This paper has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Doctor of Philosophy Peter J Morgan Read and Approved by: ____________________ [Name] (Chairperson) ____________________ [Name] ____________________ [Name] ____________________ Date Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary An Introduction to the Free System Corollary: A Theistic Response to the Abductive Problem of Evil A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Seminary in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Peter J. Morgan Lynchburg, VA April 2017 Copyright 2017 by Peter J Morgan All rights reserved To my loving and patient family, thank you for all your support …we theists should view our theism, while grounded in the past, as also dynamic, and as needing better specifications as we learn more and more, individually and communally, about ourselves and the world we live in, so as to refine theism into its best and truest versions. — Stephen Wykstra “Skeptical Theism, Abductive Atheology, and Theory Reasoning,” 163 Contents Preface ........................................................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... x Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................... xi Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ xii Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Statement of the Problem ................................................................................................................ 1 Statement of Importance of the Problem ........................................................................................ 3 Statement of Purpose ...................................................................................................................... 6 Statement of Position on the Problem ............................................................................................. 6 Limitations .................................................................................................................................... 10 Method .......................................................................................................................................... 13 Chapter Divisions ......................................................................................................................... 13 Chapter Summaries ....................................................................................................................... 14 Results ........................................................................................................................................... 18 Chapter 2: Considerations of the Good .................................................................................... 19 The Call of Moral Obligation Towards the Good ......................................................................... 19 Significant Freedom Towards Choosing the Good ....................................................................... 27 Does God’s Good Nature Eliminate His Freedom? ...................................................................... 32 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 40 Chapter 3: Natural Law ............................................................................................................. 42 The Rationalityof the Universe ..................................................................................................... 42 v Natural Law and Divine Humility ................................................................................................ 47 Spiritual Complacency .................................................................................................................. 52 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 57 Chapter 4: The Free Will Defense ............................................................................................. 60 J. L. Mackie................................................................................................................................... 60 Causation and Teleological Reality .............................................................................................. 60 Metaphysical Double Vision ......................................................................................................... 65 Alvin Plantinga ............................................................................................................................. 71 Properly Basic Beliefs & Rationality ............................................................................................ 71 The Free Will Defense .................................................................................................................. 76 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................... 81 Chapter 5: The Expanded Free Will Defense........................................................................... 83 Bruce Russell ................................................................................................................................ 83 Experience as the Foundation of Justification.............................................................................. 83 The Flexibility of Greater Amounts of Good ................................................................................ 88 Peter van Inwagen ......................................................................................................................... 94 Moral Lines in the Sand ................................................................................................................ 94 Regularity and the Expanded Free Will Defense .......................................................................... 97 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................. 103 Chapter 6: Inculpable Nonbelief ............................................................................................. 106 Paul Draper ................................................................................................................................. 106 The Hypothesis of Indifference ................................................................................................... 106 vi Biologically Gratuitous Pain ...................................................................................................... 111 Daniel Howard-Snyder ............................................................................................................... 117 Inscrutable Evil ........................................................................................................................... 117 Inculpable Non-Belief ................................................................................................................. 121 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................. 127 Chapter 7: Skeptical Theism.................................................................................................... 129 Stephen Wykstra ......................................................................................................................... 129 CORNEA ..................................................................................................................................... 129 William Rowe ............................................................................................................................. 134 A Trolley Ride to Obscurity ........................................................................................................ 134 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................. 138 Chapter 8: The Free System Corollary ................................................................................... 141 The Free System Corollary Defeined ......................................................................................... 143 William Alston and Theodical Suggestions................................................................................. 144 Theodical Suggestions as Applied to the FSC ............................................................................ 146 The Necessioty of a Free System for Free Will .......................................................................... 148 The Nature of Free Will .............................................................................................................. 148 Regularity/Consistency as Part of a Free System ....................................................................... 153 The Potential for Oppression ...................................................................................................... 156 Free Will in a Free System.........................................................................................................