J.R.R. Tolkien’s sub-creation theory: literary creativity as participation in the divine creation

The Multiverse and Divine Creation

I provide the account of divine creation found in multiverse theorists Donald Turner, Klaas Kraay, and Tim O’Connor. I show that the accounts Kraay and Turner offer are incoherent. God does not survey all possible worlds and necessarily actualize those universes in the (on balance) good worlds or the worthy worlds. If God necessarily actualizes the multiverse, we have no idea which universes ar...

Al-kindī and the Mu‘tazila: Divine Attributes, Creation and Freedom

The ‘Abb®sid caliphs al-Ma’m‚n and al-Mu‘ta◊im, who between them reigned from 198 to 227 A.H. (813-842 A.D.) are best-known to historians of philosophy for two things. First, they supported a massive translation project that had already begun in the previous century with al-Ma’m‚n’s grandfather, al-Man◊‚r. The result was that many of the most important works of Greek philosophy and science were...

Divine Exultation and Agony in the Face of Evil, a Creation Theodicy of Divine Restraint

Horrendous evil describes the anthropological view of excessive evils which devastate and dehumanise both victim and perpetrator, casting doubt as to whether life is worth living. Divine exultation and divine agony are viewed from the perspective of divinity, whose initial creation brought God pleasure and its fall an offence so deep that, though he considered its total destruction, God instead...

World literature and the creation of literary worlds

Based on the author’s work as general editor of the Norton Anthology of World Literature, the essay develops an approach to world literature centered on world creation. The creation of literary worlds can be understood within the framework of possible worlds theory as developed by Thomas Pavel, Lubomir Dolezel and others. Taking its point of departure from possible worlds theory, the essay then...

Embodied creativity : a process continuum from artistic creation to creative participation