Topics Religion

Question Can the necessity/contingency paradox be dissolved? If God is thought to be a necessary being, how can He be the creator of a contingent world or have an ongoing involvement with it?

Accepted:
November 19, 2005

Comments

It is not immediately obvious why there should be a paradox here. Not to encourage any invidious comparisons, but I am a contingent being who has an ongoing involvement with the world. To say I am contingent is to to say that I might not have existed; but that is no problem so far as my involvement, since fortunately for me I do exist in actuality. Suppose that there is a God and He has ongoing involvement with the world and indeed, unlike me, he created it too. The additional supposition that, again unlike me, he could not have not existed, seems to pose no additional barrier to His involvement. To express the matter in the possible world talk that philosophers like, to be involved with the actual world you must be in the actual world; but your additional presence in other worlds does not prevent this involvement.

Question Can the necessity/contingency paradox be dissolved? If God is thought to be a necessary being, how can He be the creator of a contingent world or have an ongoing involvement with it? Accepted:November 19, 2005

Question Can the necessity/contingency paradox be dissolved? If God is thought to be a necessary being, how can He be the creator of a contingent world or have an ongoing involvement with it?

Accepted:
November 19, 2005