RT Article
T1 Best feasible worlds: divine freedom and Leibniz's Lapse
JF International journal for philosophy of religion
VO 77
IS 3
SP 219
OP 229
A1 Mooney, Justin
LA English
PB Springer Science + Business Media B. V
YR 2015
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1559175885
AB William L. Rowe's argument against divine freedom has drawn considerable attention from theist philosophers. One reply to Rowe's argument that has emerged in the recent literature appeals to modified accounts of libertarian freedom which have the result that God may be free even if he necessarily actualizes the best possible world. Though in many ways attractive, this approach appears to lead to the damning consequence of modal collapse i.e., that the actual world is the only possible world. But appearances can be deceiving, and in this paper I argue that the threat of modal collapse dissolves when we consider Alvin Plantinga's critique of the purportedly Leibnizian notion that God can actualize any possible world, and incorporate the implications of this critique into the divine freedom debate. Developing a suggestion by Edward R. Wierenga, I argue first that the modal collapse objection fails within a Molinist context, and then I extend the discussion beyond that context to show that the objection also fails on the assumption that Molinism is false.
K1 analytic philosophy
K1 Best possible world
K1 Divine Freedom
K1 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716
K1 Leibniz's Lapse
K1 Libertarianism
K1 Liberty
K1 Molinism
K1 Religion : Philosophy
K1 Religious Aspects
K1 ROWE, William L., 1931-2015
DO 10.1007/s11153-014-9497-7