Can God Be Free [Paperback]

Can God Be Free?is a penetrating study of a central problem in philosophy of religion: can it be right to regard God as free and as praiseworthy for being perfectly good? Allowing that he has perfect knowledge and perfect goodness, if there is a best world for God to create he would have no choice other than to create it. But if God could not do otherwise than create the best world, he created the world of necessity, not freely, and we have no reason to be thankful to God for creating us, since he couldn't do otherwise. William Rowe proposes the need for some substantial revision in contemporary thinking about the nature of God.

1. Leibniz on Divine Perfection and Freedom
2. Clarke on Divine Perfection and Freedom
3. Aquinas on the Infinity of Worlds
4. Jonathan Edwards on Divine and Human Freedom
5. Must God create the best world?
6. Divine Perfection and Freedom: The Contemporary Debate
7. Can God be the cause of his own nature?

Can God be Free?--like Rowe's work in general--is clearly written and full of engaging arguments. Regardless of whether they agree with his conclusions, readers interested in philosophical theology in general, and the divine nature in particular, will find much of interest in this book. --Shannon Murphy and Kevin Timpe,Philosophia Christi