Notes: When Goodness Meets Limitation: Unpacking the "Limited God"
Based on: "Goff’s Gambit: Why the Limited God Hypothesis is a Bust!" by Christopher CloosPhilip Goff's "limited God hypothesis" aims to reconcile cosmic fine-tuning with suffering.
Goff's hypothesis suggests God is "all knowing, wholly good and all loving but yet is not omnipotent."
This limited God fine-tunes the universe, as evidenced by constants like the cosmological constant.
Despite fine-tuning, this God cannot prevent suffering, such as a "4-year-old from dying of leukemia" or "60,000 children die in the 2004 tsunami," because God "simply can't create complex intelligent life by clicking God's fingers." Once the universe is set, "God's hands are tied" and God "can't intervene in order to prevent suffering." Dr. Cloos introduces a "Two Blueprints Dilemma" to critique Goff's hypothesis, comparing "Blueprint Alpha (Our Universe)" with a hypothetical "Blueprint Beta (Hypothetical Better Universe)."
Blueprint Beta would result in "significantly less morally relevant suffering" but would require the "same exact power to set the dials" as for Alpha.
If God chose Alpha over Beta, knowing Beta would result in less suffering, it means God "knowingly and willingly ... opted for vastly more painful initial setup when a knowable, less painful one was achievable". This suggests "potential malevolence."
If God desired Beta but could not achieve it, the limitation is "conveniently specific and plausibly ad hoc, a limitation on the initial use of constant selecting power," implying an arbitrary constraint.
Goff's hypothesis faces a Grounding Dilemma regarding the source of God's limitations, questioning whether God is "essentially deficient" or "not truly ultimate."
The overall conclusion is that Goff's hypothesis fails due to "internal incoherence,” "conceptual inadequacy," and "explanatory weaknesses," ultimately producing a being "unworthy of the title God."
"Perfect being theology" remains the "only philosophically viable conception that preserves both divine ultimacy coherence and explanatory power."