Theism and Explanation - Appeared-to-Blogly

94 Theism and Explanation
there can never be a morally unsurpassable (morally perfect) being. 43 This, of
course, resembles my fi rst, incoherence of theism, response.
In Rowe’s case, this response works only if possible worlds can be compared
in terms of overall value. If they cannot, not only is there no best possible
world, but there is no better possible world. But as we have seen, this
objection is not one I have to face. On the assumption that we can compare
different possible realizations of a divine plan (some, for instance, causing
more suffering than others) there exists parallel response in defence of my
own position. It may be that there is no best possible realization of a divine
plan—in this context, perhaps, “optimal” makes no sense—but that does
not mean that there are not better and worse realizations of a divine plan.
The fact that there may be no upper limit to how well God might have acted
is no fatal objection. If we examine the explanandum and can envisage a
better way in which the posited divine intention could have been implemented,
then the theistic explanation is no explanation at all.
What follows from this discussion? I have argued that it does make sense
to speak of the best way in which a divine intention could be implemented. If
so, then we are right to invoke the optimality condition. We cannot plausibly
attribute to God a suboptimal solution. But if I am wrong—if there is no
best way in which a divine intention could be implemented, since there could
always be a better—then the very idea of a divine agent seems questionable.
Either way, it seems that the theist will have some questions to answer.
5.4.3 We Cannot Make Such Judgements
So far I have argued against the objection that God is not obliged to act
morally and against the idea that there exists no optimal realisation of a
divine intention. As a coda to that argument, I have suggested that even if
it were true that there is something incoherent in my appeal to optimality,
it would suggest there is something wrong with the very idea of a theistic
explanation. Let me turn now to a third objection. It is another form of
scepticism, similar to that expressed by Elliot Sober. But it is a modal rather
than a (directly) theological scepticism. The objection runs as follows.
To ask if it would have been rational for God to realise this intention in
this way assumes that he had other ways available to him. But how do we
know this? How do we know that the explanandum was not in fact the
only means available to him? We may think that we can envisage a better
way in which the posited divine intention could have been achieved. We
can produce what appears to us a consistent description of a better state
of affairs and argue that since God is omnipotent, he could have brought
this about. But how do we know that this state of affairs is logically possible?
After all, there are many ideas that appear at fi rst sight to be free
from contradiction. The idea that there should exist a barber who shaves
every man who does not shave himself seems perfectly reasonable, at fi rst
sight. Contradictions emerge only after closer examination. We may, for
instance, think that there could exist free beings who always choose the