Freedom, God, and Worlds
Michael J. Almeida
Abstract
It is a principal aim of this book to show that several widely believed and largely undisputed principles in philosophical theology are in fact just philosophical dogmas. The well-entrenched principles have served as basic assumptions in some of the most powerful apriori atheological arguments. But most theists also maintain that the principles express apriori necessary truths. The philosophical dogmas include principles that are presumed to follow from the nature of an essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, essentially perfectly good and necessarily existing being. Among the atheolog ... More
It is a principal aim of this book to show that several widely believed and largely undisputed principles in philosophical theology are in fact just philosophical dogmas. The well-entrenched principles have served as basic assumptions in some of the most powerful apriori atheological arguments. But most theists also maintain that the principles express apriori necessary truths. The philosophical dogmas include principles that are presumed to follow from the nature of an essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, essentially perfectly good and necessarily existing being. Among the atheological arguments that deploy these philosophical dogmas are the Logical Problem of Evil, the Logical Problem of the Best Possible World, the Logical Problem of Good Enough Worlds, the Problem of Divine Freedom, the Problem of No Best World, and the Evidential Problem of Evil. Solutions to several less serious atheological problems are also forthcoming. It is among the principal conclusions of the book that these arguments present no important challenge to the existence of an Anselmian God.
Keywords:
Anselm,
evil,
God,
best world,
evidential,
dogmas
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2012 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199640027 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2013 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199640027.001.0001 |
