Post by Caroline on Mar 14, 2017 11:22:40 GMT -5
The Ontological Argument, from ontos, the Greek word for “being,” is so-called because it’s based on the understanding of who God is. Initially formulated by the Benedictine monk Anselm in 1078, it has been pondered, debated, ridiculed and defended to our time, without achieving anything near consensus but also withstanding all efforts to completely discredit it.
It basically says that if it’s possible God exists, then he exists. It starts from a definition of God as the greatest conceivable/maximally great being, a being with maximal excellence - maximal power, knowledge, and goodness - in every possible world. “Possible worlds” refers not to other planets or universes but to maximal descriptions of the way reality could have been, as well as the way it really is - the actual world. A reality that did not have you as part of it, for example, would be a possible world but not the actual world.
So according to this understanding of God, if he exists in every possible world, he exists in the actual one. Therefore, he exists. Is it possible that a maximally great being, so described, exists? It seems like a coherent concept. Denying even its possibility would be difficult to defend. But if you allow that it’s possible, and the philosophical method of arguing from possible worlds is sound, then the conclusion that God exists follows.
Efforts to discredit the argument with parodies suggesting there must also then be a greatest conceivable island or pizza or the like do not go through because unlike a supernatural, immaterial being which can be conceived to exist in possible worlds without space and matter, physical items cannot.
It basically says that if it’s possible God exists, then he exists. It starts from a definition of God as the greatest conceivable/maximally great being, a being with maximal excellence - maximal power, knowledge, and goodness - in every possible world. “Possible worlds” refers not to other planets or universes but to maximal descriptions of the way reality could have been, as well as the way it really is - the actual world. A reality that did not have you as part of it, for example, would be a possible world but not the actual world.
So according to this understanding of God, if he exists in every possible world, he exists in the actual one. Therefore, he exists. Is it possible that a maximally great being, so described, exists? It seems like a coherent concept. Denying even its possibility would be difficult to defend. But if you allow that it’s possible, and the philosophical method of arguing from possible worlds is sound, then the conclusion that God exists follows.
- It is possible that a maximally great being exists.
- If it is possible that a maximally great being exists then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
- If a maximally great being exists in some possible world then it exists in every possible world.
- If a maximally great being exists in every possible world then it exists in the actual world
- If a maximally great being exists in the actual world then a maximally great being exists
- Therefore a maximally great being exists.
Efforts to discredit the argument with parodies suggesting there must also then be a greatest conceivable island or pizza or the like do not go through because unlike a supernatural, immaterial being which can be conceived to exist in possible worlds without space and matter, physical items cannot.