Must God Create the Best Available Creatures?
Alvin Plantinga rightly challenged J. L. Mackie's assumption that an omnipotent God can directly create just any possible world. However, Mackie also assumed that God, given the option, must create a person who would freely choose rightly rather than one who would freely choose wrongly. Instead...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic/Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2021
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| In: |
Philosophia Christi
Year: 2021, Volume: 23, Issue: 2, Pages: 271-289 |
| IxTheo Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history NBC Doctrine of God NBE Anthropology |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Alvin Plantinga rightly challenged J. L. Mackie's assumption that an omnipotent God can directly create just any possible world. However, Mackie also assumed that God, given the option, must create a person who would freely choose rightly rather than one who would freely choose wrongly. Instead of challenging this assumption, Plantinga suggests that every possible free creature would have sinned had God created them, an idea I consider highly improbable. More importantly, under Mackie's assumption, for almost all conceivable arrangements of the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, this assumption renders libertarian free will impossible for nearly every possible creature. |
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| ISSN: | 1529-1634 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Philosophia Christi
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.5840/pc202123224 |