(December 15, 2015 at 6:25 pm)Delicate Wrote:[*](December 15, 2015 at 6:08 pm)Jenny A Wrote: Oh goody!
Seriously, if there is a better formulation, let see it. Please provide definitions for any words not used in a colloquial way.
Actually it is a little technical because it relies on modal logic concepts like possibility and necessity, as well as the S5 axiom.
Here are the two definitions Plantinga starts with
[*]A being is maximally excellent in a world W if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect in W; and
[*]A being is maximally great in a world W if and only if it is maximally excellent in every possible world.
Given these two definitions, the argument is constructed:
1. The concept of a maximally great being is self-consistent.
2. If 1, then there is at least one logically possible world in which a maximally great being exists.
3. Therefore, there is at least one logically possible world in which a maximally great being exists.
4. If a maximally great being exists in one logically possible world, it exists in every logically possible world.
5. Therefore, a maximally great being (that is, God) exists in every logically possible world.
From a formal-logical analysis, everything is consistent. There aren't any "holes" in the argument.
Instead, most atheists who have a problem with it question P4 because it reliexs on the S5 modal axiom. Which, oddly enough, is something atheist philosophers are quite comfortable with outside this context.
I've seen some mental gymnastics and word spastics in my time, but this takes some beating.
Try scrabble.
