It is most probable that a god exists.

CONTINGENCY ARGUMENT Pro has finally gotten around to attempting to justify why we can assign certain properties to a cause of the Universe, if one were necessary. Material or immaterial? : Pro argues that material beings are contingent, therefore a maximally great being would be immaterial. First of all, Pro has diverged from the contingency argument into the ontological argument a bit in his discussion by discussing a maximally great being, as he assumes that if there were a necessary cause of the Universe required, it would be a maximally great being. This is not necessarily the conclusion drawn by the contingency argument, however. So, while the cause would have to be necessary, and not contingent, as Pro has argued if the Contingency Argument were true, it would not have to be a maximally great being. Second, I question why a material being cannot be a necessary cause. Perhaps this is because of some basic philosophic principle that I am not aware of, but regardless of that, this point has not been justified. Personal or impersonal? : Pro has made this point dependent on the previous one, which I see no reason to necessarily accept, so this point can be disregarded as well. I’ve already conceded that a necessary cause would have to be timeless, and Pro’s reasoning regarding spacelessness has been demonstrated to be unjustified. Additionally, assuming omnipotence for this cause is not a warranted assumption, and although a maximally great being proved in some other argument could be said to share these attributes, that does not mean that the cause that is allegedly proved in this argument is a maximally great being. That logic is akin to saying “All men are mortal, Socrates is mortal, therefore Socrates is a man,” a syllogism which is clearly invalid. PSR Pro claims that we aren’t applying the PSR outside of the Universe, but if we are judging whether the Universe would have needed a cause, we must apply it to the conditions “before”/outside the Universe. Argument Against the PSR “Refuted” I must apologize for using the wrong phrase here, but that does not excuse Pro’s lack of justification for his argument. Instead of saying it was a false dichotomy, I meant to say it is special pleading (which is a false choice of sorts as I suppose). It appears to be special pleading because the argument claims that a personal cause does not require an explanation but scientific laws do, a claim that is unjustified. Additionally, Pro did not respond to my claim that he never actually addressed my initial objections to the PSR, a drop which must be taken into account. ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT P1Pro says he thinks the argument will come down to the plausibility of P1, however he has failed to give a strong defense of P3, so it is important for voters to take both of these premises into consideration. Saith Pro: Since I have not justified why it would be not be possible for a MGB to exist, acceptance of his first premise is justified. Saith I: Since he has not justified why it not be possible for a MGB not to exist (outside of this argument, of course, since doing so by using the argument is circular reasoning), acceptance of my first premise is justified. Since the premises are contradictory, and one has not been demonstrated to be superior than the other with regards to truth, we must disregard them both. P3Pro also tries to object the other alternative ontological argument that I presented. He argues that since we know that there exists a possible world in which no land exists, we must conclude that a maximally great island (MGI) does not exist in all possible worlds. This is like saying that since we know that there exists a possible world in which no omnipotent being exists, we must conclude that a MGB does not exist in all possible worlds. Clearly Gaunilo’s argument demonstrates that there can exist no possible world in which an there is no land, as a MGI must exist in every possible world. But, but, but. .. that would mean that somehow this logic fails. For if an MGI did not exist in all possible worlds, then it would not be superior than every other island because, as Pro has pointed out, it is greater to exist in all possible worlds than just in some. So, either this logic does not work or there exists an MGI in every possible world. (As a side note, if we find that the logic works and an MGI would have to exist in every possible world, then this would be a counter example to Pro’s claim that material things cannot be necessitates. ) And as I pointed out in the previous round, a MGI does not exist in this world, so a MGI does not exist in every world, so an MGI is not necessary, so we must conclude that this logic does not work. Pro argued that Gaunilo’s P3 “cannot be substantiated,” and it appears that this would be true of the Plantinga P3 as well. Pro’s only attempt at a justification of his P3 is that a contingent being is finite and only exists in some possible worlds, and since a MGB is not finite and exists in all possible worlds. What’s missing here is a warrant between this claim and it being greater to exist in more possible worlds. I see no reason to accept P3. Impossiblitiy of a MGBFinally, Pro has argued that a MGB does not need to possess infinite powers, just powers to their maximum possible extent. But what happens when the logical possibility to do a certain thing is infinite? Wouldn’t a MGB then have to have an infinite power? To show what I mean, let’s look at something simple like the number of stars in our galaxy. The number of stars has to be finite, but the range of logically possible numbers of stars is [0,∞). Let’s let S represent the maximum number of starts a MGB could create. No matter what that S equaled, I could always logically conceive of a being that could create S+1 stars. So, we see that a MGB must have infinite abilities in this regard, and thus my argument that a MGB could not exist for this reason stands. This conclusion is rather significant, as it basically swings the debate in my favor necessarily, as it shows that a God could not exist as defined by Pro. MORAL ARGUMENT Pro has failed to successfully prove this argument as well. Despite his claim that I only gave one, I gave two objections to this argument. The success of either one of these objections is enough to send this argument down the drains. Pro’s first point was that descriptive relativism was false. I provided an objection to the reasoning that yielded this conclusion. My objection was insufficiently challenged in R3, I reinstated the objection in my R3 argument, and now this first objection has been dropped by Pro. Like I previously said, this in and of itself is enough to disqualify the argument. The other objection comes from a completely morally nihilistic perspective. With this argument, I objected to the idea that there is a reason to view actions as right or wrong, and my oppoentn failed to prove otherwise. Just because a person says “This has moral content,” does not mean that “This” does have moral content. CONCLUSION We’ve seen three arguments from Pro attempting to prove that a MGB exists: The Argument from Contingency, the Ontological Argument, and the Moral Argument. Significant parts of all three of these arguments have not been proven or have been shown to be false. My objections to P1 of the Contingency Argument were never really challenged, and Pro provided an insufficient defense of P6. I provided several variations of the Ontological Argument that Pro quite easily spotted flaws in, but was less eager to spot these flaws in his argument. Just as the P1 I presented was unjustified, so was his. Just as Gaunilo’s P3 if unjustified, so is his. More importantly, however, I demonstrated here that a MGB cannot logically exist. I also provided two objections to the Moral Argument. One of these was dropped in the final round and the other received a poor challenge. I have clearly demonstrated that Pro has not fulfilled his BoP in this debate. Vote Con! !