Does God Exist: An Ontological Argument

Reviewing Con's arguments and rebuttals to my arguments, we can say that he is not very reluctant in his distribution of straw man fallacies. However, anyone with an appropriate knowledge of the Ontological Argument (Anselm's Proslogion, Kant's Criticism, Negative Existentials, etc.) can see that Con is confused in several areas regarding not only the preliminaries of the Ontological Argument but also my defense of the argument. For instance, Con (1) doesn't understand the consequences of Kant's criticism. Not only that, but (2) he does not understand Kant's criticism itself. In respect to (1), we must understand what it means when Kant says that "existence is not a predicate." For, the problem of saying that existence is a predicate has been suggested to produce a number of problems (I pointed this out in my first rebuttal) according to several philosophers (see Ayer, 1952 [1]). Kant's Criticism (1.1)Where Anselm suggests that "If something exists only in the understanding and might have existed in reality, then it might have been greater than it is," we seem to have two points of consideration for this claim: Existence is a quality or a predicate. Existence, like wisdom and unlike physical size, is a great-making quality or predicate. Someone may of course accept (1) but object to (2). However, Kant in boldness objects to (1). As Kant writes in "On the Impossibility of An Ontological Proof" in his Critique of Pure Reason (trans. 1922),- "Being is evidently not a real predicate, or a concept of something that can be added to the concept of a thing. It is merely the admission of a thing, and of certain determinations in it. Logically, it is merely the copula of a judgment. The proposition, God is almighty, contains two concepts, each having its object, namely, God and almightiness. The small word is, is not an additional predicate, but only serves to put the predicate in relation to the subject. If, then, I take the subject (God) with all its predicates (including that of almightiness), and say, God is, or there is a God, I do not put a new predicate to the concept of God, but I only put the subject by itself, with all its predicates, in relation to my concept, as its object" [2].And thence, through his critique, Kant finishes: "The concept of a Supreme Being is, in many respects, a very useful idea, but, being an idea only, it is quite incapable of increasing, by itself alone, our knowledge with regard to what exists" [3]. Kant's Criticism (1.2)Let us examine the consequences of suggesting that existence is a predicate. As Rowe states on this objection: "The central point in the philosophical doctrine that existence is not a predicate concerns what we do when we ascribe a certain quality or predicate to something"[4].Furthermore, "[F]or example, when we say of a man next door that he is intelligent, six feet tall, or fat. In each case we seem to presuppose that there exists a man next door and then go on to ascribe to him a certain predicate - "intelligent," "six feet tall," or "fat." And many proponents of the doctrine that existence is not a predicate claim that this is a general feature of predication. They hold that when we ascribe a quality or predicate to anything we assert or presuppose that the thing exists and then ascribe the predicate to it." [5] Kant's criticism contains a somewhat similar example regarding the 100$ in his pocket: "A hundred real dollars do not contain a penny more than a hundred possible dollars. For as the latter signify the concept, the former the object and its position by itself, it is clear that, in case the former contained more than the latter, my concept would not express the whole object, and would not therefore be its adequate concept" [6].As two commentators have written in respect to Kant's illustration: "The popularity of Kant's criticism of this argument, Hegel has remarked, results probably from his homely illustration of the one hundred dollars" [7]. However, Gordon Clark (1989) suggests that "to base the reputation of a great philosopher on a illustration is rather hard on Kant" [8]. Mahaffy and Bernard further write:- "Everyone can see that in the case of the dollars you cannot deduce the being from the mere notion; but it is important to remember that the illustration is not quite apt. The very nature of a finite object is expressed by saying that its Being in time and space is discrepant from its notion. God, on the contrary, ought to be what can only be "thought as existing"; His Notion involved Being. It is this unity of the Notion and Being that constitutes the notion of God. What Kant has shown is that on the supposition that Sensibility is different in source from Understanding, you cannot infer existence in space and time from a mere concept. But Hegel saw that this supposed difference in source was a fiction; Sensibility as well as Understanding is but a phase of Thought, and so Kant's laborious argumentation here is not worth much" [9]. Thus, Con using Kant's argument as a rebuttal to Anselm's argument (which is irrelevant and nonetheless faulty) is a mistake regarding the preliminaries on his part. To thence conclude with Clark's point: "Illustrations are always dangerous" (43). Great-Making Properties and Strawmen (2.0) Con is just unbelievably ignorant in his analysis regarding his section "More Strawmen", which shows further support of (2) his lack of understanding regarding my arguments. In his first rebuttal he proposed the following question: "[W]here does the standard of great comes from to say that God is the greatest possible being?" He thence only considers two possible solutions: (1) The [standard of greatness] is above God; (2) The standard comes from God/God's nature/created by God.However, in my first rebuttal I argued that this issue is irrelevant. I do not have to show some given account (or what I called a "great-making theory") in order to demonstrate God as the "being by which none greater can be conceived." Anselm already covered this "ontological chain" in his Monologion (which I quoted above), and Robert Maydole offered an understanding regarding the predicated statement "is greater than." However, consider Con's statement where he says the following: "[My response] let's the [Ontological] argument's proponent assume a perfect theory of greatness all they want." I am confused then as to why Con even brought up this issue in the first place in his initial presentation. Great-Making Properties and Strawmen (2.1)Con further says that "Pro says the description of God is definite. I never argued it wasn't!" I am simply confused as to where I said that he did say this. It seems that he is talking about the instance where I furthered the following proposition: (a) The definite description "that than which it is not conceivable for something to be greater" is understood. However, the only reason I incorporated this proposition was to provide further clarification that I was going to make in the paragraphs that followed the presentation of that proposition. Con misinterpreted my statement and himself is guilty of the very fallacy he accused me of: The Strawman Fallacy. Con is very inconsistent in his presentation and is ignorant in maintaining a wholistic case that provides an adequate objection to my arguments. Con and Ryan Stringer (3.0) Con makes the following statement: "He claims these are just counterfactuals to theism, then states it’s absurd. He does exactly as Stringer said he would do, claim that since God is possible, an evil deity is impossible." This is just ignorance on Con's behalf.My argument suggests that if God is possible, then God (so defined) must exist. For, let G stand for the proposition that G: An entity exists that is maximally excellent. However, this entity is not maximally great. To say that there is a maximally great entity is to say that it is necessary that G is true. In the formal notation of modal logic, `33;G. Thus, the first premise is saying that it is possible that it is necessary that G is true. In formal notation this proposition is expressed as ◊`33;G. The conclusion thence follows to `33;G.In the S5 version of modal logic, the conclusion does follow – where every possible world is accessible from every other. To note from Vern Poythress (2013): As usual, universal accessibility means that every possible world that is accessible at all, or from which our world is accessible, is accessible directly. But the postulate of S5 cannot exclude a model where there are other universes of worlds, all of which are inaccessible to our local group of possible worlds and from which there is no access to our local group. [10] Poythress goes on to explain the premise-to-conclusion dilemma that we seem to have: Here is the reasoning that establishes the conclusion `33;G. Assume the premise, namely, ◊`33;G. Let the initial world be E. By definition of the symbol ◊ in the model, there exists a possible world W in which `33;G. By definition the symbol `33;, G is true in all possible words (in the subset of mutually accessible worlds). Therefore, back in E, G is true. Moreover, G is true in all the other worlds accessible from E. Hence `33;G in E. [11] ________________________Notes: [1] A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (Dover Books: 1952) p. 43 [2] IImmanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, [Chapter 3, Sect. 4]. Trans. F. Max Mueller (Macmillan, 1922). [3] Ibid. [4] Quoted from Reason and Responsibility, ed. Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau (Thomson and Wadsworth: 2005) p. 16 [5] Ibid. [6] Immanual Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason (1922), ibid. - emphasis mine [7] John Mahaffy and John Bernard, Kant's Critical Philosophy for English Readers (London, 1889) p. 340 [8] Gordon Clark, Three Types of Religious Philosophy, 2nd edn. (Trinity Foundation: 1989) p. 42 [9] Mahaffy and Bernard, Kant's Critical Philosophy (1889), ibid. [10] Vern Poythress, Logic: A God-Centered Approach to the Foundation of Western Thought (Crossway: 2013) p. 665 [11] Ibid.