What do you think of this argument for God?

[Angrboda]

There may be answers to it, but you haven't provided one.  All you've done is regurgitate Maydole's flawed argument and asserted that it is sound, along with a bunch of irrelevant material and objections.  Properties aren't better to have than not have, objectively speaking.  Until you can show that they are, you've got nothing but a bunch of logic resting on an incoherent definition.  Note that it isn't enough to say that you would prefer to have x rather than not have x, you need to show that the universe as an unfeeling body cares whether you have x or don't have x.  This I strongly doubt you can show, because the universe as a whole has no opinion on the matter.  It is not enough just to assert that some properties are better to have than not, you have to show why.  Until you do, you're just spinning your wheels.

The 'subjective' objection is thought in popular circles to be the problem with the argument but isn't this just an escape route designed not to have to address

the fact that being all powerful is greater than be limited in power,

The universe could care less whether you are all powerful or limited in power. The question only matters to subjects that might have an interest in the benefits of being all powerful, but no interest in the benefits of being limited in power. I told you what you had to show in order to demonstrate that something like being all powerful is objectively great and you just ignored it. Whether you can imagine being limited in power as being more desirable than being all powerful is irrelevant. All you've done is give me your subjective opinion that being all powerful is better than being of limited power. And given all possible worlds, there will clearly be beings that think it is 'better' to have limited power. The problem is not in stating things which you think are without peer, you have to define 'better' in objective terms, not simply provide a laundry list of things which you think are without peer. Your inability to understand this basic point is a failing in your ability to distinguish between subjective and objective. Even if all beings in all possible worlds preferred being all powerful to being limited in power, that would still be a subjectively 'better' property to have. All you've done is provide a laundry list of properties that you assert are objectively great; you haven't given any reason whatsoever for me to believe that these are anything but subjective preferences. I'm beginning to think you don't understand the difference between subjective and objective, and that you're just mouthing irrelevant distinctions you've heard elsewhere.

What difference does it make whether you are all powerful or not, which isn't a difference of preference as would be given by a mind?

all-knowing is greater than limited knowledge, and morally perfect is greater than morally defective--and all three clearly great-making properties.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. All three are subjectively great, given appropriate subjects. It is not enough that these are "clearly great-making properties." In order for the argument to work, they must be 'objectively' great, which can't be shown because the idea of something being "objectively better" than something else is incoherent. I don't think you understand the difference.

Let's take a popular example. In a store window is a sign that says, "Fast - Good - Cheap -- Pick any two." If properties are objectively better and worse than one another, then you should have little difficulty explaining which pair is the best, or that they are all equally good FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF SOMEONE HAVING NO PREFERENCES.

The desired confusion that you want/need is when you start adding properties that are clearly not great-making properties. If you run across a property that different people could have an opinion on what is greater, then all you have identified a property that is not a great-making one. 

No, this is not the problem. The problem is your inability to distinguish between properties that are highly desirable and those that are objectively desirable. There's the problem right there, "objectively desirable." There is no such thing as objectively desirable because desires are all subjective facts. You keep asserting that certain things are objectively better without ever bothering to explain in what sense they are 'better'. Better from the point of view of a subject will not get you there. It has to be better in terms of objective properties (of the properties).

But the hurdle seems to be even less than that. Are the traditionally stipulated great-making properties of God coherent? If they are coherent, they are possible and as the rest of the argument explains, if they are possible, they exist.

The question is not whether they are coherent but rather whether better and worse have objective definitions. If not then it is incoherent to say that x or y property is objectively great, and the rest of the argument collapses.

[houseofcantor]

What do you think of it?

Very little, actually. When it comes to revealed religion the ultimate argument for god is

I am.

Or maybe ya hafta be a prophet first. I got that box checked.

[Cyberman]

Sorry, no vacancies left.

Administrator and Prophet-in-residence

[SteveII]

The 'subjective' objection is thought in popular circles to be the problem with the argument but isn't this just an escape route designed not to have to address

the fact that being all powerful is greater than be limited in power,

The universe could care less whether you are all powerful or limited in power.  The question only matters to subjects that might have an interest in the benefits of being all powerful, but no interest in the benefits of being limited in power.  I told you what you had to show in order to demonstrate that something like being all powerful is objectively great and you just ignored it.  Whether you can imagine being limited in power as being more desirable than being all powerful is irrelevant.  All you've done is give me your subjective opinion that being all powerful is better than being of limited power.  And given all possible worlds, there will clearly be beings that think it is 'better' to have limited power.  The problem is not in stating things which you think are without peer, you have to define 'better' in objective terms, not simply provide a laundry list of things which you think are without peer.  Your inability to understand this basic point is a failing in your ability to distinguish between subjective and objective.  Even if all beings in all possible worlds preferred being all powerful to being limited in power, that would still be a subjectively 'better' property to have.  All you've done is provide a laundry list of properties that you assert are objectively great; you haven't given any reason whatsoever for me to believe that these are anything but subjective preferences.  I'm beginning to think you don't understand the difference between subjective and objective, and that you're just mouthing irrelevant distinctions you've heard elsewhere.

What difference does it make whether you are all powerful or not, which isn't a difference of preference as would be given by a mind?

First, I appreciate the opportunity to fine-tune my argumentation skills on a subject we have already discussed. Thanks!

You can't switch out 'better' for 'greater'. They are not the same thing. Being all-powerful is greater (more than) than being limited in power. Being all-knowing is greater (more than) than being limited. Now, I agree that in some cases it would be better to have limited knowledge (for example, it could be overwhelming). It would also be better not to have omnipotence if one was not also morally perfect. 

all-knowing is greater than limited knowledge, and morally perfect is greater than morally defective--and all three clearly great-making properties.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.  All three are subjectively great, given appropriate subjects.  It is not enough that these are "clearly great-making properties."  In order for the argument to work, they must be 'objectively' great, which can't be shown because the idea of something being "objectively better" than something else is incoherent.  I don't think you understand the difference.  

Let's take a popular example.  In a store window is a sign that says, "Fast - Good - Cheap -- Pick any two."  If properties are objectively better and worse than one another, then you should have little difficulty explaining which pair is the best, or that they are all equally good FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF SOMEONE HAVING NO PREFERENCES.  

Notice you switch to 'better' (bold) above. That is how you make your argument work. If you can't use the word 'greater', than you are probably talking about something that not a great-making property (like you food example). 

The desired confusion that you want/need is when you start adding properties that are clearly not great-making properties. If you run across a property that different people could have an opinion on what is greater, then all you have identified a property that is not a great-making one. 

No, this is not the problem.  The problem is your inability to distinguish between properties that are highly desirable and those that are objectively desirable.  There's the problem right there, "objectively desirable."  There is no such thing as objectively desirable because desires are all subjective facts.  You keep asserting that certain things are objectively better without ever bothering to explain in what sense they are 'better'.  Better from the point of view of a subject will not get you there.  It has to be better in terms of objective properties (of the properties).

The word 'desirable' related back to 'better'. All-powerful being greater than limited power has nothing to do with better or desirable. It is just more power. 

But the hurdle seems to be even less than that. Are the traditionally stipulated great-making properties of God coherent? If they are coherent, they are possible and as the rest of the argument explains, if they are possible, they exist.

The question is not whether they are coherent but rather whether better and worse have objective definitions.  If not then it is incoherent to say that x or y property is objectively great, and the rest of the argument collapses.

Greater or less than. 

I would like to hear your thoughts. thanks again.

[Angrboda]

The universe could care less whether you are all powerful or limited in power.  The question only matters to subjects that might have an interest in the benefits of being all powerful, but no interest in the benefits of being limited in power.  I told you what you had to show in order to demonstrate that something like being all powerful is objectively great and you just ignored it.  Whether you can imagine being limited in power as being more desirable than being all powerful is irrelevant.  All you've done is give me your subjective opinion that being all powerful is better than being of limited power.  And given all possible worlds, there will clearly be beings that think it is 'better' to have limited power.  The problem is not in stating things which you think are without peer, you have to define 'better' in objective terms, not simply provide a laundry list of things which you think are without peer.  Your inability to understand this basic point is a failing in your ability to distinguish between subjective and objective.  Even if all beings in all possible worlds preferred being all powerful to being limited in power, that would still be a subjectively 'better' property to have.  All you've done is provide a laundry list of properties that you assert are objectively great; you haven't given any reason whatsoever for me to believe that these are anything but subjective preferences.  I'm beginning to think you don't understand the difference between subjective and objective, and that you're just mouthing irrelevant distinctions you've heard elsewhere.

What difference does it make whether you are all powerful or not, which isn't a difference of preference as would be given by a mind?

First, I appreciate the opportunity to fine-tune my argumentation skills on a subject we have already discussed. Thanks!

You can't switch out 'better' for 'greater'. They are not the same thing. Being all-powerful is greater (more than) than being limited in power. Being all-knowing is greater (more than) than being limited. Now, I agree that in some cases it would be better to have limited knowledge (for example, it could be overwhelming). It would also be better not to have omnipotence if one was not also morally perfect. 

Maydole defines a perfection as a property it is better to have than not have. In that sense, I'm simply following the line of logic which you yourself introduced. Regardless, you'll find that substituting 'greater' for 'better' makes not one whit of difference. Something is greater in the same measure that it is better. To argue otherwise is to make a travesty of the meaning of the word 'greater'. The word is a comparative between two things, one of which has some measure in greater abundance than the other; in this case, that something must have that measure be an objective one, based not on the opinion of minds but on some measure that makes it objectively more desirable than the other. If this isn't what objectively 'greater' means, then what does it mean? If I have two equal apples, neither is greater than the other. Only when you introduce a difference is one greater than the other, and which is 'greater' depends upon the opinion of minds, ergo is subjective. The difference in my apples matters not one whit to the universe.

Since you introduced it, I have to ask what measure moral perfection has in abundance that moral imperfection does not have? If you answer that it has more perfection or more morals, then, first you aren't specifying a measure aside from the idea that to have more of a good thing is greater than having less of a good thing. I believe that you yourself have argued that, independent of God, there are no objectively good and bad things, morally. If that is so -- and this argument is ex parte from God -- then how is moral perfection 'greater'? You seem to have pulled the ladder away before you were done using it. Regardless, properties like moral perfection are neither objectively positive or objectively negative. They are objectively neutral. You have a case where all properties are like the two same apples in relevant measure -- there is no relevant difference which makes one 'greater' than another. You seem to be arguing that more is better (greater). And thus we're back to greatness being defined as 'better'. I see no other relevant definition of 'greater'.

10. (b) Of a thing, quality, etc., capable of being measured or quantified: measurably large; large as a proportion of a whole.

~ Oxford English Dictionary

This is the relevant definition I can find. If you are defining 'great' as simply larger in proportion, as you seem to be doing with omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection, then that is an equivocation to get around the sense of great implying that one thing is objectively better than another. The whole of the universe becomes greater than any part and size becomes a great-making property. Surely that's not what you mean?

Before I let you go, tell me how existing necessarily is 'greater' than existing contingently, from an objective viewpoint. That too is a lynchpin of the argument, because if necessary being isn't an objectively great-making property, then the whole argument collapses into a proof by assertion. (God is necessary because I say so. The modal logic then collapses.) How is contingent being 'less than' necessary being, from an objective standpoint?

[Whateverist]

Clear as a bell. Point to Jormungy.

[Nonpareil]

Are the traditionally stipulated great-making properties of God coherent? If they are coherent, they are possible

No.

[SuperSentient]

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The main problems with this argument is with 1 and 3. First, "great" is a value statement which is contingent upon the subjective viewer. The question is, what constitutes objective greatness? 1 is simply an assertion with no basis in reality than what anyone would personally think to be true.

3 is false since greatness is logically separable from logical necessity. Value statements have no basis in possibility. Just as you can't derive an ought from an is, you can't derive an is from an ought. 

Elvis Presley is a great being to many people, I can say that he is a necessary being. It would be no less accurate to say that than to say God is a necessary being. The assertion that God is necessary has no justification. Maximal greatness is subjective if you accept that greatness is subjective, since the measurement of greatness would be subjective, it would apply to whatever you would measure to be the "greatest".

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2- Basically, every possible event, scenario, and existing thing. 
3- If God is necessary, then God exists in all possible worlds.
4- Every possible world includes every one individual possible world.
5- No other worlds are necessary, this argument claims that this being exists in all possible worlds.

This argument is a failure, but you don't seem to quite understand it.

I understand the argument, what l do not understand, why didn't you answer my questions if you are going to respond to my post.

GC

I did respond.

[SuperSentient]

The main problems with this argument is with 1 and 3. First, "great" is a value statement which is contingent upon the subjective viewer. The question is, what constitutes objective greatness? 1 is simply an assertion with no basis in reality than what anyone would personally think to be true.

3 is false since greatness is logically separable from logical necessity. Value statements have no basis in possibility. Just as you can't derive an ought from an is, you can't derive an is from an ought. 

Elvis Presley is a great being to many people, I can say that he is a necessary being. It would be no less accurate to say that than to say God is a necessary being. The assertion that God is necessary has no justification. Maximal greatness is subjective if you accept that greatness is subjective, since the measurement of greatness would be subjective, it would apply to whatever you would measure to be the "greatest".

That is a common objection, but there are answers to it. I posted a response a few pages back that I will repost below. Great making properties of god are not subjective like a preference to Elvis' music. These are not properties subject to tastes, aesthetics, etc. It is also important to note that it doesn't matter to the argument if we can even comprehend them. 

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Consider these three premises from Robert Maydole's Moral Perfection Argument:

M1: A property is a perfection only if its negation is not a perfection.
M2: Perfection entails only perfection
M3: The property of being supreme is a perfection of that property.

Maydole defines a perfection as a property which is better to have than not to have and something is supreme if there is nothing which is even possibily greater or as great as.

Suppose that it is not possible (necessarily so or as you say 'nonsensical) that there exists a being with supreme (maximally great) properties . In that case, for any property x, it is necessarily the case that property x is not an example of being supreme. Well, if that is the case then, necessarily, for any property x, if x is supreme, then x is not supreme.

Now suppose being supreme is a perfection (M3) and that only perfection entails perfection (M2).

If these premises are true, and being supreme is not possible, it follows that not being supreme is a perfection. But if we accept M1, it is also the case then not being supreme is not a perfection. Now we have a contradicion: not being supreme is a perfection and not being supreme is not a perfection. Which one do you want to reject and why? If you can't, you must concede that a supreme property is possible and by extension, that it is possible there is a supreme (maximally great) being.

Now, all I have done (with help) has been to summarize the argument. The actual formal logic is 12 steps long. It then fits into the Ontological Argument, which is another 16 steps long. Since you probably don't have my book, you can get a copy of the argument in the link below.

So, it seems your claim of ability to refute the Ontological Argument "in a couple of sentences" is entirely based on your lack of understanding of the argument. Perhaps if you didn't lecture us like a condescending prick, this wouldn't be so funny.  

Adapted from Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, Wiley-Blackwell 2012 pg. 580 ff. with additional commentary from https://calumsblog.com/apologetics/argum...-argument/ (to help me with some of the symbology)

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[Gawdzilla Sama]

I love to take these threads and replaced "God" with "Santa".