Abstract
Anselmian theism holds that there necessarily exists a being, God, who is essentially unsurpassable in power, knowledge, goodness, and wisdom. This being is also understood to be the creator and sustainer of all that is. In contemporary analytic philosophy of religion, this role is generally understood as follows: God surveys the array of possible worlds, and in his wisdom selects exactly one for actualization, based on its axiological properties. In this paper, I discuss an under-appreciated challenge for this account of the Anselmian God’s selection of a world. In particular, I urge that there are failures of comparability between various possible worlds, and I argue that, given certain assumptions, these failures threaten the rationality of God’s choice of a world. To the extent that rationality is deemed necessary for unsurpassability, this result also challenges the core Anselmian notion that God is an unsurpassable being.
Highlights
This paper appears in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 69 (2011): pp
It seems reasonable to speak of world-bad-making properties: properties which, if instantiated in a world, tend to make a world bad, or at least worse than it would otherwise be
The overall axiological status of a given world can be understood to depend upon which WGMPs and WBMPs are instantiated in that world, and the degree to which they are instantiated
Summary
Discussions of God’s choice of a world assume that worlds have axiological status, and that they can be evaluated: some are good, others are bad; some are better, others are worse. Here is one way to understand these claims. Whether possible worlds are taken to be concrete objects, abstract objects, or convenient fictions, it seems plausible to suppose that, if a world is actual, it can properly be said to bear – or fail to bear – world-good-making properties (hereafter WGMPs) These are properties which, if instantiated in a world, tend to make that world good, or at least better than it would otherwise be (ceteris paribus).. This view holds that only a comparative fact – a fact about the relative axiological status of some alternatives – can rationally ground one’s choice between those alternatives. I argue that God is faced with incomparable alternatives in choosing a world
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