The Defense from Plenitude against the problem of evil

Abstract

Classically, theists employed a wide and complex variety of arguments in defending their beliefs against the problem of evil. Contemporary discussion of the problem of evil, however, has centered about only one of these arguments: the Free Will Defense (FWD). Although the FWD has been supported quite impressively in recent years by Alvin Plantinga,1 there are still, perhaps, gaps in this defense. 2 Pending their remedy, I should like to shift attention to a somewhat different classical strategy for defending theism against the problem of evil. Let me call this strategy the Defense from Plenitude (DFP). Like the FWD the DFP is to be found in the writings of Augustine. 3 The DFP might with good reason be thought to be a version of or a part of the classical FWD, but it turns out to be incompatible with the FWD in Plantinga's formulation of it; and in any case the burden of its argument is born not by the notion of free will, but by notions like plenitude, richness, variety, and complexity. I should like, then, to explicate the DFP and to argue that it is both plausible in itself and in some respects superior to Plantinga's formulation of the FWD.