One Philosopher’s Bug Can Be Another’s Feature: Reply to Almeida’s “Multiverse and Divine Creation”

Abstract

Michael Almeida once told me that he thought we were just a couple of hours of conversation away from reaching deep agreement about some important topics in the philosophy of religion pertaining to God, multiverses, and modality. This paper represents my attempt to move this conversation forward and to seek this common ground. Specifically, I respond to Almeida's paper entitled "The Multiverse and Divine Creation". In the first four sections, I record my disagreement with him concerning some smaller matters. In Section 5, I try to persuade him that what he considers a 'bug' in the theistic multiverse is actually a feature-and a desirable one at that. In Section 6, I close by identifying some points at which our views seem to converge.

Aquinas and the Multiverse. An Approach

“…Considering only absolute power, God could create a world where the balance of goods and evils would be tilted in favor of evils, but if we think of God's ordered power, that hypothesis becomes meaningless. Kraay (2018) is right, in this sense, when he responds to Almeida (2017) by pointing out that God does not necessarily actualize all possibles indiscriminately, but that other factors need to be consid-1 1 (2 ) / 2 0 2 3 ered in his operation. God is a rational agent, so it can be expected that his action responds to reasons and is also consistent with his goodness.…”