The modal ontological argument for God

[The Grand Nudger]

My standard rebuttal:

P1. If FSM is possible it exists in every possible world
P2. If FSM exists in every possible world then it would exist in this world as this world is possible
C. FSM exists

Weirdly they don't feel compelled to join Pastafarianism afterwards.

I think that if we understood we're referring to the same content with both god and fsm and they were intellectually honest with themselves..they'd realize they already had....

[Paleophyte]

Yes, sorry that was my point, if we accept that X is possible then the argument works, no matter what X is.

-and again, no.  For this type of inference to work "whatever x" has to be "possibly necessary".  Cant just be "whatever x" because that's not how the modal operator works.

True, but we could replace the Abrahamic god with a Lovecraftian deity that is maximally unpleasant in some truly horrifying ways and arrive at the same conclusion. All we have to do is replace that nebulous "maximally great" with another, less pleasant adjective. Even if Plantinga's MOA is valid and true we wouldn't necessarily want to worship the result.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure, and "maximally unpleasant" is possibly or probably a necessary consequence of unpleasantness itself. If it exists...something or someone's gotta have more of it - I'd start checking christian churches for good leads.

I'm of that exact opinion on gods regardless of any arguments about their existence, ofc. It doesn't matter, to me, whether belief in them can be rationally premised or even whether they exist. Perhaps this is why I can casually grant premises that others may be compelled to search for logical issue in.

[Thumpalumpacus]

There is a possible world where I filled my cup with beer instead of gatorade - for example.

By Plantinga's "logic" -- because if it's possible it's existent -- well, you've been drunk for every football game you played in? Because if it's possible in one world, it exists in every world, no? I was stone-cold sober for my three seasons at OLB and backup WR. Drank a hell of a lot of gatorade, though. Maybe your world is different from mine, I dunno.

That's assuming multiple timelines/realities, which of course Plantinga can't demonstrate. That's because logic is a human construct used to evaluate events -- but it cannot and does not dictate events.

So a philosopher concocted a logical argument positing that if this godling can exist, he must exist. Great. Let's see how human logic stands up to brute reality. You go first.

[The Grand Nudger]

Plantinga is not the inventor of modal logic or possible worlds semantics. I think it's probably fair to say that he saw the utility of it's criteria and semantics to a proposition he very much wanted to arrive at, though, for sure. At any rate, under modal logic, in possible worlds semantics...if there's one possible world where you are necessarily drunk at every game then the statement "thump is drunk at every game" is true in all possible worlds. Yes.

I'm right there with you in suggesting that logic does not dictate terms to reality - but the thing is that we..at least when we talk about logical this and thats...tend to posit that they do., We say, for example..that there are no and can be no married bachelors. That we can know this a priori - that is..without the sort of demonstration you're asking for. The moa is also an a priori argument. The law of identity is believed to be able to make binding inferences on existential realities. Now, there are physicists who might object to that, the notion that a thing cannot be itself and not itself. All of this, though, it ought be acknowledged..is us meaningfully doubting the accuracy or efficacy of logic et al, not the moa in particular. Burning down the moa in this way comes with collateral damage - and plantinga or any other rhetorician can and will exploit that....and rightly so.

If we doubt that logical inferences are binding in reality then it doesn't really matter what logical inferences we plug in. There's no correction of this or that which can satisfy such an objection..genuinely maintained...and no demonstration would mean anything, either. If we only doubt as much when the logical inferences arrive at conclusions with which we disagree or are uncomfortable....well.....that's a big old us problem, logically speaking, eh? To plantingas credit, he's careful to mention that he doesn't think that modal logic and possible worlds semantics can prove god exists, exactly - more that it proves that belief in gods can be rationally explicated.

[Deesse23]

My 2c:

You don't get to proclaim/assert possibility, you need to demonstrate it. Everything else is horse manure.

[Paleophyte]

Sure, and "maximally unpleasant" is possibly or probably a necessary consequence of unpleasantness itself.  If it exists...something or someone's gotta have more of it - I'd start checking christian churches for good leads.

I'm of that exact opinion on gods regardless of any arguments about their existence, ofc.  It doesn't matter, to me, whether belief in them can be rationally premised or even whether they exist.  Perhaps this is why I can casually grant premises that others may be compelled to search for logical issue in.

The Problem of Evil is much simpler to explain as a feature. Once you understand that god hates you and all of creation his religions and their followers make so much more sense.

[The Grand Nudger]

Right? Then the shit they do doesn't seem weird at all...and you wonder why you ever believed they'd act some other way.

[Paleophyte]

Right?  Then the shit they do doesn't seem weird at all...and you wonder why you ever believed they'd act some other way.

No, it still seems batshit insane. It's just that that's what you'd expect from a hateful deity. You can almost see it skulking about wondering, "How can I make this world even more horrid? I know! I'll wed superstition to politics and knot its bastard offspring into the very core of their identities."

[CuriosityBob]

Modal Ontological Argument
[Short form]

P1. If a god is possible it exists in every possible world
P2. If a god exists in every possible world then it would exist in this world as this world is possible
C. God exists

***

My response to this argument is that just because God is logically possible it doesn't make God metaphysically possible. So we can just ask for a justification for why God is metaphysically possible.

Evolutionary psychology does away with 'god' a priori. It can provide a theory for the evolution of the idea of 'god' as an artefact of the strategic development of homo sapiens. This provides a counter argument the concept of 'god' existing independent of experience by redefining what we understand to be our knowledge of 'god'.