Plantiga's ontological argument.

[Lord Privy Seal]

First of all, if logic worked like incantatory magic, so that Alvin Plantinga could conjure a God into existence by arranging a clever syllogism, the planets and Sun would orbit the Earth in perfect circles. Second, you define a "Necessary Being" as one that must exist in all possible worlds. If there is more than one conceivable type of Necessary Being, but only one can exist in all possible worlds, then the concept is self-contradictory if by "Being" you mean a person.

Is the Necessary Being a male with threefold Personhood (Yahweh-Jesus-Holy Spirit), or male and singular (Allah, Judaism!Yahweh)? Is the Necessary Being female with a threefold Personhood (the Triple Goddess of the Wiccans), or female and singular (Atana Potnia)? Does the Necessary Being predestine some to salvation and others to perdition (Calvinist!Yahweh) or grant humans free will (Arminian!Yahweh)? Is it a One, True God (the Abrahamic monotheisms), does it manifest itself as hundreds of gods and goddesses (Brahman), or did it create gods and goddesses different from itself (Atum)? Etc., etc., and so forth.

Since there's an endless array of proposed Necessary Beings, each as likely as the others, there is no way to identify a single one as "the" Being that is Necessary in all possible worlds. Any sort of personal being is, by definition, one of many possibilities, i.e. it is this person, with these values, personality attributes, etc., rather than someone else. So, a Necessary Being cannot be a person.

Now, maybe you could argue for something along the lines of "Being-as-such" being Necessary--not a being, like a god or goddess, but the state of Being. In order to meet the standard of "Necessary in all possible worlds" this sort of Being would have to be so basic and fundamental, so metaphysically simple and undifferentiated that it would underlie all beings in all possible worlds without having any individual personhood of its own. It would be more akin to "the Tao," "the grand unified field" or "the spacetime manifold" than anything anyone could worship. But then, this wouldn't serve Plantinga's purpose, would it?

[Shell B]

Let me rewrite it in symbol form. N = necessary, and p = possible, so Nx means 'its necessary that x' and px means that 'its possible that x'. Finally, > means 'if...then'.

a. px > Npx
b. not Npx > not px
c. not Npx > N not x
d. p not px > N not x
e. pN not x > N not x
f. pNx > Nx

Blurgh, that is sloppy. Let's use * for possible. # for necessary and ~ for not.

a. *x > #*x
b. ~ #*x > ~ *x
c. ~ #*x > # ~x
d. * ~ *x > # ~x
e. *# ~x > # ~x
f. *#x > #x

I'll try to scrape through that in the morning.

Chew on this for a moment, though. Even if your first premise here isn't flawed, this becomes a problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuous_truth

[Shell B]

Well, haven taken a cursory glance at the use of these silly operators (I've worked with necessary and sufficient, but possible is in the realm of silly), I have figured out that the second premise is malarky. In layman's terms, it says: If x is not necessarily possible than not possible x. (I realize it sounds kind of retarded, but not possible x is different than x is not possible, though it is essentially the same in this case.)

[Mystic]

Is the Necessary Being a male with threefold Personhood (Yahweh-Jesus-Holy Spirit), or male and singular (Allah, Judaism!Yahweh)? Is the Necessary Being female with a threefold Personhood (the Triple Goddess of the Wiccans), or female and singular (Atana Potnia)? Does the Necessary Being predestine some to salvation and others to perdition (Calvinist!Yahweh) or grant humans free will (Arminian!Yahweh)? Is it a One, True God (the Abrahamic monotheisms), does it manifest itself as hundreds of gods and goddesses (Brahman), or did it create gods and goddesses different from itself (Atum)? Etc., etc., and so forth.

Since there's an endless array of proposed Necessary Beings, each as likely as the others, there is no way to identify a single one as "the" Being that is Necessary in all possible worlds. Any sort of personal being is, by definition, one of many possibilities, i.e. it is this person, with these values, personality attributes, etc., rather than someone else. So, a Necessary Being cannot be a person.

Now, maybe you could argue for something along the lines of "Being-as-such" being Necessary--not a being, like a god or goddess, but the state of Being. In order to meet the standard of "Necessary in all possible worlds" this sort of Being would have to be so basic and fundamental, so metaphysically simple and undifferentiated that it would underlie all beings in all possible worlds without having any individual personhood of its own. It would be more akin to "the Tao," "the grand unified field" or "the spacetime manifold" than anything anyone could worship. But then, this wouldn't serve Plantinga's purpose, would it?

I think I may agree with you except on one thing. It can be that it is a basis to reason and logic including morality, and these things by their nature if true, are not somethings that can possibly have been otherwise. So to attribute ultimate moral perfection to it, can be a necessary trait in all worlds.

In this case, while we don't know what perfection or ultimate morality is, or what the perfect personality is, they by definition are one.

If we say ultimate morality can be anything in any possible world, it would make morality contradictory, and we are simply choosing to stick to believe in a morality we are familiar with.

---

Chew on this for a moment, though. Even if your first premise here isn't flawed, this becomes a problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuous_truth

I don't get it. You'll have to explain.

[Shell B]

Well, here is a rather succint sentence from the start of that article:

A vacuous truth is a truth that is devoid of content because it asserts something about all members of a class that is empty or because it says “If A then B” when in fact A is inherently false.

So, basically, it is saying that an argument can follow all of the logical steps that would lead us to a conclusion of "true," but that would only be in formality. It is vacuous because it assumes the truth of premise a, when, in fact, premise a is false.

An example,

If all dogs are purple, than all chihuahuas are purple. Well, this is a perfectly logical and true argument. However, A (all dogs are purple) is false. Therefore, this is a vacuous truth.

So, in the argument this thread is regarding, you have the first premise as "If x is possible, then it is necessary that x is possible." We'll ignore the fact that this is inherently untrue, as far as I understand the possible qualifier to work. Mind you, necessary is used often, but I have rarely encountered possible in my brief time dealing with this kind of logic. So, ignoring that, we have an empty truth. X is not necessarily possible. X in this argument is a necessary being. Given that we do not know if a necessary being is possible, the premise is false. Therefore, you have an argument that is logically sound, but vacuous or meaningless, if you prefer.

[Neo-Scholastic]

What's weird about it really is that it narrows down the concept to one.

Or rather 'One'. (see signature line)

[A_Nony_Mouse]

We can summarize the argument:
...

Arguments are worthless. Only physical evidence matters.

If you do not have physical evidence you don't have squat.

[Mystic]

Ok thanks for the clarification Shell B.

I think it's not known to me for certain, the premise, but I would still say it seems to be the case that a necessary being is ontologically possible.

This is where I think I differ with many Atheists. Rhythm in the thread of argument from perpetual identity said he was not willing to base any conclusions on having a perpetual identity even though he says it seems to be the case that we do have one.

I don't emphasize on the doubt. Rather I emphasize on what seems to be the case, then emphasize on that non-certainty.

This is why I said while this argument doesn't prove a necessary being exists, it does improve it's likelihood from the perspective from "all we know".

Another thing is if the premise is possibly true, then what if a necessary being exists? Is it then impossible to know it is possible even then?

[Shell B]

Well, that is circular. The premise of the argument is that a necessary being is possible, which is not certain. You then proposed from that premise that a necessary being is possible.

This kind of "logic" is why religion and logic do not mix. Religion is not logical. It is not impossible to know if it is possible. We just don't know that it is possible. Evidence points to the contrary, but it will never be possible to see the entire picture. Therefore, in spite of the evidence, I have to say that we do not know if it is possible, though it seems awfully unlikely. At any rate, the premise is false, no matter what. The given information does not support it. Thus, false.

[The Grand Nudger]

This is where I think I differ with many Atheists. Rhythm in the thread of argument from perpetual identity said he was not willing to base any conclusions on having a perpetual identity even though he says it seems to be the case that we do have one.

I don't emphasize on the doubt. Rather I emphasize on what seems to be the case, then emphasize on that non-certainty.

Unfortunately, when you don't -address- the doubt, conclusions that arise from the premise held uncritically are incapable of rising above the level of doubt originally aimed at the premise. Further - you may inject even more doubt in the assertions - the conclusion may be more suspect than the premise (which was itself already shaky).

You end up without being able to lay claim to any sort of knowledge, and the whole exercise becomes a sham.