This brilliant, informed, and thoroughly entertaining book dissects our deep desire to be mini-gods capable of transcending our own circumstances, history, and shaped character. Skillfully weaving discussions of philosophy, psychology, history, and theology, Bruce Waller explains how the widespread and nonconscious desire to possess godlike powers functions as a kind of “dark matter” that binds together our pernicious system of moral responsibility and makes it difficult to challenge and hard to renounce. I recommend this book highly! It should be required reading for everyone interested in free will, moral responsibility, and the significant (and harmful) role apotheosis aspiration plays in our everyday thoughts and behaviors.

Gregg D. Caruso, professor of Philosophy at SUNY Corning and author of Rejecting Retributivism (2021) and Just Deserts: Debating Free Will (w/Daniel Dennett, 2021)

Bruce Waller just understands things before (and better than) other people do. Then he communicates that understanding so effectively you wonder how you could ever have thought otherwise. This book is not just an important addition to the Waller collection; it is an important addition to the canon. It will change the way you think about ‘what it means to be human’ and shake any confidence that we could ever be authentic, efficient sculptors of who we are much less of what we can become: And he explains why that matters so very much. But though we may not be masters of our own will, Waller shows us that it is nonetheless crucial we understand what ‘free will’ can never mean.

Peter A. Alces, author, most recently, of The Moral Conflict of Law and Neuroscience