¹ Swinburne, Richard, The Christian God, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He also defends virtually the same position in “Could there be more than one God?” Faith and Philosophy 5, July 1988, 225–241.Google Scholar

² For a defence of God's existence as logically necessary see Plantinga, Alvin, God, Freedom and Evil, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974)Google Scholar.

³ A consequence of this is that God's existence vastly constrains what sorts of worlds are possible. For example, his goodness constrains certain kinds of evils. Presumably some evils simply are not possible given God's goodness. This is the flaw in Theodore Guleserian's ‘God and Possible Worlds: The Modal Problem of Evil’ Nous 17, May 1983, 221–38. See the response by Garcia, Laura, ‘A Response to the Modal Problem of Evil’ Faith and Philosophy 1, October 1984, 378–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss further the relation of necessary truths to the divine mind. For further discussion see, Menzel, Christopher and Morris, Thomas ‘Absolute Creation’ in Morris, Thomas, Anselmian Explorations (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), 161–78.Google Scholar

⁵ This undermines facile criticisms of the cosmological argument which allege that answers to the question, “Why does God exist” is that He just does. He is a simple, unexplained, brute existence. At the bottom of explanation on this view is an unexplained explainer. If God's necessary existence is logical then God's existence is not without reason, hence it too is explained. But it is not explained, according to the doctrine of divine ideas, by something outside of God himself. See Clark, Kelly James, Return to Reason (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 15–26.Google Scholar

⁶ The limitation may be epistemic rather than logical. If the doctrine of divine simplicity is true, then there is an essential identity among all of the divine attributes. From a human perspective, however, it will no doubt prove difficult to see that identity. In CG, ch. 7, Swinburne attempts to derive all of the other divine attributes from God's being pure, limitless, intentional power. I leave judgments of the success of this enterprise aside.

⁷ If, per impossible, we were able to separate out the divine properties, omnipotence in the compatibilist sense would just be the power to do anything that is logically possible. But God is perfectly good by nature, hence, although he could do everything that is logically possible, there are many things he would not choose to do. God's actions are constrained, therefore, by his goodness. So a being is omnipotent in the absolute sense if a being can do everything that is permitted by his nature.

⁸ See Mackie, J. L., The Miracle of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982)Google Scholar. Swinburne has responded to Mackie's arguments in ‘Mackie, Induction and God’ Religious Studies, 19 (1983), 385–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ See CG, 171. See also CG 134–6.

¹⁰ Such a meeting of divine minds might elicit a variety of states of affairs. Since the choice to create a world or not is radically free, one being might create a world and the other not. Both might agree to create a single world and also agree to a division of labours over contingent goods which would entail harmony between their wills. And each might create his own universe, thereby eliminating the possibility of competing, contingent goods. But it does not seem unreasonable to suppose contra Swinburne, that two divine beings could divide up non-necessary goods in ways that permitted the maximal expression of their creatively free omnipotence.

The only constraints upon omnipotence, therefore, will be divine goodness. Divine being A may have the ability to make the sky green but not exercise that ability because it has been agreed that divine being B was in charge of the colour of the sky. All constraints upon omnipotence, on this view, are characterological. In a sense the ability to will hasn't been compromised, but the desire to will has been accommodated to the wishes of the other divine being.

¹¹ As found in Kelly, J. N. D., Early Christian Creeds Third Edition (London: Longman, 1960, 1972) 215–16Google Scholar.

¹² As found in Leith, John, ed. Creeds of the Churches (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963, rev. 1973), p. 33.Google Scholar

¹³ As quoted in CG, 186.

¹⁴ Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Gay Science, translated by Kaufman, Walter (New York: Vintage Books, 1974)Google Scholar, Part V (the later addition to the text), paragraph 344.

¹⁵ Whether or not it even makes sense to say that we are approaching the truth is an entirely different matter. For an interesting discussion of the range of views on this matter, see Rorty, Richard, ‘Is Truth a Goal of Inquiry? Davidson vs. Wright’ in The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 180, July 1995, 281–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶ See, for example, the Inwagen, Peter van, ‘And yet there are not Three Gods but One God’, in Morris, Thomas (ed.), Philosophy and the Christian Faith (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 241–78.Google Scholar