The Ontological Argument is a Failure

IntroductionLet me remind Pro and the reader of the resolution: "The ontological argument fails to prove he existence of God. " We see that it was Pro's burden to prove that the ontological argument fails to prove the existence of God. Burden of Proof was with Pro, as instigator of the debate. My burden was to refute Pro's arguments that the OA fails, and thereby negate the resolution. As Pro surely recognizes by dropping my arguments and refutations, I have fulfilled this burden. I will address Pro's newest argument (that I did not address the relevant OA) in my closing statement. Before I do that, to close the debate off I will go through and summarize the arguments made throughout the debate and show how I have systematically refuted Pro's arguments and negated the resolution. Round 2Pro argued that the OA equivocates between two different meanings of the word God. I responded by showing that the OA uses modal logic, in which God is defined in only one way. It does not equivocate. I pushed this point with the example of a Godelian OA, the most sophisticated of the different versions of the OA. The Godelian argument generated the definition of God through the concept of positive property, and in doing so, The Godelian argument explicitly avoided the fallacy of equivocation. It did this because only one object (or meaning of the word) was generated and used by the argument itself. Round 3Pro argued that the OA defines a being into existence, and that the OA is fallacious because defining a being into existence uses circular reasoning. Pro also argued against the GOA, claiming that "God has both negative and positive properties," and therefore, "God does not necessarily exist by definition. " I responded by demonstrating that Pro had equivocated between two different understandings of the word negative and positive, and had completely misrepresented the GOA. I showed that stating God is "not finite" is simply expressing a "positive property" in negative form, and that "not finite" is NOT the "negation of positive property. " I also responded to Pro's claim that the OA uses circular reasoning. In Round 3, I explicitly addressed the OA that Pro offered in Round 1 and Round 3 (refuting Pro's closing statement. .. ). I translated it into modal logic, and gave a formal proof. I explained every step in the poof, to show how we go from the definition of God, "If God, necessarily God," to the conditional statement of God's existence, "God is possible," to the conclusion that God necessarily exists. Finally, I showed that it is a simple modus ponens (standard syllogism) to demonstrate God's necessary existence implies God's existence. Round 4Pro drops all my previous arguments, recognizes that the logic of the OA itself is sound, and decides to refute its conclusion by arguing that God's existence is a logical impossibility because God is logically contradictory. Pro argues God cannot be all-knowing and have free-will at the same time. Pro also argues agaisnt the OA by saying we can substitute the "Invisibible Pink Unicorn" for "God" in the OA, and that the result would be the same. I responded in three ways. First, I pointed out that God is also omnipotent, and therefore, God is not subject to the rules of logic because God can do absolutely anything, including the logically impossible. Second, I showed that Pro is wrong to suppose free-will and being all-knowing are mutually exclusive and contradictory. I showed that God can still make free choices without a state of uncertainty, and that free-will was about the freedom to choose the best option, and to follow that option through. God can be all-knowing, and in being all-knowing, make the best choice and follow through with it. Thus, I showed that God can be all-knowing and free-willed at the same time without contradiction. Finally, I pointed out that, per Pro's own terms in Round 1, arguing against God's existence was not relevant to this debate. Pro explicitly frames the debate as one focusing on the "ontological argument. " Thus, I provide three refutations of God's logical incoherence, and demonstrate God is logically possible. I also showed that the reason only God works in the OA is because God is the only being that is not defined contingently. This means that for the Invisible Pink Unicorn, and for pretty much everything else excep God, it is a logical impossibility that these objects exist in some logically possible world. God, and God alone, is a logical possibility in every logically possible world. Thus, God is the only being not defined contingently. Round 5: Closing StatementAnd here we are, in Round 5. In this Round, Pro drops all my previous arguments. Pro notes that the "only thing I critisize my partner for" is that I "did not defend the ontological argument placed in round 1. " I must say, this comes as a surprise to me. I thought I was addressing the OA the entire debate, as well as systematically refuting Pro's arguments against the OA. It is a surprise that Pro suddenly, in his closing statement, decides that I have not met my burden because I have not been arguing about the relevant OA. Truth is, if Pro really thought I was defending an irrelevant ontological argument in Round 1, 2, and 3, Pro could have said something a lot earlier. Pro could have said the GOA was not relevant to this debate. Instead, Pro attempts (and as I have shown, fails in his attempts) to refute the GOA by misunderstanding it, and then claiming that God can have both positive properties and properties that negate positive properties. Pro clearly equivocates and is wrong, but that is beside the point. The point is that Pro engaged my arguments, the version of the OA, that I offered throughout the debate. In doing so, Pro admits those versions of the OA to as relevant to the debate. But again, let's be generous and assume that Pro's argument is correct. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that I did not defend the relevant OA offered in Round 1. If that is really the case, then what is it that I really did do in this debate? Well, I systematically refuted every single one of Pro's arguments. So, regardless of whether I defended the relevant OA or not, I nonetheless showed that Pro's arguments were false. As Con, that is enough to fulfill my burden. My burden was not to show the absolute correctness of the OA. My burden was to negate the resolution, which states: "The ontological argument fails to prove the existence of God. " I refuted every argument made by Pro in this debate, and therefore, I refuted Pro's claims that the OA fails to prove God's existence. That, in and of itself, is enough to fulfill my burden and effectively negate Pro's arguments and the resolution. Note, also, that Pro did not state BoP was shared. Finally, I want to make clear to readers that I did address the relevant OA for multiple reasons: 1) because Pro engaged the GOA and my arguments as if they were relevant until his closing statement, at which point it is too late to claim they are irrelevant; 2) more importantly, because I actually did addess the OA from Round 1 -- in Round 3. I clearly stated, in Round 3, that I was giving a formal proof of the OA offered by Pro, not the one I offered. And I provided an extensive formal proof for that OA, which is basically the Plantinga version of the OA offered in Round 1. Pro left that formal proof completely unrefuted, Pro did not even argue against its logic or its premises. The resolution is negated.