ON THE WONDER OF LIFE AND THE FREEDOM OF WILL

In this paper, I shall discuss the problem of evil and argue that our account of good and evil is at its core adeeply romantic narrative – it reflects our idealization of a perfect world. I will present the corearguments and responses from David Hume, Gottfried Leibniz, J.L. Mackie and Alvin Plantinga. Irecognize that there are two types of evil – moral and natural, and that the problem of evil exists in twoforms – logical and evidential. However, I shall limit my discussion to moral evil and focus on how thefree will defense is an attempted logical but not evidential solution to the problem of evil. I aim tostrengthen the free will defense with reference to William James’s religious hypothesis and argue that ouractive faith reconciles the notion of our free will with God’s divine attributes. Our active faith is a deeplypersonal commitment that transcends objective uncertainty. Our subjective, inward reflections elucidateour deepest meaning of life and our most passionate relation to God.