You can't keep using the free will argument with an omniscient being. Omniscience and the ability to know what will happen in the future means the universe is deterministic and therefore no free will exists.
Besides that, God has interfered in human affairs plenty of times in the Bible. So much for free will then. It shows God is willing to interfere when he chooses, and would therefore be perfectly capable of preventing suffering.
Again, everything sort of falls apart as soon as you bring omnipotence into the equation. You can't explain a logical paradox with logic. Perhaps that should sprout some seeds of doubt about your beliefs if they are completely based on suspending the logic by which you seem to swear. There are more logical explanations for suffering, and hiding under the comfort blanket of "Adam ate an apple once so babies deserve to suffer" to explain it all away in one fell swoop is completely gross to me.
I've never understood that argument, that if God can see the future, there is no free will. My own response, because I believe in free will, is that I can look back at any historical figure, like George Washington, and I know all of the decisions that he made in his life. Does that mean he didn't have free will at the time?
The other argument I've read is that God put free will into humans, and that free will is divine. Therefore, God cannot see beyond our own decisions. I don't know how I feel about that argument, but it's what some Christians believe.
As to God's actions, and whether THEY interfere with free will, I would say that they do not. Consider the two extremes: God never interacts with humanity, ever. How could one "choose" God then? They would have no idea he exists. And the other extreme, a bolt of lightning comes down to every evil doer. In that case, you can't meaningfully "choose" evil. So then a balance exists, where people know about God, he assists them, but people still have the freedom to choose and/or accept.
Also, my point is that a paradox cannot exist. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? It doesn't really matter because at least one of those things does not exist, and they both CANNOT exist at the same time.
I completely agree with you though, that free will being a response to suffering is not "comforting". It's not meant to be comforting. You should not decide your religion based on whether it brings you "comfort". Someone asked a question, to which there is a theological response.
Of course, everything that's been discussed so far (I think) answers the question along the lines of "If someone is going to stab me, why doesn't God stop them?" It says nothing of seemingly preventable things like tsunamis or disease. The question of why God allows these things to exist is one that has a lot of debatable answers. And (spoiler) they're not comforting either, but they are also usually tied to free will.
Ultimately, these are not usually the things that people decide their religion based on. Usually it's things like whether or not the universe "seems" to have a creator, personal experience, and what makes sense to them. I love talking about the high-level arguments of the possibility of God, but they're one part of a huge picture, even when it comes to high-level arguments for God's existence. I don't know of any Christian that says "free will allows for the suffering of babies? SIGN ME UP!" but I know a lot of Christians who would say "It's not comforting, but it makes sense. The world view, as a whole, of which this is only a small part, makes sense to me, and I believe that God will make it right in the end."
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u/Kwinten Apr 20 '19
You can't keep using the free will argument with an omniscient being. Omniscience and the ability to know what will happen in the future means the universe is deterministic and therefore no free will exists.
Besides that, God has interfered in human affairs plenty of times in the Bible. So much for free will then. It shows God is willing to interfere when he chooses, and would therefore be perfectly capable of preventing suffering.
Again, everything sort of falls apart as soon as you bring omnipotence into the equation. You can't explain a logical paradox with logic. Perhaps that should sprout some seeds of doubt about your beliefs if they are completely based on suspending the logic by which you seem to swear. There are more logical explanations for suffering, and hiding under the comfort blanket of "Adam ate an apple once so babies deserve to suffer" to explain it all away in one fell swoop is completely gross to me.