Saturday, July 4, 2009

An argument for the incompatibility of Defensive prayer and the FWD

It seems that defensive prayer dealing with demonic activity is incompatible with the Free Will Defense. Many Christians, particularly those that come from Pentecostal leaning backgrounds, believe that demons are active in the world. Demons persecute people both physically and mentally; some people suffer from thorns in the flesh, while others suffer demonic possession. However, prayer can change this. On the one hand, one might pray that God offers protection from demonic activity. On the other hand, one might take part in an exorcism. In either case, there is an implicit tension with the Free Will Defense (FWD).

First, the FWD. The FWD assumes that free will is such a great good that it justifies the existence of moral evil. The FWD can also be used to argue that the only evil that actually exists is moral evil, since natural evil is possibly the activity of free, spiritual agents. In other words, many conceptions of the FWD hold
(D) Demons have free will, and since free will is such a great good, demonic moral evil is justified.
Defensive prayer, in contrast, takes for granted that one's prayer and God's activity can sway demonic activity. For example, one might pray for protection from demonic activity, or pray to be freed from demonic influence or control. In either case, defensive prayer seems to assume implicitly
(P) God can and sometimes does prevent demons from harming humans.
The question is whether or not (D) and (P) are compatible. As of now, (P) and (D) do not directly contradict each other, but there might be a proposition or group of propositions such that if it is added to (P) and (D), it leads to a contradiction. It seems given the FWD, there is such a proposition or group of propositions.

After all, to say that (P) is true seems to presuppose
(P*) God sometimes thwarts the free decisions of demons.
Now (P*) seems incompatible with the free will defense. For if God sometimes thwarts the the free decisions of moral agents, then it was obviously possible for God to create a world W, where
(W) In W, agents have free will, and whenever an agent is going to exercise his free will so as to bring about moral evil, God either (a) prevents the agent from exercising his free will in that way (b) quarantines the consequences of the agent's actions so that no other moral agent suffers a moral evil (c) convinces the agent to act otherwise or (d) prevents the moral evil in some other way, without removing the agent's free will.

Now (W) is clearly better than (P*), so if both were feasible for God and God actualized a world where (P*) is true rather than the world W, then - absent further theodicy - God is not perfectly good. In other words,
(1) Either God actualizes a world where agents have free will and God always respects the free decisions of those agents without interfering, or God does not actualize a world with free will at all.
Given the appeal of a Free Will Theodicy, we'll want to accept the first disjunct:
(1*) In the actual world, God always respects the free decisions of agents without interfering.
Now if (1*) is true, it follows that (P) above is false. For example, (P) seems to entail
(P*) In the actual world, God does not always respect the free decisions of agents without interfering.
But (P*) and (1*) contradict each other.

In conclusion, it seems that the FWD is incompatible with defensive prayer. In other words, if the FWD is true, then prayer cannot and God will not sway the decisions of demons.

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