Argument for Everything Being Necessary

Here I present an argument that everything is necessary. The argument can be modified to result in different types of necessity depending on the types of necessity used in the premises. Let me present the argument, and then elaborate.

1. God necessarily exists. (Premise)
2. Necessarily, if God exists, then God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent. (Premise)
3. There is a best of all possible worlds. (Premise)
4. Necessarily, if God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, then, if there is a best of all possible worlds, God actualizes the best of possibility worlds. (By definition of terms)
5. Necessarily, God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent. (from 1 and 2)
6. Necessarily, if there is a best of all possible worlds, God actualizes the best of possibility worlds. (from 4 and 5)
7. Necessarily, God actualizes the best of all possible worlds. (from 3 and 6)

If the weakest necessity involved above is logical necessity, then this proves that it is a logical necessity that God actualize the best of all possible worlds. Ceteris paribus for other types of modality.

A defense of there being a best of all possible worlds would take a post of its own. Let me say merely that for this argument I am conceiving of these worlds as not merely initial states but including all of time from their beginnings into eternity. If this is problematic, then conceive of possible worlds as possible initial conditions and add an argument for divine determinism. This is required to preserve the strength of modality. If a view like molinism is right, and we have some say in what worlds are possible in the relevant sense, then this will weaken the modality of the conclusion by weakening the modality of premise 3.

Premises 2 and 4 should be familiar to anyone who has thought much about the problem of evil. Actualizing the best of all possible worlds, in the present context, is roughly equivalent to making it the case that there is the least possible evil. To the extent that they are not equivalent, the problem of evil needs a more nuanced account of what is wrong. Let the best of all possible worlds be defined such that, were we to know that God had actualized it, we would be satisfied that God had, in fact, done the right thing in actualizing it, and thus God would be vindicated.

If one does not hold that God necessarily exists, one can dodge the argument, although it is a pretty common claim. This does not, however, require one to reject the claim that God exists, and leaves one with a conclusion that everything is necessary given God's existence, which is not much weaker. Weakening the strongest modality via molinism, as mentioned above, also brings the argument down to a more intuitive level.

So, there are three ways to respond to this argument. One can accept the conclusion that everything that occurs is, say, metaphysically necessary, one can reject a premise (likely 1 or 4), or one can weaken the modality so far that it is more intuitively plausible.