“God’s creation is not necessary, because nothing, not even a metaphysical mechanism internal to God’s nature, necessitates it. But neither is it contingent in the sense that God confronts “Create” and “Don’t create” as alternative possibilities to deliberate or resolve upon. Creation is divine play: the spontaneous, gratuitous act of infinite goodness whose freedom consists neither in necessity nor in counterfactual choice, nor in any transcendent recipe comprising their combination. It is a metaphysical surprise and joy, unpredictable given everything God is, and yet perfectly expressive of who he is.
“He doesn’t want creation to be arbitrary, which is, I take it, what he thinks any choice between equally good alternatives would have to be.
“What play gives us that ordinary talk of “choice” doesn’t is an activity that can be simultaneously spontaneous and expressive of what one is.