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Evil and free will theory in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion

In this paper we will consider the problem of evil that has preoccupied the minds of many philosophers and theologians, and which has been speculated throughout the history of Western philosophy just as much as it is today, especially in contemporary (analytic) philosophy of religion. Specific emphasis will be placed on a solution to moral evil which arises, generally speaking, from the Christian tradition, where evil is explained by invoking the freedom of will. The goal here is to show how freedom of will is indeed a satisfactory solution to the problem of evil (at least to the moral one), followed by the claim that God had a (good) reason for giving man his freedom, even in the case where it results in the existence of considerable amounts of evil. Moreover, we want to see which objections, coming from the tent of contemporary analytic philosophers of religion, are usually pointed against that solution, and to which extent can they be justified. In the centre of attention here is the notion of freedom, i.e. the following question – should God have given the freedom when he foresaw its misuse, as well as what exactly does it mean to be free. In other words, it seems that the most significant dilemmas when debating the freedom of will are the ones relative to God's reasons for allowing evil, and allowing, i.e. bestowing freedom. In this sense it is vital to find the answer to the question if freedom is a justified reason to allow the existence of evil

problem of evil, God, natural evil, moral evil, theodicy, freedom of will

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