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Divine Perfection, Axiology and the No Best World Defence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Robert Elliot
Robert Elliot
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, 2351, Australia
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Extract

Advocates of the traditional argument from evil assume that an omnipotent and morally perfect being, God, would create a world of the greatest value possible. They dispute that this world is such a world. It is difficult to disagree. They go on to conclude that this world could not have been created by God. It is, however, possible consistently both to agree that God could have guaranteed the existence of a better world than this world and to reject the conclusion that this world could not have been created by God. Specifically, one may argue that this world is not a world of the greatest value God could guarantee, not because there is some other world which is, but because there is no such world. After all, it is plausible that for any possible world, no matter how good, there is another possible world which is even better, that the range of values for possible worlds has no upper limit. If this is correct, then for any world God creates there is a better world God could have created. So the argument from evil collapses, since it is logically impossible even for an omnipotent god to create a particular world which is the best or equal best possible world. God cannot act in accordance with the prescription ‘Create the best world possible!’, since there is no such thing. Nor can God act in accordance with the prescription ‘Create the best world you can!’, since from the perspective of an omnipotent being there is no such thing. This no best world defence has been advanced by Peter Forrest, John McHarry and George Schlesinger.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , December 1993 , pp. 533 - 542
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 The no best world thesis is sympathetically discussed in Peter, Forrest, ‘The Problem of Evil: Two Neglected Defences’, Sophia XXIX (1981), 52–4,Google ScholarMcHarry, John D., ‘A Theodicy’, Analysis, XXXVIII (1978), 132–4,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and George, Schlesinger, Religion and Scientific Method (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1977), pp. 59–80.Google Scholar A less sympathetic discussion is to be found in Robert, Nozick, ‘Theological Explanations’, in his, The Examined Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), pp. 224–8.Google Scholar The no best world thesis has a not dissimilar impact on the argument from evil as the view, put by McHarry, that God can create at once every possible world. If infinitely multiple creation is possible, then we cannot complain concerning any world that God could have created a better world, since God indeed might have created such a world. It is reasonable to expect an adequate reply to the no best world defence to carry over to some extent to the multiple creation defence. I think the replies below do but here I am primarily concerned to overturn the no best world defence given the background assumption that creation is not multiple.

2 McHarry, p. 134, Nozick, pp. 225–8, and, perhaps, Forrest, p. 52, accept the requirement. The requirement is binding also in the context of the multiple creation view.

3 Schlesinger, p. 66.

4 See, for example, the view advanced in Carter, W. R., ‘Do Zygotes Become People?’, Mind, XCIII (1982), 77–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Nozick, pp. 231–2, urges the centrality of such issues for a theologically satisfying response to the argument from evil. Counter-arguments must do more than merely show that the profound evils in the world are consistent with God's perfection but must do so in a way that enables those who suffer such evil to think of God nevertheless as worthy of worship. See also Forrest, p. 50.

6 For a catalogue of organic unity relationships, see Chisholm, R. M., Brentano and Intrinsic Value (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 69–89.Google Scholar

7 Schopenhauer's view is described in Chisholm, p. 94.

8 Thanks to Peter Forrest for his comments on an earlier version of this paper.