The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

[brewer]

I came across an interesting quote today from a guy by the name of Dr. Edward Fesser. He was an atheist at one point; today he is a Christian and a philosopher at some university in California. I think I quoted him once before in a thread somewhere.

Anyway, he wrote the following which seems to explain the value or purpose of philosophical arguments when considering the existence of a supreme being:

Think of it this way: you can’t find out why checkers boards exist by looking at the rules of checkers themselves, which concern only what goes on within the game. The rules tell you how each piece moves, how the game is won, and so forth. But why are the pieces governed by these rules, specifically, rather than others? Why do any checkers boards exist at all in the first place? No scrutiny of the rules can answer those questions. It is impossible to answer them, or indeed even to understand the questions, unless you take a vantage point from outsidethe game and its rules.

Similarly, what science uncovers are, in effect, the “rules” that govern the “game” that is the natural world. Its domain of study is what is internal to the natural order of things. It presupposes that there is such an order, just as the rules of checkers presuppose that there are such things as checkers boards and game pieces. For that very reason, though, science has nothing to say about why there is any natural order or laws in the first place, any more than the rules of checkers tell you why there are any checkers boards or checkers rules in the first place.

Thus, science cannot answer the question why there is any world at all, or any laws at all. To answer those questions, or even to understand them properly, you must take an intellectual vantage point from outside the world and its laws, and thus outside of science. You need to look to philosophical argument, which goes deeper than anything mere physics can uncover. [emphasis added]


This seems to explain what philosophy can do that science can't accomplish.

Thoughts?

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Yep, science does not fantasize, philosophy can and does.

[Mystic]

Since all worlds are material/natural, how would any of them be incompatible with a god who is not material and supernatural?

Your multi-verse can be whatever you want it to be...and a supreme, supernatural, non-material being would still be outside of them all.

Worlds where all creation are tortured for no crimes they committed are incompatible with a maximum great being.

Worlds where there is no heaven but rather his creation dies, and cease to exist are incompatible with a maximum great being.

Worlds where there is no morality greatness or praise but rather things exist without any of this and beings don't know whether God exists or not, are incompatible with a maximum great being.

Worlds where God doesn't send Prophets or Guides among sentient life forms are incompatible with a maximum great being.

Thus God is not possible in all possible worlds. There is many possible worlds where he is incompatible to be in and with.

[Mr.wizard]

"you must take an intellectual vantage point from outside the world and its laws,"

Oh really, all we had to do was look at things from outside the world? Sounds a lot like this thing I've heard of, called imagination.

[Delicate]

Actually it is a little technical because it relies on modal logic concepts like possibility and necessity, as well as the S5 axiom.

Here are the two definitions Plantinga starts with

[*]A being is maximally excellent in a world W if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect in W; and
[*]A being is maximally great in a world W if and only if it is maximally excellent in every possible world.

[*]

That's just where I see the problem.  Omnipotent contains an internal set of contradictions.  Could an omnipotent being create something larger than it can lift or conceive of something more complicated than it could grasp?  Given the lack of objective standards for morality other than what such a being decrees, what would perfect morality be?  It's easy to imagine societies (let alone worlds) in which something is morally perfect which we would not consider morally perfect in this western society that you and I live in.

Nothing is maximally excellent in every world I can imagine (maybe you have a lessor imagination?) and I cannot begin to claim to imagine every  possible world.  Do you think anyone can?

Given these two definitions, the argument is constructed:

1. The concept of a maximally great being is self-consistent.

[*]

Again, it is not.  Can the maximally great think greater thoughts than it can understand?  Or create heavier objects than it can lift?  Or be greater at creating than it is at destroying?  Maximally great is a contradiction.

2. If 1, then there is at least one logically possible world in which a maximally great being exists.

[*]

But 1 fails.

3. Therefore, there is at least one logically possible world in which a maximally great being exists.

[*]

But there is no such logically possible world.  See above.  A thing cannot be both stronger and weaker than itself.

4. If a maximally great being exists in one logically possible world, it exists in every logically possible world.

[*]

No.  Easy to say, but not true.  An infinite number of logically possible worlds include only one singular type of being in which case none would be maximally great.  Instead all would be equally great and deficient by any standard whatsoever.  Imagine a world of all 1s are all clones.

5. Therefore, a maximally great being (that is, God) exists in every logically possible world.

[*]

See above. The definition of maximally great is logically inconsistent unless it means a finite level that many might achieve in which case it doesn't mean a single god or even a god at all.  Further, what might exist and what does exist are not the same thing.

From a formal-logical analysis, everything is consistent. There aren't any "holes" in the argument.

[*]

see above.

Instead, most atheists who have a problem with it question P4 because it reliexs on the S5 modal axiom. Which, oddly enough, is something atheist philosophers are quite comfortable with outside this context.

[*]


If 4 relies on 5, then a premise or argument relies on the conclusion.  That would be a big logical problem.

[*]

The idea that omnipotent contains a contradiction is a canard introduced by uneducated youtube atheists, the bane of intelligent discussion everywhere. The Westboro Baptist Church of Atheism. Omnipotence does not include logical contradictions. The moment you ask an omnipotent being to do something logically incoherent, whatever the answer is becomes incoherent, because you've failed to preserve logical structure in your concepts. So, minimally to have meaningful discussions, we constrain omnipotence to that which is logically possible. There's nothing contradictory there.

Likewise with perfect morality, the incoherence you notice is illusory. Professional atheistic philosophers don't really quibble on these issues. What you might imagine as morally perfect in another world different from ours would be a feature of your imagination, your moral intuition. Or perhaps the moral intuition of peoples and societies in that other world. They could be mistaken, just as we could be mistaken. None of this rules out the possibility of moral perfection. 

And third, the discussion of possible worlds presumes possible worlds semantics, formalized in a system of modal logic developed first by David Lewis in the 60s or 70s that is almost universally accepted today. (youtube animated presentation). So what you should be asking is not whether something can be maximally excellent in every world you imagine, but whether it's possible for something to be maximally excellent in every possible world.

So which of your objections survive now? Refine your objections and get back to me.

Actually it is a little technical because it relies on modal logic concepts like possibility and necessity, as well as the S5 axiom.

Here are the two definitions Plantinga starts with

[*]A being is maximally excellent in a world W if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect in W; and
[*]A being is maximally great in a world W if and only if it is maximally excellent in every possible world.

Given these two definitions, the argument is constructed:

1. The concept of a maximally great being is self-consistent.
2. If 1, then there is at least one logically possible world in which a maximally great being exists.
3. Therefore, there is at least one logically possible world in which a maximally great being exists.
4. If a maximally great being exists in one logically possible world, it exists in every logically possible world.
5. Therefore, a maximally great being (that is, God) exists in every logically possible world.

From a formal-logical analysis, everything is consistent. There aren't any "holes" in the argument.

Instead, most atheists who have a problem with it question P4 because it reliexs on the S5 modal axiom. Which, oddly enough, is something atheist philosophers are quite comfortable with outside this context.

[*]

If Plantinga has reformulated the argument, it's worth another look. Where can I read a discussion of this online?

Thanks.

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[*]

^ This is the typical response you'll see from atheists who are uneducated and uninformed on issues like this. 

There's a fear of anything that might discredit their religion, and even if they can't find anything wrong with it, they must repudiate it. They are not intellectually competent enough to refute it with reason or evidence, and thus, out of their fear and paranoia, resort to name-calling, emotional appeals, and empty rhetoric.

This is why atheism is intellectually bankrupt.

[*]





[*]

I'll be the first to admit that a lot of serious philosophy is beyond my skillset (and I get bored), but that doesn't prevent me from trying to pull the curtains back as far as I can.

That's actually the reason I started this thread in the first place...to increase my understanding through dialogue.

Not everyone has the...um...temperament for discussions like this, and they are threatened by something they do not understand which appears to contradict what they want to believe.

They aren't alone, of course. Believers do the same thing when confronted with science that is beyond them.

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Well, it's all shits 'n' giggles, until someone giggles 'n' shits - all over an atheist forum.

[*]





[*]

Forgive me, Stimbo, but I see that your name is in red and that you are an administrator, so I must ask:

Is it a good thing or a bad thing if one of this forum's functions is that it becomes a sort of online learning center for people who want to go deeper with subjects like this?

Believers go to Sunday School to learn more about what they believe; it seems that online forums have become the classrooms of non-believers.

Do you agree?

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Why, when the whole point of parody is to highlight the inadequacies in the arguments?

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[*]

That's fine unless folks are merely memorizing the punch lines without understanding what makes the jokes work.

Would YOU be persuaded to give up your (non)beliefs by mockery? 

So, why would atheists expect to make any serious in-roads into theism without making genuinely solid arguments?

[Cyberman]

Forgive me, Stimbo, but I see that your name is in red and that you are an administrator, so I must ask:

Is it a good thing or a bad thing if one of this forum's functions is that it becomes a sort of online learning center for people who want to go deeper with subjects like this?

Believers go to Sunday School to learn more about what they believe; it seems that online forums have become the classrooms of non-believers.

Do you agree?

I don't see what my admin status has to do with it, but I don't necessarily agree. I can only speak for the forae I've been acquainted with; and while it is entirely possible to learn from the shared and not-so-shared opinions of others, which sort of the bread and butter of discussion, I think likening it to a Sunday school is misrepresenting things somewhat. I've been on a forum where we had a Young-Earth Creationist member, in the particularly zealous Kent Hovind mould. Eventually after many months, he started to see cracks in his arguments, then in his faith, finally to cross the floor as a full-fledged atheist. (We still keep in touch via Facebook, though I haven't heard from him in a while.) I remember the day he told us. He'd been dithering about 'coming out' to his parents; finally he plucked up the courage and confessed his atheist conversion. He told us his mum had said "Oh, is that all? We thought you were going to tell us you're gay, like your brother!"

Does this address your question and why did you want to know?

[Cyberman]

Would YOU be persuaded to give up your (non)beliefs by mockery?

It is perfectly possible to point out flaws or inconsistencies in a position via satire and parody without mocking the beliefs of individuals; even if you posit that such beliefs are beyond parody, which I don't accept.

Besides which you are confusing the way beliefs work. For me to give up being an atheist would entail adopting a layer of belief that I do not possess, nor would my critical thinking allow; at least uncritically, which is sort of the point.

[Whateverist]

1. If God didn't exist, I wouldn't be trying to argue for his existence.
2. I am arguing for his existence.
3. Therefore God must exist.

Mind is blown.  It was that easy?  Okay, back to church on Sunday then.

[Cyberman]

Amazing, isn't it? All that time, effort and money, and all they had to do is come to me.

[Whateverist]

Amazing, isn't it? All that time, effort and money, and all they had to do is come to me.

How short sighted of them not to pay you what you demanded.

[Whateverist]

Would YOU be persuaded to give up your (non)beliefs by mockery?

It is perfectly possible to point out flaws or inconsistencies in a position via satire and parody without mocking the beliefs of individuals; even if you posit that such beliefs are beyond parody, which I don't accept.

I think it depends on whether his beliefs have been maximally mocked.  Would you say your satire rose to the necessary level?