The Kalam Cosmological Argument

[Thumpalumpacus]

There are a few problems with Plantinga's MOA. The argument is logically valid but not necessarily sound. The conclusions follow from the premises but the initial premise can't be demonstrated. It's troublesome to demonstrate that a "maximally great being" is possible, or even conceivable. That's further confounded if you view "greatness" as a value judgment. At the end of the day, that leaves us at "If god exists then god exists."

I also take exception to Plantinga's use of the term "God". Christianity is the only religion that refers to their deity in this way, so it's pretty clear that is Who is being discussed, whereas the MOA only gets you as far as a deistic god.

Right, the unquestioned premises are exactly why I pointed out GIGO. What is moral perfection? Omnipotence is reduced to "able to do anything 'possible'", which is an unspoken limitation on what is doable -- which limitation Christians won't admit for their god.

The limitations bump up against our definitions of "omnipotence" and "omniscience". That prefix, "omni-", has a specific meaning, and that meaning is that the suffix is unlimited.

It follows that this argument is semantical and not realistic. If something is "omni-" anything, then inserting "what he i]can[/i]" do or know is a sly admission that it is not actually "omni-", because with an omnipotent god, there really isn't a "can" -- or "cannot" -- there is only a will.

An omnipotent god who cannot do anything is not omnipotent. An omniscient god who cannot know everything is not omniscient. Sliding in the "can do" or "can know" is acknowledging that the "omni-" isn't "omni-".

That's not even to address whether an omnipotent god can act in a way that he might surprise himself. If he can surprise himself by a whimsical decision, he isn't omniscient; surprise means he did not foresee his own behavior. If he cannot surprise himself, because he knows everything, then he isn't omnipotent, because he can't break his vision.

Thus this omnigod collapses under contradiction, fancy logickifying notwithstanding. Godel in a roundabout way addresses this, no?