Does God Exist: An Ontological Argument

Thanks Existence. Pro quotes William Rowe saying predicates don’t need to refer to existing objects. However, this is a strawman against Kant’s objection. It’s not stating predicates can only be given to existing objects, it only says existence itself isn’t a predicate. All that has been pointed out by Rowe is that we think of things differently when we know they exist. This doesn’t mean existence can be a predicate, because things such as nouns do the same thing. If I state Hawaii is a place, this changed the way we think of it, but it doesn’t add any predicates. He then claims Kant’s objection is irrelevant to Anselm's argument. This is a misunderstanding of the philosophy of language Anselm used in the argument. Consider premise one, (1) God exists in the understanding but not in reality This is from the Meinongianist idea of negative existentials. Meinongianism is an ontological thesis, or set of theses: (i) There are two kinds of existence: existence in reality and existence in the understanding; (ii) Some things exist in the understanding without existing in reality; other things exist both in reality and in the understanding.[http://spot.colorado.edu... Page 8] However, this means the the argument is stating that existence is a property. Philosopher Chris Heathwood formed Kant's objection like so [ibid], P1 If Anselm’s ontological argument is sound, then Meinongianism (or some theory relevantly like it) is true. P2 If Meinongianism (or some theory relevantly like it) is true, then existence in reality is a real property. P3 But existence in reality is not a real property. C Therefore, Anselm’s ontological argument is not sound. Pro then quotes someone who summarizes his argument. It’s interesting the straw man here, because Kant is attacked because his objection didn’t disprove the existence of God. This is a blatant strawman fallacy, because Kant was simply objecting to the ontological argument, not attempting to disprove God. It’s like criticizing the free will defense because it doesn’t prove God. The argument is relevant and my objection stands. More Strawmen I don’t know why Pro attacked William Rowe’s objection. I never made such an objection, nor ever read any of Rowe’s work on the argument. Perhaps Pro saw that my objection was somewhat similar to Rowe’s, in the sense of pointing out question begging. However, I’m objecting the argument on the grounds of standards of greatness, while Rowe is objecting to it on the grounds of God being possible means it’s necessary; thus stating his possibility is granting its existence. I agree that Rowe’s objection fails, it’s making a common mistake of confusing question begging for simple deductive argumentation. Rowe’s argument clearly wasn’t my argument, thus Pro has again committed the logical fallacy of the strawman. Next Pro says the description of God is definite. I never argued it wasn't! My argument isn't one of semantics, it relies on the definition of God given. Then Pro goes onto quote Maydole rebutting an objection to the meaningfulness of “is greater than”. This is yet another strawman fallacy. My argument couldn’t care less about what theories of greatness exist, it let’s the argument’s proponent assume a perfect theory of greatness all they want. It doesn’t change a thing. My second objection is still standing strong. We’ve seen nothing but strawmen from Pro with this one. Modal Argument for the Impossibility of God. Pro’s objections have already been answered in my previous round. 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. The funny thing here is, Pro is demonstrating why this argument is on equal footing with the OA. We could take Pro’s statements in this argument and claim the exact same thing in favor of atheism. We could say since an evil being can exist in a possible world, Anselm’s God isn’t possible. Pro is just assuming the ontological argument more plausible without demonstrating it to be the case. This objection still stands Conclusion My objections are still standing. Pro’s quotes don’t deal with many of my objections. Kant’s objection is relevant and standing, my greatness objection was completely misunderstood by Pro and thus he commits many strawmen fallacies, and Ryan Stringer’s argument still shows the ontological argument fails to provide sufficient evidence for God’s existence.