Transworld Depravity and Unobtainable Worlds

Abstract

The free will defense attempts to show that the existence of God is logically compatible with the existence of evil, and it received its most sophisticated development in the work of Alvin Plantinga (1974). Many philosophers believe that Plantinga's free will defense conclusively demonstrates the logical compatibility of God and evil. Philosophers such as W. Alston, R. Adams, and W. Rowe have written that Plantinga's version of the free will defense solves the deductive problem of evil.1 An integral part of Plantinga's free will defense is the concept of transworld depravity. If every essence suffers from transworld depravity, God could not create a morally perfect world, i.e., a world containing moral good but no moral evil. Thus, if every essence suffers from transworld depravity, God has a reason for creating a world containing evil. Since Plantinga is giving a free will defense and not a theodicy, he does not claim that all essences have transworld depravity.2 Instead, he claims that it is possible that all essences suffer from transworld depravity; let us call this the hypothesis of universal transworld depravity. Recently some philosophers have argued that Plantinga has not proved that universal transworld depravity is logically possible. It has