Fluctuating maximal God, the problem of inconsistent evil, and spacetime changes

Abstract

The fluctuating maximal God thesis, developed by Jeffrey et al., offers a conception of God that removes the characteristic of divine immutability, allowing the degrees of God's great-making properties to change over time. This god-concept provides a substantial advantage over the ‘static’ maximal God thesis proposed by Yujin Nagasawa if it can adequately sidestep what I call ‘the problem of inconsistent evil’. This problem questions how a static god can be compatible with the inconsistent dispersion of evil in the world. It is founded on the observation that evil is distributed neither equally nor fairly across time, space, and individuals. I distinguish between temporally inconsistent, spatially inconsistent, and interpersonally inconsistent evil and argue that the fluctuating maximal God thesis can account for all types of inconsistent evil if God fluctuates not only through time but also through space.