POINTS
Preventing harm does not remove free will—only preventing choices would.
Human societies already prevent harm constantly; we do not see it as anti-free-will.
Extreme harm like rape and murder do not produce useful moral development.
The forcefield when faced with grave danger proposal is minimal, targeted, not utopian or hedonistic.
Believers already accept divine intervention inconsistently – eg . God is praised for giving you a bit of patience as if that matters more than baby John’s terrible disease.
Religious arguments prioritize the attacker’s freedom over the victim’s freedom – eg Hitler’ s free will against the will of the Jews.
Natural evil already disproves the Free Will Defence for what use is free will giving rise to love if the cost is that most of us die in the plague?
Humans would protect better than God—revealing the moral incoherence and hypocrisy of the doctrine.
THE ARGUMENT
Religionists say that God is all-good and creates all and creates only good, but we still see natural evils such as diseases and earthquakes happening. They seem to think God is right to do so.
He is not, and we must see such evils as intolerable. One reason is that we all harbour a potential for indifference and malice, so anything that may arise from that—such as theological notions that evil is tolerable before God—is asking for too much trust.
The almighty God can protect us from serious harm by putting a force-field around us. That would be a simple solution.
The Free Will Defence says God gave us the gift of free will and we abused it, so evil is our fault, not his.
We have the right to feel offended by that and oppose it as passive-aggression. We have to be directed by what it looks like, and it does look like subconscious hostility at best.
The Defence tells us that we should not be conscious beings who are living in a hedonistic paradise—served by a loving God who protects us from all danger by a force-field or whatever.
But surely he could allow us to activate a force-field when faced with major danger? That would allow us to have free will but suffer and do no serious harm.
To look around and argue, “He has not—therefore he is right not to do it,” is illogical.
God is supposed to give us a lot of freedom to do terrible things. Yet he is not worried about our freedom when he forbids us to believe there should be a force-field around our children which protects them from suffering. He wants you to force yourself to believe your ailing child should suffer—yes, force, for it is so unnatural and contrary to what you want. That is the kind of compassion he has for you and the kind of respect he has for your will!!
The Church will say they will never learn to be compassionate if we get this force-field. But what if they are destined to be taken from this world at seven or so? He can't allow us to believe there should be protection from pain because he does not give such protection, and he does not stand for being criticised.
Nature makes us think that God should put a force-field around our children to save them from suffering. God does not have any regard for our free will at all, for we are not allowed to suggest it. Faith is in an almighty God who could implement the force-field system but doesn’t. Faith is degrading your own psyche. It is therefore a proof that the free will defence is untrue, because the defence requires self-degradation to work. Thus, it fails to defend anything except divine callousness, which is indefensible. Violence on yourself is no basis for faith. It will only lead to the enabling of violence, if not religious-based bloodshed.
If we could create the force-field, we would not be allowed to by believers. Think on that! If we could hypothetically fight almighty God and do it, they would protest. Think on that!!!
No argument about love being voluntary etc. is strong enough. We find that rejecting the force-field suggestion is not loving. The incoherence is obvious. The Church defines compassion as the attitude that a person should not be suffering and of being willing to do whatever you can about it; therefore, to limit your compassion by wishing there was no force-field just to please a God is seriously wrong.
APPENDIX: SIMULATION
God could put us in a universe we all feel free and loving but in fact are determined. We wouldn't know any different - and we don't know as it is anyway.
The Defence is against the idea that we should be happy beings whose wills are not our own - but feel like our own but which are operated by God unknown to us.
Love is a voluntary thing. And according to religionists, it is better to be able to love which means having free will. And they say it is better to be able to harm than to be a tremendously happy person who is not free, and not capable of love. Or even somebody who is only partly free and partly able to love.
There is no evidence that we are really free anyway. Even if we are free we do not know for sure how free we are. So it could be that our wills feel like they are our own but are actually the result of causes that happens deep in our minds that we are not aware of. It would not mean necessarily that sensing you are free is an illusion. It could mean that being part of a determined existence is what you mean by feeling your will is yours.
A computer can look like it is acting freely when it is in fact not. If it could feel, it would be happy with that and thus “feel free”. The look of being free is what it is all about for us and for computers.
My point: we already kind of have the simulation…