RE: The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God
December 25, 2015 at 11:45 pm
(This post was last modified: December 25, 2015 at 11:46 pm by GrandizerII.)
(December 22, 2015 at 3:47 pm)athrock Wrote:(December 21, 2015 at 4:29 pm)Pizza Wrote: Why are we to believe a personal(anthropomorphic) god is identical to a maximally great being? You got anything beyond semantic tricks?
Because in order for a being to be maximally great, being personal is one of the characteristics is must have by definition.
Personal means that the being has rationality, self-consciousness and volition (will).
A non-personal being which lacks one or more of these things is less great than a personal being.
Let's say this is so. Maximally great, according to Plantinga, also implies omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness. But is omnipotence logically coherent? Is omniscience logically coherent? Is perfect goodness logically coherent?
What is omnipotence? Unlimited power? If so, can an omnipotent being create someone more powerful than itself? If it can, it's not the most powerful, and if it can't, it's still not omnipotent. So omnipotence doesn't seem logically coherent.
What about omniscience? Can an omniscient being know how to think like someone not omniscient? Can an omniscient being know how to cease existing?
Perfectly good? What does that even mean?
Perhaps the best there can be is a really powerful being, not a maximally great being as defined by Plantinga. But then, a super powerful being is just a super powerful being with relatively limited powers and, therefore, doesn't have to be a necessary entity.
