RT Article
T1 Modal panentheism: Addressing the modal problem of evil
JF Religious studies
VO 61
IS 2
SP 365
OP 379
A1 Symes, Jack
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1930101988
AB Modal panentheism claims that God encompasses all possible worlds and that a substantial number of possible worlds exist. This article defends a version of modal panentheism that is grounded in perfect-being theology, which maintains that God holds all great-making properties to the highest possible degree. In addition to goodness, modal panentheists consider encompassment to be a great-making property, and therefore, God (a maximally encompassing being) is said to encompass all possible worlds.Nagasawa argues that modal panentheism faces a significant problem: the modal problem of evil. The argument states that if modal realism is true, then there exists a substantial number of possible evils that contradict God’s perfect goodness. Nagasawa proceeds to claim that modal evil poses a greater threat to modal panentheism than actual evil does to traditional theism.This article develops two responses to the modal problem of evil. The first response (maximal-panentheism) argues that God need not be all-good or all-encompassing. The second response (no evil worlds) argues that worlds contradicting God’s perfect goodness are not possible worlds. In the light of these responses, I claim the modal problem of evil for modal panentheism is no more intractable than the problem of evil for traditional theism.
K1 encompassment
K1 maximal God
K1 modal panentheism
K1 modal realism
K1 perfect-being theology
K1 problem of evil
DO 10.1017/S0034412524000593