(December 15, 2015 at 12:27 pm)RobbyPants Wrote:(December 15, 2015 at 12:05 pm)athrock Wrote: Well, actually no. I've already said that I think this argument is toast, but Premise (3) is not the problem.
Any being which is MAXIMALLY GREAT cannot be limited in the number of worlds in which it exists. Otherwise, another being which is NOT limited in that way is conceivable thereby making the limited being sub-maximal.
So, no...if a maximally great being exists at all, it must exist in all worlds.
I didn't say P3 was the only problem. P2 is simply asserted without proof.
Also, without actually defining "maximally great", there is no reason to assume it would exist in all possible worlds. Wouldn't saying it has to exist in all possible worlds be just as limiting as it not existing in them?
Really, when you look at this, "maximally great" is just a hand wave to say "omnipotent", and both concepts are self defeating.
Evil is the absence of good. It does not actually exist as a "thing" itself. Consequently, "not existing in all possible worlds" is simply the absence of "existing in all possible worlds" and that is an evil thing - not a good thing - for a maximally supreme being which must, by definition, be "good".
And no, "maximally great" is not another way of saying "omnipotent". We can conceive of a god who is all-powerful but NOT omniscient and thus unable to prevent all evil. But a maximally great god must be both omnipresent and omnipresent along with a bunch of other stuff.
Which is why the skeptic's problem of evil objection fails, btw.
