The Modal Ontological Argument: An Analysis
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.ค. 2024
- Here's your comprehensive guide to the modal ontological argument for God's existence!
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OUTLINE
0:00 Intro & Outline
2:06 General structure of MOA
12:55 Representative argument
15:16 Simpler variant
16:17 Criticisms
26:43 Symmetry Breakers
32:59 Presumption of possibility
40:45 Conceivability
45:07 Deontic
56:12 Ontomystical
1:06:33 Motivational centrality
1:11:05 Godelian
1:27:25 Maximal God
1:33:07 Modal continuity
1:44:23 Desire
1:54:08 Open-mindedness
1:59:30 Explicability
2:06:39 Conclusion
RESOURCES
(1) My co-authored SEP entry with Oppy and Rasmussen: plato.stanford.edu/entries/on...
(2) The paper on PhilPapers: philpapers.org/rec/SCHSBF-2
(3) Ontological Arguments playlist: • Ontological Arguments
(4) My Springer book: (a) www.amazon.com/Existential-In... (b) link.springer.com/book/10.100...
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Oh almighty algorithm, decider of popularity, we humbly ask you to bless Joseph Schmid today
Majesty of Reason, your deep dive into this topic is both thought-provoking and accessible.
Hi, Joe, I am a Spanish speaker but I really enjoy your content. I wanted to present an argument against classical theism based on the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God and see what you think or how classical theists might respond. I apologize in advance if my English is not the best. Anyway, here it goes and I hope it makes sense:
Definitions:
- Incommunicable attributes (IA): They cannot have imitations _ad extra_ and are possessed only by God, such as infinity (in any form considered), essential eternity, immensity, absolute simplicity, absolute immutability.
- Communicable attributes (CA): They have imitations _ad extra_ (outward) and are also possessed by us, such as wisdom, will, active potency, freedom, life, knowledge.
Argument:
1. If we participate in God, then we must participate in all of God's attributes, because in Him, all His attributes are the same God (DDS), and we participate in God. For example, if we participate and have to some degree the Justice of God, we necessarily also participate and have to some degree the Mercy of God, since Justice and Mercy are the same in God (and Justive and Mercy are the same too), and so with the other attributes.
2. But if this is so, then we should also have, at least to some degree, incommunicable attributes, such as immutability or His creative power, for they are also in God.
3. But it is impossible for us to have, even to any degree, these attributes, for they belong only to God, being precisely incommunicable.
4. Therefore, it is impossible for us to participate in God in general, for as stated in (1), if we participate in God, then we must participate in _all_ of God's attributes.
5. But classical theism claims that we participate in God.
6. Therefore, classical theism is false.
Joseph you may have broken my brain. I think I've learned two things.
1: Demand a symmetry breaker.
2: Figure out how it demonstrates P*.
Stopping for now.
Average MoR video (They are awesome)
You sound very happy and jolly here. Glad to see it! ☺💖
Awesome Video Joe! The MOA is one of the arguments that has really peaked my interest. This is great content.
Thank you this is honestly a great video!
This is an amazing analysis. Thanks! What an interesting argument to analyze.
Hey Joe. Just wanted to say hi from someone who was at Purdue around the same time as you. Am only just now getting into more formal philosophy so it’s interesting to be hearing it from someone who was in the same place I was!
Thanks for the time working on this.
Boiler up!!
8:18 Note: Modal logic is the study of valid inferences concerning possibility and necessity. Lets see if the video keeps it here.
Joe deserves way more subscribers, guys. This stuff is awesome. Click the button and ring the bell!
I'm sure you are correct, but not because he is correct.
"Ouch"
-My Brian
I've been thinking a lot about possibilities, possible worlds included. Based on some of those thoughts, I've got a criticism against MOAs (which tries to undercut the possibility premise). While the specific criticism in mind doesn't feature in the video, it's nice to see other points of view about MOAs --- and in great detail, too! Cool vid
damn i hope you get into a free will argument like this at some point. imagine a 2 hour video on the manipulation argument that would be awesome!
Terrence Howard's 1x1 = 2 is a great rebuttal to the motivational centrality symmetry breaker.
Supposing that the Necessary Being 'exists' and that it is complex rather than simple, do you think something that intrinsically exists in a contingent way, e.g. a human consciousness (supposing that it could persist after death), could "merge" with the Necessary Being, and thereby go from being essentially contingent to necessary (necessary within and by virtue of being a part of Necessary Being)? In other words, a transfer of modes from existing in contingent form to a necessary form while retaining distinctions. I hope my question is clear. Thanks for another great video!
Why did this AWESOME question go UNANSWERED?
Would have enjoyed also seeing some symmetry breakers for the reverse possibility premise🤔
Hi, I love your video. Do you know any other channel that creates videos like yours? Ty :3
I have always wondered to what extent the philosophical views of the authors affect the reviews they give in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. How are the authors even selected?
Can I ask a question? If we consider existence itself as the beginning, even within an infinite chain of causation and dependency, everything necessitates existence due to the presence of existence itself. Reality depends fundamentally on the existence of existence in some form, making reality contingent. Therefore, existence itself, being the only necessary being, acts as the ultimate cause of everything and must exist in every conceivable world. It is logically impossible for non-existence to cause its own existence. This can be used to argue that existence cannot be an abstract object because it can cause, suggesting instead that existence is a non-physical mind. Furthermore, existence is posited as all-powerful and all-good in all possible worlds, but I'm not going to delve deeper into this. What is your response to this?
In order to establish foundations:
3:47 SOMETHING IS METAPHYSICALLY POSSIBLE FOR SOMEONE WHEN IT might...BE TRUE - IN OTHER WORLDS.
Who can explain what this means?
I still don't understand the difference (according to this video) between metaphysical possibility and metaphysically necessity. Can someone please explain the similarities and differences?
I don't mean this to be offensive to the field in any way, but what counts as "research" in philosophy? Is it not just reading and thinking about things?
I'm not a philosopher but a mathematician. I'd posit research in philosophy is exactly like any other field of human endeavour. That is, presenting new information in a way that furthers our previous understanding. As far as I understand, that's all any scientist, scholar, heck HUMAN is trying to do.
As an edit, I think "reading and thinking about things" sounds reductive, but I understand your sentiment. Just note that this is practically what research is (in any scholarly field), but doesn't capture what research does
I disagree with the first objection to presumption of possibility symmetry breaker.
Non existence of God would in my opinion be equal to saying that Gods existence is impossible. Since the impossibility of something requires some reason for it to be impossible like the properties of that being being contradictory
Are we sure it is a symmetrical relation to need symmetrical breaking?
Symmetrical relations are two-way and the two sides have the same value. But does existence have the same weight as non-existence?
To me this assymetrical mindmap:
non-existence
6:52 The segment that discusses "Joe is a poached egg" is also abused. Please explain how it is possible for Joe to be a poached egg.
H3O is called hydronium. Thanks for the upload! ❤
Let’s get the algorithm juiced!
I've been thinking that this argument can be used on existance or reality itself.
We tend to view reality as separeted in discrete objects, phenomena and regions. But that separation is a feature of our interpretation, reality can be equaly viewd as a single continuous substance, making it an unified whole. The scientific model of matter describes it as such; there is no iron or oxygen, there's only different arrangements of elemental particles, iron is the name we give to when a bigger bunch of quarks and electrons, oxygen is a smaller bunch. if we assume an experience centered view, then we still view reality as a continuum of first person experiences.
With reality being then a unified whole, if there's an attribute of a part of it, it then is also an attribute of the whole. For example, if my arm can grab a ball, then it's obviously true that I can grab a ball. If my liver produces enzymes, then I have those enzymes. So then, if I know that the sky is blue, "reality" knows that the sky is blue. "Reality" knows everything there is to know then. The same can be said to potency, if you have the potency to do X, then "reality" has the potency to do X. Reality is omnipotent.
Moral perfection seems to be merely a construct of our minds. But even in this case, the knowledge we have of such construct, and the potency that we have to achieve some result on that, is also transferable to the whole of reality.
In this view the argument gains a whole new meaning. Instead of a proof of some external being. It becomes an almost tautological description of rality, if not for that fact that it proves reality itself to be a necessary entity, and so in no need of creation. It becomes a proof of the autonomous nature of reality and lack of necessity of external being creating it.
It make quite a lot of sense then. If it is possible for reality to exist, than it must, because it makes absolutely no sense to talk of a possible world in which Reality doesn't exist. A possible world assumes existance, so a possible world of non existance is a contradiction.
We can conclude that it is impossible for reality to not exist. Since it makes no sense to say that non existance may exist, it is impossible for there to be a state of non existance, and so, the only possible alternative is for existance.
i only watched to like 10mins but is there a difference between possiblly true and possibly false arent those the same
‘1+1=2’ is necessarily true and, therefore, possibly true. (It’s not impossible! So it’s possible.) But ‘1+1=2’ is not possibly false. So possibly true =/= possibly false
I would like to see your opinion about Kevin Berger's agnostic case against atheism.
Thank you for this excellent lecture, to the extent I have been able to watch, it will take some time! Already at the start I have a question. You say that if something is logically impossible, it is *also metaphysically impossible. I'm fine with there being a distinction between the two concepts, but the implication of metaphysical impossibility seems invalid to me.
Why is that true? Why can't we conceive of the possibility that there are different rules of logic that provide the foundation for all of our physical laws? Are not the laws of logic, essentially just a more foundational form of physical law? So why can't those vary?
This is an excellent question. In my experience, philosophers mostly take it for granted that which logic is true doesn't vary from world to world. You're correct to press for some justification for this assumption. I'll confess that the assumption just seems pretty obvious to me. For instance, this just seems like it couldn't possibly be an invalid form of reasoning:
1. If p, then q
2. p
3. Therefore, q
It seems implausible in the extreme that there's some (metaphysically) possible world in which this argument form is invalid. And most rules of inference are just as obvious as this one and seemingly just as necessary as this one.
Another approach would be to argue that logical truths are conceptual truths (i.e., they're true in virtue of their constituent concepts, such as the concepts expressed by 'if...then', 'and', 'or', etc.). And it is uncontroversial that conceptual truths (e.g., all triangles have three sides) are metaphysically necessary.
@@MajestyofReason Greetings Joe you little Einstein you. I posted a comment under this video 7 hours ago and you didn't respond. Yet the OP comment in this thread was posted only 3 hours ago and you responded to their comment within an hour. What's with this selective favoritism of your responses? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you simply didn't see my comment, so maybe it's not favoritism... Or is it? Say it ain't so, Joey!
One would think a boy as bright as you likes to treat all his viewers with equal consideration... Am I right? ☺
For 1:15:55 you defined positive properties. Is this the formalized notion of how Anderson defined positive properties in his "Amendations of the Godel Argument" paper? If not, what is the way you define positive* and positive' in Latex?
That definition is from Bernstein 2014 or 2018 (cited in the PhilPapers link in the description) 🙂
@@MajestyofReason So, I believe it is the 2014 paper "Is God's Existence Possible?".
The definition given is: "A property P is a perfection just in case P in no way detracts from the greatness of any being in which it inheres and P, its complement, does." You seem to argue, however, this is ambiguous (1:15:49). Rightly said. So you define positive* and positive'. These I cannot find in the paper, so I decided to try to translate it myself. I would like to ask if this is a reasonable formalization of your definitions, or did you have something else in mind (apologies if it is technical):
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amssymb}
Define S:= $\{\psi: (\models \lnot\phi) \implies \Box\forall x(\phi(x)
ightarrow \psi(x))\}$ .\\
"$\models \lnot\phi$" means that $\lnot\phi$ is true.
ewline
P* := $Positive^*(\phi) \iff (\forall x) (\forall \psi \in S)[\lnot \psi (x) \implies (\phi(x)
ightarrow \phi$ does not detract from the greatness of x)].
ewline
P' := $Positive'(\phi) \iff (\forall x) [\phi(x)
ightarrow \phi$ does not detract from the greatness of x].
^Putting this in the website domain "tlhiv" with suffix "org", extension "/ltxpreview/" will make the TeX legible. The website is by Troy Henderson. Otherwise, you can plug it into your preferred tex editor. I am unsure if you can add links in comments.
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As a side note: good trump impression (I didnt catch that on viewing). Tremendous, one of the best, I tell you- truly great this guy: Joe Schmid! Gotta love him.
@@MajestyofReason To clarify, I believe it is important to formalize these notions. Being that Godel's original argument was formalized, it would be in his spirit to advance the merits or objections to his argument with formalized reasoning. One cannot, however, tell others how they ought to formalize their statements.
English is ambiguous and you may have several formalizations of a given sentence, and some may skew from the intent of the author. A problem one may foresee with this is that the objections in the video- similar to Oppys- may not work (For a rigorous disproof of some of Oppy's claim see et al. Bentzmuller and Paleo's work on proof checking). I asked if it was Anderson, as the definition given here (in the video) sounds similar to the Anderson one which has been formalized.
And, as it turns out, the definition implies the axioms of Anderson's framework, which invariably prove God possibly exists.
I will now restate my formalization that is not latex friendly but more legible on a TH-cam comment:
Define S:= {psi: |= not phi => Box\forall x(phi(x) -> psi(x)}
"|= not phi" means that "not phi" is true.
P* := Positive*(phi) iff (\forall x) (\forall psi in S)[not psi (x) => (phi(x) -> "phi does not detract from the greatness of x")]
P' := Positive'(phi) iff (\forall x) [phi(x) -> "phi does not detract from the greatness of x"].
----------
Box means the modal operator "Necessarily".
---------
I leave my replies here.
@@dddd-te5dg I don’t quite understand the symbolism you’re using, unfortunately! Apologies. I don’t quite know what ‘phi’ and ‘psi’ stand for (propositional constants? Predicate symbols? If the latter, how could ‘not phi’ be true? A negated predicate symbol doesn't seem truth-apt. If the former, how could propositional constants take arguments?); the use of the semantic entailment sign is confusing to me; I don’t know what ’S’ is supposed to be; and there are other elements that are confusing to me. (I’m also not very familiar with LaTeX, which probably isn’t helping me!)
It’s worth noting that we can run my criticism without trying to formalize positivity* and positivity’. In fact, we needn't even mention these notions. For we can run my criticism as follows. A positive property is originally defined as a property which doesn’t detract from greatness. If we let ‘D’ be the predicate ‘detracts from greatness’ and ‘P’ be the predicate ‘is a positive property’, we get the following definition of positive property:
Def(positive property): ∀x (Px ~Dx)
My dilemma is then the following: when assessing whether a property detracts from greatness - and consequently when assessing whether a property is positive, given Def(positive property) - we either take into account metaphysical entailments by explosion, or we don’t.
If we take into account metaphysical entailments by explosion when assessing whether a property detracts from greatness, then the positivity premise (according to which [being God], or [being perfect], or [being God-like], or [being omnipotent], or etc. is positive) is both dialectically inappropriate and unmotivated (to me, at least). In that case, the argument doesn’t work - or, at least, it gives me no reason to think God possibly exists.
If we *don’t* take into account metaphysical entailments by explosion when assessing whether a property detracts from greatness, then the non-entailment premise (according to which positive properties don’t entail negative properties) is both dialectically inappropriate and unmotivated (to me, at least). In that case, the argument doesn’t work - or, at least, it gives me no reason to think God possibly exists.
Either way, the argument doesn’t work - or, at least, it gives me no reason to think God possibly exists.
This is perhaps a simpler and better way to explain my criticism than going through all the hoopla about positivity* and positivity’. It also avoids having to formalize those notions (which I think can be done, it would just take me a while to sit down and do it carefully).
@@MajestyofReason Ah yes, that is understandable. I was worried for such a possibility and I will clarify now. My apologies.
So phi and psi are symbols to represent an arbitrary property. phi(x) might be interpreted as "x is red" or "x is tall". x is a variable symbol for any person, rock, entity, etc.
'S" is its own term. So the expression "S:=" means you are assigning a meaning to the symbol S, where the meaning is the right of ":=". Essentially here I am trying to define a set of all psi which is "metaphysically entailed by phi by explosion". S is the set of all properties where if "phi" is false, then psi is metaphysically entiled by phi. I believe I interpreted your idea of "metaphysical entailment" correctly. You gave two definitions which seemed to be equivalent to my idea of "Box forall x (phi(x) then psi(x))".
As to the argument: the definition of positivity being in relation to defectiveness seems akin to Anderson's definition of positivity in his paper "Emendations of the Godel Ontological Argument". They are premises (B1) and (B2).
As for the "metaphysical entails by explosion" dilemma. I would actually be inclined to accepted entailment by explosion. So, I wanted to make sure I formalized your argument correctly so I am careful... but it sounds like this "entailment by explosion" is simply a "vacuous truth". In mathematics, this idea that "if p then q" is always true if the ancedent p is false, is abused and used all the time.
It might actually follow from the Gentzen rules and axioms for logic, in addition to the Hilbert axioms- which is the groundwork for all classical logic. I know truth tables show this is true. I believe the truth tables are equivalent to the axioms for logic, though.
As for your proposed definition, I will try playing around with that and see what I get. I would suggest learning LaTeX. I learn from experience and practice. "Overleaf" and "TexStudio" are my go to IDEs (platforms) for using it.
I would ask you to read page 312 of the article "Godel's Ontological proofs and its variants" by Peter Hajek. I would use the website "libgen" to get the book the article is contained in. The book is named "Kurt Godel and the Foundations of Mathematics"
I feel as though this is incorrect, as he gives a 3 line proof that God possibly exists in that article. The only issue whether or not these axioms are consistent with what "positive actually means". This is amiable as an objection, because the literature I've read has yet to define positive (or test the definition), aside from maybe Anderson's article I already referenced.
I wished to see a formalization of your definition of positive to see if it stands to work against or with the argument.
I will now consider this" ∀x (Px ~Dx)"
W video
Joe, you're a smart guy. Smarter than all the world's geniuses combined. Tell us who we should vote for!
My name is Joe, therefore, you should vote for Trump.
Vote for Joe..... Biden
(I'm joking vote for who u want. :
Necessary state of a perfect being lack limits , contingent state (His volitional actions )of perfect being have limits which controls the creation that have limit
Hence Perfect being has full control/providence over creation
Limit (in contingent state)is explained by necessary state of God (non-contrastive ,non entailing ,without violating PSR)
I would argue that it does violate PSR (or rather, I would go even more stringent with the PSR) as it seems like God could have created some other form of creation instead. So what's the sufficient reason for this actual creation rather than another?
@@georgeel-azar4684 sure , The strongest version of PSR and Sufficient Reason(used by Leibniz ,Ibn Sina etc..) demand a entailing , contrastive explanation
But the version the contemporary proponents such as Pruss,Josh , Samuel Clark,Timothy O Connor ,Richard gale ,Christopher Tomaszewski etc.. use doesn’t demand or require that
I meant their version of PSR is not violated
In defense of the deontic symmetry breaker:
We can avoid the objection from God-incompatible goods by modifying the "good implies can" principle to "pro toto good implies can" and if anything good prevents God from existing, it may not be pro toto good because it prevents this very great good of God existing
Excellent suggestion! :)
One potential countermove is to try to focus on God-incompatible seemingly *pro toto* goods. For instance, consider impersonal conceptions of utlimate realities that are directed toward producing things of value in the same way God is. Examples might include certain axiarchic veiws (where the relevant impersonal ultimate reality is, e.g., the cosmos a la Philip Goff) impersonal conceptions of the Form of the Good, etc.
@@MajestyofReason
Thx for the reply :3
That seems to be a promising counter. I will think more about it!
@@MajestyofReason
Is that at all related to the the way Quentin Smith referred to the "world-whole" (the sum total of reality/the universe) as the greatest good, or that which should demand the most awe and such from us?
Note to self : doesn't attack S5 modal logic.
There’s a funny asymmetry with respect to the symmetry breakers concerning incoherency arguments; if the defender of incoherency arguments is successful they’ve defeated the MOA (and theism generally), however, if the defender of the MOA defeats incoherency arguments they still have the burden of defending the (metaphysical) possibility premise (assuming metaphysical modality is legit to begin with).
You could’ve covered incoherency arguments in this if you wanted to make it more comprehensive but it’s great work as it stands, & maybe you’ll dedicate a 10 hour video to incoherency arguments anyway 😎
Hi, do you remember talking to me? Small world.
You say "By the characteristic axiom of S5, ⋄□p-->□p." I don't think this is quite right. The 5 Axiom which corresponds to a Euclidean accessibility relationship says ⋄p implies □⋄p. You need to do a bit of work to show ⋄□p-->□p is a consequence of S5, so I don't think it is rightfully labeled as a "characteristic axiom". In fact, it really isn't even a standard axiom, it is usually a theorem, meaning it is deducible from the empty set here.
Thanks for the comment! I tend to view this as a semantic dispute. Given that accessibility is an equivalence relation, the formulation I gave is logically equivalent to the formulation you gave. If we want to privilege one as ‘the characteristic axiom’, that’s alright; but I don’t think there’s any principled reason to privilege one over the other (other than, perhaps, one of them commonly being referred to as ‘the characteristic axiom’, although I’ve seen both introduced together as equivalent formulations of the S5 axiom). The reason I chose the one I did is pedagogical: it’s much easier for a video like this to introduce it as an axiom rather than introduce something else and then derive the other in a way that would easily lose the audience.
@@MajestyofReason Fair enough. By "characteristic axiom" I thought you were referring to 5. There are tons of ways of formulating it. But I like the way you guys put it in the SEP better "By S5, ◊□p→□p." The only reason I guess to choose 1 axiom over the others is that they correspond to certain accessibility relationships that have philosophical importance. Like Hugh Chandler critiques transitivity.
5:18 The comparison between what is physically possible and metaphysically possible is absurd.
Thanks for the explanation! "Say our prayers to the Almighty Algorithm" - that was clever & hilarious, lol.
lol 1:19:50 the property of not being a patreon of majesty of reason 😂😂
Feeding the algorithm with a #COYG
I’ll be seeing them play Liverpool in Philadelphia! 🔴⚪️🔴⚪️🔴⚪️
Joe Schmid, what happened to YOUR symmetry breaker you presented on capturing Christianity with Alex o Connor?
Edit: also when’s the next q and a
It's a long and annoying story lol. In short: my paper got two very positive referee reports from AJP and a minor revision decision. I completed my minor revisions, and -- bizarrely -- the editors sent the paper out to a *third* referee who raised (unsuccessful) objections to my paper, and the editors rejected the paper on the basis of the third referee's comments. What followed *this* was a series of rejections from journals, each based on (unsuccessful) objections from a referee. After a series of rejections like this spanning a year or two (an individual submission to a journal can take even up to a year to get a decision), I lost interest in publishing the paper.
As for the next Q&A, it's probably 50k subs, but I don't know!
@@MajestyofReason can you still do a video on the symmetry breaker or post it on your blog?
@@MajestyofReason I’m interested in it
@@InfinityExt if you want a version of the paper, you can email me and i'll send it to you
Joe is THE GREATEST PHILOSOPHER right now 👏👏👏👏
Josh R joked one time that he would be the next Kripke, I think it's already the case lol
If "the next Kripke" was defeated by a self-taught philosopher (IP) I think he's in shaky waters and so is naturalism
"Access to 15,000 word scrip" ~ a selling point. 😝
I think since the premises of the theist's argument are related, when we make one premise of it negative, we should change other premises into negative too or else it would be like
turning 2+2=4 into -2+2=0 and suggesting that "oh I have refuted 2+2=4". If our goal is balancing, then we should make both of the premises negative because the right balanced corolary is -2-2=-4 or
1) Possibly God does not exist
2) Necessarily if God does not exist, it is possible that God does not exist
3) Therefore it is possible that God does not exist.
Since possibility of God's non-existence in the first premise leads to a fallacy of begging the question in the conclusion, there is no such possibility! As you can see, we have changed both premises into negative.
Since most theists would reject your first premise, then if we want to counterbalance it by making the first premise of the argument negative, we should make the second premise of the theist's argument negative too; otherwise it seems like a double standard to change the first premise of theist's argument but hold the second premise the same.(because the positivity in the first and second premises are concomitantly interdependent).
If god is impossible (not possible) then his existence is logically impossible and logical impossiblites are for example stuff that's inconsistent but we know that god (the nesscry being) is consistent therefore god Is not impossible
Your comment is gibberish. Be MORE clear.
@@goldenarm2118
What is gibberish about it?
I am saying if you want to change one premise then you should change the other premise accordingly because the premises are related. We might be accused of ignoring the relation between premises, if we change our favorite premise and hold the other constant! To make it more clear consider this analogy that scientists give about metric expansion. They say the expanding space with stars in it are like a growing cake with raisins in it. They reduce both space and stars to cake and raisins. They never give an analogy of 'raisins in the sky' or 'stars in the cake'! Because when they change one factor of the main topic (namely expanding space into cake) they change the other too (namely stars into raisins). Similarly when you reduce one premise of ontological argument into "does not exist" we have to change the other premise too. Otherwise our own objection would problematic not the ontological argument.
Let me give you another analogy. consider a seesaw as the symbol of balancing. When you say "A goes up", the right balanced corollary is "B goes down" not 'B goes up' or 'A goes down'. Similarly when the ontological argument says "God necessarily exists" the right corolary is "evil does not exist" not 'evil exist' or 'God does not exist'.
26:00 I might have a simple simmetry breaker to give the advantage to 1*. The empity world is a metaphysically possible world. It's conceivable, non contradictory, and if we see "world" as "set" even foundational to set theory that there's such a thing as an empity set or world. And if an empity world is possible, there's at least one possible world with no god, hence the possibility that god doesn't exist has at least one metaphisically possible instance.
The empty world is not possible.
@@noobslayeru how so? What IN an empty world would produce a contradiction? The very thought of something IN an empty world is incoherent, to have that produce a contradiction would be absurd. And if we have a world that is conceivable, consistent and foundational to various disciplines, how can you ever say it's not possible?
I wonder if contingent arguments or an early Kant idea can help theists. Maybe something like: 1. "Possibly the contingent is possibly and possibly not existing" (◇∀x(Cx→◇x=x∧◇¬x=x)) and 2. "If God is possible, then it's possible something is not contingent" (◇∃xGx→◇∃x¬Cx). Saying God is impossible and possibly not existing, then, implies the bizarre "necessarily all is contingent" denied by the sensible 1.
I can never get past the definition of the greatest possible being. Why wouldn't the greatest being have all possible attributes rather than just some? Take omnipotence, for example. Just like it's supposedly greater to actually exist than to not exist, it seems to me it's greater to actually wield all possible powers than to either not possess them or for some powers to be only latent. Then we get something like this:
God is the greatest possible being.
The greatest possible being wields all possible powers.
The powers to do good and evil exist.
God wields the powers of good and evil.
The same would go for every other conceivable attribute. My intuition tells me this sort of all-encompassing God would be vastly more powerful, perfect, and necessary than the measly tri-Omni God. Certainly, this God is better "suited to the present appearances of nature." I'm guessing there's a way to formulate a modal argument along this line.
In line with what the Old Testament says about God, funnily enough. Anyway, all these modal arguments for God appear to have this problem that while they may work for a generic omniGod, they don't convincingly work for the standard Christian triune God.
Noice 🤙
This video was worth it for the Trump impression.
Amazing
😍
The shortest and most effective way to respond to MOA is through reverse MOA.
It instantly mutes the theist!
What does this mean? I'm a theist. Can you expound on your comment. I'm listening to this video slowly so as to consume its points; which means i haven't listened to the whole video.
@@goldenarm2118 The point is, if MOA is any good, so is reverse MOA. So we have two equally good arguments that lead to conclusions that negate each other.
Or to put it a bit differently from the video, you can have a modal ontological argument for naturalism.
Possibly, naturalism is true.
Necessarily, if naturalism is true, then it is necessary that naturalism is true.
Hence, it is necessary that naturalism is true.
It mutes the theist in the sense that the naturalist/atheist has an equally good argument in his arsenal, so MOA doesn't give any advantage to the theist.
@@anteodedi8937 Thank you. You have expounded on your original comment and I think I understand your point of view. I will watch the rest of the video and message. Thank you so much for responding to my question.
@@anteodedi8937 The issue I find with this version is that making the case for a naturalistic/godless universe being necessary requires more supporting argumentation, and is less intuitive, than making the case for a perfect being being necessary. I'd go with Schmid's rMOA as such.
@@georgeel-azar4684 And why would that be less intuitive?
I would say a perfect being, i.e., a being that possesses qualities like power, knowledge, and goodness to the greatest degree of conceivability has to be maximally complex and contingent. We see from experience that the closer a being is to perfection, the more complex and contingent it is. That's how evolution of anything works. Things get better with time and more steps.
Putting a perfect being right at the start and ascribing necessity to it gets existence backwards.
Lol 1:11:24 😂😂
El Algo
I have an intuition that the "great making features" theists assigned to God are kinda of arbitrary or subjective. Take Alselm's argument, for instance. A being than which no grater can be conceived will depend on our conceptions of what is greater.
This is usually bypassed by adding the qualifier of “all things held equal.” Given a general circumstance not conceived of to be of detriment to strength, is it generally better to be strong or not. Of course the former. There is also the intuition, but this criticism has been dealt with
@aydentrevaskis8390 idk man. Suppose a great making feature causes God to be logically impossible, in this case, this great making feature is actually a bad making feature. For instance, a god who is able to make triangles with 4 sides is supposedly more powerful than a god who can't do it. But the former is logically impossible, so that feature makes this kind of god impossible, and an impossible god is less great than a possible god.
The example of feature i gave is obvious, but some apparently consistent feature might be logically impossible, and the contradiction just wasn't made clear yet.
I have what I think is a rebuttal to such reasoning, using a similar concept. Suppose one conceives of a greatest state of being - which I would say would be either invincibility or immortality. If we can conceive of such a state, and it is greater for it to exist in reality than in our own heads exclusively, then it must exist! And yet, we don't have any conclusive evidence, let alone proof, of either concept being real or even feasible.
6:00 The video asserts that metaphysical reality is different than logical possibility. He asserts that "water is H2O and couldn't be H3O." He says it is logically possible that water could be H3O. i disagree and think this is absurd.
Of course the argument works.
P1. That something is impossible is a stronger claim than that something is possible.
P2. All stronger claims demand stronger evidence than weaker claims.
C. Therefore the claim that something is impossible demands stronger evidence than that something is possible.
To run the reverse modal ontological argument, one does not need to claim God is impossible. One only needs to claim that God's non-existence is *possible*
You might as well say that the reverse argument works because the theist is committed to the claim that God's non-existence is *impossible* whereas the non-theist need only claim that God's non-existence is *possible*
@@MajestyofReasonGod’s non-existence being possible is equivalent to his impossibility.
So to say it is possible that God doesn’t exist is to say that God is impossible.
@@noobslayeru But equally, God's existence being possible is equivalent to his necessity.
So to say it is possible that God exists is to say that God is necessary. And that is *not* a weaker claim than that God is impossible. (In fact, claiming that God is necessary is equivalent to claiming that God's non-existence is impossible -- i.e., an impossibility claim.)
@@MajestyofReason God’s existence being possible is in fact equivalent to his necessity, but possible necessity isn’t a stronger claim than impossibility.
@@noobslayeru Sure, it's not a *stronger* claim; I never said it was. The point is that the claims are *equally strong* , and so there's no advantage to the modal ontological argument here. In that case, the argument doesn't work -- at least, not for the reason you specify (that it makes a weaker claim).
I for one see no difference between a (logically) possible thing and a "really" existing thing, hence (logical) possibility = existence. The problem with proving God's existence by reason then reduces to coming up with such a definition of God that is logically consistent with everything else in reality, that is, with all other logically possible things. Once you do that, you have proved that God exists, as defined.
Following your line of reasoning, a godless universe is logically possible, therefore a godless universe exists?
@@georgeel-azar4684 Yes, if it is indeed logically possible, that is, logically consistent with all other logically possible things.
Omni?
The very concept violates the law of noncontradiction. Something can't be Omni=all, "All good" and "all evil" at the same time. And, if you add a descriptor you have just limited the concept of Omni.
is the concept ever used that way though ? i've never encountered the omni concept without a descriptor and, yes, it seems foolish to even think that it's logical. i don't believe theists have a problem with limiting it, subsets of omni still carry the same "punch" while also being somewhat conceivable
@@ahuman4797 to quote one of favourite movie series, Spock says "to hunt a species to extinction is illogical" The main female protagonist ( sorry, can't remember her name) says "Whoever said humans are logical?" 🤔🙄😠
That's the way I feel about an allegedly "perfectly loving" and also "perfectly just" God, who, as a function of It's latter attribute, must dispense everlasting punishment.
Omni-positive quality not negative quality. Negative qualities are lacks of positive ones and nothing to be omni.
@@MiladTabasy get a goddam dictionary, dufus! omni-
[ˈämnē]
combiningform
all; of all things:
"omniscient" · "omnifarious"
in all ways or places:
"omnicompetent" · "omnipresent"
Guh, I can’t philosophize. Press 1 for Argument from Miracles.
This has to be the dumbest line of reasoning I have ever encountered. Just keep on inventing logic systems until you find the one that suits your needs, and then pretend you can prove something with it.
"Something is possibly necessary, therefor it is necessary" ??? Come on people, are you really on that level? If you accept that, then all bets are off and you can prove anything you want.
Well it apparently seem so but it is only true about God because necessity is part of God's definition.
1. JESUS IS LORD
2. CHRIST IS KING
3. Therefore Joe is a poached egg
irrefutable
😂@@MajestyofReason
@@MajestyofReason You can only say Jesus is Lord by the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately your comment rings of sarcasm. But we are praying for you, brother.
@@goldenarm2118 imagine praying for a poached egg
@@bigol7169 Are you calling Majesty of Reason a poached egg?
7:25 he did say "Joe is a poached egg" is logically possible. I disagree, however.
I should like to challenge you to analyze an argument in favor of God's existence. Do you accept it?