Can God Be Free? is a penetrating study of a central problem in philosophy of religion: can it be right to regard God as free, and as praiseworthy for being perfectly good? Allowing that he has perfect knowledge and perfect goodness, if there is a best world for God to create he would have no choice other than to create it. But if God could not do otherwise than create the best world, he created the world of necessity, not freely, (...) and we have no reason to be thankful to God for creating us, since he couldn't do otherwise. William Rowe proposes the need for some substantial revision in contemporary thinking about the nature of God. (shrink)

"This book is D.Z. Phillips' systematic attempt to discuss the problem of evil. He argues that the problem is inextricably linked to our conception of God. In an effort to distinguish between logical and existential problems of evil, that inheritance offers us distorted accounts of God's omnipotence and will. In his interlude, Phillips argues that, as a result, God is ridiculed out of existence, and found unfit to plead before the bar of decency. However, Phillips elucidates a neglected tradition in (...) which we reach a different understanding of God's presence amidst suffering, and addresses the ultimate question of how God can be said to be with those who are crushed by life's afflictions." "An ideal text for students of philosophy, religious studies and theology, but also for anyone who reflects seriously on the danger of adding to human evils by the way in which we write and think about them."--Jacket. (shrink)

In his book, Can God Be Free?, William Rowe has argued that if God is unsurpassably good He cannot be free; if He is free, He cannot be unsurpassably good. After following the discussion of this topic through a number of historical figures, Rowe focuses on the recent and contemporary debate. A key claim of Rowe's is that, if there exists an endless series of better and better creatable worlds, then the existence of a morally perfect creator is impossible. I (...) show that this argument is unsound, since a key premise can be proved false from propositions Rowe himself accepts. (shrink)

The hypothesis of no prime worlds (NPW) holds that for any possible world x that an omnipotent being has the power to actualize, there is a better world, y , that the omnipotent being could have actualized instead of x . NPW is generally deployed to defend theism against the charge that God failed to do his best in actualizing this world. Sometimes this view is deployed to defend theism against the charge that God failed to do better in actualizing (...) this world. These defences are compelling, and, accordingly, critics of theism have developed new anti-theistic arguments on NPW. Most anti-theistic arguments on this view are a posteriori : they typically hold that a God-actualized world would exhibit (or lack) certain features, and that, since the actual world fails (or seemingly fails) to conform to these expectations, it is reasonable to believe that God does not exist. Since most of these arguments appeal to certain claims about evil, they may be treated as versions of the problem of evil. Such arguments are controversial, and the literature surrounding them is vast. (shrink)

This paper has been superseded by chapter 3 of my book "God, the Best, and Evil" (OUP 2008). The chapter concerns God's choices in cases in which God has infinitely many better and better options.