Since none of you have a clue about how to interpret the term ‘maximally great being’ your objections to the ontological argument are just noise.
“… Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum…so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus…– Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Article 3
Here is my favorite example, one I suggested earlier. The notion of perfection is based on how completely something instantiates an ideal form. For example, a yield sign, three dots on a paper, and a piece of spanakopita all, to various degrees embody the idea of a triangle. Anyone can see that some instances of triangles are better examples than others. The worse examples are those that most lacking with respect to triangularity.
Since I quoted Aquinas, I must mention that he did not consider the ontological argument as formulated by Anslem false per se; but rather incomplete. The argument assumes that everyone already knows that God is the maximally great being. Even in Aquinas’s time, people knew that many people had very different ideas about the nature of God and not all of them included maximally great.
Like Anslem, Plantinga takes it for granted that everyone knows that the maximally great being is God. If the God is not the maximally great being then the argument fails as a ‘proof’ for God. However it does show that a maximally great being does exist to the extent that moderate realism is true. So most likely way to refute the ontological argument is to undermine moderate realism, but I’m not going to help any of you along.
“… Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum…so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus…– Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Article 3
Here is my favorite example, one I suggested earlier. The notion of perfection is based on how completely something instantiates an ideal form. For example, a yield sign, three dots on a paper, and a piece of spanakopita all, to various degrees embody the idea of a triangle. Anyone can see that some instances of triangles are better examples than others. The worse examples are those that most lacking with respect to triangularity.
Since I quoted Aquinas, I must mention that he did not consider the ontological argument as formulated by Anslem false per se; but rather incomplete. The argument assumes that everyone already knows that God is the maximally great being. Even in Aquinas’s time, people knew that many people had very different ideas about the nature of God and not all of them included maximally great.
Like Anslem, Plantinga takes it for granted that everyone knows that the maximally great being is God. If the God is not the maximally great being then the argument fails as a ‘proof’ for God. However it does show that a maximally great being does exist to the extent that moderate realism is true. So most likely way to refute the ontological argument is to undermine moderate realism, but I’m not going to help any of you along.
