The axiology of theism: Problems and prospects

Abstract

AbstractRoughly put, the axiology of theism asks whether God's existence would be good, bad, or neutral. Thus far the literature has focused on comparing theism as represented by ‘Western monotheism’ to atheism as represented by ‘metaphysical naturalism’. Furthermore, the comparison has focused on comparing the actual world to a nearby epistemically possible world. I begin by surveying the literature comparing the value of such worlds before turning to explore a recent view offered by Klaas J. Kraay which expands the comparison between theism and atheism to include all of modal space (2021). Global, wide modal space pro‐theism is the view that the entirety of modal space containing every possible world is better on theism than on atheism. One reason for holding this view is that God's existence logically entails that there is no gratuitous evil in every single possible world. I object that one potential downside of this view is that theists now have to explain how God's existence is compatible with all of the evil throughout modal space instead of just the evil in our own world. I conclude by pointing to a number of ways the current literature could be expanded, including adding different worldviews to the comparison class.