When asking a theist why there is suffering in the world, or why their god allows bad things to

happen to good people, you tend to encounter all kinds of crazy or fallacious answers. The most
common answer you get is: “Because god has given us free will.” This of course raises a few more
questions in people's minds, it seems to me that it's the “dummy” answer to the question; the terms
“free will” are thrown out in hopes of discouraging further questioning by the intimidation of such a
tricky subject. Or perhaps the person once understood what conditions would allow the assertion to
become a sound argument, but has forgotten them. Either way, like most people, I think this answer
needs further investigation, in the name of honesty and free inquiry.

The first question to come to mind is a simple enough: When did god give us, or myself, free
will? I don't remember receiving this gift, and something of this magnitude is worth remembering. I've
never spoken to god, in any fashion, let alone have I ever noticed him (I will use the male pronoun
since it's the tradition) grant me anything. It seems as though he gifted our race with free will as a sort
of “batch deal”, a one-shot upgrade; but that presents the even bigger problem of me not existing at the
time in which this issuance occurred. There are some criteria that have to be met in order for a god to
grant a human free will, one of these would be the need for the god, the free will, and the human, to
exist; it stands to reason that an imaginary god cannot grant an imaginary ability to an imaginary
person – we have to establish the existence of all the elements of the exchange before we can establish
the event to be possible. Now, let's do something crazy: let's just grant the existence of the Abrahamic
god, as well as the issuance of free will; this is reckless and silly, but let's just roll with it for the sake of
argument. Even supposing the existence of a god, and free will, we still have to grapple with the issue
of a specific human existing, or not existing, at the time in which free will was assigned; this is
something we can handle within the realm of natural science, and the realm of empirical evidence. We
know that everyone currently walking the planet was not present at the moment that god allegedly
granted us free will; and as we know, you cannot grant something to someone who does not exist. So,
even after we bend over backwards, and ignore the burdens of proof for the existence of a god, and of
free will, the argument still proves illogical. It follows that if we demand, as we should, that the
burdens of proof be met for all elements of the original assertion (meaning: god, free will, and humans)
that the assertion will prove false in its entirety. After all, it couldn't work even if it was granted a pass
on two out of its three premises having to prove themselves, it would certainly crumble under the
weight of having to deal with the other two elements having to be proven as well.

The first question leads to another. That's the question of whether free will be granted, or
assigned. It seems as though to be real free will, it has to be elected by the subject, on an individual
level. If the assertion is that a god assigned us free will, before we were born, all in one shot, without
deference to the wants of each individual, I have no problem concluding the person making this
assertion is a bit crazy, or unfamiliar with the terms. Anything assigned to a person under those
circumstances cannot be described as free will. The presented situation is more akin to an issuance, or
mandate, and free will cannot be assigned, or issued, by its definition. This is no small problem, and I
have yet to hear a logically sound explanation for it. One important element of free will is that it grants
a person the ability to say no, to resist something, to choose to not act in a certain fashion; so, if we
were unable to choose the “no” option when a god was assigning us free will, it follows whatever was
granted wasn't free will, it was compulsory. A happening in which we had no say, no input to the
process, and to which there is no appeal; and now that we have it, can we exercise our will to be free of
it? Are we currently able to jettison that aspect of ourselves? Can we shed our free will if we so
choose? The answer is obvious, we can't. So, if we had no say at all in its implementation, and we
cannot choose to distance ourselves from it, let alone dispel it, it seems to not be very “free” at all. Of
course I don't think anyone would want to lose the ability to make their own choices, but it's an
interesting subject to think about, I may suggest we call the whole argument silly and go with
something a little less insane, like free will being a byproduct of consciousness..

Another interesting point raised by god's supposed issuance of free will to humans is that if we
did not elect our free will, then god put his own agenda above ours, and thus our free is a result of god's
will. It seems as though god had a plan to grant us something, and we didn't have a say either way. This
theme is represented throughout the beliefs and dogmas of the organized Christians. Take the example
of the common assertion that “god has a plan for all of us”, this statement is highly corrosive to free
will; if god has a plan for us to follow, and we cannot deviate from it, then we don't have free will.
Moreover, if god does indeed have a plan, and we can exercise free will to not follow it, then what
good is the plan in the first place? This gets even stickier once we start throwing other christian claims
into the mix; for example, the claim that god is omniscient and has a plan for us, that he knows
everything that can happen, as well as everything that will happen. If that's true, then god knows what
choices will be put in front of us at any time, and also knows what we will choose, and further he
knows the consequences of the choices we will make; if those are true, then how can it be said that any
choice we make will be outside the bounds of god's plan? This is a self-contradicting claim, as is the
claim that when handing out free will, our agenda was served by our election for it; in both claims
god's will or god's plan were/are the primary ambition being served. Also, by saying that god's plan is
the reason that some evils happen, or suffering occurs, you admit that god is then directly responsible
for some (or some may argue all) of the evil and suffering in our world; to which one is entitled to ask
why does he choose to let humans suffer, or endure evil? It seems as though the more answers given by
theists, the more questions are raised, and the more their gods seem to be unconcerned with the affairs
of humans, indeed it may even begin to appear that their gods seem to be the cause of more and more
evil the longer we pursue the line of questioning.

Not as often talked about is the observation that a lot of the evil and suffering that happens is
not caused by human's free will, a lot of bad things happen because of reasons outside of human
causation; earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, and other natural disasters. When confronted with this
observation, you may a hear a kind of tactical retreat from a theist, they will start to back pedal; you
may hear “because sometimes shit happens”. So now we have a third explanation, the assertion that just
plain random chance causes evil, which is another illogical position, since we know that earthquakes,
volcanoes, and floods have perfectly natural explanations. Randomness aside, you may also hear
another silly answer: that somehow god willed it to happen, for reasons beyond our understanding, or at
least a reason that escapes us at the moment. If faced with these replies, you can observe the changing
of positions; the theist went from “free will causes the suffering in the world” to “free will, random
chance, natural causes, and finally god's will cause the evil and suffering in the world”. You can see the
sort of conversational retreat that has been done; the answer to the question now barely resembles the
original answer; and it is worth pointing out that as the explanations continue, the more their god seems
undesirable to most reasonable people.

We also have to address the consequences of humans exercising the free will that was given to
them by god, if we grant that assertion anyways. It seems if an omniscient god knows everything, then
god would surely know that free will would lead to suffering, or evil actions performed by humans.
Doesn't it follow that god is then must share blame for granting the free will which was used to perform
evil acts, since he knew ahead of time it would happen? That is to say, he knew it would happen and
did nothing to stop it, or help someone stop it; that is no more moral than a human knowingly giving
another human the means to murder someone, in full knowledge of what's going to happen. It is
immoral to do nothing to prevent this, and since god is the ultimate moral high ground, it is sad to see
him fail in this way. It seems as though god has given humankind the means to carry out evil, while
knowing all along what they would do, and not lifting an all-powerful finger to prevent it. This is not
the kind of work one would expect from the ultimate moral authority, doubly so if he claims to love the
victims; it seems as though he wants his loved ones to suffer unnecessarily in a sadistic fashion, and
that is also immoral. Another question would be: what of the victim's free will? Why did god ignore it?
I'm sure if you asked a rape victim, they would tell you that they willed to not suffer the harm, so why
did their will not matter? It seems in all these kinds of crimes, the only free will that mattered was the
criminal's, not the victim's. Why is that? Did god let one person choose to exercise their will, while
restraining the other to suffer against their will? If so, that's also immoral. It also demonstrates this god
to be a capricious one, randomly deciding who's free will should be observed, and when, and further,
how. This realization would invalidate the idea of that will being free, it is subject to seemingly random
approval, unless the will is being used to rape, kill, or destroy; in those cases, god seems to have no
problem allowing the action, indeed god seems very consistent in allowing those kinds of free will –
sadly.

The only clear message we can extract from these confused and often contradictory or immoral
answers is that the theists holding the views are all kinds of inconsistent, irrational, or just plain lost in
their beliefs and claw desperately at the ground looking for answers. Some of these answers just cannot
be expressed by a moral, thinking, or responsible person. Continuing to follow a god that has been
shown to be immoral and capricious, as well as sadistic and at least partly absentee, is something that
requires a lot of irrationality, compartmentalization, bad reasoning, and/or ignorance. The only
responsible thing to do is to evaluate the answers from critical standpoint; and disregard that which is
found to be evil, illogical, or otherwise undesirable, no matter how you feel about it (or how others feel
about it). Any belief that would cause you to answer a question with an immoral or illogical answer is
probably not a belief you should hold; you should investigate what else is available that would allow
you to not side with a force that has demonstrated itself to be so evil. Or, learn to swim, and say no to
unnecessary authority that makes you sound really silly.