Abstract

This dissertation is a working out of certain of my convictions: that there is such a thing as what it is to be good, that some things are better than other things, that the truths of morality are true necessarily, and that they have among their number the truth that we, as imperfect rational beings, ought to aspire to be good in the best combination of ways possible for us. ;To be God, I take it, is to be good in what is without qualification the best combination of ways possible. But is anything good in this best possible combination of ways? Is it even the case that there is such a thing as being good in the best possible combination of ways? These questions, I argue, are questions that we philosophers ought to take up. We ought to think about and try to understand what it is to be God. ;After working through a series of topics in philosophical theology--including the nature of God's will and of perfect freedom, the dependence of necessary truths on God, the doctrine of divine simplicity, and the nature of God's love and forgiveness--I pause to argue that we ought to do more than try to understand what it is to be God. We ought to take the further step of committing ourselves to the project of coming to believe that God, or at least someone who is Godlike in knowledge and love, exists. Finally, I fend off arguments to the effect that knowledge of God's existence would, if achieved, prove morally corrupting. ;Interlocutors include G. E. Moore, Aristotle, J. L. Mackie, Bruce Reichenbach, G. W. Leibniz, Thomas V. Morris, William P. Alston, Norman Kretzmann, Alvin Plantinga, Thomas Aquinas, Charles Hartshorne, Richard E. Creel, Anne C. Minas, Boethius, Blaise Pascal, William K. Clifford, James L. Muyskens, Louis P. Pojman, Robert Merrihew Adams, Immanuel Kant, and Plato