The Ontological Argument - valid or debunked?

[Edwardo Piet]

As I understand it, the Maximally Great Being (MGB) doesn’t have anything to do with subjective criteria or value judgments about what constitutes the best possible thing anyone can imagine. Rather, the MGB means something more akin to the fullest possible expression of what it means to exist.

Contradiction.

For example, a warning traffic sign is an objectively better example of a triangle than a spanakopita.

That is subjective.

Thus when maximally great is attributed to God it is meant in the sense that He exemplifies the fullness of everything it means to be, i.e. complete, self-sustaining, necessary, fully in act, etc.

Meaning?

You're the master of obfuscation aren't you Chad?

[KevinM1]

A complete, self-sustaining being wouldn't need or want to create anything. Creation is a symptom of deficiency. Such a perfect creature would necessarily be atomic.

[LastPoet]

The KCA, the Ontological Argument, TAG, are all desperate attempts to argue god into existence. They might persuade those that already want to believe or those not very well versed in logic or unable to comprehend what's being said. Not those with more training and ability to think.

[Esquilax]

The KCA, the Ontological Argument, TAG, are all desperate attempts to argue god into existence. They might persuade those that already want to believe or those not very well versed in logic or unable to comprehend what's being said. Not those with more training and ability to think.

That's sort of the thing I've been alluding to from the beginning that, curiously, continues to be ignored by the proponents of the argument: you can't talk a thing into existence. Logical arguments made in the absence of objective observations might work within the self-contained world of the argument, but there's nothing to bridge that hypothetical into the world we actually live in. A valid argument- which the ontological argument is not, but hey- can still be an untrue argument if the premises don't align with the world itself.

[Veritas_Vincit]

Now let's break it down and expose the slights of hand:

"A possible world is just a way the world might have been. It's a complete description of reality. So a possible world is not a planet or a universe or any kind of concrete object, it's just a world description. The actual world is just the description that it true. Slight of hand: the actual world is not the description that is true - Craig is blurring the distinction between the actual world and the description of it. 

"Other possible worlds are descriptions that might have been true, but are not in fact true." Yes - but this means that the word 'possible' in 'possible world' does not actually make it possible in the sense that 'it can be the case in some reality', it is simply hypothetical. This is the key point: possibility is a positive claim, and it has to be demonstrated. It does not stand simply because the contrary claim that it is impossible has not been demonstrated either, because it has to uphold its own burden of proof. This is where the meaning of 'possible' and 'hypothetical' are confused.  

To say that something exists in some possible world is to say that there is some description of reality which includes that entity. To say that something exists in every possible world is to say that no matter which description is true, the entity will be included in that description. So, for example, Unicorns do not in fact exist. But, there is some possible world in which Unicorns exist. On the other hand, many mathematicians think that numbers exist in every possible world, they exist necessarily." It's true but look at what he's saying. He isn't saying that there IS a world where Unicorns exist, he's saying that there can be a description of a world in which Unicorns exist. The devil is in the detail here. 

You seem to think that Craig developed this framework to trick you. It existed long before Craig.  You still do not understand it. Did you bother reading the link I first posted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possible_world. Philosophers writing philosophical arguments assume you understand this.

Craig then goes on to use 'possible' in different sense in his syllogism:

"It's possible that a maximally great being exists." - and that's simply not true! Not yet anyway because he hasn't demonstrated that it is. He is using 'possible' in this premise before he even gets to 'possible worlds' but he hasn't demonstrated that it is in fact possible that a 'maximally great being' exists. He's just asserted it. It's also an incredibly ill-defined idea. "God is by definition the greatest being conceivable" - this is meaningless - think about it, 'greatness' is not some objective quality, it's a subjective description. It's going to be different for everyone, and is limited by people's imaginations. The only reason this sticks for Christians is that they are already indoctrinated with these ideas about God, they already believe God has these qualities, so they accept everything he says about God even though he doesn't substantiate any of it.  This is all smoke and mirrors!!

The first premise is talking about broadly logically possible. This simply means there are no contradictions in the idea that a maximally great being exists. There is nothing to prove. To defeat that premise you simply have to show why the idea of God is not broadly logically possible. The rest of your post is meaningless because you do not understand the argument you presented in the OP.

I don't accept the first premise because whilst it is structurally valid, it is not sound. Craig has only asserted the possible, but he has not demonstrated it. Anyone who actually read my post will see that I used Craig's own definition of 'possible worlds' verbatim from his own video, and explained how he conflates the two concepts of possibility - which you would understand if you have read it. If the argument is unsound it proves nothing. No Maximally Great Being, no God. DEBUNKED.

For anyone wants to know more about the difference between Validity and Soundness: http://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/

[Edwardo Piet]

Defining existence into the essence of something also completely ignores the separation of existence and essence. It ignores basic elementary philosophy. You can't include the existence of something as part of its essence, whether something exists is a completely different question to what that something being defined is hypothetically.

[SteveII]

When Anselm first wrote this argument, he was careful to distinguish between what we could think of as the greatest possible being and God is the greatest being possible, that is to say, it is impossible for there to be any being greater than God. Your infinite regress is a result thinking of God simply as the greatest being there is. 

Trouble is, there's still no cap on greatness. I get that you're stuck in this mindset, due to the vague nature of your argument, where god's just the greatest thing ever, but your argument is attempting to show that god exists, and extant things have verifiable qualities, that's just the nature of reality, and unfortunately for you, your argument posits that god exists in this world. Actually think about the premises of the argument and the conclusions that follow on from them, don't just be happy that in them your god exists and stop there, really consider the real world as depicted in that argument: god exists, he's the maximally great being. What are his characteristics?

You aren't talking about some airy-fairy philosophical nothing anymore when you reach the conclusion of the ontological argument, you're talking about a real, extant being, and therefore he must have qualities that can be described. He is a set entity, an objective quantity, and to accept that he exists you must have some idea of what he even is. If you don't then I'm sorry, but you're not discussing a real thing, you're discussing an amorphous cocktail of ever-expanding traits with no bearing on reality.

But if god is real, which is the thing you're trying to prove, then he has a set level of greatness that you are asserting to be the highest possible level of greatness, and which I am capable of positing a being greater just by adding to the first being's qualities dominion over that first being. What then? If you're talking about a real entity then your god is no longer maximally great because there's a possible being greater, and that being doesn't exist, putting the lie to the ontological argument. If you're just going to assert that that being I made up is now god by dint of being greater than the one you think exists, then congratulations, you're no longer discussing a real being at all but just vague theological generalities that don't behave like existing things need to, and you're certainly not discussing the actual christian god. Either way, the ontological argument fails.

There is, of course, the third option, which is the one I suspect you're using, which is just to lazily assert based on nothing that the maximally great being under discussion is just the greatest thing there is possible to be, in the process ignoring the dual facts that greatness is a subjective criteria and that no such upper bound on greatness even exists... and in that case I don't really need to take your position seriously: it's nothing more than a bluff, an assertion made without evidence that ignores everything that has been said prior and is completely circular. It's just "god is the greatest possible being because there can be no greater being than god."

It's the same as saying nothing at all.

The overall concept of God is pretty clear and consistent on greatness and hasn't been formulated just for this argument. The typical omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect descriptions apply. It is not like the maximally great being in premise 1 is different than the conclusion 6.  In addition, like I said in a previous post, even a limited grasp of God's properties does not entail that our conception of God is false because it would be impossible to have full knowledge of God. 

While greatness might be subjective, maximal greatness is not. It is not incoherent to say that a property such as omnipotence does not having a maximal degree. If a description of God allowed for a greater being, then God would not be God because that being would be God and the definition becomes a logical impossibility. That is why I do not think this undercutting of premise 1 of the Ontological Argument has been successful.

[Esquilax]

The overall concept of God is pretty clear and consistent on greatness and hasn't been formulated just for this argument. The typical omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect descriptions apply. It is not like the maximally great being in premise 1 is different than the conclusion 6.  In addition, like I said in a previous post, even a limited grasp of God's properties does not entail that our conception of God is false because it would be impossible to have full knowledge of God. 

So then the reductio ad absurdum continues to be a problem for you: I propose a being that is omniscient, omnipotent and morally perfect, but also has the capability of restraining your god. Since it's logically possible for such a being to exist, it exists necessarily according to the premises of your own argument, your god is no longer omnipotent and hence, no longer a maximally great being. A similar scenario can be described for my proposed being, and so on, and so on, down the line. Infinitely greater maximally great beings, within the confines of an apologetic system that explicitly denies the possibility of actual infinites or infinite regress. Premise one of the argument is therefore falsified.

While greatness might be subjective, maximal greatness is not. It is not incoherent to say that a property such as omnipotence does not having a maximal degree. If a description of God allowed for a greater being, then God would not be God because that being would be God and the definition becomes a logical impossibility. That is why I do not think this undercutting of premise 1 of the Ontological Argument has been successful.

Maximal greatness is just as subjective as anything else: you believe your god to be maximally great, whereas my estimation of his whole theology precludes him from maximal greatness entirely, on the morally perfect score if nothing else. Thus, subjective.

And the problem, which you seem to be missing, is that every description of god allows for a greater being to exist, by dint of being a description of god: in being described that god now has a target painted on its back that is trivial to hit. Your god is omnipotent, my maximally great being is too, but to the degree that he can prevent your god from being omnipotent. You might respond that your god's omnipotence prevents that from happening at all, but all that does is put your god one step higher on the hierarchy, in a way that can be topped simply by submitting a being capable of preventing your god from preventing that, and so on. There's no way to resolve this, outside of not positing an extant god at all, which is obviously not something you want to do.

It's not so much that your god wouldn't be god, as it is that your god stops being maximally great at the point in time where his attributes are defined and thus are capable of being surpassed. In defense against this, you keep relying on terms that are themselves nonsensical and logically impossible: what does "maximally omnipotent," even mean? How would you define that term in such a way that would prevent me from using the extreme outer edges of that power set to make an even more powerful set of my own? What the hell is the upper limit on omnipotence?

[robvalue]

You'd think that with all this maximum amazingness this being is supposed to have, theists wouldn't have to try this hard just to get us to notice it at all.

[Angrboda]

This is the syllogism in Craig's words verbatim from this video:

Premise 1: It's possible that a 'maximally great being' exists. 
Premise 2: If it's possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
Premise 3: If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world. 
Premise 4: If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world. 
Premise 5: Therefore a maximally great being exists in the actual world.
Premise 6: Therefore a maximally great being exists
Conclusion: Therefore God exists. 

@SteveII:
The argument assumes that a maximally great being would possess the property of necessarily existing.  If the greatness of a property is subjective, then it's not objectively true that a maximally great being would have the property of existing necessarily.  Premise 3 actually states that a maximally great being would exist necessarily.  Since it's not objectively true that maximal greatness includes necessarily existing, this premise is false, and the proof is unsound.  The only way around this objection is to show that necessarily existing is objectively great, and this you cannot do, for as explained the notion of objective greatness is incoherent.

---

One can show the absurdity of the argument by proposing an equally valid reductio in which one postulates a maximally evil being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly evil as done in the following video.

Premise 1: It's possible that a 'maximally evil being' exists.
Premise 2: If it's possible that a maximally evil being exists, then a maximally evil being exists in some possible world.
Premise 3: If a maximally evil being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
Premise 4: If a maximally evil being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
Premise 5: Therefore a maximally evil being exists in the actual world.
Premise 6: Therefore a maximally evil being exists.
Conclusion: Therefore a maximally evil being exists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbRSGYRQqic

All that we are doing is arbitrarily picking a set of attributes and attaching the necessarily existing tag to them. This is no proof that a necessary being exists, whether possibly or actually.