Your discussion of freedom reminds me of some thoughts I have been having lately about freedom and creation. So I was listening to a paper defending God's freedom to create while still remaining purely simple against various analytic objections at a recent conference, and the presenter made the claim that because the world is so non-necessary for God "it is amazing that there is a world at all." Sure, I agree. But I thought you can push the statement the other way and say given that God just is what he is (the Good itself, Self Outpouring Love itself), how could there not be a world (I think Thomas Traherne makes a similar point. One text in Aquinas can also be read this way, Albert too. Seems also to be in Dionysius)? Not that God just dumbly produces the world, but that given what he is, the idea that he might not have created (like how I might just decide to not have a sandwich for lunch) seems to verge on (or just is) voluntarism. To not create seems so inconveniens, as to be completely incompatible with God's nature and therefore, in some sense, not a real possibility. From eternity, it just always was in the cards that he was going to create and this is not a defect of his intellect or power but a perfect expression of who he is, and as you say - the more perfect your understanding, really the less there is to choose. Would appreciate your thoughts!
Your discussion of freedom reminds me of some thoughts I have been having lately about freedom and creation. So I was listening to a paper defending God's freedom to create while still remaining purely simple against various analytic objections at a recent conference, and the presenter made the claim that because the world is so non-necessary for God "it is amazing that there is a world at all." Sure, I agree. But I thought you can push the statement the other way and say given that God just is what he is (the Good itself, Self Outpouring Love itself), how could there not be a world (I think Thomas Traherne makes a similar point. One text in Aquinas can also be read this way, Albert too. Seems also to be in Dionysius)? Not that God just dumbly produces the world, but that given what he is, the idea that he might not have created (like how I might just decide to not have a sandwich for lunch) seems to verge on (or just is) voluntarism. To not create seems so inconveniens, as to be completely incompatible with God's nature and therefore, in some sense, not a real possibility. From eternity, it just always was in the cards that he was going to create and this is not a defect of his intellect or power but a perfect expression of who he is, and as you say - the more perfect your understanding, really the less there is to choose. Would appreciate your thoughts!