- If it is possible that something exists, then it does exist in a possible world.
- It is possible that a maximally excellent being exists in a possible world.
- Therefore, a maximally excellent being exists in some possible world.
- A maximally great being would be a maximally excellent being that exists in all possible worlds – i.e. there is no being that has excellence superior to its.
- It is possible that a maximally great being exists – i.e. that a maximally excellent being exists such that it has maximal excellence in every possible world.
- Therefore, a maximally great being exists.
- God is, by definition, a maximally great being.
- Therefore, God exists.
Alvin Plantinga offered a modal ontological argument for the existence of God as summarized above. If God exists in all possible worlds and we inhabit a possible world, then God exists in our world. Once someone has conceded that it is possible God exists, according to the logic outlined above, they must accept that God actually does exist.
This argument is not subject to the criticism that having an idea of a maximally great being does not actually entail that such a being exists. Nor is it subject to Kant’s criticism that existence is not a predicate: God’s existence is special because it is defined as existence in all possible worlds, which makes it a different species of existence from our own. For example, while it is possible that I exist in a possible world, it is also possible that I do not exist in another possible world.
The argument hinges on the possibility of a maximally great being. This is an a priori claim. Detractors might object that such a being is not possible, therefore the argument does not succeed. But note: this criticism does not challenge the validity of the argument but its soundness. They allege that this premise is false.
The burden of proof lies with the detractors: they must give a reason for why such a being is not possible. At this point arguments are introduced that allege the divine attributes are incompatible or that God is incompatible with the possible world we inhabit. Here are a few such challenges:
- The paradox of the stone
- Kretzmann on omniscience and immutability
- Omnipotence and supreme goodness
- The Euthyphro dilemma
- Omniscience and human free will
- The evidential problem of evil
- The logical problem of evil
Theists have offered defences and theodicies in response to all of these arguments. In any case, much of this is actually a distraction: the ontological argument is not meant to show that God fits our (popular) conception of Him, but that a maximally great being exists. The coherence of maximal greatness and our complete understanding of maximal greatness are not the same issue.
We treat the concept “MULTIPLY” as coherent, but do we understand everything about it? If we accept that we lack complete knowledge of such a concept, but that this does not justify throwing the concept out, then by the same reasoning we must accept that our lack of complete knowledge regarding “MAXIMAL GREATNESS” does not entitle us to throw it out.
Moreover, transcendence is part of the concept of God. Transcendence can be understood in relation to ontology (God is beyond the universe) and also in relation to epistemology (God is beyond our ultimate comprehension). This does not amount to special pleading because transcendence is part of the definition of God: God is not coherent if God lacks transcendence, whereas transcendence is not part of the definition of, say, APPLE.
We must also consider the coherence of challenging God’s existence. Now this does not show that God actually does exist, but as Quine has pointed out, it does show that we are intellectually committed to God’s existence – He is a necessary presupposition for our reasoning. This results in a curious outcome: atheism – even if true – is unjustifiable. Most epistemologies include some kind of justification as a necessary condition for knowledge: the tripartite theory; infallibilism; virtue epistemology; reliabilism; Nozick’s “tracking the truth” reliabilism. The nature of justification is disputed, but most accept that something gives validity to our true beliefs to convert them into knowledge – some principle “guides” us into truth and that principle, even if it is built on truth, is not identical to it.
The question, “Is it possible that God exists?”, is incoherent. God is defined as a necessary being, whereas possibility speaks of contingency. Possibility itself is contingent on God, not God on possibility.
All Along the Watchtower 
Interesting, but difficult to comprehend with real understanding and an argument that I have to reject.
Evagrius Ponticus, one of the Desert Fathers who lived in the fourth century said
God cannot be comprehended by the mind, in as much as what is comprehended of God cannot be God.”
” God is: that which nothing greater can be thought: that which is greater than can be thought: that cannot be thought.”
LikeLiked by 3 people
My take is slightly different, I think it does show that God exists, and that God is beyond our understanding – but it is irrelevant. I would argue that every human knows God exists. My experience of atheism boils down to this: distrust of God and shaking our fists at God. There have also been some interesting psychological studies on the effects of atheism and the correlation of atheism with bad/absent fathers during childhood and adolescence.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Surely existence belongs to the creatures and the universe. God must be beyond mere existence.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, the issue is how we characterize it: God is self-sufficient, which is why He has the glorious Name He revealed to Moses in Exodus 4: Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, “I am that I am” > Yahweh. But creatures depend on God for their existence – they are not self-sufficient, which is why He is Most Glorious. In philosophy speak, we say that God has necessary existence, but creatures have contingent existence. Exodus 4 is a very special passage for me personally and allowed me to make sense of John 1 as the glorious revelation that Jesus is Yahweh – that is what opened my heart to loving God – before that I feared and hated Him.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Alleluia,
There’s never been a time in my life when I’ve hated him. There have been many moments of agonized questionings, but these have generally solved themselves. I have experienced times of despair and loneliness. I hope this doesn’t sound arrogant, but the Grace of God in Jesus has always been there to support me.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ontological argument have never convinced me to the degree of Cosmological. The prime mover has observable evidence. The far better argument of Contingency also bear evidence by the existence of possible beings that precludes a necessary being. When I first read Anselm, who introduced me to the Christian ontological argument, I couldn’t but thinking, this isn’t going to convince anyone.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Forgive the awful typing errors, I’ve had little sleep the past night.
LikeLike
I generally prefer the argument from contingency, but I think the ontological argument (Anselm, Descartes, Leibniz, Malcolm, Plantinga) is useful because it shows how incoherent atheism is. It also shows why classical paganism is foolish.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I love what St Maximus he Confessor says.
A mind is perfect when, through faith, it has inconceivably gained knowledge of the inconceivable, has surveyed all his creation in general and has received from God an all embracing knowledge of His providence and judgement in His creatures, as far as this is accessible to man. (Third Century of Love 99.)
LikeLiked by 2 people
And I have found a spritual treasure in the words of St. John of the Cross which describes the unknowable in his seeming paradoxes:
“To reach satisfaction in all, desire satisfaction in nothing. To come to possess all, desire the possession of nothing. To arrive at being all, desire to be nothing. To come to the knowledge of all, desire the knowledge of nothing. To come to enjoy what you have not, you must go by a way in which you enjoy not. To come to the possession you have not, you must go by a way in which you possess not. To come to what you are not, you must go by a way in which you are not.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
I came across that quotation earlier to-day and I almost used it. T.S. Eliot also quotes it in the Four Quartets.
from Four Quartets: “East Coker”
You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.
LikeLiked by 4 people
My problem with this ontological proof comes from personal drug induced experiences in college . . . specifically my experience with DMT which makes LSD look like a pop gun compared to ab Atom bomb.
At once one is thrust into a ‘reality’ that can only be described by a declarative sentence: “Here I am again!” . . . a feeling at once of a return to a cosmic home of consciousness and a loss of any reality to anything one can claim regarding their present life of memories, acquaintences, experiences. It is like being awash in pure being which is also existent in a 3 dimensional fractal of sorts. As for possibilities, it is similar to a dream where one can concentrate on a specific speck and enter into it and make of it a reality or possible world to be explored and lived in . . . the further one goes in the further the micro bit becomes the macro and final reaches a state of becoming fully a new reality to be explored and ‘lived’. It is more a Buddhist experience of a dream state. except that there is a knowledge that none of it is real except for the “I” of the experience.
All things are possible as #1 explains and it is one of a myriad of possible realities. Though #2 speaks of excellence as a possibility I suppose that would be a possible contingent though another would be that any reality is as excellent as another and that the only unchanging part is the “I”. All the rest that follows by the numbers leads to the ultimate conclusion that there is a God and that God is “I”.
So it seems to me, and did at the time, that what the Westerner experiences under the influence of the drug DMT points not to God the Creator of the cosmos but to the truth of the Eastern religions and the idea that reality is nothing but the dream of the sleeping Buddha.
And yes, since it was only a mental aberration of a drug on the mind it can be dismissed [and I do]. Though its similarity to the undrugged beliefs of Buddhism are quite interesting though flawed. There is a certain centrality of “I” in their ‘possibility’ of what existence amounts to. And of perfection, one only needs awake to the fact that they themselves are that perfect “I” . . . nirvana . . . an awakening.
So I am with Phillip here: give me the 5 demonstrations of God by St. Thomas as it makes a far better argument for my money.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Equally, though, you could follow Berkeley: Buddhism comes from a place of scepticism and egoism, but we don’t necessarily have to think that way. If we do as a consequence of the Fall, we still need to interpret what that means – Calvinist total depravity or something lighter? Berkeley thought about how he couldn’t control his perceptual experiences, and that led him to conclude that God must be in control of them – so Berkeley isn’t God.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And thereby Berkeley’s God is a bit of a schizophrenic that gives different perceptions to every human soul on the planet.
I understand what you are arguing, I think. Though it seems to me to be non-satisfactory at the lowest common denominator of human experience. It seems rather a scholarly meandering in a particular way of thinking . . . which is uncommon amongst the common folk. I find it of the same sort of thought that is precipitated from science regarding, especially, the fact that all that truly existss is bundles of energy (whatever that is) and it composes both the living and the non-living and exists for all eternity. Even mass within the E=mc2 is comprised of these orderly bundles of energy. It makes one ask many a question. How does a particular arrangement of these little bundles of energy think, distinguish, or wonder at its own existence? I find all these excursions of the mind interesting to meditate upon but with an underpinning of the existence of a Mysterious God far too vast to contemplate and to admire fully within the realm of rational thought processes. Try as we might to know the Knower, we fail to know the Unknown God Who is our All.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes, which is why I like the dictum: credo ut intellegam. I am pleased, however, with how well the apologists within the scientific community are doing. I suppose it is a foregone conclusion, nevertheless, they are to be commended.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I particularly am fond of the writings of Fr. Stanley Jaki. Have you read him, Nicholas? Here is something quick about some of his thoughts:
https://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/JAKI.HTM
LikeLiked by 1 person
No I haven’t. I’m a fan of Ravi Zacharias and William Lane Craig.
LikeLiked by 2 people
You should give the late Fr. Jaki a shot at some point. I would be interested in your reaction because I think you will enjoy it. Fr. Jaki is a friend of science and of course to God. He makes us think and wonder at this marvelous creation that we are a small part of.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve just read the article you posted, I liked it apart from the comment about idealism. Although the word by itself could mean any number of things on the part of the author – without further clarification I cannot ascertain what he is attacking – Berkeley? Plato? Kant? None of the above?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Are you speaking of this quotation?
“…unless one sits down as a little child before the facts of science established in its history—prepared to give up preconceived notions about it offered by positivists, idealists, historicists, and agnostics, and ready to retrace in full the actual historical road of science—one will never learn the fundamental truth that real science is the science of a contingent universe” (p. 324).
I think, that your last answer would best describe what he wrote as I don’t even think that his view was one of ‘attacking’ the ideas that have been in constant growth from the birth of scientific thought itself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, that sentence. I inferred that since the article was attacking positivism, oher -isms grouped with it are also under attack. As an idealist I would contend for my position, but I also would content for someone’s right to believe in realism.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well I should have ended my last comment with: He finds only one thing ever-present; the contingency of ALL on a Supreme Being.
I suppose that depends on what ‘your position is’ and what ‘realism’ means in the context of your comment. So yes, he follows the thought process of science throughout its history and intuits that thoughout history the ideas that have emerged still are contingent upon a Creator God.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Okay. Well as an idealist, I can support that position: the “virtual world” is contingent upon its Designer, Creator, and Sustainer, Almighty God.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Indeed it is.
The term “scientism,” explained Father Thomas Dubay in “The Evidential Power of Beauty” (Ignatius Press, 1999), “can be deceiving, for scientism is decidedly not science. Rather, it is a philosophy, or, better, an ideology that views the physical sciences as the sole source of human knowledge.”
He died in 2010 and was kind of enough when he was living to correspond with me after I wrote him. He was a contemplative and spiritual retreat director and a very holy man. The above mentioned book would probably be an enjoyable read for you as well.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I shall get round to it then. Indeed, there are some good blog posts on that topic a Dominic Bonn Tennant’s site. Too few empiricists realize how much there system actually relies on the a priori. Empiricism cannot be empirically derived, which means it is subject to the same problem as AJ Ayer’s verificationism. Hutzpah is what I call it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes, there is much deniability going around these days.
LikeLiked by 2 people
They won’t find it very nourishing though – like eating illusions. I forget which author said it, but there is a great quotation from an American philosopher of science about the “metaphysical prejudice” of realists in the physics community because they don’t like where the data from quantum theory is leading – hardly the open-minded spirit one would expect.
LikeLiked by 2 people
What I don’t like is the obvious. Even the building blocks of all that exists are inconceivable mysteries; energy and forces whose very words have next to no concrete explanation. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of such things as love, desire, feelings etc. If we are nothing but these little whirling sub-atomic particles from whence comes our personhood or our dignity?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Or perhaps he is giving each person what that person needs. I don’t know, God is what God is.
I don’t find that equation troubling at all, or that all things are energy, but I also maintain that God made the rules, and He made us to be able to discover these things.
Actually, I find physics at that level less confusing than a good many theological/philosophical arguments, but that is probably a weakness in me, individually.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Not really. The language of theology and philosophy and science are the stumbling blocks but the core ideas of what is trying to be explained are, by their very nature, unexplainable. Understoon only in small part in context to what we might be able to put to use in our lives . . . or if we use science properly . . . in what we believe of the Ever Living God.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Much truth in that. In other words, “We see through a glass, darkly”. Which is absolutely true.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes, sometimes the simplest and oldest truths hold up even in the atomic age. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Indeed so. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
A big long philosophical diatribe about whether god exists.
Hes standing at every mans door and knocking. Try opening the door instead of blowing hot air. While you are reading this and that philosophical book about god…..hes at your door knocking.
LikeLike
You offer nothing do you, really Bosco, except a platitude? Do you think, for a moment, of the harm you do to those searching for God who do not have the sort of moment of revelation you had? You repeat, like a parrot, ‘he’s standing at every man’s door’ – but what about those who do not hear the knock, or who try to open the door and can’t – what have you to say to them? Nothing at all, except to make them feel even more lost. Well done, Bosco – is this the Lord’s work you are about?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you, C. That was kind of you to fight on my behalf. For the record, though it hardly needs saying, as an evangelical I am committed to preaching the Gospel, but I also try to take into account the person I am speaking with. When I address my colleagues on spiritual matters I try and listen as much as talk – perhaps I fail, but that is my intent. He is not the only one who feels for the lost.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Happy sunday to you good brother Chalcedon. Did your costume hold up the bible and kiss it during the show?
Im going to rewrite your comment to me and insert the name who should really be on it, because He is the one saying it………..;
You offer nothing do you, really Jesus, except a platitude? Do you think, for a moment, of the harm you do to those searching for God who do not have the sort of moment of revelation you had? You repeat, like a parrot, ‘he’s standing at every man’s door’ – but what about those who do not hear the knock, or who try to open the door and can’t – what have you to say to them? Nothing at all, except to make them feel even more lost. Well done, Jesus – is this the Lord’s work you are about?
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me
Revelation 3:20
LikeLike
You are not Jesus – Jesus does not say there is only one way to come to him – you say that.
LikeLike
You are correct…im not Jesus. Im just the message boy. But, I appreciate the scorn. The servant is not above his Master. I count it all joy when I am reviled. It is not me that attracts your ire…its the Word I bring that draws your condemnation.
LikeLike
You are not being reviled – don’t be such a snowflake 😊
LikeLike
PS……Jesus does say that He is the Door and that is the only way to Him and salvation. Until one actually meets him, it doesn’t make any sense. So the unsaved substitute religion as a door. Or some use drugs or video games or movies. Or money.
LikeLike
He does, but show me where he says that there is only one way of coming to him- you don’t even see the damage you do
LikeLike
lots of peoples stories are different as to why they came to Him. Im not aware of DIFFERENT WAYS to come to Him. One finally gives up trying and asks Jesus to come in and show Himself and take over. That’s the only way ive ever heard of. My story IS different. But I was tricked into asking Him to come into my life….but I did ask, and I did receive. I don’t know of any other WAY. If you are aware of another way, id like to hear it. Thanks in advance.
LikeLike
There are many ways
LikeLike
Well, thanks for clearing that up. I feel much better now.
Jesus warned us(the saved) that those who try to enter by any other way are thieves and robbers and come to steal. and destroy. Budha, the pope, Krishna, Nishren Shoshu, John Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, David Koresh, Jim Jones. These are all wolves who steal and destroy because they do not enter by Jesus the DOOR. They have their own ways. that’s why hell is full of religious people. God had to enlarge the doors of hell because of all the traffic.
LikeLike
Yes. All not part of the Church – except St Peter’s successor- just like you.
LikeLike
That’s how good the CC is. It really has people convinced it is Gods only church, or body. The Seventh Dayers are also good at what they do. People probably actually get saved thru the 7th day org, despite its codes. The CC saves people by driving them away when they get sick of its demonic doctrines , and go searching for Christ himself.
LikeLike
DId Jesus commission the 7 Day Adventists in Scripture? Did he commission your chapel in Scripture? Your problem is that the truth is staring you in the face and you are in denial about it.
LikeLike
“If God exists in all possible worlds and we inhabit a possible world, then God exists in our world. Once someone has conceded that it is possible God exists, according to the logic outlined above, they must accept that God actually does exist.”
Great! God exists, then, Pope Francis is a heretic. The only way Pope Francis is not a heretic, is if God does not exist. Prove positive that God exists.
LikeLike
All this business about God existing is fraught with unanswerable questions.
In the end it comes down to making a leap of faith and discovering the Grace of God that meets us and sustains us at every moment of our fragile existence.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, on that I agree with you, Father Malcolm. Along with the apologists, I maintain that we have a “reasonable faith”. I believe we are mandated to hold that position by Romans 1.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nicholas,
Karl Barth particularly appeals to me. Barth drew upon the rich past and thence confronted the present. He answered to my despair not be answering it, but refusing to answer the kind of questioning which most of us indulge in. The world makes no sense, the the outrages of war and man’s inhumanity to man cry to heaven: The facts just don’t add up to any kind of faith. Okay say Barth this is part of the Gospel before the Gospel , namely that the world is godless and that none of us as part of it cn know God. God is invisible, unknowable an incomprehensible. All searches for God are failure. Out of this scepticism alone comes the gracious God, who through the Word written, proclaimed in our midst,;also shows himself to be God for us.
LikeLiked by 1 person
forgive spelling errors, I’ve only just returned from celebrating and preaching at the Parish Eucharist and and am tired.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I admire your commitment: as a pastor and evangelist you are living in a very difficult age and I admire your willingness to “do more of the same” by engaging with the flock here. My spirit tells me that there will be a wave in the future we shall all have to face. This is a season of preparation for the Church.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think that is also part of a modern apologetic; in many ways we are very different from our ancestors – intellectually, socially, technologically. For the Gospel to be relevant in our times, we have to address a kind of angst that is different from the demons fought by Calvin or Luther.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, but although our demons may be different, nevertheless we can learn from the great theologians of the past and learn from their commitment. We face the same satanic enemy even when he speaks with a different voice.
LikeLiked by 1 person