider it a treat for good behaviour. As I said in the previous paragraph, the more relevant situation is when we _don’t_ have such outside knowledge.

2. My argument is not about “determining” anything. If you imagine a bucket labelled “evidence of causing harm” then observing this event just put a token in that bucket. A very small token, because, like I say, there are many plausible explanations for why a loving parent would have done that.  
But imagine that the next day you see the same child at another party and the same thing happens again. These observations, while trivial, were not nothing, and so can stack towards something.

3. Probably obvious from my point (2), but saying “apparently X” is nothing like making a determination of X. If I am in the desert, then the statement that I saw an apparent distant lake is not rendered false by the fact that there is no lake. The statement is that I saw something that _looked like_ a lake. Otherwise the word “apparent” would be making no change to the sentence.

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