On the traditional Christian doctrine: 1. People have free will (in Heaven as on Earth). 2. Those with free will can go to Hell. 3. Heaven is eternal. Many Christians also hold: 4. God is all powerful, knowing and good and 5. Free will can justify eternal suffering, evil, or hell. The paper argues that those who accept a version of Christianity that endorses 1–5 face a dilemma: Either deny that free will can justify suffering, evil, or hell or accept (...) that we can fail in heaven and so go to hell. It suggests that compassionate Christians may do best to i) give up on the idea that free will is valuable enough to justify significant suffering. This may require: ii) accepting that something has gone woefully wrong on Earth and iii) giving up the idea that people can suffer significantly in Hell, but allows Christians to maintain that iv) Heaven is eternal. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, although Alvin Plantinga’s Felix Culpa theodicy appears on only two pages of his recent book Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion and Naturalism (2011) (i.e. 58-59), it is of pivotal importance for the book as a whole. Plantinga argues that there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and monotheism, and that there is superficial concord but deep conflict between science and naturalism. I contend that the weakness of the Felix Culpa theodicy (...) lends support to the view that there is more than superficial conflict between science and monotheism, and offer an alternative response to the challenge of evil which suggests that there might be, after all, concord between science and (religious) naturalism. (shrink)