ent—before God, with no confusion, even so, about what events in creation are
temporally earlier than, later than, or simultaneous with other events. And the doctrine of
God's eternality comports well with scripture: God is not merely everlasting, but from
everlasting to everlasting.
Divine Freedom
The final thesis of our quintet, (E), claims that God is perfectly free. At a minimum, we
would expect a perfectly free being to be utterly unconstrained. Nothing should be able to
defeat or thwart such a being's activities or plans. When we reflect on this point, we may
come to think that the threat to God's freedom comes not from without but from within.
No creature or ensemble of creatures can prevail over God, as Zeus prevailed over
Kronos. But might there not be features about God's own nature that place constraints on
what God can do? I shall not attempt to canvass all the different forms this question
might take. I propose instead to look at one salient case, hoping that its discussion
provides insights about how to respond to related cases.
What latitude of choice did God have in creating? We can divide this question into two:
Could God have refrained from creating at all? and Given that God decided to create
something, must God create the best world that he can? There are four possible
combinations of answers to these questions. (1) Yes, God could have refrained altogether
from creating, but yes, if God has decided to create, then God must create the best
possible world he can. (2) Yes, God could have refrained from creating and no, if God
has decided to create something, he need not create the best world he can. (3) No, God
could not have refrained from creating, and yes, God must create the best possible world
he can. (4) No, God could not have refrained from creating, but no, God need not create
the best world that he can. Although I do not document it here, I believe that each
position has had its advocates, and that the advocates have not taken their respective
positions to pose any problem for God's freedom. For present purposes, let us focus on
position (3), as it appears to be the one whose acceptance would delimit God's freedom
more than the others.
How can position (3) be reconciled with maximal divine freedom? Consider the first half
of (3). There are clearly cases in which we say that a particular person could not have
refrained from performing some action. Jill had to participate in the bank robbery because
her family was being held hostage. Gil had to shoplift because he is a kleptomaniac. Jill's
case is an example of external compulsion: some agency other than Jill compels her to do
what she would not otherwise do.
The source of Gil's compulsive behavior is within Gil. What makes Gil's behavior a case
of kleptomania is that Gil has a desire to steal that, at the moment
end p.54
of theft, overrides Gil's other desires, notably Gil's second-order desire not to have a
desire to steal. In the conflict between first-order desire and second-order desire, the first-
order desire triumphs. It is useful to contrast Gil's situation with Will's, who is, let us say,