The Problem of Arbitrary Creation for Impassibility

There is a particular question that has plagued classical Christian theism over the centuries. What reason could God have for creating a universe? In this article, I shall articulate the unique claims of classical theism that other rival models of God lack. I shall argue that classical theism’s uniq...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Mullins, R. T. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: De Gruyter 2020
In: Open theology
Year: 2020, Volume: 6, Issue: 1, Pages: 392-406
Further subjects:B Creation
B Rationality
B impassibility
B God
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Summary:There is a particular question that has plagued classical Christian theism over the centuries. What reason could God have for creating a universe? In this article, I shall articulate the unique claims of classical theism that other rival models of God lack. I shall argue that classical theism’s unique commitments entail that God cannot create the universe for a reason. Thus, any nonclassical model of God can claim to have the advantage over classical theism because they can affirm that God creates the universe for a reason. In Section 1, I shall articulate classical theism. In Section 2, I shall lay the groundwork for the debate by explaining what a reason is and what a creation is. In Section 3, I shall argue that a classical theist cannot affirm that God creates the universe for a reason, thus conflicting with God’s perfect rationality.
ISSN:2300-6579
Contains:Enthalten in: Open theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1515/opth-2020-0110