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Ideal worlds and the transworld untrustworthy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2004

MICHAEL J. ALMEIDA
MICHAEL J. ALMEIDA
Affiliation:
Department of English, Classics, and Philosophy, The University of Texas at San Antonio, 6900 N Loop 1604 W, San Antonio, TX 78429-0643
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Abstract

The celebrated free-will defence was designed to show that the ideal-world thesis presents no challenge to theism. The ideal-world thesis states that, in any world in which God exists, He can actualize a world containing moral good and no moral evil. I consider an intriguing two-stage argument that Michael Bergmann advances for the free-will defence, and show that the argument provides atheologians with no reason to abandon the ideal-world thesis. I show next that the existence of worlds in which every essence is transworld untrustworthy provides atheologians with no better reason to abandon the ideal-world thesis. I conclude that neither the free-will defence nor Bergmann's revised free-will defence is a convincing response to the atheological challenge.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 113 - 123
Copyright
2004 Cambridge University Press

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