Is the Ontological Argument the Worst?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
- Dr. Craig responds to parodies of the Ontological Argument.
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WLC literally wiped the floor with that argument. Pure smoke.
WLC is impressive in his knowledge and intelligence but I admire him more for his gracious demeanor in debates and interviews. Seems to me he always choose his words carefully in response to challenges. When all is said and done it is the Christ like character of a person that counts.
God bless the RF ministry 🙏
I never expect anything from Rationality Rules and it still manages to disappoint me.
Far from the worst, I actually think it's the most sophisticated. This was the one that really caught my attention when first got acquainted with philosophy.
I think that the Ontological Argument is logically sound, but very unconvincing.
@@cmk5724 That’s interesting. How can someone admit an argument is sound (all the premises and thus conclusion, true) but then say it’s unconvincing. That seems to me to be a contradiction in words.
@Sinful Bastard Child who said anything about not understanding it?
@@leonardu6094 There are actually a lot of arguments like that. So, for example, take the following argument: 1. God exists. 2. Therefore, God exists. This is certainly valid and (I think you would agree) sound, since the premise is true. But it's not likely to convince anyone. I think CMK would say something similar about the ontological argument (and I'd agree)
@@thorobreu The syllogism you gave isn't an argument at all but a logical fallacy called circular reasoning. Yes, i agree with the premise "God exists" because I'm already a theist who got convinced by other arguments. This obviously wouldn't work on an atheist. The premise "God exists" is question-begging and needs to be proven. This analgoy fails.
And how to you prefer your greatest possible being, Billy? Mine wouldn’t drown people. I think I just improved on yours. Mine wouldn’t inflict cancer on anyone. Mine wouldn’t let people starve to death as part of a wonderful cosmic plan. Mine wouldn’t need apologists.
Precisely. Thanks for helping me quickly identify and understand the fallacious thinking he presented in his arguments.
what fallacy did he make? The objection was designed to show that merely existing is not a 'greatmaking' property. All Craig did was claim that an island cannot be great and nor can an evil God, and by the way, the only great being is God.
The real irony was that Craig accused Steven of not grasping the concept of a maximally great being - while failing to realise that Steven's objections were focused not on any claims about morality, but purely on existence as a necessary property of greatness.
If anyone is making a fallacy, it's Craig - he simply defines God into existence with absolutely no justification.
Why is the greatest possible island subjective and the greatest possible being objective? What things make a being greatest, objectively?
I can imagine a maximal realm that my consciousness continues to exist in after I die Where I experienced maximal flourishing and bliss that does not include any gods whatsoever, including, about limitation, anything remotely similar to the God that William Lane Craig believes in. All beings that have ever existed exist in this realm maximally and without anger, hate, jealousy, sadness, revenge or any other negative state of being. And this maximal realm is necessary defined as being one in which no gods of any kind and by any definition never existed.
By WLC's reasoning, this real must necessarily exist. of course, he would say that God, by definition, would necessarily exist in all possible worlds, which would be a contradiction. But the contradiction flows in both directions.
What WLC seems to invariably ignore is that the concept of "maximal" is inherently subjective. This would necessarily include the quality of existing as being maximal.
The greater point of the parodies is that the form of the onto-argument as Steve presents it, seems to advocate hard solipsism, or that our thoughts of existence can generate that existence. But there is no need for such absurdum demonstrations, as valid arguments can be wrong if its premises are false. My vote for a false premise is this one:
If the greatest possible being does not exist, then I can conceive of a greater possible being ... namely one that exists.
If any beings exist, AT ALL, they are "possible", so it is CERTAIN that there is a "greatest possible being" (or less likely, but still "possible", a bunch of ties for "beings" defined for being at the maximum of "greatness"). So, this premise is false, or at least "inert", in that the antecedent of the conditional can never be true, at least in the universe I exist in.
The objector seemed quite familiar with a particular formula in which the concept of the argument has been attempted to be encoded through words. But he seems to have not decoded it properly. This I can hardly blame him for--as its not something easy to see for one's first time, but what I think shows hubris is for him trying to make a big deal of what obviously was not the right way to decode it.
Great video, Dr. Craig! Wow, IRRationality Rules does not even understand what he is saying..
Yup lol
An island is physical and contingent. So an island is subjective. I understand how an island is different from a great being. God isn't contingent.
But I have the same problem with the idea of a great being. If anyone can answer I would appreciate it. To be the greatest being, isn't that also a matter of opinion. Because to be great can be dependent upon circumstances. For example if someone is trying to kill you , in this situation wouldn't it be better to have anger over love? Because anger can drive you to protecting yourself.
The qualities of being great seem to be circumstantial. So isn't it the same that to be the greatest being is subjective? The problem I'm having with this argument, is how do we define a great being? It seems to me that it's subjective.
I believe in God, but I'm looking for clarity on this argument. Appreciate anyone's help.
Hi, I think you might benefit from using a dictionary to clear the word 'great'
@@colquest but what makes a thing great? Is to be benevolent great? Understand what I'm asking. Great is just a word. Does greatness really exist? Who defines greatness?
@@deusvult9372 You've stumbled upon one of the fatal flaws of the argument. "Greatness" is totally arbitrary and subjective... _unless_ you do what Craig, Plantinga et al, do which is to define "greatness" in terms of God... the very thing they're trying to prove. So it just ends up being a question begging mess.
Think of it this way. Let's grant everything the argument asks for. And I'm going to define this greatest possible being the same way they do, but with one additional property... this maximally great being likes the taste of strawberries. Does the argument still go trough? Sure.
But what if I do the same thing, but define this MGB as not liking the taste of strawberries. Does the argument still work? Yep.
So what have we proven... Well, we've done one of two things (and neither is good for the argument) We're either shown that two MGBs exist, one that likes strawberries and one that doesn't, or we've proven that one MGB exists that both likes and doesn't like strawberries. In either case we end up with a logical contradiction. So what does that tell us?
Well, that tells us that all of the random attributes that we attach to this MGB concept aren't proven along with the concept itself. The only thing we're actually proving is a being with necessary existence, and if we phrase the premises properly we aren't even proving the necessary entity, we're literally just presenting a tautology...
If a necessary entity exists, then a necessary entity exists. That's it. That's what the ontological argument actually reduces to.
@@ajhieb thank you for your opinion. The problem I have with the argument is how do we define greatness. Because it's seems to be a subjective idea. So yes you understood what I was saying.
Are you talking in a biblical context ?
No, it is actually the best argument.
The way that I like to think of the ontological argument is that it isn't 'defining god into existence', its discovering that the very nature of God requires that he exists. There really is only one conceivable maximally great being, which is why the argument works.
Actually there are an effectively infinite number of 'maximally great beings', because there is no objective standard for what is or is not 'great'. Different people have different standards of what constitutes 'greatness'.
There is no such thing as the greatest possible being.
I'm theist and christian because it's the best explanation of fine tuning and historical records, but the ontological argument is the worst and should never be used.
I'm a fan of Craig in most respects except this.
Why do you as a Christian believe that Jesus Christ is not the greatest possible being ?
@@melchior2678 He threatens hell (infinite violence) about 5 times and other violence about a dozen times in the sermon on the mount just for starters and says if you do not hate your family and yourself you cannot be his disciple. He is totally underwhelming.
@@melchior2678 I'm only saying "greatest" is an ambiguous relative term and can't be used alone and mean anything.
@@questioner6307 I encourage you to read in context, hell is separation from God, we use the worst possible illustrations to describe what life alone is like. Modern readers tend apply a lazy literal intent to all messages instead of weighing each claim on its own merits and in its original context. If Jesus rose himself from the dead as the evidence indicates would that give weight to his claims about being God?
@@dotails "Greatest" isn't an ambiguous and relative term in the MOA. It is defined very clearly in the MOA.
A maximally great being is: Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnibenevolent, and Necessary.
excellent video! Thanks for putting up with people like that atheist that has no clue on how the argument works.
If a maximally evil being isn't a coherent concept in the absence of God, then neither is a maximally great being, which makes the argument beg the question. That is to say, we have to assume some standard for maximally great, and the argument is assuming the standard set by God. If we can pick any arbitrary criteria for maximum greatness (as Dr. Craig suggests for the island parody) then we have the exact same problem.
The other issue is the argument treats "existence" as a property, not as predicate for the application of properties. In doing so it simply attempts to define God into existence, which is not a valid form of reasoning.
Anyone who doesn’t agree with the argument doesn’t really understand it.
Which one? Anselm's or Plantinga's?
It is possible that, one day in the far and distant future, a sufficiently advanced civilization will understand the nature of the universe and they will travel back in time and create it. No god required.
Travel back to where and when? - RF Admin
@@drcraigvideos How should I know? I'm not part of the advanced civilization that did it? I just have the book they sent from the future telling me that they did it.
@@Captain-Cosmo Show that it is possible. Why is it possible? That is literally a time travel paradox right there, which scientists use to suggest time travel is impossible. Actually, they use relativity to show that it is impossible. But whatever.
@@cadenorris4009 The point is to illustrate the absurdity of the ontological argument to wish a god into existence. BTW, you do realize that quantum mechanics is paradoxical, right? For example, quantum theory suggests that until a quantum system is observed, it doesn't have definite properties. This can lead to paradoxes like Schrödinger's cat, where a cat is simultaneously alive and dead in a box before it's opened. There's a lot of weird stuff in physics that we don't understand yet. Be careful to leap to conclusions about impossibilities at this point. As an atheist, I don't even say that gods are impossible. There simply is not yet been presented sufficient evidence for me to accept the claim that they are real. Adding to that skepticism is the fact that we humans are innately prone to anthropomorphizing. That is, we tend to project our own human behaviors upon other things. Or in other words, even if it were demonstrated that gods were not real, we humans would likely have invented them, anyway.
@@Captain-Cosmo There are plenty of quantum phenomena that we thought were paradoxical and unexplained until we saw the true nature of it. For example, you may have heard that there was an experiment where changing something after a photon was fired changed the state of the photon retroactively, but that has since been shown not to be the case.
It seems like particles just pop in and out of existence, and these particles decays happen randomly, but that isn't true, it's just an illusion given by the quantum fields.
And shrodingers cat was posited as an absurdity about quantum mechanics anyway, as in "see how ridiculous QM is? It says this cat is both alive and dead!".
Nothing in QM suggests that paradoxes are possible, just that we don't understand what's going on, because paradoxes CANNOT exist. Something can only cause what it has the power to cause. However, time travel IS paradoxical, so you're comparing two different things here.
So Steven hasn't "... really grasped the concept of God". Isn't that the point of an argument for the existence of God -- to provide a way to do such grasping? What Dr. Craig said is that Steven doesn't see the validity in the argument for the existence of God because he doesn't believe in the existence of God.
No. The purpose is to show the necessity or likeliness of there being a God. There is no hope for helping a person grasp the concept of God who refuses to let themselves grasp the concept.
@@forsaken841 Let's forget about Steve for a minute and treat this video more as apologetics and not a specific reply to an individual. Let's also put aside the notion of equipping believers to explain their faith. What we're left with, which is largely Dr. Craig's mission, is the elucidation of arguments that should convince a skeptical but open minded individual. With this context (which is entirely consistent with a Dr. Craig videos on TH-cam) Dr. Craig is indeed saying that one must grasp the concept of God in order for his argument to be convincing. I can say this with authority because I am a skeptical but open minded individual looking for convincing arguments for the Christian God. All I've found are arguments that either explicitly or implicitly state that if one has a relationship with the risen Christ then one will find these arguments convincing. I can't find any, including the one discussed here, that are convincing on their own.
@@bobs4429 I have never heard any respectable apologist saying you have to have a relationship with Christ to find the arguments convincing.
You’re letting your assumptions and what you’d rather see project without letting your mind actually engage in an unbiased way. That’s how you’ve reached this silly obviously wrong conclusion about need a relationship with Christ to see the need for God to exist. Even the Bible EXPLICITLY states this is false, and therefore no apologist implicitly or explicitly implies this. That is a tactic of Mormons and cults. Not people seeking the truth.
@@forsaken841 I'm tempted to reply with some witty and/or acerbic way of saying that you are the one who is biased. Fact is, though, we're all biased. I'll leave this exchange with the fact that I've actually studied biases and work hard to minimize the impact of those I live with.
I wish for you a life free of suffering, my friend.
@@bobs4429 I am tempted to say that you use elaborate language to convince yourself that what you are saying is deep and truthful. The intelligent and educated are the best at deceiving themselves.
I wouldn't be able to enjoy using my thumbs to destroy this atheist argument right now if there was a greatest evil being. 🤣
If we look at the actual world we live in it will prove the God of the Bible. DNA has a designer, everything is wearing out, the mind isn't the brain, the list just goes on and on. All the data proves the Bible.
The mind isn’t the brain…they are separate things….but the mind is in the brain isn’t it?
@@therick363 The mind is not the brain. The brain is a biological network of chemicals, proteins, cells, etc. Those things don't learn the alphabet, love, desire, hate, etc.
We don't blame chemicals for moral choices. We put a person in jail.
The naturalist wants us all to believe the brain is it. When we die that is the end . The Christian says the soul or mind goes on after we die. These bodies are just containers or perhaps prisons for the soul.
The mind can not be touched, the brain can be. The mind is our ability to think, feel, and engage in activities. The brain is the physical place that holds and supports these functions.
The mind has information, this isn't part of the brain. Information has no weight or mass. Like a computer can hold information but the information isn't part of the computer. We call it software and hardware. These two are different things all together. Information can travel as fast as instant, it has no limits.
Our DNA has information, but the information isn't part of the DNA. The DNA is a holder of information. We still don't know how the DNA gets the information. We do see it in action. People can think in abstract ways. Language itself is an abstract.
The thing that makes you isn't your brain. It is your mind. This carries a lot of spiritual over tones, morality, justice, good, evil, etc. Even everlasting life. Jesus had some things to say about that.
Thank God (literally) for people like Dr. Craig. He has done a lot for Christian Apologetics.
However, I must say that the Ontological Argument is not one of my favorite arguments for God’s existence. The Kalam Cosmological Argument, and others are preferred IMHO.
I wonder what makes you prefer one over the other...
I remember looking at it and the island the monk came up with in refutation but I remember we looked at the reason the monk was wrong, I just can't recall why
Look up Anselm's reply to Gaunilo hes the monk your talking about.
God bless you
Dr. Craig in this clip perfectly describes one of the major problems of the ontological arguement, essentially rebutting the argument he himself is trying to defend.
*There are no intrinsic great making properties.* Therefore, the ontological argument is not sound
He said there are no intrinsic island great making properties.
There are of course great making properties that other entities can have, such as knowledge, and power, and goodness.
Hence why a maximally great being would be maximally knowledgeable (omniscient), maximally powerful (omnipotent), and maximally good (omnibenevolent).
@@jackplumbridge2704 Do these great-making properties you mention refer to demonstrably real things? What demonstrably real things constitute maximally good being?
@@alfanscholz8663 I have no idea what you mean by "demonstrably real things".
Power is obviously real.
Intelligence/knowledge is obviously real.
Moral goodness is obviously real.
@@jackplumbridge2704 Aren't we specifically talking about "maximally good being" and not just "moral goodness"? What does "maximally good being" mean? What are the properties of "maximally good"?
@@alfanscholz8663 it means you have the quality of moral goodness to its maximal extent, ie, omnibenevolence.
Ooh are we reviewing people's responses to arguments for god's existence?
Please do Onkar Ghates refutation to the ontological argument and Craig's cosmological argument next pls 🙏
Refutation of Dinesh D Souza's Ontological argument
th-cam.com/video/2ctLz0IGlxg/w-d-xo.html
Refutation of Craig's Kalam cosmological argument
th-cam.com/video/08SdxZa5MPk/w-d-xo.html
No it the best
Any response from doctor Craig on the "reverse parody argument" namely :
Premise 1 : It is possible that a maximally great being does not exist ...
And then you follow the same logic down to
Conclusion : therefore a maximally great being does not exist
He’s responded to this before. To say it’s possible that a maximally great being doesn’t exist, is to imply there’s a contradiction with the very concept. You would need to demonstrate the contradiction or incoherence.
@@leonardu6094 no that can't be right. Demonstrating an incoherence would prove that it is impossible that a maximally great being exists. Not that it is possible for one not to exist? Help me understand.
@@everythingisvanityneverthe1834 Contradictions are not the sort of things that come in possibilites. A cocnept is either coherent or it isn't. All a contradiction means is that two or more elements of a conncept or idea are incosistent and/or opposed to one another. As a defender of the ontological argument, i maintain there isn't any contradiction.
@@leonardu6094 But then you run into problems with the original OA. To defend the first premise and claim that an MGB is possible, per your definition of possibility, you would need to know exhaustively, every single property of the MGB to eliminate the possibility of contradictions. (any additional unknown property could conflict with any known property)
And since the OA treats "existence" as a property, to be consistent, you'd have to account for that property in the exhaustive list of properties in the defense of the first premise. So in order to defend the first premise, you'd need to know whether or not God exists in the real world, but you can't without begging the question.
@@ajhieb You don’t need to know it, just by how complex the universe is we know it doesn’t come from nothing.
@1:50 "there isn't an objective great-making properties for Islands"
Correct, and neither is there for "beings"
You mean, for example, that moral values are not objective great-making properties?
@@mohammad_noori9362 sure. "Great-making" moral values are "great-making"
@@oscargr_ Isn't an honest person morally greater than a liar?
@@mohammad_noori9362 Ever heard of white lies?
Would it be morally better to kill Hitler before he murdered millions of Jews?
Would it be morally better to kill the entire population on earth except a handful, in order to weed out the "bad people"?
@@oscargr_ Is the term "morally better" objective or subjective? If it's objective, we can consider it as a great_making property.
It's the best
ontological in my opinion is defintely a lower tier argument. Args utilizing statistics , and such frameworks like baye's theorem cater more to me
Maybe if i reformulated the argument using probability, it might cater to you more?
Ill assume you understand how the modal ontological argument works, but if you want me to explain any part of it, just let me know.
1) The proposition "God exists" is >0% probable.
2) If the proposition "God exists" is >0% probable, then it is possible that God exists.
3) If it is possible that God exists, then God actually exists.
4) Therefore, God actually exists.
Why is an island relative to a personal interest & not the greatest being? I can say that the greatest being is a being who does not allow evil except when it comes to human free will and at the same time it’s able to accomplishes anything thing logically possible without any other type of pain and suffering, specially gratuitous suffering. Is it possible for this greatest being to exist? Yes it’s possible but this being doesn’t exist because there’s evil & suffering beyond human free will but this is what would make the greatest being to me & it’s relative to my personal preference so the point is that the same way the greatest island is based on personal preference so is the greatest being. Greatness is subjective the same way the greatest spouse is different from person to person. The most important thing is if this great being described in this video exists in reality or it just part of the human imagination cause it seems to me that the video is just defining a great being into existence.
By greatest conceivable being it is meant a being that is omnipresent, omniscient, and morally perfect. What if God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil and suffering in the world. From our subjective pov we are in no position to say He does not have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil and suffering and thus we cannot say the existence of evil and suffering is incompatible with the greatest conceivable being
@@noahkeener8416 by the greatest conceivable being I meant omnipresent, omniscient & necessary. One of the things that makes this being the greatest is that this being can bring a world into existence where the only evil & suffering this being allowed is because humans free will. This being is the greatest because this being doesn’t need morally sufficient reasons to allow the evil we see. Do you think that in order for a being to be the greatest conceivable being this being needs necessary to allow the evil & suffering we see in the world & why?
@@JBCAST0610 It depends on purpose behind the world the being wants to create. In a world with free creatures there must be natural laws that make it that the water which sustains you can also drown you and the fire which warms you can also burn you. In this type of arena it isn’t unreasonable to think that natural and moral evil would occur with the over arching goal be God bringing as many people, freely, into a relationship to Himself. Additionally, from a biblical world view, the fallen state of the natural world around us is a consequence of man’s sin and thus even that would be the cause of man’s free will.
@@noahkeener8416 why does the water has to drown you & the fire has to burn you? I don’t see any contradiction in a world where the water doesn’t have to drown you & the fire have to burn you. The greatest conceivable being would be able to accomplish anything that is logical possible & a world where the only evil allowed is because humans free will is logically possible.
@@JBCAST0610 It could be that the world we are living in is the world that brings the most people in a saving relationship with God. Therefore to Him, the greatest conceivable being, this is the best conceivable world. We are simply in no position, as subjects within the world, to judge and say that this world is not the best possible world in terms of achieving the end goal of God saving the most people
The usual pop objections to the ontological argument (parodies) are roll eyes tired and old and just don’t connect, but what I really feel less satisfied with the Ontological Argument is that from a ‘Bizarro’ counter-argument (negation) that is totally similarly a priori (without seeking support from other arguments), i.e., to only consider a conception of the world in which a perfectly loving, perfectly good, perfectly powerful being does not exist: 1. if a maximally great being exists, then there is a being who exhibits maximal excellence (omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence) in every possible world (via ontological argument) 2. Therefore, if a maximally great being does not exhibit maximal excellence in every possible world, then a maximally great being does not logically exist 3. Therefore, if there is one possible world in which a maximally great being does not exhibit maximal excellence, then a maximally great being does not exist 4. There is at least one possible world in which a maximally great being does not exhibit maximal excellence 5. Therefore, a maximally great being does not exist 6. God is a maximally great being 7. Therefore god does not exist. So, what could be a more forceful response to a bizzaro argument such as this (without resorting to a cumulative case), when this precisely uses the same justification for the Ontological argument itself, that it could also possibly be the case that a maximally great being does not exist.
The opposite is true.
Amazing.
Craig equivocates two meanings of the word 'greatest', and doesn't seem to realise he's doing it.
Unless he actually thinks that existence is a characteristic of moral perfection.
Notice the sleight of hand -
The argument proposes that to be viewed as 'the greatest', the object/being must exist.
That's the property being argued for.
Craig then claims that moral perfection is a property of greatness. That has nothing to do with existence, and so the conclusion must be that Craig is simply defining 'greatness' under his own terms in order to make his argument work. He's literally defining 'an existent God' as 'the greatest thing', and merely dismissing anything that isn't this God...because it's not his God.
This is not so much an argument as a simple assertion that his God exists.
Nowhere does Dr. Craig claim that existence is a perfection. Rather, existence is a necessary condition for something to be a perfect being. "Nothing" has no properties or potentials, so obviously a perfect being would need to exist in order to be perfect. But this is not to imply that merely existing is a perfection. This is clear in that contingent, imperfect things exist and are not perfect. - RF Admin
@@drcraigvideos
you seem confused. Maybe I wasn't entirely clear.
Try going back to the beginning.
The argument asserts that a 'greatest' being would be one that exists, rather than did not exist. Existence, according to the argument, is a greatmaking property.
And you need to read what you just wrote, because you contradicted yourself. That's what happens when you try not to admit that the argument merely defines God into existence.
You wrote,
"a perfect being would need to exist in order to be perfect."
And then claimed that merely existing isn't a perfection. Just after literally asserting that existence was a necessary characteristic of perfection.
So, sorry - but your protest is dismissed on the grounds that you confirmed my objection rather than refuted it. You don't get to just claim that existence is 'obviously' a greatmaking property without justification, then deny you said it to continue the pretence that the 'argument' is not just a blatant assertion that God exists.
@@drcraigvideos
I'll take your lack of further response to be an admission that my criticism was accurate.
Its very simple, the ontological argument defines a property of greatness is to exist, then we define god to be greatness. It follows then that god is defined to exist, conclusion he exist. I just view the other parts as fluff to try and delude confuse the audience rather than decomposing the argument into what it really is, begging the question.
@@MrRibblan
that's all they have - unjustified assertions followed by a puff of smoke to distract the audience while they run away.
I can conceive of a Being so great in love that it would not create a Hell. That shows that the God of the Bible is not the Greatest Conceivable Being. Namely, because the God of the Bible creates a Hell and will have Billions of People thrown into that Hell.
P1) I can conceive of the greatest possible X
P2) If the greatest possible X does not exist, then I can conceive of a greater possible X... namely, one that exists.
P3) I cannot conceive of a greater possible X than the greatest possible X
C) Hence, the greatest possible X exists.
So lets just take a step back and think about this for a second. For starters this argument is arguing for an entity X whose existence is predicated on my conception of it. That is to say if we're talking about the greatest possible being, we're saying the greatest possible being exists, at least in part, because I conceived of it. That's a contingent being. Does that sound like the greatest possible being? No. Does it sound like the Christian God of the Bible? No. So even if I grant everything in the argument it doesn't get you to the Christian God or anything remotely like it
Also, the argument is based on the idea that my ability to conceive of something has some form of causal power to instantiate entities in reality. That is to say it argues that if I can think of X, then X must exist. I hope we can all agree that simply instantiating things into reality might be a property of the greatest possible being, it isn't a property of any members of the human race.
Finally, I'm not even sold on the first premise. I could have one conception of X and you might have a slightly different conception. Which one of us has the conception that is correct? Did we both conceive of different greatest possible beings, and do both of those conceptions now exist? Strikes me as unlikely. The term "greatest" is simply to vague as to provide a coherent concept to evaluate. Honestly this argument fails at every level.
I have always thought the exact same thing. The ability to conceive of something has no bearing on it's ontological status, how could it? So the logical fallacy of the ontological argument is formally called :non-sequitor, the conclusion does not follow logically from the premises, but the only way to see this is to expose the hidden premise not explicitly stated that thought has bearing on reality.
You bring up some great points, but I think you might be misunderstanding the argument. For starters, the argument is not attempting to prove the existence of the Christian God; only the existence of a greatest possible being. Once the argument establishes the existence of the greatest possible being, then arguments for the Christian God in particular can come into the equation.
As for your main objection, I don’t think the argument is giving any creative power to the person’s ability to conceive of the greatest possible being. The existence of this being is not contingent upon our conception of it, our conception of it only proves its existence. It would not cease to exist if someone out there does not have the mental capacity to conceive of it, for example. If the greatest possible being exists, it is necessarily existent, and is therefore not contingent upon anything. The argument is simply trying to make the point that if this greatest being even possibly exists, and if it, as the greatest being, has the attribute of necessary existence, then it must therefore exist. Its existence does not depend upon the argument-its existence is simply made evident through the argument.
Now to your last point, I think that’s an incorrect use of “greatest”. By definition, if something is the greatEST, there cannot be anything else as great. You and I cannot both conceive of the greatest possible being and come away with two different beings-by definition one (or both) would have to be less than the greatest. They might both be great, or even greatER than many others, but they cannot both be the greatEST.
But I do think this is one of the weakest forms of the ontological argument. I would refer you instead to Peter Van Inwagen’s modal form of the ontological argument. I find that one much more persuasive.
@@nathanaelpezzo1750 _"You bring up some great points, but I think you might be misunderstanding the argument. For starters, the argument is not attempting to prove the existence of the Christian God;"_ Yes, that was my point. It gets you to some ostensibly powerful being, but it doesn't get you to the Christian God. I'm not suggesting that's a "bug" or a "feature."
_"As for your main objection, I don’t think the argument is giving any creative power to the person’s ability to conceive of the greatest possible being."_ I agree that's not the intent of the argument, but as structured that's exactly what it does. It takes ones conception and reifies it. Period. Take away all of the "can/cannot conceives" out of the argument and it's pure nonsense.
_"The argument is simply trying to make the point that if this greatest being even possibly exists, and if it, as the greatest being, has the attribute of necessary existence, then it must therefore exist. "_ Existence isn't a property/attribute. And this argument doesn't deal with necessary existence. IT simply makes the leap from "great being in my head" to "greater being in reality"
So yes, if I conjured up a great being in my head, a version of that being in reality would no doubt be greater, but the argument never actually bridges that gap (neither does the modal argument) to show that it follows that the hypothetical version that exists, isn't just hypothetical.
_"Now to your last point, I think that’s an incorrect use of “greatest”. By definition, if something is the greatEST, there cannot be anything else as great. "_ Two problems here, 1) that is simply wrong. The suffex "est" demotes the superlative form, which is an indicator of degree, not exclusivity. 2) The issue here is that "greatest" is subjective. I can come up with that I think is subjectively the greatest being and you could do the same and we could have entirely different concepts. One _could_ argue for an objective standard, but that is going to be tough to do without assuming the god you're trying to argue for in the first place (therefore begging the question)
_"I would refer you instead to Peter Van Inwagen’s modal form of the ontological argument."_ Inwagen makes most of the same mistakes above, most glaringly he treats existence as a property, not as a predicate to apply properties. The argument fails on that alone. He also fails to support the notion that the being in question is possible in _any_ possible world, let alone all possible worlds.
Can you two keep going? I'd like to read more. You two make great points.
@@roks4899 Okay, here's a few more thoughts.
The argument treats existence in a way that most philosophers would reject. Existence isn't a predicate. We can't treat it as a property, at least not a property of the entity said to exist. If I say that "X exists" (in the real world) "exists" isn't describing X, rather what we're describing is a state of affairs with the real world. So saying that necessary existence (existence in all possible worlds) is better than existence in _some_ worlds, doesn't make any sense. And even if we did grant this misuse of the term, I don't think it makes any sense at all to say that it's better that god exists an _any_ possible world, except the real world. If you want to argue that existing in the real world is better than existing in any other _possible_ world, I could get behind that, but at that point you're simply begging the question again. The argument reduces to "If God exists in the real world, then God exists in the real world" Technically valid, but not a very compelling argument.
Another issue with the ontological arguments is how they attempt to smuggle in God's properties in the argument. The only thing the argument is actually arguing for is the possibility of necessary existence. Technically the ontological argument by itself can only get you to "something necessarily exists" but it doesn't get you an entity with specific properties because regardless of how you define God, nothing in the definition you provide is being argued for other than necessary existence. It's not necessarily omniscient, omnipotent, etc.
Uh lets see There's also the problem of complete modal collapse. If the exact same god-concept is the metaphysical grounding for every possible world, then every possible world would be identical to the actual world. It basically gets you to hyper-determinism.
How about the worst possible TH-cam atheist?
I nominate “Rationality” Rules.
this argument begs the question, but the worst argument is the moral argument, because it's completely a nonsense
So, the pleasure I derive, from hanging you by your heels, and gutting your life away, cannot be evil, by your comment. Who are you to say it's evil? You're just a random, meaningless, carbon based lifeform, with no right to say it's evil. God, living rent free, in your head, with every daily decision, is a bitch. No one else has the authority to state what is even good. It is the moral argument. Your opinion over what's moral, comes from where? And you call it nonsense.
how?
Actually just the opposite. If there is no God, there is no actual right or wrong to be followed. There is nothing objectively wrong with murder for example if there is no moral law giver
This argument is the worst. Moral argument is logical
@@Pseudo-Jonathan If there is a God, there is no actual right or wrong to be followed. There is nothing objectively wrong with murder for example if there is a moral lawgiver. In the bible, god commands mass rape, torture, and murder. His perfect moral example is the infinite torture of billions and the mass murder of billions by the 30,000 diseases that he created. Commands coming from the personal god, are necessarily subjective, not objective.