Abstract

The starting point of this essay is the theological problem of evil and the argument known as the Free Will Defence. I argue that the construction of a successful Free Will Defence requires one to adopt a libertarian account of human free will; and the attempt to defend libertarianism leads to an examination of causality and explanation. ;The theory of explanation developed here is pluralistic, in that it recognizes differing patterns of explanation as valid. At the same time it is a realist type of theory, in that it holds that there are criteria associated with each schema of explanation which are objective and not context-dependent. ;Corresponding to different patterns of explanation are different types of causation. What is common to all the varieties of causation is that certain conditionals hold which link cause to effect; what differentiates them is that these conditionals may be either uniformly strict or variably strict conditionals. ;I argue that all causal concepts are tightly linked to concepts pertaining to agency. The 'can' of agency is formalized in a tensed, modalized propositional logic, System TA; this is then used to define causal necessity and possibility. Causal priority, the asymmetrical relationship obtaining between cause and effect, is defined by means of the notion of an agent's doing one thing by doing another. The result is a non-Humean theory of causality, according to which we have empirical knowledge of necessary connections in nature. ;This theory of causality becomes the basis of a defence of libertarianism which will supplement the Free Will Defence. ;The stage is set for the discussion of the problem of evil and the Free Will Defence by a preliminary chapter on the divine attributes. A definition of omnipotence in the tradition of Aquinas is defended. In the section on omniscience, I take alleged episodes of precognition on the part of humans as the model for God's knowledge of future contingencies and counterfactual conditionals. ;The final chapter takes up the problem of natural evil, and considers four different approaches which might be taken, supposing the Free Will Defence to have been successful in countering the argument from moral evil. The only approach which survives critical examination is the one which posits the existence of fallen angels, whose misdeeds are at the root of those evils not due to the misdeeds of humans