Fluctuating maximal God
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Fluctuating maximal God Anne Jeffrey1 · Asha Lancaster‑Thomas2 · Matyáš Moravec3 Received: 17 December 2019 / Accepted: 25 February 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This paper explores a variety of perfect being theism that combines Yujin Nagasawa’s maximal God thesis with the view that God is not atemporal. We argue that the original maximal God thesis still implicitly relies on a “static” view of divine perfections. Instead, following the recent re-evaluation of divine immutability by analytic philosophers, we propose that thinking of divine great-making properties (omnipotence, omniscience etc.) as fluctuating but nevertheless remaining maximal either for every time t or across all times strengthens the original maximal God thesis. Furthermore, we show that “temporalising” Nagasawa’s maximal God and adopting what we call the fluctuating maximal God thesis provides more effective ways of responding to objections to perfect being theism, in particular, the argument from evil and some conceptual problems pertaining to the Incarnation. Finally, we demonstrate that our proposal is compatible with Christian Scriptures and coheres with numerous biblical passages better than Nagasawa’s original proposal does. Keywords Maximal God · Perfect being theism · Immutability · God and time · Problem of evil
Introduction Yujin Nagasawa (2017) has recently proposed a radical thesis—the maximal God thesis—to overcome many of the objections to perfect being theism:
* Matyáš Moravec [email protected] Anne Jeffrey [email protected] Asha Lancaster‑Thomas asha.lancaster‑[email protected] 1
Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA
2
University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
3
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion
Maximal God thesis = God possesses the maximal consistent set of the greatmaking properties power, knowledge, and benevolence. One potential problem with Nagasawa’s account is in explaining how such a concept of God can overcome all objections while retaining the precise unique set of these attributes. We propose that perfect being theists can respond to this problem as well as all the objections the maximal God thesis is supposed to defuse by denying that the degrees of the great-making properties composing the maximal set are necessarily the same at each point in time. We postulate a “fluctuating maximal God”— a God whose degrees of power, knowledge, and benevolence may change over time as long as the set of these is maximal in its axiological value.
Perfect being theism and the maximal God thesis Based on the premise that “God is the being that has the maximal consistent set of knowledge, power, and benevolence” (Nagasawa 2017, p. 104), Nagasawa’s maximal God differs radically from traditional versions of perfect being theism. Although it retains the idea that God is the greatest metaphysically possible being, this “Neo-Anselmian” approach rejects the inference from this claim to the idea that God has knowledge, power, and benevolen
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