ABSTRACT
The major conception of God in the West is that he necessarily exists and is necessarily all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good. This chapter examines whether God, so conceived, can be free with respect to the possible world he selects to create. It argues that if there is a best creatable world, God is not free to create any world other than the best world. The chapter also argues that if for every creatable world there is a better creatable world, it cannot be that God exists and is the creator of a world. Before answering the issue of whether God is free, the chapter discusses two preliminary points. The first concerns the particular conception of God that is being presupposed when we ask whether or not God can be free. The second is when we ask whether God can be free, we need to first ask: “free with respect to what?”.
