RELIGION AND MORALITY 307is, by hypothesis, logically impossible that God not exist or that God not
have the nature that God has. So it is logically impossible that any true
proposition is not true or that any proposition that is not true was true.
The right way to think of the sort of scenario described is in terms of an
axiomatic system in which all the theorems follow by rules of inference
from the axioms; the axioms are necessary truths, the rules of inference
truth preserving, and so the theorems are also necessary truths. The
first consequence, then, would be this: if a theologically based logical
fatalism were true: every truth a necessary truth, every falsehood a
contradiction, then the actual world also the only world possible.
Another consequence is that there would be at most one agent.
Suppose that Tess and Tricia are related as follows. Tess has her own
thought life, but Tricia thinks only when and what Tess deliberately,
specifically causes her to think. Tess can act without Tricia, but Tricia
acts only if Tess causes her to act. In fact, every feeling, mental image,
dream, movement, attitude, pain, or pleasure Tricia experiences, Tess
deliberately, specifically causes her to experience. Tess knows her power
over Tricia, but Tricia is ignorant of it. Finally, this relationship between
Tess and Tricia is one neither can break; its roots lie deep in the laws of
nature. It is logically possible that Tess and Tricia not be so related, but
only logically possible. Under these circumstances, however things seem
to Tricia, she is not an agent; she does not act on her own, think on her
own, feel on her own. But on the scenario with which we began, God is,
so to speak, related to whatever persons there are (or appear to be), as
Tess is related to Tricia, only more so; here the roots of the relationship
lie deep in the nature of a necessarily existing God and in the laws of
logic. It is not even logically possible that God not be so related to any
persons there may be, or appear to be. Indeed, on the scenario being
considered, there is at most one person. On it, God is related to Tess in
such a manner that her existence as well as her thoughts, feelings, and
actions are entirely determined by God’s existence and nature. It is no
more logically possible that God exist and Tess not than it is logically
possible that Tess exist and God not; God exists, on the scenario in
question, entails Tess exists, and since the former is, by hypothesis, a
necessary truth, so is the latter.^6 Thus Tess exists also entails God exists.
Tess is not a person distinct from God; she is at most, as Spinoza would
put it, a mode – a state – of God’s.^7 It is not logically possible that “her”
existence and “her” properties, thoughts, and actions exist without
God’s existing and having the nature that God possesses; the divine
existence and nature determine “her” existence and properties in such a
way that it is logically impossible that they be otherwise than as they
are. In such a world, morality would be impossible. Even if we suppose
that Tess is a person, it would be logically impossible that she or anyone