ChadWooters Wrote:if you list all the properties of a thing then saying a thing exists adds nothing to the description that wasn’t already there.

That's because existence and essence are separate. This is exactly my point: Existence is NOT a property. "What is X?" and "Whatever "X" that we conceive of supposedly is, does it actually exist?" are two separate questions.

ChadWooters Wrote:My point is that a proper consideration of existence takes into account the degree to which something participates in what is essential to its quiddity.

And my point is that a "proper consideration of existence" actually addresses the question of existence rather than speaking of it as if it is a property when it isn't.

(June 23, 2016 at 3:56 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:

(June 22, 2016 at 10:50 pm)SteveII Wrote: It does not matter what we discern to be a great making property--that would be subjective. As Anselm put it: by definition, there cannot be anything greater than God. You might object what is the purpose of defining God this way if we don't know what it means. Well, depending on your purposes in discerning what God is like, you can look at scripture or natural theology (or both) as a kind of control.

What I object to is not that an MGB cannot be constructed in practice, but that an MGB cannot be constructed in principle.  Let us suppose that we have a possible world populated only by demons.  Things that you might postulate as great making they might postulate as bad making.  Evil preferred to good.  No necessarily existing good God.  Certainly no omnipotent overlord.  Demons just want to have fun.  There is nothing that makes 'good' necessarily greater than evil.  It is neutral, outside of itself.  So it wouldn't be a great making property, it would just be an optional, accidental element.  Incorporating 'good' into the description of an MGB would just be arbitrary.  So there's no objective reason an MGB would have this or any other property.  All properties are metaphysically neutral.  No one property is any 'greater' than any other.  So an MGB would not necessarily have any particular set of properties.  That's the crux of the matter.  Not that an MGB would be subjective, but that no set of properties -- no properties at all -- are inherently good or bad.  If no particular property is either good or bad -- they're neutral -- what sense can one make of a maximally great being?  It makes no sense.  It can't be defined because real properties are neither good nor bad.  Great making properties form an empty set.  It's not that greatest is inscrutable because of our subjectivity, it's incoherent because there is no such thing as objectively greatest.

Thank you for you answer above. I understand your position. I still think the tri-omni characteristics are part of any MGB description. Even if we do not know exactly what they are, we intuitively know they are great-making properties. I would like to point out that with other natural theology arguments like the Moral Argument and the Cosmological argument at the very least can provide insight into what characteristics a MGB may have (enough anyway to begin to remove the subjectivity of the description). 

Quote:

(June 22, 2016 at 10:50 pm)SteveII Wrote: I would be interested to hear your thoughts on Plantinga's defense of his formulation (from wikipedia): The conclusion relies on a form of modal axiom S5, which states that if something is possibly true, then its possibility is necessary (it is possibly true in all worlds). Plantinga's version of S5 suggests that "To say that p is possibly necessarily true is to say that, with regard to one world, it is true at all worlds; but in that case it is true at all worlds, and so it is simply necessary."

I think it's a form of begging the question.  Once you define something, anything, as necessarily existing, then unless it is logically contradictory, you are declaring that it exists.  Modal logic here is simply dressing up the assertion that an MGB would by definition be necessary.  As noted, because of the problem that great making properties don't exist as such, one cannot assert that a great being would have this or that great making property.  The assignation of properties then becomes merely arbitrary assertion.  As stated, making that particular arbitrary assertion is tantamount to claiming the entity exists and thus begs the question.

I don't think it is question begging. Through inductive reasoning you conclude that a MGB would be necessary. It is not an arbitrary property assigned to trigger the modal logic. 

I understand if you grow tired of this. No hard feelings if you don't want to continue.

You can't define a possibility into a reality.

You can't have a creator God without an infinite regress.

You can't get morality from a dictatorial authority - morality comes from empathy for the wellbeing and suffering of conscious creatures. Morality from a god would be a-moral, it's not a moral system at all it's just a system of law.

And you wouldn't even entertain the possibility of something with such woefully, laughably poor evidence if it hadn't been culturally inculcated and socially indoctrinated.

Free your mind...

(June 23, 2016 at 7:12 pm)SteveII Wrote:

Quote:I think it's a form of begging the question.  Once you define something, anything, as necessarily existing, then unless it is logically contradictory, you are declaring that it exists.  Modal logic here is simply dressing up the assertion that an MGB would by definition be necessary.  As noted, because of the problem that great making properties don't exist as such, one cannot assert that a great being would have this or that great making property.  The assignation of properties then becomes merely arbitrary assertion.  As stated, making that particular arbitrary assertion is tantamount to claiming the entity exists and thus begs the question.

I don't think it is question begging. Through inductive reasoning you conclude that a MGB would be necessary. It is not an arbitrary property assigned to trigger the modal logic. 

I don't see how induction would help you there. Can you explain?

(June 23, 2016 at 7:12 pm)SteveII Wrote: I understand if you grow tired of this. No hard feelings if you don't want to continue.

I'm not so much tired of it as I feel it has run its course and I don't know where we would go from here. You feel that greatness could be in principle defined, if not by this then by other arguments, whereas I find the notion incoherent. It seems we are at an impasse. I keep coming back to the same question: what makes necessarily existing a good thing or great thing, "independent of the attitudes and opinions of individual minds?" So far you've demurred from giving an answer.

(June 23, 2016 at 7:37 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:

(June 23, 2016 at 7:12 pm)SteveII Wrote: I don't think it is question begging. Through inductive reasoning you conclude that a MGB would be necessary. It is not an arbitrary property assigned to trigger the modal logic. 

I don't see how induction would help you there.  Can you explain?

You are right. I meant deductive.

Quote:

(June 23, 2016 at 7:12 pm)SteveII Wrote: I understand if you grow tired of this. No hard feelings if you don't want to continue.

I'm not so much tired of it as I feel it has run its course and I don't know where we would go from here.  You feel that greatness could be in principle defined, if not by this then by other arguments, whereas I find the notion incoherent.  It seems we are at an impasse.

You are correct. As always, it has been a pleasure. Thanks for challenging me to think carefully on these things.

(June 23, 2016 at 7:49 pm)SteveII Wrote: You are correct. As always, it has been a pleasure. Thanks for challenging me to think carefully on these things.

I have enjoyed our conversation as well. Thank you for the pleasure.

(June 23, 2016 at 7:37 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: You feel that greatness could be in principle defined, if not by this then by other arguments, whereas I find the notion incoherent.  It seems we are at an impasse.

Personally, until I see a proposal of how it might be defined in practice, asserting that it could be done in principle seems premature.  I'm skeptical that it can be done.

Frankly the ontological argument seems to me to be the least convincing, most absurd argument for deity amongst those lauded by philosophers.

(June 23, 2016 at 5:40 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote:

ChadWooters Wrote:if you list all the properties of a thing then saying a thing exists adds nothing to the description that wasn’t already there.

That's because existence and essence are separate. This is exactly my point: Existence is NOT a property. "What is X?" and "Whatever "X" that we conceive of supposedly is, does it actually exist?" are two separate questions.

Rather than restating your objection, which I obviously fully understand, please address my concern about different kinds of objects that have nothing else in common except their existence.

(June 23, 2016 at 7:24 pm)Veritas_Vincit Wrote: You can't define a possibility into a reality.

Possibility is defined by its contrary, necessity.

(June 23, 2016 at 7:24 pm)Veritas_Vincit Wrote: You can't have a creator God without an infinite regress.

Mere assertion.

(June 23, 2016 at 7:24 pm)Veritas_Vincit Wrote: ...morality comes from empathy for the wellbeing and suffering of conscious creatures.

Mere assertion.

(June 23, 2016 at 7:24 pm)Veritas_Vincit Wrote: Morality from a god would be a-moral, it's not a moral system at all it's just a system of law.

Straw man.

(June 23, 2016 at 7:24 pm)Veritas_Vincit Wrote: Free your mind...

Use your mind.