God, the Best, and Evil - Bruce Langtry

Abstract

Bruce Langtry has written a rigorous book that makes important contributions primarily to two debates in contemporary philosophy of religion, over whether the hypothesis of ‘no best world’ poses a problem for theists, and the more traditional problem(s) of evil. In addition, the book has interesting and original things to say about the relationship between possible worlds and value, the correct understanding of the divine attributes, and the question of how different theistic models of divine providence hold up in different dialectical contexts. Langtry's careful attention to how one's choice of model bears on the success of objections to theism is especially helpful and deserving of emulation. Ch. 1 is stage‐setting: Langtry distinguishes three leading theistic models (Molinism, theological determinism, and open theism), and while remaining neutral between them, draws out consequences of each which are relevant for his project. Defenders of each view might well have concerns about Langtry's presentation, but this need not detain us here. Ch. 1 also contains his understanding of the fundamental theistic doctrine that God is the creator of the world. Langtry takes this to mean that God chooses a possible world, and then causes it to be actual by exercising tight providential control over (nearly) every contingent state of affairs it contains. Langtry is of course free to stipulate the definition of terms for his project. But one unfortunate implication of his definition of ‘create’ is that theists who do not think that God exercises tight providential control over the creation (open theists in particular) cannot say that God creates a world, something many of them would no doubt be surprised to learn.