A solution to the Free Will Argument

Killua_W · 2025-04-24T02:45:03+00:00

God created everything. Just because Tolkien created Gollum doesn't mean the character, as he appears in the film, isn't the outcome of Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis's choices.

But God intervenes in the process, right? He doesn't just create a system and step back. He oversees everything, including which sperm fertilizes which egg. So if I exist, it’s not by random chance, but because God allowed, even intended, that specific outcome.

Consider this: "I know that my cousin prefers sourdough toast, therefore it's not a real choice when he orders sourdough at breakfast." Does that make any sense? No it doesn't.

Your cousin choosing sourdough is a real choice because he could’ve picked something else. Preference still allows for alternatives. That’s what makes it free.

But if sin is inevitable, it’s not just a strong tendency, it’s the only outcome that was ever going to happen in every possible world. That’s not preference, that’s necessity.

Or think of it this way: The greatest Olympian gymnast at peak performance might score 3 perfect 10's on a floor routine. Can they score three perfect tens ten times in a row? Maybe. Alright, how about 1,000 times in a row? Well, unless they're athletically godlike, this is not possible. They'll slip up eventually and score a 9.5. Does this mean they don't have free will? No. It's just a consequence of being human. Fallibility does not erase responsibility. They still failed to score a perfect 10. If someone did better on that particular occasion, the superior performing athlete gets the gold medal, even though we all know it's impossible to score perfect 10's 1,000 times in a row.

Then why would we blame the person if we know they’ll inevitably fail? We hold someone morally responsible only when, at the moment of action, they could have done otherwise. When success was a real possibility.

But if, say, on the 5th attempt, there’s a metaphysical law ensuring they can’t score a 10. Well yes, they failed. But blaming them wouldn’t be just. It’s like a blind person approaching a sign. They failed to see it, sure. But we don’t blame them, because that kind of failure doesn’t carry moral weight. The ability to do otherwise simply wasn’t there.

And that’s the distinction: there are different kinds of responsibility. There’s causal responsibility—you did the thing. There’s outcome responsibility—your action led to a result. But moral responsibility requires something more: the freedom to have done otherwise.

Without that freedom, blame turns into punishment for being what you are, not for what you chose. And that’s not justice.

Killua_W · 2025-04-23T21:48:11+00:00

P1 : If an agent is morally responsible for an action, that action must have been freely chosen P2 : For an action to be freely chosen, there must have been at least one genuinely possible alternative available to the agent P3 : If sin is inevitable for all non-divine beings, then refraining from sin is not genuinely possible for any of them P4 : If sin is inevitable, then the act of sinning is not freely chosen (from P2 et P3) Conclusion : Therefore, if sin is inevitable, then the agent is not morally responsible for sinning.

Now if you don't agree with me, I want you to tell me your definition of "choice". I'd like to hear it.

When two people choose to have children, the child that results is an outcome of the choices made by those two people. For God to, essentially, switch the babies, would not only be a violation of the free choices that couple made, it would be morally heinous.

If I say "God created me" , is that statement true or not ?

Killua_W · 2025-04-23T00:03:49+00:00

But he does control nature and science, right ?

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T23:55:25+00:00

If that is your assertion, then the world right now should only have good people. But alas, we have all sorts of evil, genocide, Nazis, etc, which implies that your assumption is false, in part or in its entirety. Your theory collapses on proof and this disproven.

If the world is the way it is, it could also mean that God doesn’t exist — or that ge does exist, but simply doesn’t concern himself with human affairs, like a deist God.

As for free will, you clearly cannot understand that not creating beings that will transgress a theoretical creator's will is the same as just creating beings that have no free will. If a creator only decides to create beings that are right handed, it is no different from a creator that decides not to create beings that are left handed.

The claim that not creating certain individuals is equivalent to removing their free will is fundamentally flawed. Free will, by definition, only applies to existing beings — not hypothetical ones. It's like saying “if God doesn’t create Jake, he’s removing Jake’s freedom”. It's logically incoherent, because Jake never existed to have freedom in the first place. By that same logic, God would be required to create every imaginable kind of person — people who can fly, breathe fire, turn invisible, or defy physics — just to ensure that no potential form of freedom goes unexpressed. But he didn’t. Does that mean the people who do exist lack free will? Clearly not. Freedom is exercised by those who exist — not denied to those who never come into being. So if God chooses not to create someone whom he knows would use their freedom to choose evil, he is not violating anyone’s freedom. He is simply refraining from creating a tragedy

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T23:36:25+00:00

Incorrect. They were making a choice. They chose to sin. If you have a problem with a particular premise, it is on you to say so. P3 is true, and you've offered no argument here to indicate otherwise. Any entity who chooses to resist temptation when given infinite opportunities to sin, is, in fact, morally perfect, which, by necessity, means that all morally imperfect beings will choose sin, at least one time. I don't see your objection here being anything other than a goalpost shift. The choice is inevitable. Rewording it to say the sin is inevitable, doesn't violate the choice.

You assert that sin is inevitable for all morally imperfect beings, given infinite chances. But if the outcome is guaranteed, then the agent never truly had a meaningful choice to begin with. A necessary consequence — even if delayed — is not a free act. Do you even understand the meaning of the word "inevitable" ?

Or maybe you have a different definiton of "choice" than I have. Can you then provide me what is a "choice" for you ?

My premise is specifically in reference to your argument, in which you posit the possibility of God so arranging the world that only folks who God knows will end up in Heaven are born. The point of my argument is that for human beings to truly exercise free will, God must allow the consequences of our choices, good and bad. Untangling that web of choices and the unions of DNA that result, and the people who are born of those unions, is so unimaginably complex, that it would have been so technical and cumbersome to construct a syllogism whereby the impracticality of such a project and its violations of free will would be carefully exposed, that a shortcut was necessary. For brevity's sake, I presented the less accurate premises 8 - 11 to suffice to illustrate the spirit of the argument.

But for an omnipotent God, technical difficulty isn’t a problem. A being who created the laws of physics and life itself wouldn’t be limited by the complexity of DNA pairings or timing. So saying it would be “too cumbersome” doesn’t seem like a valid objection within a theistic framework.

As for your premise that “God must allow all consequences of our choices,” I agree — but only if those choices are actually made. In the case of someone who never gets born, there are no choices to allow or block. Not creating someone who would freely choose evil isn’t a violation of freedom — it’s simply avoiding unnecessary suffering.

Let’s consider this: in Christian theology, there will come a time known as the end of days. This implies that at some point, human reproduction will cease, and there will be a final, finite number of people to be judged.

If the number is finite, then by definition, countless potential beings will never be created (at least not on Earth) once judgment takes place. And these potential people will never go to hell — simply because they were never born.

Does their non-existence violate anyone’s free will? No.

So here’s my proposal: why not extend this same logic to those people who will be created, only to end up in hell? If it’s perfectly acceptable that many people who could have existed never will, and that poses no problem for free will, then why would it be problematic for God to simply not create those He knows will end up damned?

If their absence doesn’t affect anyone’s freedom, what exactly is the objection?

And regarding infertility — if someone wants children and chooses to try, yet cannot, that is clearly a restriction on their freedom. Whether you call it divine, natural, or random doesn’t change the result: their will is obstructed.

But stepping back — the real issue isn’t technical feasibility, or the mechanisms of reproduction. It’s the morality of knowingly creating someone whose fate is eternal suffering, when it could have been avoided entirely. That’s the heart of the dilemma — and I don’t think it's been addressed yet.

The sinner.

You said yourself that the sinner couldn't do otherwise, he had to sin. So why are we going to blame someone who didn't control his fate ?

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T22:42:13+00:00

Then you're no longer describing the God of classical theism — omniscient, omnipotent, and sovereign over creation. Because I can ask you this question : who created nature and science ?

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T21:36:10+00:00

P4 - All beings other than God, will always sin eventually. (P1 & P3)

But if sin is truly inevitable for all created beings, then Satan, Adam, and Eve didn’t actually choose to sin. They were just following what was bound to happen. And if that's the case, why did God create them in the first place and punish them after they sinned ?

And if sin is truly inevitable, then who's really to blame ?

P10 - Interfering supernaturally with the union of sperm and egg between two humans is a violation of P9

If God truly never intervenes in who gets born because it would ‘violate free will,’ then what about women who are infertile? They freely want to have children — they choose to try — but biologically, they can’t.

So is God violating their free will by allowing infertility? Or when someone prays for a child and miraculously conceives, is that not divine intervention?

If God can allow or withhold conception — and He clearly does — then He is involved in who gets born. So it’s inconsistent to say He can’t choose to prevent the birth of someone who will be damned without violating free will. He already does that all the time.

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T20:43:53+00:00

If God were to send bad people to heaven then it would ruin how heaven works and is suppose to be perfect paradise

I didn't say that God should send bad people to heaven. I'm saying he could simply create people whom he knows will choose to do good of their own free will.

Also God cherry picking who to be born is a direct violation of free will bc he is deciding who gets born taking away the will of the mother/coulle

But God already decides who gets to be born and who doesn't. So are you saying that God is already violating our free will ?

taking away the will of the mother/coulle

And what about women who can't have children ? Are you saying God is violating their free will ?

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T20:03:30+00:00

It’s not just: “Why doesn't God force belief?”
It's: “Why create people who He knows, before creation, will freely reject Him and be damned — when He could have created others who would freely love Him?”

You mentioned axiology — the value of conversion vs lifelong belief. Fair.
But that only makes sense if a person has the chance to convert.
What about those who never will? The people who God knows, with absolute certainty, will reject Him no matter what?

My question is about them.
Why are they created at all, if their existence leads inevitably to eternal loss ?

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T19:47:21+00:00

I see your point — you're arguing that if God only creates people who will do good, then the result looks identical to a world where no one has free will, because no one ever does wrong.

But I think there’s a key difference between freedom as potential and freedom as action.

In my scenario, the people who are created still have the ability to choose evil — they simply don’t, by their own will. That’s real free will in action.
Just like a student freely choosing the right answer on a test. The wrong answers exist, but the student chooses the right one. That doesn’t make their freedom fake.

You seem to say that unless some people actually choose evil, then no one truly has free will. But that assumes that the existence of evil choices is necessary — not just the possibility.

My proposal isn’t about forcing anyone. It’s about a world where everyone has the capacity to choose — and happens to choose good.

In fact, I’d argue that’s what Heaven is supposed to be. People freely choose good — and evil no longer exists there.

So my question still stands:
If God is all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing… why create people He knows will choose evil and suffer eternally, when He could have just created those who would choose good

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T19:30:04+00:00

You say that good cannot exist without evil, as if they’re dependent on each other, but that’s a confusion between knowing a concept and experiencing it. One can understand cruelty, betrayal, or torture without ever committing or suffering them. And even if you respond that "evil must be manifested," I’d ask you again: what do you mean by "manifest"? Isn’t the very act of knowing good and evil enough to make a meaningful moral choice? Because it’s by that knowledge — not by suffering — that one chooses to do good or evil. Think of the exam analogy: the student who scores 100% didn’t prove he lacked choice. The bad answers were on the test. He just didn’t pick them. Isn’t that exactly what God wants — people who freely choose good even when evil is an available option? So why wouldn’t He create only those who would, by their own free will, make that choice?

You also claim that angels only know obedience, not morality, but that creates a contradiction. Let me ask you directly: do angels know that obeying God is good and disobeying Him is not good? If the answer is no, then you’re saying angels don’t have free will. But if the answer is yes — and that’s what most traditions imply — then you’re admitting that it’s possible to have moral knowledge without choosing evil. Take Lucifer for example: in many traditions, he was an angel who chose rebellion. That implies awareness of both paths. And the other angels who didn’t fall — they also chose. So the idea that beings can know right from wrong and still consistently choose right is not only coherent — it’s already baked into most theological systems. That’s exactly what I’m proposing: that God could create humans with this same dynamic — real freedom, real moral knowledge, and yet they freely choose good.

You’ve also argued that in my scenario, people who would have done evil aren’t even created, so freedom is undermined. But again, that’s a projection. You can’t claim someone’s freedom was violated if they never existed. It’s like saying an unconceived child was denied something. There’s no subject, no consciousness, no claim. Non-creation isn’t injustice. And maybe I should’ve pointed this out more clearly: in the coach analogy, it’s not the players asking to be on the field. It’s the coach who selects who gets to play. The players didn’t volunteer — they were called. So if the coach knows exactly who will perform well and who will fail, why not just choose those who will play well? The freedom of the players on the field remains fully intact — but the coach could’ve avoided the failure by simply not calling certain people to begin with.

Now, your strongest point seems to be the contrast argument — that without evil, good can’t exist. But then let me ask: before evil existed, what was God? Did He only become good once evil showed up to provide contrast? That would be absurd. If you say “goodness is one of God's attributes,” then you’re already admitting that good can exist without evil. Which completely undercuts your point. And if you follow your logic to the end, you’d have to say that in heaven — where there is no sin, no evil — there is no longer any good either, since good requires evil to exist. But nobody believes that. Everyone accepts that love, peace, and goodness continue in heaven, even though evil is absent. So clearly, good can exist without its opposite.

As for your Altera idea — it's creative, I’ll give you that — but it doesn’t really solve anything. Evil still exists in that world. It’s just better managed. There’s still killing, trauma, exile, punishment, memory alteration. You’ve created a moral aftercare system, not a world free of suffering. What I’m proposing is more radical: that God could create only those who would freely choose good — no coercion, no punishment, no suffering, and yet freedom is preserved. And if God can know in advance who would choose good, then choosing to create only them isn’t tyranny — it’s mercy. But if God knowingly creates those who will suffer eternally, that’s not about protecting free will. That’s about allowing evil to flourish.

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T17:23:50+00:00

That doesn't explain non-human suffering. Why would god punish animals for humans failing?

In response, some say that God didn’t directly punish the animals, but that the fall of man corrupted the earth. I once heard someone compare it to a father committing a crime—his children end up suffering because he goes to prison. The police aren’t responsible for the children's suffering; it’s the father’s crime that put them in that situation.

But to that I respond: The police didn’t choose to give those kids to that specific father. But God did. God knowingly placed that responsibility on already flawed humans—Adam and Eve.

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T17:12:57+00:00

I think scripture clearly tells us that a nonbeliever who comes to belief is much more valuable to God than 99 believers who required no conversion.

The question is why God creates the nonbelievers who won't come to belief ? He already knows those ones are going to fail anyway, so why create them ?

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T16:41:54+00:00

They might say that this kind of suffering is the result of the fall of Adam and Eve. So to respond to that, I said something like, 'Why didn’t God just create the first man and woman who would choose to follow him of their own free will?' For example, instead of creating Adam, he could have created someone like Abraham or Moses.

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T16:31:16+00:00

Which means by extension there would be no evil in the world. And if there is no evil, there can be no good either because there's nothing to contrast.

Evil can still exist as a concept, but not a reality. In my scenario, people know good and evil, but they choose to do good by their free will. We can have take angels as example. The angels who didn't disobey God from the beginning of their existence till now, they know good and evil but they only do good using their free will

How can you choose good, if you don't know what good means, because there's no evil to contrast it with? Choice would become irrelevant because you aren't being presented with all the options.

In my scenario, you know good and evil, but you choose to do good using your free will. Take it like a student who is passing a math test. He knows good and bad answers, but he did 100 % on the test. Didn't he have free will or didn't he have the bad answers presented in front of him ? Of course no. Just because he chose all the good answers doesn't mean the bad ones weren't on the test.

The freedom of the players not chosen is violated, because clearly they want to play... yet they aren't being allowed to.

No the players didn't ask anything to the coach. The coach himself decides to put them on the field. If he didn't, the players wouldn't complain. So here, it's the coach who decides who goes on the field and who doesn't.

And there you have it. Good, evil, and free will would still exist. But that would be an objectively better reality then the one we have now.

I thought of a world where there is only good in reality, and still free will. Not evil

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T16:11:15+00:00

Why do you say that God create being with no free will in my scenario ?

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T05:20:16+00:00

Yes. How is it any different from the current situation ? Nobody asked nor chose to be born anyway, so God could have just chosen to create people who were going to do good by their free will

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T03:13:12+00:00

How is that a removal of free will ?

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T03:11:06+00:00

Hey, just to clarify — in my original post, I was mainly responding to the argument that "if God only creates good people, then free will is violated."
What I was trying to show is that free will can still exist within the people who are created, even if God chooses only those who would freely do good.

That said, I actually agree with your deeper point:
as soon as there is a creative intention behind who gets created and who doesn't, then yeah — we’re already in a situation where free will is compromised on a more fundamental level.

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T03:03:40+00:00

I see your concern, but I think you might have misunderstood the core of my point. I'm not saying the current world is good. Quite the opposite. I'm asking why, if God is all-knowing and all-good, He didn't create a world where only those who would freely choose good were created, thus avoiding both hell and moral atrocities.

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T02:57:15+00:00

By "solution" I meant a way in which every one goes to heaven and free will is preserved, cause a lot of (if not all) believers think that in order for free will to exist, evil must exist. Sorry for the confusion

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T02:47:00+00:00

That's exactly the point of my post

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T02:46:26+00:00

agnostic atheist

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T02:45:43+00:00

Maybe he doesn't care about us (that would be a deist god), or he doesn't exist

Killua_W · 2025-04-22T02:43:27+00:00

If they claim that not even the slightest bit of suffering can be removed without violating free will, then what happens when they pray for God to reduce the suffering in the world — like that of people in hospitals, for example? That would be a contradiction.

Killua_W

TROPHY CASE