This paper is an attempt to enucleate some basic assumptions of the free will defence by constructing a formal base language expressing, albeit minimally, some of the relevant concepts, and considering some possible extensions of this language. The paper is intended to be a contribution to what we might call "theological dialectic" -the reasoned evaluation of disputation between theologian and atheologian through the isolation of basic commitmentstores common to both disputants, and location and analysis of points of disagreement) The object of the paper is simply a clear statement of the key assumptions involved, and not settlement of the dispute. The former goal, while less ambitious in itself, is clearly a necessary condition of a rational approach to the latter. Before constructing the language, I try to set out, in a very simplified form, the argument from evil and the free will defence.
The problem of evil may be set very simply, and I think elegantly, through this argument. ~ Every existent state of affairs proceeds from God. Evil exists. Therefore, evil proceeds from God.
1 Vide C. L. Hamblin, Fallacies (London: Methuen, 1970).
This version, in a somewhat more complex form, is stated by St. Anselm in De Casu Diaboli, Ch. I. See Truth, Freedom and Evil: Three Philosophical Dialogues, edited and translated by lasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson (New York: Harper and Row. 1967), pp. 145f.