(March 13, 2017 at 10:01 am)Jörmungandr Wrote:(March 13, 2017 at 9:08 am)SteveII Wrote: That is a common objection, but there are answers to it. I posted a response a few pages back that I will repost below. Great making properties of god are not subjective like a preference to Elvis' music. These are not properties subject to tastes, aesthetics, etc. It is also important to note that it doesn't matter to the argument if we can even comprehend them.
There may be answers to it, but you haven't provided one. All you've done is regurgitate Maydole's flawed argument and asserted that it is sound, along with a bunch of irrelevant material and objections. Properties aren't better to have than not have, objectively speaking. Until you can show that they are, you've got nothing but a bunch of logic resting on an incoherent definition. Note that it isn't enough to say that you would prefer to have x rather than not have x, you need to show that the universe as an unfeeling body cares whether you have x or don't have x. This I strongly doubt you can show, because the universe as a whole has no opinion on the matter. It is not enough just to assert that some properties are better to have than not, you have to show why. Until you do, you're just spinning your wheels.
The 'subjective' objection is thought in popular circles to be the problem with the argument but isn't this just an escape route designed not to have to address the fact that being all powerful is greater than be limited in power, all-knowing is greater than limited knowledge, and morally perfect is greater than morally defective--and all three clearly great-making properties. The desired confusion that you want/need is when you start adding properties that are clearly not great-making properties. If you run across a property that different people could have an opinion on what is greater, then all you have identified a property that is not a great-making one.
But the hurdle seems to be even less than that. Are the traditionally stipulated great-making properties of God coherent? If they are coherent, they are possible and as the rest of the argument explains, if they are possible, they exist.
