God and Necessity

Description

Brian Leftow offers a theory of the possible and the necessary in which God plays the chief role, and a new sort of argument for God's existence. It has become usual to say that a proposition is possible just in case it is true in some 'possible world' (roughly, some complete history a universe might have) and necessary just if it is true in all. Thus much discussion of possibility and necessity since the 1960s has focussed on the nature and existence (or not) of possible worlds. God and Necessity holds that there are no such things, nor any sort of abstract entity. It assigns the metaphysical 'work' such items usually do to God and events in God's mind, and reduces 'broadly logical' modalities to causal modalities, replacing possible worlds in the semantics of modal logic with God and His mental events. Leftow argues that theists are committed to theist modal theories, and that the merits of a theist modal theory provide an argument for God's existence. Historically, almost all theist modal theories base all necessary truth on God's nature. Leftow disagrees: he argues that necessary truths about possible creatures and kinds of creatures are due ultimately to God's unconstrained imagination and choice. On his theory, it is in no sense part of the nature of God that normal zebras have stripes (if that is a necessary truth). Stripy zebras are simply things God thought up, and they have the nature they do simply because that is how God thought of them. Thus Leftow's essay in metaphysics takes a half-step toward Descartes' view of modal truth, and presents a compelling theist theory of necessity and possibility. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 12 Introduction......Page 14 1. Modal basics......Page 42 2. Some solutions......Page 61 3. Theist solutions......Page 85 4. The ontology of possibility......Page 109 5. Modal truthmakers......Page 128 6. Modality and the divine nature......Page 148 7. Deity as essential......Page 188 8. Against deity theories......Page 222 9. The role of deity......Page 261 10. The Biggest Bang......Page 285 11. Divine concepts......Page 312 12. Concepts, syntax, and actualism......Page 330 13. Modality: basic notions......Page 346 14. The genesis of secular modality......Page 375 15. Modal reality......Page 404 16. Essences......Page 429 17. Non-secular modalities......Page 448 18. Theism and modal semantics......Page 457 19. Freedom, preference, and cost......Page 470 20. Explaining modal status......Page 489 21. Explaining the necessary......Page 511 22. Against theistic Platonism......Page 523 23. Worlds and the existence of God......Page 549 Bibliography......Page 565 C......Page 582 E......Page 583 G......Page 584 M......Page 585 P......Page 586 S......Page 587 Z......Page 588