SRB

I reject the principle that you invoke above. It is far too undemanding with regard what should count as loving behaviour (let alone maximally loving behaviour). It is clear that I am not a loving father if I beat my son for no reason. Despite this, it is not true that I was obliged to have a son, or that it would have been better for my son never to exist than to exist and be beaten by me.

If I murder someone on Monday for no reason and then save two people's lives on Tuesday then it is clear that I am something less than maximally loving of those three people, despite the fact that I overall have acted to increase the net happiness in the world.

My main claim is (A):

(A) If God existed, he would have actualised a world without pointless suffering on the scale of the Holocaust, childhood cancers, and the events of 9/11.

Even if it were true that God could actualise a world that contains a small amount of pointless suffering, such as suffering caused by an instance of toe-stubbing, (A) could (and would) still be true. So even if I were to grant everything you say above, that would not challenge (A).

SRB

Philip Osborne

If I murder someone on Monday for no reason and then save two people's lives on Tuesday then it is clear that I am something less than maximally loving of those three people, despite the fact that I overall have acted to increase the net happiness in the world.

I don't want to say much more on this topic, because I believe this discussion is starting to turn this thread into another "argument from evil" discussion. However, I will say that perhaps it would be more appropriate for us to think of God's bringing about a world containing suffering not in terms of God actually bringing about that suffering, but in terms of God allowing for the conditions for the possibility of that suffering occurring. In this sense, God is not "killing a person on Monday and then saving two people on Tuesday," but is creating the conditions which allow for the possibility of someone being killed on Monday and for two other people being saved on Tuesday. Whether or not this rescues the argument is another question, but to address it here would stray too far from the original discussion.

-Philip

SRB

If, for no good reason, I watch someone I could effortlessly help die an agonising death on Monday and then I save two people's lives on Tuesday then it is clear that I am something less than maximally loving of those three people.

The analogy with the father and son is also sufficient to show that the principle you invoked is no good.

SRB

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Philip Osborne :

"There may be worlds in which God never chooses to be perfectly good in the first place, and these worlds do not seem accounted for by your argument."

Well, if perfect goodness isn't an essential property of God. But would we really be calling the beings in those worlds "God"? I'm not sure. If God is a being Who, among other properties, is perfectly good, then a case can be made that God doesn't exist in those worlds.

Even so, I'm more concerned with "God can cease to be morally perfect and then commit evil." In any world in which God is morally perfect, this task will be impossible for God -- so in any world in which God is morally perfect, God will fail to be omnipotent, if my argument is correct.

mattbballman

phillip,

"The biggest problem of Divine Simplicity for me involves Wes Morriston's criticisms in his article, "What's So Good About Moral Freedom?" Let us suppose God has the property F, which is God's will that some state of affairs be instantiated. F is intrinsic, but F is also contingent, since God does not have to will that the state of affairs in question obtains. Since God is identical to His nature, it follows that any property which is to God is also intrinsic to His nature. So, F is intrinsic to God's nature. But the only properties which can be intrinsic to a nature are essential properties, in which case, F is essential. Since God exists in every possible world, it follows that all essential properties of God are instantiated in every world. In this case, F obtains in every world; that is, F is necessary. But this contradicts our initial assumption that F was contingent. Hence, if God is identical to His nature, He cannot contingently will that any given state of affairs be instantiated. This is certainly an undesirable consequence, so if the preceding argument is sound, I think it gives us good reason to doubt divine simplicity. "

-- Regarding God as a maximally great being, I have three responses. First, as other philosophers have pointed out, this objection confuses metaphysical necessity with logical necessity. The necessity envisaged (e.g., God must necessarily create the same in W1 -- Wn) is contingent on God's nature as an all-good being. If God were not all-good, then this necessity to create every world the same vanishes -- not the way traditional theists want to go. Hence, we are dealing with the metaphysical necessity of God's nature, not the logical necessity that God must create some certain state of affairs. Secondly, the only thing required of a maximally perfect being is that, on balance, there exists more good in the world than evil. Any proper subset of possible worlds contains such worlds. Thirdly, God is not obligated to create anything at all and is certainly not obligated to even create an animated world (i.e. a world where no creatures exist) since inanimate worlds can contain greatness as well (greatness that exceeds the greatness of animate worlds). As Christian philosopher at Notre Dame University Thomas V. Morris points out in his marvelous book Anselmnian Explorations that creation/creating is not a property of God. Instead, creation/creating is a relationship to God such that sans creation nothing exists apart from God and at creation God is now related to it. Since the presence or lack of a relationship to creation in no wise compromises the nature of God, there is no necessity to create at all much less create an animated possible world. Therefore, God's libertarian free will can rightly be sustained by the classical theist.

matt

Philip Osborne

Sorry I haven't been able to respond in a while. Just a few brief comments:

I'm not sure it makes sense to say that creation is merely a relationship between God and what He has created, although I have never read Thomas V. Morris' book. At any rate, I would conceive of creation as a cause of the world, and causes and effects cannot overlap (I mean this in the mereological sense of sharing a common part, not in terms of overlapping in space-time); this is an extrapolation of the principle that nothing can cause itself to exist. If the property of creation is inextricably bound with the created objects themselves, this seems dangerously close to a violation of that principle. In other words, if the property of creation cannot exist without what God creates, then how can this property serve as a cause of what is created?

Well, if perfect goodness isn't an essential property of God. But would we really be calling the beings in those worlds "God"? I'm not sure. If God is a being Who, among other properties, is perfectly good, then a case can be made that God doesn't exist in those worlds.

This seems correct. Theists who hold that God is not essentially perfectly good in every world must also hold that God is not truly God in every world. This may be acceptable for some theists as long as they hold that God is God in the actual world.

Even so, I'm more concerned with "God can cease to be morally perfect and then commit evil." In any world in which God is morally perfect, this task will be impossible for God -- so in any world in which God is morally perfect, God will fail to be omnipotent, if my argument is correct.

I think that being morally perfect in some worlds and not others means simply that God always makes morally correct choices in every action He takes in some worlds. This is not to say that God has the special property of Moral Perfection in those worlds, which completely prevents Him from taking evil action in them, and lacks this property in other worlds. Your criticism, if I'm not mistaken, seems to assume the latter conception of non-essential moral perfection.

-Philip

mattbballman

phillip,

(i) Creation is not being defined as a relationship. I am discussing what it means to be the "creator." Rather, being the "creator" entails that someone is related to its creation (e.g., the creator is the cause of its creation such that the creator exists logically prior to its creation). So it would be false that God's attribute of being capable of creation entails that creation must itself co-exist from all eternity (if I am recalling an earlier comment correctly).

(ii) If God is the greatest conceivable being then he will necessarily be morally good in every possible world. This does not entail that God do everything the same in every world. Only that, on balance, God always optimizes his goodness given the contingency of creation and what world-type it may be. So, in W1 where only 2 people exist, God's good actions will be contingent on his actions affecting those two people. Whereas in W2 where eight billion people live, God's moral affairs are much more complicated and nuanced. Between W1 and W2 there will be different acts of goodness.

matt