Theodicy and Blissful Freedom

A blunt commentator on the things around us can argue that by failing to choose the ‘obviously better’ possibility of making beings who would act freely but always go right, God cannot be both omnipotent and wholly good ‘. An underlying argument runs: 1 (1) If God does not choose the obviously better possibility of making beings who would accept freely and always go right,God cannot be both omnipotent and wholly good. (Assumption.)2 (2) God does not choose the obviously better possibility...(Assumption.)1,2 (3) God cannot be both omnipotent and wholly good.(1,2 modus ponens.)This, the Underlying Argument, is weaker than the Blunt Commentator’s original one. If it fails, the original one cannot succeed, but if it goes through, the original one does not necessarily go through. I number the main steps, chiefly to keep track of the assumptions.In Part I, I argue that the Underlying Argument fails to prove the conclusion that God cannot be both omnipotent and wholly good; and that it fails, from ignoring a view exploiting the notion of blissful freedom: a theologians’ notion, but one already appealed to by at least one philosopher strongly sympathetic to the Blunt Commentator’s argument. In Part II, I draw attention to an ambiguity in ‘always go right’, with a view to pursuing, in Part III, consequences of a further ambiguity to be seen in ‘God cannot be both omnipotent and good’, demanding attention to two diverse forms of theism. One of these— ‘existence-theism’—is invulnerable to a Blunt Commentator’s argument, but can exploit some of the Underlying Argument’s steps to support a Blunt Commentator’s conclusion in the sense needed to impugn the other form, ‘character-theism’.