Faith and Philosophy

Volume 16, Issue 3, July 1999

Might-Counterfactuals, Transworld Untrustworthiness and Plantinga’s Free Will Defence

Plantinga’s Free Will Defense (FWD) employs the following proposition as a premise: ◊TD. Possibly, every essence is transworld depraved. I argue that he fails to establish his intended conclusion because the denial of ◊TD is epistemically possible. I then consider an improved version of the FWD which relies on ◊TU. Possibly, every essence is transworld untrustworthy. (The notion of transworld untrustworthiness is the might-counterfactual counterpart to Plantinga’s would-counterfactual notion of transworld depravity.) I argue that the denial of ◊TU is also epistemically possible and, therefore, that the improved FWD fares no better than the original at establishing the compatibility of God and evil.