u/Expensive-Party2116

I mean, why doesn't God simply refrain from creating beings that He knows will be evil in the future?

Edit: I am not referring, clearly, to the one who sins by failing to share a piece of an apple because he wanted to eat the whole thing out of gluttony. I am speaking of the one who commits atrocities that would make us all vomit. Why does God create such souls if He knows what they will become?

If God is that which is absolutely perfect, then—by virtue of His perfection—He cannot commit any error, make any mistake, or, in short, do anything that might not be the best course of action. Why? Because He is perfect, and the perfect is incompatible with the imperfect. Therefore, it seems that God can only create that which is best, in accordance with His wise intentions. And, as we know, God created Nature—or the Universe—which seems to indicate that Nature (or the Universe) is the best thing God could have created. Consequently, we live in the best of all possible worlds. This carries clear implications for God's free will; for if God, by virtue of His perfection, can only do what is best—and *only* what is best—then, in reality, for any given thing, He can only bring it about in one single way: the best possible way.

Argument:

1. God, by virtue of His perfection, can only do what is best whenever He acts.

2. For any given action, there exists only one way of performing it that qualifies as the best way.

Because:

3. If there were more than one way of doing things that were equally good, then there would be no sufficient reason to choose one over the other.

But:

4. Every fact has a sufficient reason for being exactly as it is, and not otherwise.

Therefore:

5. God can only do things in one specific way.

Therefore:

6. God lacks counterfactual free will.

It seems that this leaves God without free will. How can we resolve this issue? I find it strange that only Leibniz seems to have partially recognized this, while other philosophers seem to have overlooked it completely.