It is reasonable to believe that God exists

ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT By definition, a Maximally Great Being cannot be contradictory. If you laid out all the qualities that a Maximally Great Being possesses, 'uncontradictory' would be down there. As for the example Con gave, Just because this being is omniscient doesn't mean he can't give his creation free-will by any stretch! All it states is that God knows what a person will freely do in any set of circumstances ahead of time. I think this is more of a fore-knowledge/middle-knowledge confusion. I personally adhere to fore-knowledge, as do the vast majority of monotheists and so I don't think this is a serious objection to the monotheist interpretation of a Maximally Great Being. COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT Out of all the premises I laid out, I have to say, I am surprised my opponent disagreed with Premise 3. Because if the first two premises are correct, then the conclusion logically and necessarily follows. Con did not even attempt to refute my first two premises and so if they are correct, which i certainly think they are, Con cannot then attack the conclusion that follows. Con has then made no attempt to prove otherwise. My opponent then proceeds to say this: 'However, if it were the case that the universe did indeed have a cause, you cannot equate "cause" to a "creator" ' This is exactly what you can do! For without the cause, there would be nothing! No creation! So the cause IS the creator by definition. IMMATERIAL CREATOR Remember I gave reasons to think that the cause has to be immaterial? Considering the physical world came into being a finite time ago, the cause of the universe CANNOT be a physical cause - otherwise, it would have had to exist BEFORE it existed in order to cause the universe. This is an obvious contradiction, and so the cause of the universe HAS to be immaterial. A CONSCIOUS My opponent states that a conscious is not necessary as a cause of a universe. Really? Then how is it going to make the decision to create or not create? How is an unconscious being going to create anything at all? In the example Con gave, we need to distinguish between material and efficient cause. Aristotle distinguished between them - An efficient cause is an agent that brings about an effect; whereas a material cause is the matter that constitutes the effect. To give an example - Leonardo Da Vinci is the efficient cause of the Mona Lisa - while the material cause is the paint and canvas. In my opponent's example, the wind would be a material cause. However, the universe CANNOT have a material cause - as I have explained before, the cause has to be immaterial; therefore the cause of the universe is an efficient cause which HAS to be conscious. The Mona Lisa could not have an effiecient cause that was not conscious, otherwise it just wouldn't exist - There would be no artist to paint it. NON PHYSICAL MIND In the sense of my cosmological argument, sure. There could be numberous causes. But I didn't argue that, and it is not the point I am trying to achieve. Remember - I am trying to prove that it is POSSIBLE that a maximally great being exists, and I feel I have achieved that in the argument. We can also apply Occam's Razor to the argument - only one explaination is necessary, and to apply any more than what is needed is gratuitous. MORALITY Well, my opponent has in fact proved my point! In his example, he makes a moral judgement - 'I can easily concoct a scenario where killing would be justified'. Soin other words, one course of action is morally 'better' than another - this is exactly what objective morality asserts. Were morals to be subjective, any killing, regardless of circumstances, is no more or less wrong than giving to charity for example. If killing is in any way 'justified' under any circumstances, as my opponent states, that shows the objectiveness in morality. CONCLUSION My opponent has not sufficiently refuted my arguments and so the premise still stands - it is possible that a Maximally Great Being exists. The rest of the Ontological argument follows.