Blackwell Reference Online

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Logical possibilities can subsist eternally and unmysteriously, but why are there any actualities? Though some call this a pseudo-question, answers have been suggested. Perhaps God's infinitude is a satisfyingly simple source of all other existence. Perhaps the existence of things at each instant is explicable by their having existed earlier. Perhaps the difference between actuality and possibility is merely like that between existing here and existing yonder ( see potentiality/actuality ). A Neoplatonist answer is that, just as it would be ethically required that a blank not be replaced by a bad situation, so also there is anethical requirement that there be a good situation, not a blank ( see neoplatonism ). In a fashion timelessly necessary (despite being logically undemonstrable)this requirement is itself creative. The accompanying problem of evil might be solved Spinozistically: divine knowledge, a supreme good, would include knowing exactly how it felt to live lives often harsh and clouded by ignorance. See also cosmology ; cosmos ; finite/infinite ; world . : ‘ Why? ’, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy ( New York : Macmillan , 1967 ) vol. 8 , 296 – 302 . : Value and Existence ( Oxford : Blackwell , 1979 ). : The Miracle of Theism ( Oxford : Clarendon Press , 1982 ). : The Mystery of Existence ( New York : Appleton-Century-Crofts , 1965 ). : The ... log in or subscribe to read full text