Abstract
Philosophical theology is concerned with the analysis and critical evaluation of religious beliefs, yet core principles within the discipline often remain unexamined and unchallenged. Almeida identifies the traditional Anselmian a priori conception of God as one such principle, which he sees as central to the ‘philosophical dogmas’ that God can actualize the best world (or a morally perfect world or a good enough world) only if God does actualize such worlds. With a tightly-argued and logically rigorous style, he attempts to demonstrate the falsehood not only of these dogmas, but also of many of the most serious atheological arguments for which they provide the foundation. The result is a highly stimulating and provocative reconsideration of some familiar theological disputes.
Against the traditional Anselmian notion of the a priori necessity of the essential properties of God (omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, necessary existence), Almeida begins by outlining his own version of ‘moderate Anselmianism’ whereby there are aposteriori facts about God that might have turned out differently. He believes this conception of God is better able to resist atheological arguments, particularly the logical problem of evil, which he examines in detail. He rejects Alvin Platinga’s influential free will defence on the basis that it is within God’s power to predict that every free essence will always go right. As such, John Mackie’s logical problem of evil re-emerges: if God can actualize a morally perfect world, it seems that God can actualize a world with no evil states of affairs at all.
In the central and most extensive chapter, Almeida addresses this challenge by introducing a set of impossibility arguments designed to show the logical validity of the proposition that God can actualize a morally perfect (or best possible or good enough) world and God does not actualize such a world. His key insight is that there are no extremely good worlds unless there are extremely bad worlds. Since God exists in every possible world, it follows that God can actualize less than perfect worlds. In fact, it is necessarily true that there are worlds in which God can actualize the best possible world and does not do so. However, Almeida does not believe that unredeemed worlds exist as a matter of necessity; there is gratuitous evil, but no irredeemable evil. Redemption is possible through the work of divine and non-divine atonement, though the latter point is more contentious and would have benefited from further development.
After such a careful and thorough treatment of the logical problem of evil, there is a sense in which the subsequent application of his impossibility argument to several other issues (including the problem of horrendous evil, the problem of divine freedom, the evidential argument from evil, and the Darwinian problem of evil) is too neat and too brisk. Nevertheless, Almeida has produced a compelling and challenging book that is conversant with, and demands the attention of, contemporary debates in philosophy of religion.