A Necessary Being?

[wiploc]

You honed in on the question and didn't mindlessly sidetrack with puerile rants. I applaud you for that.

Thanks.  

You, however, failed to differentiate between two different types of predication, just like Anselm and Kant did (or, shall I say, because Anselm and Kant did). There is a difference between "essential predication" and "accidental predication."

1. I don't know what you're talking about.  
2. (Your parenthetical jab is completely wrong.)
3. Was this your example of a puerile rant sidetrack?  Don't answer that.  

... if a Necessary Being exists, it must exist in all possible worlds.

Necessary things--if they exist at all--exist in all possible worlds.  I'm with you.  

So it is indeed possible for the Necessary Being to not actually exist.

In fact, at least if we're talking about gods, it is necessary that they not exist.  

However, once we find out that it exists, its definition would imply that it exists in all possible worlds (not just ours); it would imply that this known Necessary Being is eternal and did not ever not exist (and will not ever not exist), because it cannot not exist.

I think you overstate your case.  Let us posit a necessary taco by the name of Lucy.  And let us posit universe Q37, which lasts only for ten minutes before mysteriously blinking out of existence.  If Lucy exists in any possible world, it has to exist in Q37 for that entire ten minutes, right?  But that doesn't mean that Q37 has to be infinite, unending, and unbegun.  

So the Necessary Being is not necessary in the sense that it must exist in the real world. It's necessary in the sense that if it exists, it must exist in all possible worlds - because that is in its definition. So once it is known that it exists, all possible worlds must have it.

Agreed.  

I hope you understand the point I am trying to make. When looked at from this proper perspective, there really is nothing contradictory about the mere concept of a Necessary Being.

Okay.  I wasn't calling the concept contradictory.  My point was just that they don't exist.  

And just for the record, I do not believe that the modal ontological argument is sound.

I've shown that it is not.

Anselm confuses essential predication with accidental predication; his argument is nothing more than an essential predication of existence to a concept.

I don't understand that.  (Note that this doesn't call for a response.  We don't want to get mindlessly sidetracked with puerile rants.) 

Here's one of Plantinga's versions of the modal ontological argument:

Premise 1: It is possible that God exists.
Premise 2: If it is possible that God exists, then God exists in some possible worlds.
Premise 3: If God exists in some possible worlds, then God exists in all possible worlds.
Premise 4: If God exists in all possible worlds, then God exists in the actual world.
Premise 5: If God exists in the actual world, then God exists.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.

Here, the same logic proves that god does not exist. 

Premise 1: It is possible that God does not exist.
Premise 2: If it is possible that God does not exist, then God does not exist in some possible worlds.
Premise 3: If God does not exist in some possible worlds, then God does not exist in all possible worlds.
Premise 4: If God does not exist in all possible worlds, then God does not exist in the actual world.
Premise 5: If God does not exist in the actual world, then God does not exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God does not exist.