God: Can He Choose His Own Qualities? Can He Commit Suicide?

The idea of libertarian free will is a contentious one, but let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it exists, because that is the general position of most theists.

There is a prevailing idea that if things are great, then they are great-making properties. If they are great-making properties, then they are things that God must have because God is the greatest entity in conception.

So, free will then.

Primarily, God's existence lacks free will in that he has not chosen his own existence. There is no choice involved in necessary existence, and God could certainly not choose to not exist, as this would invalidate his necessary existence in all possible worlds. God cannot commit suicide.

God is also omnibenevolent. This means he is maximally, or perfectly, loving. He cannot be anything other than this, because this would invalidate his omnibenevolence and his greatest of all possible beings label. He is immutable, stuck in abstract stone, unable to change his characteristics to be anything other than they necessarily are. He cannot change his path away from that which he already knows it to be, with his divine foreknowledge.

God seems to be maximally, er, constrained.

I will explore this in much more detail tomorrow in a longer post. But for the time being, God did not and could not choose himself and his existence, cannot choose his characteristics, cannot change the way he is, or his own path (his actions and future events as they come to pass). He can't really do anything outside of the predestined tracks he has been set upon from the outset.

So much for free will.

Check out my book Free Will? An investigation into whether we have free will or whether I was always going to write this book.

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Free Will? An investigation into whether we have free will or whether I was always going to write this book[/caption]