Plantinga also, perhaps unwittingly, advocates a social Darwinism in which the rich and physically powerful are able to murder, rape and steal from weaker individuals (and are therefore less able to exercise their own free will to prevent their own suffering). And the thousands who starve to death every time the Earth completes a full rotation. This has certainly damaged his ability to empathise with the billions who live on less than a dollar each day. Plantinga is pontificating from the luxurious confines of his residence, funded by conveniently gullible sheep. Not everyone is given the same lifespan, physical strength, mental acuity, political clout, financial resources, and so on. Unfortunately, free will is meaningless unless everyone has an equal amount of it. Here, Plantinga takes the old canard of free will.

Attempts to shift the problem by asserting that human happiness is not the goal of life (but knowing god is) removes the omnibenevolence and omnipotence of god (if you love someone, you don't want them to suffer. An omnipotent deity could simply actualise a desired goal without needing to use suffering as a 'middle man'). Some approached involve invoking an unknown 'greater good' defense (which throws god's omnipotence under the bus. There have been intense and motivated efforts over the past two millennia to defend such a position rationally, and they have all failed. The Problem of Evil is an insurmountable one for Christians (and all other theists who believe in a perfectly loving, all-powerful and all-knowing god).

One note: Do not try to read an electronic version! The constant referring backward to numbered arguments will be very frustrating without a paper copy. Plantinga’s argument against the problem of evil is fascinating yet unsatisfying, and his discussion of the ontological argument is equally fun but equally unconvincing … like one of those puzzles where you know there’s something wrong and can’t quite place your finger on it. In the second half, Plantinga briefly introduces the Cosmological Argument and the Teleological Argument, and then spends the rest of the book on the Ontological Argument. Thus half of the book presents a case against God and half attempts to prove he exists. He spends half the book discussing the problem of evil, and the other half on natural theology. It’s is an excursion into the joy of logic … for the fun of it, not necessarily to reach any meaningful conclusions. Philosophical reflection, Plantinga assures us, is not that different than just thinking hard. This is an introduction to philosophical apologetics, a short little book that can be read in a couple hours, and understood in five or six hours. I’m secure in my status as a religion nerd, so I’ll admit I loved it. How do I rate a book that will bore most of you but titillate the rest? Half way between two stars and six stars, I guess.

God freedom and evil by alvin plantinga