Do possible worlds compromise God's beauty? A reply to Mark Ian Thomas Robson

Abstract

Abstract:In a recent article Mark Ian Thomas Robson argues that there is a clear contradiction between the view that possible worlds are a part of God's nature and the theologically pivotal, but philosophically neglected, claim that God is perfectly beautiful. In this paper I show that Robson's argument depends on several key assumptions which he fails to justify and as such that there is reason to doubt the soundness of his argument. I also demonstrate that if Robson's argument were sound then this would be a problem for all classical theists and not just those who hold the possible worlds view.

Omni-beauty as a divine attribute

“…Robson's argument is, of course, controversial in several respects (as I will discuss further below), but the crucial point for my purposes is that it will, if sound, have rather broader implications than Robson himself suggests. Consider that, as I have already argued elsewhere (in Robson (2012) ), God's mind would need to incorporate representations of some truly unspeakable ugliness regardless of the stance we take with respect to divine ersatzism. After all, the actual world contains its own share of horrors – the atrocities committed by the actual world's Nazi party, the transatlantic slave trade, and the disastrous consequences of Mao's ‘Great Leap Forward’ to name but a few – and God, qua omniscient being, would need to have perfectly detailed representations of each of these in his mind.…”

“…26.In his original paper Robson (2011, 487–488) argues against attempts to expand the scope of his claims in this way. However, I argue (Robson (2012), 525–529) that his arguments to this effect are unsuccessful.…”

“…One solution here is to treat this as a reductio of Robson's original claim that God's possessing representations of a certain kind of unspeakable ugliness entails that he is not himself perfectly beautiful. And there seem (as I discussed in Robson (2012) ) to be various reasons why someone might reject this claim. First, it could be argued that God's being perfectly beautiful is compatible with his having some parts which are not beautiful (and, indeed, with his having some which are horrifically ugly) 27 .…”

“…In particular, it would entail that he is not, as Robson (2014, 205) maintains, ‘wholly and completely beautiful’ in the sense that ‘there can be no “part” of God that is not (so to speak) crammed full of beauty’. Rather, his surpassing beauty would arise (as I tentatively suggest elsewhere) from ‘placing something which is, in and of itself, very ugly in certain relations to a greater whole’ in order to ‘give rise to a strange kind of beauty, a beauty that is often wonderfully exquisite’ (Robson (2012), 521). Beyond that, it would also seem to generate a conflict with another putative divine attribute: simplicity.…”