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What God Could Have Made
Author(s) -
Geirsson Heimir,
Losonsky Michael
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
the southern journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.281
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 2041-6962
pISSN - 0038-4283
DOI - 10.1111/j.2041-6962.2005.tb01958.x
Subject(s) - metaphysics , enlightenment , philosophy , state (computer science) , philosophy of language , epistemology , computer science , algorithm
Atheists have argued that if there is a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, then God would have made a better world than the one in which we live. Many different possible worlds are better than this one. Some have less natural or moral evil than this world, and some even have no natural or moral evils at all. Consequently, there is no God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent because such a God would have made one of those worlds that is better than this one.1 Philosophical theists typically reply to the problem of evil by focusing on one aspect of it, namely, on the claim that there are better worlds without moral evil. There are possible worlds with no moral evil, the theist responds, but these are worlds without freedom, and freedom is a moral good that outweighs the moral evil that necessarily attends freedom. Worlds with freedom are better than worlds without freedom, and the existence of freedom entails the existence of moral evil. So perhaps this is the best of all possible worlds or at least a better world than What God Could Have Made