Reasonable Faith

Guest (Male): Bill, our friend Frank Turek does a terrific job speaking on and defending the Christian faith. Like you, he's known for taking questions on university and college campuses. He's very popular and obviously is often challenged by those holding opposing views, not only at these live events but also on social media.

Here's a case in point. A YouTuber named Jay thinks Frank is avoiding a question he was asked by a young atheist. Frank is not one to avoid tough questions, so let's take a look at some video clips and see what's going on here. Here's the first clip.

Jay: I just want to say maybe we've found Frank's kryptonite because another witty student asked a very simple question. If God is perfect, why did God create imperfect beings? It seems simple, right? But I want you to stick around until the end because this young woman slowly puts Frank on roller skates.

She does it in the best way possible. She's not yelling, she's not being rude, and she's not trying to score cheap points. She is just calmly forcing him to face the question, and that is what we like to see on this channel. Not people screaming at each other or running from the topic, but someone kindly holding the argument in the place long enough to see if it actually works.

The question is not why didn't God make robots? The question is why would a perfect God create a world where sin, suffering, bad judgment, and eternal consequences are possible in the first place? Once she keeps pressing the point, the conversation starts moving.

Guest (Male): Jay is admitting that Frank is Superman here. The kryptonite is the way the upcoming question is phrased. Bill, I think that you can see where this is going by the question Jay previews in that clip we just saw. If God is perfect, why didn't he make us perfect rather than flawed and avoid all the problems that result from sin? Do you see any initial problems with the way this question is being phrased?

Dr. William Lane Craig: Let me begin by saying I really like Jay's demeanor. I think it's wonderful the way he approaches these questions in a calm and dispassionate way. I resonate with that. The simple question was, "If God is perfect, why did he create imperfect beings?"

The simple answer to that question is so that they can experience the incommensurable good of knowing God and his love forever. That simple answer suggests that the question must have a suppressed clause, some hidden assumption. It really asks why he created imperfect beings rather than perfect beings.

That occasions the answer that only God is a perfect being, and it's impossible to create God. Necessarily, any created being will be imperfect. Notice that is not to say morally bad. Adam and Eve were created sinless, but they were not perfect. They were innocent but not perfect.

Then the supposedly simple question gets unpacked even further by Jay. He says, "Why would a perfect God create a world where sin, suffering, bad judgment, and eternal consequences are possible?" The question is misformulated. There's no problem with a world in which sin, suffering, bad judgment, and eternal consequences are possible, just so long as none of them is actual.

The real question is why God created a world in which these things are actual. And the answer to that is well known. There may be no world feasible for God in which everyone freely lives a sinless life. The great Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga has called this transworld depravity.

In every world of free persons feasible for God, some of them at least go wrong and do evil. So, if God wants to create free persons, then he has to accept that some of them will sin and maybe even reject him forever.

Guest (Female): But I'm just going to say one general question. Why would a perfect God create imperfect beings? He has the power to alter the laws of the universe and logic if he has theoretically created the universe. But he actively chose to create a world in which sin has the capacity to exist and one where sin and suffering is necessary in order to appreciate good. Why couldn't he just create a world of all good that we could all accept that is perfectly good? Creating perfect beings would mean no mistakes in our judgment, which would mean no sin. Why could he not do that?

Frank Turek: All right, this is already a better question than people realize because she is not just asking why is there evil? She is asking why a perfect God would design a system where evil is even possible.

Jay: Because the question is not why didn't God make robots? The question is why would a perfect God create a world where sin, suffering, bad judgment, and eternal consequences are possible in the first place? And once she keeps pressing the point, the conversation starts moving.

Guest (Male): We've done multitudes of podcasts on the problem of evil and related matters, and you've written on it extensively, Bill. Does this question fall under the heading of the problem of evil, and what do you think about the way she articulated this question?

Dr. William Lane Craig: Yes, this is an example of the so-called problem of evil. But she's not asking just one question, but a whole series of different questions. Notice carefully her preamble. God has the power to alter the laws of the universe and logic. Virtually nobody believes that God has the power to alter the laws of logic.

And if you do say that God can alter the laws of logic, then he could bring it about both that evil exists and does not exist, that God both exists and does not exist, so there just is no problem of evil. The fact is you cannot escape logic. Then she asks why God created a world in which sin has the capacity to exist and where sin and suffering are necessary in order to appreciate good.

As I said a moment ago, there's no problem with a world in which it is possible for sin to exist. But then she says sin and suffering are necessary in order to appreciate good. Where did she get that idea? That's not part of classical theism or Christianity. I don't believe that, and honestly, Kevin, I don't know anybody else who believes that.

The fact is she's just attacking a straw man. And then she asks why didn't God create an all-good world? The answer to that is that given human freedom, such a world may not be feasible for God. Then she asks why didn't God create a world of perfect beings? But as I explained, only God is a perfect being, and God can't be created.

Guest (Male): Let's take a look at another clip. Jay wants to stress that the question is not about robots.

Jay: Because the question is not why didn't God make robots? The question is why would a perfect God create a world where sin, suffering, bad judgment, and eternal consequences are possible in the first place?

Guest (Male): What you're saying is logically possible, but it might not be actual with free creatures because there's one thing that God can't do, and that is a contradiction. He can't force free creatures to do what he wants.

Guest (Female): It's not forcing if we're all perfect with perfect minds who can reason that that's the correct answer.

Frank Turek: Okay, but then if he doesn't give us free will to disobey, then there's no opportunity for love because love has to be freely given. Sure, God could have created a universe of robots, perfect robots that never break down, the code is always good. But would it be a moral universe if he did that?

Guest (Female): Who knows? He's the one who created the law that we have to be imperfect to be moral.

Frank Turek: No, I'm not following you there. What do you mean by that?

Guest (Female): It's mostly just in the sense that simply having the capacity to sin doesn't mean that we would inherently sin should we have been created perfect. The fact that we did decide to stray means that we were created imperfect.

Frank Turek: No, not necessarily. According to the Bible, you could give a creature free will created beautiful like Satan. And if you give that creature the capacity to either obey or disobey, that creature has become a moral creature. The same thing is true when it comes to Adam and Eve.

When you say perfect, that needs to be unpacked. What does perfect mean? If perfect means that the person does not have the free will to disobey, I would argue that's not a perfect being. That's a robot.

Guest (Male): Frank admits that there are some concepts like perfection that need unpacking. But Jay, this YouTuber, thinks Frank is not hearing the question correctly, Bill.

Dr. William Lane Craig: Frank correctly says that a sinless world of free creatures is logically possible. But maybe it cannot be actual, or as I put it a moment ago, it may not be feasible for God. Frank correctly emphasizes that God cannot do the logically impossible, like make someone freely do something.

At this point, the conversation begins to degenerate. The student thinks that God made a law that you have to be imperfect in order to be moral. She also thinks that a world of mindless robots could have been a moral world. It's no wonder that Frank doesn't understand her. She is so confused.

Then she admits that having the capacity to sin does not imply that one actually does sin. And then she repeats her hypothesis that God could have created a world of perfect creatures. But that, as I say, is metaphysically impossible.

Guest (Male): Frank asks her for clarification in this next clip. Check it out.

Guest (Female): Right. Well, in what sense would you mean that a being has free will and is not a robot and always chooses the right way?

Frank Turek: Well, from this general argument, because the stance is that God exists and therefore did create the universe and the laws that follow it, perfect is essentially just whatever he says. Is it not?

Guest (Female): Well, you've talked a couple of times about whether God has the power to create perfect creatures, Bill.

Frank Turek: Here again, we see her misperception that God can do just anything, which is not what theists believe. What she should say is it's logically possible for God to create a world of free creatures who always freely do the right thing.

But then the correct response is that while such a world may indeed be logically possible, it's not feasible for God to actualize.

Guest (Male): One more clip here. Jay spells out the problem posed by the question once again.

Dr. William Lane Craig: If God made everything, then God is the one defining the rules of this system. That is the problem. If God is the creator of the system, then you cannot just point to the system and say this is how it had to be. Had to be according to who?

Because if God made the rules, then God also made the rule that freedom requires the ability to ruin everything. And if he did not make the rule, then we need to ask why God is limited by a moral system outside of himself. Either way, the robot answer does not solve the problem.

Guest (Male): If God made the rules, then he could rig the rules to avoid the complications of sin entering the world through free creatures, Bill.

Dr. William Lane Craig: Listening to the previous clip, I began to suspect that the student's problem really lay in her misconception of divine omnipotence. And now listening to Jay, I feel certain of it. They have this strange view that God just makes up all the rules he wants and therefore can do absolutely anything.

But that is not the classic understanding of omnipotence. Omnipotence means that there's no state of affairs that God is unable to actualize due to a lack of power on his part. Let me repeat that because it's important. Omnipotence means that there's no state of affairs that God is unable to actualize due to a lack of power on his part.

But if a state of affairs is logically incoherent or metaphysically impossible, then it is inherently unactualizable, and that is no infringement of God's omnipotence.

Guest (Male): As we wrap it up today, Bill, I want to emphasize again that I think Frank does a great job. But this seems to be an example of a question that takes a lot of unpacking in a limited Q and A session. It's also a chance to see a challenging question and answer in action. Frank gets asked the same questions over and over, and he may have thought that this question was going in a familiar direction when, in fact, it was a little more subtle. The robot thing is maybe one aspect of it. Jay wanted more. But did he answer the main components of the question, Bill?

Dr. William Lane Craig: Honestly, Kevin, the question was not subtle. It was simply confused. It was a morass of confusion. Frank tried his best to untangle the mess, but that's very difficult to do on the fly.

You and I have the advantage of being able to sit back and listen to these clips over and over again in order to analyze them. And when we do, this student's confusions and errors just become patent. So, I would not criticize Frank for finding it difficult to respond to a confused question of this sort on the fly.