this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2025
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Imagine you have two meals before you, a pizza and a burger. You're free to want either of them, you're free to say what's your preference is, but I physically restrain you and force you to eat the pizza whether you prefer it or not. Would you consider yourself free?
That's a good illustration of how free will could exist without evil. Neither pizza nor burger are evil: we can choose either without compromising our spirit.
Now imagine a third meal - your neighbor's 2 year old kid strapped to a table next to a fork and knife, screaming for their life. You have the option for the prior two; or you shove a fork in that kid's eye and dig in.
The absence of that third option does NOT equate to a lack of free will. Giving people that option is evil. Why would god give us that option?
But in reality, there can't be two perfectly good options. Without evil at all, there's always only one option. And God doesn't give options, he gives freedom. In that allegory he gives a fork and money to buy lunch. Humanity chose instead to buy rope and use the fork to kill the neighbour's child… God can't be accused for that.
In our reality. That god created, right? You don't need to explain how things are now - I see it every day. The question is why god would have made it that way.
Your post basically amounts to "god isn't all powerful" if he's bound by those same constraints we are; or "god isn't all good" if isn't bound by those constraints, but chose a system in which freedom includes evil. So which is it?
You have free will though....
Do people in prison no longer have free will, are they exempt from sin?