Thursday, April 30, 2009

The Showcase of God's Glory: Possible Worlds pt. II

The “best of all possible worlds” argument, therefore, simply states that before He created, God, through His middle knowledge, surveyed all the possible complete worlds that involved free agents, made in the image of God, and He chose the best possible world because His nature required Him to do so. It may appear upon first glance that according to this argument, God is actually not omnipotent since He cannot do all things. However, as previously noted God cannot act against His nature. To act imperfectly would in a sense render Him not God. He cannot be both God and not-God, for to do so would violate the law of non-contradiction. One must clarify God’s omnipotence to say that God can do all things which are logically possible and in accord with His nature. God cannot violate the laws of logic, and He cannot be not-God.

It has been shown what a possible world is and how, through middle knowledge, God could conceive of every possible world and choose the best world from among them. Yet, what is to say He actually chose “the best”? How could one evaluate or determine what the “best” would be? What would make one world better than another? Furthermore, what must inform God and enable Him to choose the best world to create? Whereas the rationale thus far has posited that, through His omniscience and omnipotence, God is able to create any possible world of His choice, it is the Christian doctrine of His goodness that demonstrates that God did create the best of all possible worlds

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