I would like to explain the point of view from which this paper is written. And this in itself will be a difficult task. In a religious dialogue we could be concerned in some way with questions which arise as a result of serious differences in doctrines between adherents of different religions or religious faiths. The ensuing debate or dialogue could take the form of an argument conducted from points of view that are distinctly partisan. If two doctrines are or are taken to be in head-on collision with each other by those who accept these doctrines, the holder of one doctrine would argue with the holder of the other doctrine with the object of showing that he is partly or wholly in error. If two statements both claiming to have truth-value are, or are taken to be, inconsistent with each other, then it is clear that one or both of them are or must be taken to be partly or wholly false. To attempt to show by marshalling reasons that the proposition inconsistent with that which one holds is wholly or partly false is what I mean by the partisan approach. The approach in a dialogue is partisan even if truth is claimed and the opposing ‘error’ exposed by reference to authority; for so long as there is to be a dialogue the setting up of a particular authority or of an authority specified in a particular way has to be justified by reasoning or at least a show of reasoning. If reasoning flows from and terminates in an authority without flowing beyond it and around it, so to speak, the fact that that ‘authority’ is not accepted by the other party is sufficient to bring the dialogue to an immediate end, leaving room only for a futile talking at cross purposes.

It is a curious fact that the much maligned ontological argument to prove the existence of God has in recent times enjoyed a revival of interest to which even Karl Barth, the arch-enemy of natural theology has contributed; but since the revival of interest has appared in a wide diversity of intellectual contexts, both philosophical and theological, the revival is itself almost as problematic as the argument itself.

In this paper I shall discuss a certain theodicy, or line of argument in response to the problem of evil, viz, the so-called ‘free will defence’. What I propose to do is defend this theodicy against an objection that has been made to it in recent years.

To discover whether effort of will may be a basis for moral freedom we need to have before us a general description of the experiential situation in which an effort of will is found. The description need not be exhaustive, but it must be such as to permit us to identify situations in which an effort of will is to be found.

Mr D. H. Mellor, in his article of this title in Religious Studies, Vol. 5 (December 1969), distinguishes three senses of words such as ‘probable’ which might be used in a religious context, especially in that of attempted theistic proofs: statistical, subjective, and inductive probability. In each case he concludes that it is misleading to use these words in such contexts at all. With his discussion of the second I do not wish to quarrel; but there seem to me to be serious defects in his discussions of the first and third.

A characteristic feature of religious discourse is its tendency to use expressions which are not only metaphorical but ‘irreducibly metaphorical’, that is to say, which have no literal equivalent. Sophisticated believers freely point out theology's tendency toward the ‘symbolical’, ‘analogical’, or ‘mysterious’; while equally sophisticated sceptics complain that faith is ‘anthropomorphic’ or ‘merely poetic’. When this discussion between believers and seeptics is confronted with what we may call the ‘reducibility thesis’, that metaphors should be reducible to literal statements, a philosophical puzzle results: religious metaphors should be reducible, but they are not.