The Metaphysics of Theism: A Classical and Neo-Classical Synthesis

This article aims to provide a metaphysical elucidation of the notion of Theism and a coherent theological synthesis of two extensions of this notion: Classical Theism and Neo-Classical Theism. A model of this notion and its extensions is formulated within the ontological pluralism framework of Kris McDaniel and Jason Turner, and the (modified) modal realism framework of David Lewis, which enables it to be explicated clearly and consistently, and two often raised objections against the elements of this notion can be successfully answered.

God’s Place in Logical Space

It has been argued recently that classical theism and Lewisian modal realism are incompatible theses. The most substantial argument to this effect takes the form of a trilemma. It argues that no sense can be made of God’s being a necessary being in the modal realistic picture, on pain of, among other things, modal collapse. The question of this essay is: Is that so? My goal here is to detail the reasons that have been offered in support of this contention and then defend the coherence of theistic modal realism from the trilemma. I call my reply to the argument an “Anselmian-Thomistic” defense, since it appeals to resources from classical medieval philosophy, especially from Anselm and Aquinas.

Necessitism, Contingentism, and Lewisian Modal Realism

Necessitism is the controversial thesis that necessarily everything is necessarily something, namely that everything, everywhere, necessarily exists. What is controversial about necessitism is that, at its core, it claims that things could not have failed to exist, while we have a pre-theoretical intuition that not everything necessarily exists. Contingentism, in accordance with common sense, denies necessitism: it claims that some things could have failed to exist. Timothy Williamson is a necessitist and claims that David Lewis is a necessitist too. The paper argues that, granted the assumptions that lead to interpret the Lewisian as a necessitist, she can preserve contingentist intuitions, by genuinely agreeing with the folk that existence is contingent. This is not just the uncontroversial claim that the Lewisian, as a result of the prevalence of restricted quantification in counterpart theoretic regimentations of natural language, can agree with the folk while disagreeing with them in the metaphysical room. Rather, this is the claim that it is in the metaphysical room that the Lewisian can endorse the intuitions lying behind contingentism.

Necessary Suffering and Lewisian Theism

One can readily conceive of worlds of horrendous, gratuitous suffering. Moreover, such worlds seem possible. For classical theists, however, God, amongst other things, is perfectly good. So, the question arises: for classical theists are such evil worlds possible? Many classical theists have said no. This is the modal problem of evil. Herein, I discuss a related problem: the problem of evil worlds for Lewisian theism. Lewisian theism is the conjunction of Lewis’s modal realism and classical theism, and a leading Lewisian theist, Almeida, thinks that Lewisian theists should admit the existence of on-balance evil worlds. I do not. Herein, I present a dilemma for Almeida: either give up God’s sovereignty and the reductionist account of modality or make God blameworthy for evil.

Modal Realism and the Possibility of Island Universes: Why There are no Possible Worlds

In this article, I defend Lewisian modal realism against objections arising from the possibility of ‘Island Universes’ and other similar cases. The problem comes from Lewis’ claim that possible worlds are spatio-temporally isolated. I suggest a modification of Lewisian modal realism in order to avoid this family of objections. This modification may sound quite radical since it amounts to abandoning the very notion of a possible world, but as radical as it may sound it in fact remains well in the spirit of Lewis’ original view.

Comments on Scott Shalkowski’s “Essence and Nominalism”

Scott Shalkowski and I share a distaste for the ontological extravagance of modal realism and it is a delight to read him write with such eloquence and passion on the need for “sober metaphysics.” However, there is a point on which we appear to disagree and this has to do with the formulation and defense of nominalism; and it will perhaps help to illuminate the general doctrines of QE and QO by drawing out the contrast between our different views in this particular case....

Theistic modal realism and causal modal collapse

Theistic modal realism argues for an extension of Lewis's modal realism capable of accommodating a theistic God. By affording elegant solutions to many atheistic challenges, the view is of great theoretical utility for the theist. However, it has been objected that within a Lewisian framework God cannot be causally efficacious on pain of collapsing intuitively distinct modal notions. In this article I explain why these worries are ill-founded and show how God's existence and causal power over the pluriverse can be consistently understood. If successful, the proposal offers a congenial theistic way to adopt modal realism and address the atheological problems.