The Ontological Argument as Proof of God

Thank you to Con very much for clearing up his argument for me. The Objections It seems Con has two basic points of contention: 1) Con argues that either there is either no objective measure of greatness or that the measure of greatness is a matter of subjective opinion in conjunction with "greatness" not having an objective standard to which we could compare it to. And, 2) Con also argues that even if he were to grant that existence-in-reality is a great-making property this does nothing the argument does nothing to establish that the greatest conceivable being is God because it fails to establish all the properties that God is purported to have. He is asking why something "that than which it is not conceivable for something to be greater" is identical to God. The Rebuttals I'll take these points in succession: 1) I argued in my earlier round that Anselm assumed a medieval metaphysics and within that system there is the "great chain of being" where things could be ordered in accordance to the degree and volume of great making properties that they possessed. As an aside, my noting that Anselm did assume these things should be fairly unexceptional. All philosophical arguments rely on assumptions and the question is whether their assumptions are justified/reasonable are not is often the question. Pointing that out does nothing to undermine my point - Con must show how Anselm's assumptions about the great chain of being are open to reasonable doubt or are false. To just say that it seems as if people have different conceptions of the term "greatness" misses he point. If there really is an objective standard of greatness (great chain of being) that fact that people have a different conception than Anselm's just means those people are wrong - it doesn't meant that there isn't a standard. Anselm understood the predicate "greater than" to mean "objectively better or more worthy than". [1] What that means, in accordance with presupposition of medieval metaphysics, is that possessing properties like goodness, or knowledge, or power would be, objectively speaking, better than not possessing them. And even further, it would be even better for the things possessing these properties to have them to a greater degree than something else. I.E. More powerful, more knowledgeable, and more powerful. Anselm states this, "Furthermore, if one considers the nature of things, one cannot help realizing that they are not all of equal value, but differ by degrees. For the nature of a horse is better than that of a tree, and that of a human more excellent than that of a horse . . . It is undeniable that some natures can be better than others. None the less reason argues that there is some nature that so overtops the others that it is inferior to none." [2] Clearly he is referring to the greatest conceivable being which he took to be God. Note: even some of us modern people usually have something like this in mind when we say a person is worth or better than a rock. When pressed to give a reason people will normally say because persons possess properties that rocks don't (capacity for emotion, reason, moral standing etc). This doesn't seem so outlandish. It's a hard pill for most people to swallow that there are really no objective facts that accord us more worth than a rock. So, here I have given an objective standard to measure greatness - the great chain of being - and I have given a way to determine it. It seems Con's objection fails. 2) From the first round Con writes, "{the "characteristics of god", for the purposes of this debate, including Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omni-Benevolence}". I'll focus on these three characteristics for purposes of this rebuttal but it is undeniable more properties are usually described to God. If one takes a careful look at these properties and performs a conceptual analysis one can easily see that these concepts admit to a limit or a "maximal degree". Omniscience would be knowing all truths (the most truths); omnipotence would be having all power (the most power); omnibenevolence would be being all good (the most good). Anselm clearly viewed the properties of knowledge, power, and goodness to be great-making properties and he thought that they also admit to degrees which should be obvious. One can have more knowledge, more powers and abilities, and be more good than something else. Anselm also thought that it was clearly insane to say there were no limits on these properties. Indeed he said, "For if the difference of levels is infinite - so that there is no level so that an even higher level cannot be found - reason is brought to the conclusion that there is no limit to the multitude of these natures. But everyone thinks this is absurd..." [3] If this is true, and it seems to be, than necessarily, "that than which it is not conceivable for something to be greater" (the greatest conceivable being) would have these properties of omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence (amongst other properties). It has already been established that these are great making properties so if one were to say the greatest conceivable being lacked some great making properties that would be nonsense. Now, take a look again what Con defines as the characteristics of God. So, by definition God would have to be the greatest conceivable being as God possess the same characteristics that the greatest conceivable being has. By Leibniz's' law of identity, any two things that posses all the same properties are identical. Therefore, God is the greatest conceivable being. Anselms' OA emerges unscathed. The Sources [1] William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, pg 567 [2] ibid [3] http://books.google.com...,