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    In a 'no best world' scenario, God is not perfectly good. — Carmelics
    Home/Divine Attributes
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    In a 'no best world' scenario, God is not perfectly good.

    Divine AttributesProblem of Evil
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Perfect goodness requires not merely good intentions but the actual realization of the best achievable outcome relative to one's nature and knowledge.
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    • 2.An agent who systematically chooses less than the best available option, knowing better options exist, exhibits a structural deficiency in moral will regardless of intent.
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    • 3.If no best world exists, God's every choice is structurally deficient in this way, making perfect goodness unrealizable for God in such a scenario.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason entails that a perfectly rational agent always acts on the strongest reason, which in moral contexts is the morally superior option.
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    • 2.In a no-best-world scenario, there is always a stronger moral reason available than the one acted upon, meaning God's every act violates the principle of sufficient reason.
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    • 3.An agent whose every act violates the principle of sufficient reason cannot be characterized as perfectly good, since perfect goodness subsumes perfect practical rationality.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.There are infinitely many possible worlds, each within God's power to actualize.
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    • 2.For each possible world, there exists another world that is morally better.
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    • 3.God can actualize at most one possible world.
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    Topics

    Divine AttributesProblem of Evil

    Connections

    3 topics

    Against an attribute of God4 linkedModality & Possibility3 linked

    Related

    Actualizing a morally better world is itself a morally better action than actual...An agent who systematically chooses less than the best available option, knowing...An agent whose every act violates the principle of sufficient reason cannot be c...For each possible world, there exists another world that is morally better.
    +9 moreShow less
    God can actualize at most one possible world.God is perfectly good only if God's agency is unsurpassable.

    Similar

    Without a best world, God would have no sufficient reason to prefer on...81%God must create the best of all possible worlds.80%God necessarily creates the best possible world80%If there were no single best possible world, God would have created no...80%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: perfect-goodness
    View source passageHide passage
    This possibility has been most intensively discussed with respect to ‘no best world’ scenarios. Say that God ‘actualizes a world’ when some maximal state of affairs obtains as a result of God’s choosing to create or choosing to refrain from creating. (Whether God actualizes a world is thus not an open question; God actualizes some world, and the only questions are whether it will include items other than God and if so, which ones.) Suppose that there are infinitely many possible worlds, each of
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    If no best world exists, God's every choice is structurally deficient in this wa...
    In a no-best-world scenario, there is always a stronger moral reason available t...
    Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason entails that a perfectly rational agent...
    Perfect goodness requires not merely good intentions but the actual realization ...
    There are infinitely many possible worlds, each within God's power to actualize.
    Therefore, there is no action God could perform whose moral quality is unsurpass...
    Therefore, whichever world God actualizes, God could have actualized a morally b...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit