ARGUMENTS AGAINST MONOTHEISM 129Problems with this use of the Consistency Strategy
There is a simple rule of logical inference that says this: If a proposition A
plus some necessary truth N entails proposition B, then A by itself entails
B. One who doubts the success of the use made of the Consistency Strategy
in the preceding reasoning may try to find some necessary truth N that,
together with (E), entails the denial of (G). Finding such a necessary truth
would show that (G) and (E) are logically incompatible after all. Various
candidates are available. Here are two:
N1 Necessarily, if God creates at all, God will create the best possible
world, and the best possible world will contain no evil.
N2 Necessarily, a perfectly good being prevents evil insofar as it can, and
an omnipotent and omniscient being can prevent any evil.
Will either of these do? (N1) or (N2) will do only if it is a necessary truth.
Is (N1) a necessary truth? Is (N2) a necessary truth?
(N1) uses the notion of a best possible world – a world that contains as
much moral worth as it is logically possible that a world contain.^7 Several
questions arise regarding (N1). First, is the notion of a best possible world
itself consistent, or is it like the notion of a highest possible integer? I
think the highest possible integer should be named Charlie sounds fine
until one remembers it is a necessary truth that For any integer I, there is
an integer I such that I is higher than I; it is logically impossible that
there be a highest integer. Anyone appealing to (N1) owes us an account of
“best possible world” on which it is logically possible that there be such a
thing. One that would not do, for example, is this: World W is the best
possible world only if the number of good persons in that world is the same
number as the highest possible integer. Second, (N1) requires that a best
possible world contain no evil; according to (N1), the presence of evil in a
world will rule it out as being the best possible. It isn’t at all obvious that
this is right. Suppose, for example, that any world possessed of great moral
value will have virtuous agents in it – agents who are honest, brave,
compassionate, and the like. But necessarily virtue is earned; one becomes
virtuous of character by acting rightly again and again. For some virtues, at
least, the relevant occasions of acting rightly require conquering one or
another evil. Bravery requires that one have fear that one conquers.
Fortitude requires than one bear pain well, and hence that one bear pain.
Compassion presupposes suffering, and various saints offer the
experiential report that so does moral and religious maturity. Perhaps some
virtues require conquering evil, and some do not. But perhaps also one who
has a full quiver of virtues has among them the ones that require that they