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By Max Andrews
ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT [1]
This is the ontological argument that advocates the existence of an essential, omniscient, omnipotent and morally perfect being:
- The property of being maximally large is exemplified in some possible world.
- The property of being maximally large is equivalent, by definition, to the property of being maximally excellent in all possible worlds.
- The property of being maximally excellent implies the properties of omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection.
- A universal property is one that is exemplified in all possible worlds or none.
- Any property that is equivalent to a property held in all possible worlds is a universal property.
- Therefore, there exists a being that is essentially omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect.
Now, this is a very technical argument… So, let’s try to make some sense of this:
Defense of Premise 1. When I refer to a possible world I am referring only to a possible logical state of affairs. The first premise merely states that the property of being maximally large is logically possible – that is, that no contradiction obtains.
Defense of Premise 2. Premise 2 outlines the logical equivalence of maximum greatness with maximum excellence.
Defense of Premise 3. Premise three follows from the logical equivalence located in premise 2.
Defense of Premise 4. Premise 4 presents a disjunctive: either the universal property X is valid in all worlds (hence its universality) or it is necessarily a contradiction, and is impossible to obtain.
Defense of Premise 5. The fifth premise asserts the first disjunctive stated, which is simply that if a property holds in all possible worlds, then it is a universal property. Therefore, if a universal property holds in some possible world, then this universal property holds in all possible worlds. Logic does not vary across possible worlds.
Defense of the Conclusion. Therefore, if these universal properties hold in all possible worlds, they are valid in the actual world. This argument also does not “define” God to exist. Rather, it is an a priori argument that considers the mere possibility of a being with maximally great properties. This modal form of the argument shows that if a being with maximally great and maximally excellent properties is possible, then that being must exist.
Anselm’s ontological argument
Anselm’s argument can be formulated as follows:
- God exists in the understanding.
- God is a being.
- If X exists only in the understanding and is a possible being, then X could have been greater.
- Let us suppose that God only exists in the understanding.
- God could have been greater (Dado 2, 4, 3).
- God is a being of whom nothing greater is possible.
- So a being for which no greater being is possible is therefore a being for which no greater being is possible.
- Since 4 gives rise to a contradiction 4 must be false.
- God exists not only in the understanding.
- Therefore, God exists in reality.
- Existence in reality is an aggrandizing property.
- The argument is a reductio ad absurdum . To prove X assume ¬X. Show how ¬X leads to a patent contradiction or falsehood.
Gaunilo’s objection
Gaunilo proposes the idea of a perfect island. “I can conceive of a perfect island so this perfect island must exist.” The problem with this is that the island could, in reality, always be better. How many palm trees? How big is the island? How good is the climate? Inevitably, when you start adding all the big properties together to form the island you get Anselm’s idea of God.
Plantinga’s modal ontological argument
This is the formulation of Plantinga’s Argument:
- It is possible for a maximally great being (God) to exist.
- If it is possible for a maximally great being to exist, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
- If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in all possible worlds.
- If a maximally great being exists in all possible worlds, then it exists in the actual world.
- Therefore, a maximally large being exists in the real world.
- Therefore, a maximally large being exists.
- Therefore, God exists.
The object in the modal ontological argument is God, and his essence is necessary existence . That is what we get from one world to all possible worlds, because if necessary existence is valid in one possible world then it is valid in all possible worlds, like a computer virus.
Where does God’s necessity come from? If it comes from something else then it lacks a particular aggrandising property (and is therefore contingent). However, if God’s necessity comes from himself, his aseity, then these aggrandising properties refer to God’s essence. An important distinction to make is that a necessary being is not the fact of its existence, but rather it takes part in necessary existence. Furthermore, if God is simple then God is his essence and his essence is to exist.
CONCLUSION [2]
So what God has that we don’t have, then, is the property of necessary existence. And He has that property as part of His essence. God cannot lack the property of necessary existence and still be God. Of course, if something has the property of necessary existence, it cannot lose that property, for if it did, there would be a possible world in which it lacked necessary existence and so was never necessarily existent in the first place.
IMMANUEL KANT’S OBJECTION [3]
Kant’s criticism is that existence is not a property, since existence precedes essence. But it does not follow from this that necessarily existing is not a property. In any case, Plantinga’s version of the modal ontological argument does not assume that necessary existence is a property. It simply assumes that a being is greater if it exists necessarily rather than contingently. This is evidently quite true. The idea of a being that is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect in all possible worlds seems perfectly coherent.
THE OBJECTION OF ABSTRACT OBJECTS [4]
This objection consists in changing the object of the argument – which is God – for any ideal object that is equally necessary or that is considered necessary (for example, the number 1, the triangle, etc.,) to demonstrate that God only exists conceptually and not concretely. Thus premise 1 would be
1′. It is possible for a triangle to exist.
Following the rules of modal logic the conclusion would then be
7′. Therefore, the triangle exists.
If you take the word “existence” in its ordinary sense, then if it is claimed that it is possible for an abstract object like the number 2 or the triangle to exist, and if you believe that these are necessary entities, as most philosophers do, then the conclusion follows, then there is a triangle, a number, and not just in the conceptual sense, but in the full sense of existence, just as Platonism claims, that abstract entities like numbers, geometrical objects, exist in the same sense as concrete objects. But this does not prove that God exists only as a concept, what it proves is that the existence of these abstract objects is real, that they are as real as God! Now, if you are not a Platonist, then you may well deny premise 1 if you take the word “existence” in its full sense (something that is real). We certainly have the idea or concept of the number 1, of the triangle, but we would deny that such entities exist in any possible world and therefore they do not exist in the real world.
Grades
[1] From the ontological argument to this explanation is part of an email I received from Max Andrews in response to a question I had sent to Reasonable Faith about Alvin Plantinga’s modal ontological argument.
[2] See: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/spanish/la-necesidad-de-dios
[3] See: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/spanish/dos-preguntas-sobre-el-argumento-ontologico
[4] This was Dr. Craig’s response to my objection to ideal objects which he addressed on his Reasonable Faith podcast starting at minute 7:13: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/mediaf/podcasts/uploads/RF_Questions_About_Discouragement_Free_Will_and_Martyrdom_2013.mp3
Max Andrews is a graduate student of philosophy. His graduate research is in the philosophy of science and religion. His philosophical education consists of a Master of Arts in Philosophical Studies: Philosophy of Religion (2012) and a Bachelor of Science in Religion: Biblical Studies (2010).