On mainstream theism God has his properties necessarily. Take one of these properties, say, goodness. Theists normally hold that God is necessarily good. It is simply impossible for God not to be good. But is God also necessarily necessarily good? That is to say, although God is in fact necessarily good, could it have been otherwise? Could reality have been such that God is not necessarily good? And if not, is that necessarily so?
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Well, God ain't perhaps not necessarliy good but IF He is necessarily good
THAN it is necessarily so.
Toch?
Or am I wrong, in that case it is necessarily good.
Hi Roos,
Even if God is necessarily good, one may ask whether being could have been such that God isn't. Is God necessarily necessarily good?
Cheers,
Emanuel
It seems to me that there exists a possible world in which God does not possess goodness as a property. In fact, several (contemporary) philosophers would insist that we live in this very world. I think that all properties thought in the concept of God are contingent, unless the properties thus considered are mutually exclusive (i.e. simultaneously logically inconsistent). For instance, God thought as simultaneously possessing both omnipotence and omniscience (properly defined) does not reflect a contingent possibility: it simply cannot exist. Such an entity is necessarily impossible by definition. Although the idea of a non-omnibenevolent or even 'evil' God would contradict with traditional christian definitions, in itself it does not reflect a necessary impossible conception of God. It seems entirely possible to conceive of a world in which there exists an omnipotent yet 'evil' God.
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