The Ontological Argument proves that God exists!

With that said, here we go! Pro presents Alvin Plantinga's modal Ontological Argument. All Ontological Arguments for God’s Existence are a priori arguments and are thus subject to the same criticism that I will present in this round. Nevertheless, I will address Plantingas modal version of it in round three. A Priori It is widely accepted that the first [and most famous] Ontological Argument was proposed by [1] Anselm of Cantebury in 1078. Anselm defined God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived", and then argued that this being could exist in the mind. Even [2] Thomas Aquinas, objected to Anselm's argument. He suggested that people cannot know the nature of God and, therefore, cannot conceive of God in the way Anselm proposed. The Ontological Argument would be meaningful only to someone who understands the essence of God completely. [3] Aquinas reasoned that, as only God can completely know his essence, only he could use the argument. A priori [1] knowledge or justification is independent of experience. Galen Strawson wrote that an a priori argument is one in which "you can see that it istrue just lying on your couch. You don't have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world. You don't have to do any science. " Scottish philosopher and empiricist David Hume argued that nothing can be proven to exist using only a priori reasoning. In Dialogues concerning Natural Religion he proposes a criticism that goes as follows[4]: “. .. there is an evident absurdity in pretending to demonstrate a matter of fact, or to prove it by any arguments a priori. Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being, whose existence is demonstrable. Hume also suggested that, as we have no abstract idea of existence (apart from as part of our ideas of other objects), we cannot claim that the idea of God implies his existence” As is readily evident, each version of the Ontological Argument rests on the assumption that the concept of God, as it is described in the argument, is [5] self-consistent. But many philosophers are skeptical about the underlying assumption, and that this idea of the all or maximally-great and all or maximally-perfect being is possible and implies no contradiction. ” Here is the problem: Let us suppose, [6] that there were just three positive properties X, Y, and Z; that any two of them are compatible with each other; but that the presence of any two excludes the remaining one. Then there would be three possible beings, namely, one which combines X and Y, one which combines Y and Z, and one which combines Z and X, each of which would be such that nothing superior to it is logically possible. For the only kind of being which would be superior to any of these would be one which had all three properties, X, Y, and Z; and, by hypothesis, this combination is logically impossible. It is now plain that, unless all positive properties be compatible with each other, this phrase [i. e. , "a being than which none greater can be imagined"] is just meaningless verbiage like the phrase “the greatest possible integer. ” God’s Awesomely Contradictive Properties An odd aspect of Anselm’s argument is that it was originally addressed not to humans but to God himself, in the form of prayer (you’d think that any entity capable of listening to prayer would need no convincing of his own existence). There are a number of plausible arguments for thinking that even this restricted set of properties is logically inconsistent. For example, moral perfection is thought to entail being both perfectly merciful and perfectly just. But these two properties seem to contradict each other. To be perfectly just is always to give every person exactly what she deserves. But to be perfectly merciful is to give at least some persons less punishment than they deserve. If so, then a being cannot be perfectly just and perfectly merciful. Thus, if moral perfection entails, as seems reasonable, being perfectly just and merciful, then the concept of moral perfection is inconsistent. The problem of divine foreknowledge can also be seen as denying that omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection constitute a coherent set. Roughly put, the problem ofdivine foreknowledge is as follows: [6] If God is omniscient, then God knows what every person will do at every moment t. To say that a person p has free will is to say that there is at least one moment t at which p does A but could have done other than A. But if a person p who does A at t has the ability to do other than A at t, then it follows that p has the ability to bring it about that an omniscient God has a false belief – and this is clearly impossible. Ontological Argument from the Playground If I may, I’d like to provide an alternative version of the a priori Ontological Argument that I am borrowing from the God Delusion where he translates the argument into the “appropriate” language of the playground [7]: “Bet you I can prove God exists. ” “Bet you can’t. ” “Right then, imagine the most perfect perfect perfect thing possible. ” “Okay, now what? ” “Now, is that perfect perfect thing real? Does it exist? ” “No, it’s only in my mind. ” “But if it was real it would be even more perfect, because a really really perfect thing would have to be better than a silly old imaginary thing. So I’ve proved that God exists. Nur Nurny Nur Nur. All atheists are fools. ” The idea that such conclusions could be drawn from such semantic word play personally offends me. Is there anything we can think of that by the mere fact that we can think of it, is shown to exist outside of our thought? If the answer is yes then might we need to conclude that there lies a bridge from pure thought to things. Rational thought would be suspicious of any line of reasoning that reached such a conclusion without any empirical a posteriori data. Ontological Parody The most definitive refutation of the Ontological Argument were by Immanuel Kant in which he identified the card up Anselm’s sleeve in his assumption that existence is more perfect than non-existence. The American Philosopher Norman Malcolm put it like this “The doctrine that existence is perfection is remarkably queer. It makes sense and is true to say that my future will be a better one if it insulated, rather than not-insulated; but what could it mean to say that it will be a better house if it exists than if it does not? ” The Australian philosopher Douglas Gasking devised this ironic parody of the Ontological Argument [7]: 1. The creation of the world is the most marvelous achievement imaginable. 2. The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator. 3. The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement. 4. The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence. 5. Therefore if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can conceive a greater being namely, one who created everything while not existing. 6. An existing God therefore would not be a being greater than which a greater cannot be conceived because an even more formidable and incredible creator would be a God which did not exist. 7. Therefore, God does not exist. Needless to say Gasking did not prove that God does not exist any more or less than the Ontological Argument proves otherwise. 1. . http://goo.gl... 2. . http://goo.gl...3. . http://goo.gl... 4. . http://goo.gl... 5. . http://goo.gl... 6. . http://goo.gl... 7. . http://goo.gl...