What do you think of this argument for God?

[Godscreated]

I heard an argument like this:

1. God is the greatest possible being.

True

2. God is a necessary being, which means that God exists in every possible world (If God exists). 

Define all the possible worlds. Why would God have to exist in all of them?

3. If God exists in one possible world, God must logically exist in every possible world. 

Why, this is stating something an omnipotent being must do in reference to the physical?

4. Since God is the greatest possible being, it follows that every aspect of God (being possible) exists in some possible world.

In #3 you said every possible world, now your down to some possible world, why?

5. Therefore, God exists (in all possible worlds, including ours).

You have once again switched from some to all, why? Why is it necessary for God an omnipotent being to exist in any world but this one, why are any other worlds even necessary?

I actually just structured the premises this way myself but is the same idea as an argument I heard before. 

What do you think of it?

As you can see by my questions I have serious doubt.

GC

[Nonpareil]

As you can see by my questions I have serious doubt.

GC

And there you have it, folks. The ontological argument fails to convince a theist that it is even valid, let alone sound.

I honestly do find it rather fascinating that theistic philosophers keep trying to revive the damn thing, considering how dead on arrival it was and how little persuasive power it possesses today. Hell, even Thomas Aquinas rejected it as nonsense, though his personal justification was a bit suspect, since he had to find a way to kick it to the curb without also hobbling his own attempts to prove God's existence through philosophy.

It's like if Frankenstein insisted on building his monster out of only the worst parts available, and when the tortured, misshapen thing lurched out of the laboratory only to promptly collapse on the doorstep, stone dead, he kept trying to drag it back onto the slab for another go. It's kind of sad, and a bit funny, and honestly just completely boggling.

[Godscreated]

As you can see by my questions I have serious doubt.

GC

And there you have it, folks. The ontological argument fails to convince a theist that it is even valid, let alone sound.

I honestly do find it rather fascinating that theistic philosophers keep trying to revive the damn thing, considering how dead on arrival it was and how little persuasive power it possesses today. Hell, even Thomas Aquinas rejected it as nonsense, though his personal justification was a bit suspect, since he had to find a way to kick it to the curb without also hobbling his own attempts to prove God's existence through philosophy.

It's like if Frankenstein insisted on building his monster out of only the worst parts available, and when the tortured, misshapen thing lurched out of the laboratory only to promptly collapse on the doorstep, stone dead, he kept trying to drag it back onto the slab for another go. It's kind of sad, and a bit funny, and honestly just completely boggling.

My questioning of the OP was to find out what he/she actually was thinking or if there was any thought at all. As for the argument itself that's for philosophers to throw around. God and Christianity has nothing to do with philosophy, the God of the Bible is real and....Well philosophy is more or less an over active imagination.
Actually you are presuming much about me and what I believe about God and his abilities from one short statement put forward as a challenge to the OP. You are in essence doing what you accused Stevell of doing, please don't play both sides of the fence.

GC

[Nonpareil]

Actually you are presuming much about me and what I believe about God and his abilities from one short statement put forward as a challenge to the OP.

Erm... no, I'm not. I only concluded - not assumed - that you rejected this particular argument. Because you did do that - as I directly quoted from you, "as you can see by my questions I have serious doubt.". I assumed literally nothing else about you or your thoughts on any other subject. I only commented on the thing that you explicitly said.

If you accept the ontological argument despite your apparent issue with its premises, that's fair enough, but I don't think that I can really be blamed for concluding otherwise when you outright said that you weren't convinced.

[The Grand Nudger]

@ GC
-Why-......because that's how the modal hook works. 

@Non
OFC it fails to convince.  It's not a convincing argument.

[Godscreated]

Actually you are presuming much about me and what I believe about God and his abilities from one short statement put forward as a challenge to the OP.

Erm... no, I'm not. I only concluded - not assumed - that you rejected this particular argument. Because you did do that - as I directly quoted from you, "as you can see by my questions I have serious doubt.". I assumed literally nothing else about you or your thoughts on any other subject. I only commented on the thing that you explicitly said.

If you accept the ontological argument despite your apparent issue with its premises, that's fair enough, but I don't think that I can really be blamed for concluding otherwise when you outright said that you weren't convinced.

I was referring to the OP's ability to paraphrase the original, that was his end question, correct.

GC

[Nonpareil]

I was referring to the OP's ability to paraphrase the original

Which, as I said, is fair enough, but I really don't think anyone could be blamed for concluding that you reject the argument based on you saying that you reject the argument as phrased.

If you do accept the ontological argument, perhaps you could explain what merits your preferred version of it has that solve the issues you had with the original post.

[RoadRunner79]

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Because I'm bored and have some time to kill, let's go over the various ontological arguments and their failings in more detail.

For those who have never really studied the term before, an ontological argument is a specific type of theistic argument that attempts to establish the existence of God using nothing but a priori knowledge - that is, nothing but pure logic, entirely independent of any need for actual evidence.

In practical terms, this means that an ontological argument is an argument that attempts to define God into existence. They all essentially boil down to this:

1. We define "God" as "something that must exist".
   
2. Therefore, God exists.
   

But, in order to make them look more impressive than they actually are, they usually take this form:

1. We define "God" as "something that, if it is possible for it to exist or be conceived of, must exist".
   
2. It is possible that God exists and/or can be conceived of.
   
3. Therefore, God exists.
   

This is every single ontological argument at its core. Everything else is window dressing.

The various forms of the ontological arguments, then, are different theistic philosophers' attempts to rephrase this basic premise in order to get rid of the different issues that other variants have run up against. Unfortunately, none of them actually address the central problem with the idea of any ontological argument: it utterly fails to establish its conclusion.

This is because ontological arguments, by definition, are only capable of using two things: definitions and pure logic. They cannot actually make use of evidence or reference the real world. This means that, while they might be valid, they not only will never but can never be sound.

(For those who have not heard those terms before, "valid" means that, given that an argument's premises are true, its conclusion must be true. "Sound", on the other hand, means that an argument is valid and that its premises are actually true, so it has actually established the truth of its conclusion. As an illustration, "All men are green + a pterodactyl is a man = a pterodactyl is green" is valid, but not sound; its conclusion follows from its premises, but its premises are not true, so it has not actually established its conclusion to be true.)

This is the fatal flaw for all variants of the ontological argument, because it is in the very definition of "ontological argument": even if the premises are coherent and the conclusion follows, by definition the argument has still not established that its conclusion is true. Ontological arguments are, at best, ipse dixit (a specific variation on the bare assertion fallacy, basically equal to bare assertion that has become dogma). They utterly fail to actually prove their conclusion, to the point that even Alvin Plantinga, a theistic philosopher responsible for one of the more popular modern versions of the ontological argument, says: "Our verdict on these reformulated versions of St. Anselm's argument must be as follows. They cannot, perhaps, be said to prove or establish their conclusion."

(In the interest of completion, it must be noted that Plantinga then goes on to say: "But since it is rational to accept their central premise, they do show that it is rational to accept that conclusion.", but this is exactly the ipse dixit mentioned before; there is no way to show that the central premise - God's necessity, possibility, conceivability, or what-have-you, according to the specific variation of the argument - is actually true, he is forced to fall back on "but I think it's true anyway, even though I can't show how, so you should all accept it, too".)

And this is ignoring all the issues with specific variations, which always end up making a mess of their premises. They don't even get as far as simply failing to establish their soundness. They collapse at the first hurdle, with incoherent terms and nonsensical leaps.

For example, Steve's favored version:

1- It is possible that a maximally great being exists.

"Greatness" is a value judgment. Value judgments are inherently subjective. "Maximally great" is a nonsensical contradiction in terms, even ignoring its complete lack of an actual, coherent definition (it never supplies any way to actually measure "greatness", so it's a complete non-starter).

This is also where the ipse dixit comes in, and why I mentioned bare assertion when examining this premise above. There is no reason to accept that it is possible that a "maximally great being" exists.

2- If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.

Again, ipse dixit - there is no reason to accept that this premise is true. Nor does "possible world" have any actual, coherent meaning (this could imply an attempt to tie into modal logic, in which case this specific premise would be slightly less incoherent, but the argument as a whole still collapses).

3- If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.

And another unjustified leap. The asserted basis for this is that, if a being does not exist in every possible world, then it isn't "maximally great" - but, again, there's no actual established way to judge "greatness".

Theists attempt to get around this by saying, as Steve already helpfully asserted:

While greatness might be subjective, maximal greatness is not.

Unfortunately, this is utterly nonsensical. "Greatness" is not an objective quantity, and no actual coherent method of measurement can be supplied. Simply asserting that "maximal greatness" is not an incoherent concept does not actually make it so. Nor does trying to say that it is objective rather than subjective.

Also note the way that Steve's chosen "real" variation of the ontological argument fits into the condensed version that I supplied at the beginning of this post. "God" is defined as "a maximally great entity"; the rest of the argument, then, is spent trying to show how a "maximally great entity" is defined as existing, without at any point even attempting to establish that a maximally great entity is actually possible. It simply asserts that it is, and expects to be taken at face value.

It's the same issue every time, in every variation of the ontological argument. There is always, at one point or another, a complete ipse dixit moment, whereupon it collapses on its face. And, again, that's without getting into the completely incoherent mess that is the actual premises. This is why the ontological arguments have never been relevant in philosophy outside of theistic circles that refuse to let them die because they're desperate for anything that they can lay their hands on.

The ontological arguments are always, invariably, regardless of specific wording, worthless.

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First, I did not start this thread

It's an open forum. If you don't want replies, don't post.

BTW, he knows how to have a discussion without sounding like a condescending prick.

I'm sorry that you consider bluntness and directness to be equivalent to condescension, but it doesn't make you any more right.

Regarding the Ontological Argument, philosophers on both sides in every generation for a thousand years have been discussing this argument

No. A small but vocal crowd of rather silly people on the theist side have refused to let it die because they really, really wish it was true.

To people who actually study and understand philosophy, regardless of whether they are theist or not, the various formulations of the ontological argument are little more than historical curiosities. As are the rest of Anselm's works. Important from a historical standpoint, but not actually compelling.

and you can dismiss it in a few sentences.

Anyone can. I just happen to be the one doing it.

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I think the fact that you are arguing against premise two, which is true by definition, shows that you still need to do your homework and don't understand the type of argument and the statements being made...

[Nonpareil]

I think the fact that you are arguing against premise two, which is true by definition, shows that you still need to do your homework and don't understand the type of argument and the statements being made...

Again, ipse dixit - there is no reason to accept that this premise is true. Nor does "possible world" have any actual, coherent meaning (this could imply an attempt to tie into modal logic, in which case this specific premise would be slightly less incoherent, but the argument as a whole still collapses).

Please read before responding. It would make this whole thing much easier.

If premise two does mean to bring modal logic into the equation, then it is true by definition, yes. It solves exactly no problems with the rest of the argument, and since I took pains to point this out myself, I don't really see what your issue is.

[RoadRunner79]

I think the fact that you are arguing against premise two, which is true by definition, shows that you still need to do your homework and don't understand the type of argument and the statements being made...

Again, ipse dixit - there is no reason to accept that this premise is true. Nor does "possible world" have any actual, coherent meaning (this could imply an attempt to tie into modal logic, in which case this specific premise would be slightly less incoherent, but the argument as a whole still collapses).

Please read before responding. It would make this whole thing much easier.

If premise two does mean to bring modal logic into the equation, then it is true by definition, yes. It solves exactly no problems with the rest of the argument, and since I took pains to point this out myself, I don't really see what your issue is.

This particular form of the argument is using modal logic. How do you think that this is incoherent at all given this information.

I'm always bewildered that people feel the need to reject every premise, and go out of their way to do it. Often looking foolish doing so. Perhaps you would like your critique.