Rowe, Rowe, Rowe your boat

A while back, John Loftus indicated that William Rowe’s book, Can God Be Free?, undermined David Wood’s attempt to construct a theodicy. But Rowe's stated position is a good deal more nuanced and concessive than Loftus makes it out to be. Here are a few quotes:

"What then are the qualities that make for superior worlds? And are these qualities such that they have intrinsic maximums, a degree beyond which no greater degree is possible? Unlike determining the qualities that make for better persons, it is profoundly difficult to be confident in determining the qualities that make for better worlds. And more difficult still to determine that such qualities have intrinsic maximums, a degree beyond which no greater degree is possible," W. Rowe, Can God Be Free? (Oxford 2006), 43.

"There is a principle, the Principle of Organic Unities [See G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge 1903), 187ff.], held by a number of philosophers from Leibniz to the present day. According to this principle, the intrinsic value of a whole may not be equal to the sum of the intrinsic value of each of its parts...So, for all we know, the best world may include some intrinsically bad states of affairs...For, as we've seen, a state of affairs that constitutes an organic unity may be better for the presence of a bad part than it would be were the bad part replaced by a good part. So, again, we must note that a possible world with some bad parts may be better than a possible world with no bad parts," ibid. 78 (and footnote #6).

"We should not confuse the intrinsic value of a state of affairs with the intrinsic value of a state of affairs of which it is a part" ibid. 79.

As we've seen, owing to the Principle of Organic Unities, the best whole may have some parts that are not the best. Therefore, the best world may contain some human beings who are not better than, or even as good as, their replacements in the closest world to the best world," ibid. 86.

"He [Tom Morris] points out that some philosophers are doubtful that there is a single scale on which all creaturely values can be weighted so as to determine what world possesses the maximum amount of value. "Some world A might be better than rival world B in some respects, but with B surpassing A in others, and the relevant values are not such that they could be summed over and compared overall ["Perfection and Creation"], ibid. 99.