My discussion of the Ontological Argument

[Dameedna]

Regarding your being a metaphysician…

It just means that you reject the Verifiability Principle of Meaning (VP), namely that all meaningful propositions are contingent. IOW. The VP states that only propositions dependent on either factual or definitional circumstances make sense. If the VP is true, then all meaningful propositions could have been false, and, if false, they could have been true.

But you are a metaphysician (at least tentatively and provisionally), and you will have none of that. You hold that some meaningful propositions are not dependent on factual or definitional circumstances. Some meaningful propositions are are always and unavoidably true.

Are they meaningful? Is human logic meaningful to anything other than humans? Does that define it as ultimately meaningful(beyond our experience) or just meaningful to us.

I would agree with all accept the “meaningful” side of things. Yes, a proposition could be true. But meaningful? That’s a little addon I’m not sure I’d support.

And so I induct thee [appropriate fanfare] into the Order of Metaphysician with rank of Novice, and you are now entitled to all the perquisites and entitlements of that office. [Basically all you get at this point is our unqualified admiration and a very cool T shirt that says: “I can say something True about Everything…Because I’ve studied Metaphysics!”)

hehehe…
[/quote]

 

[Dameedna]

As I said, in the end I think your argument establishes that atheism is at best mere unsupported conjecture.

Most athiests will agree the universe exists, and that there is nothing greater than it, and that it probably alway’s existed in one form or another.

Replace “universe” with the word God in this argument, then at best an athiest would agree with that.

In otherwords, we will disagree with what that GCB is and are back to square one.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Mornin jf:

My point was that it’s conceivable for necessary existence to be great making and being all good to be great making but the two to be incompatible with each other.

Let me ponder this bit.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

I’m not sure I understand this. When you say, we are connecting a subject god, with a predicate of unsurpassable greatness, that still doesn’t provide any meaning.

IE, the greatest concievable thing or greatest possible thing in actuality? What’s the difference?. Could the GCB simply be the universe rendering the entire statment a moot point. Again, it seems like it’s a statment, that although logically correct doesn’t provide us with anything.

I guess to try and see it from the way I see it, replace the word “god” in this argument, with the flying spaghetti monster or Celestial teacup, or abracadabra, and see if it is something that provides meaning.

I wonder if the the meaning people are getting from it, is personal meaning they attribute to the word God within a religous belief and not the argument itself? Does that make sense?

Hi Dameedna,

You find “God is the GCB” to be meaningless or devoid of content. I think the definition is highly abstract but not meaningless.

Let’s think more concretely. Let’s say I am a pre-historic guy and my tribe worships a mountain. Some explorer wanders over from the next valley and is puzzled why we worship this mountain when there is a taller and grander mountain over yonder. We go and check it out and sure enuff, it is taller and grander, and so we worship that mountain instead. We are, after all, mountain worshippers and it wouldn’t be fitting to exalt anything less than the best.

Over time, even taller and grander mountains are discovered and the object of the tribe’s worship changes with each discovery. Eventually, some guy realizes that, while mountains are big and grand and everything, the whole mountain range is more immense and grander still. Ought we therefore worship the whole mountain range? And if the mountain range is greater than the highest mountain contained therein, the range itself is surpassed by the whole world, and the world is surpassed by the universe, and the universe is surpassed by the Creator of it all. So, if we are really rational about it, we ought to worship the Creator.

Now maybe our tribe doesn’t make the leap to a creator. Maybe our tribe just ends up being pantheists because they can’t imagine anything greater than the observable universe. But the point is that the “God is the GCB” definition is operative here and it make sense. And it continues to make sense, IMHO, even as we progress up the ladder of abstraction and generality. We can move from the universe to the creator of this particular universe to the creator all being.

 

[Dameedna]

So, if we are really rational about it, we ought to worship the Creator.

And therein lies the problem. The presumption that all this was “created” and not something that has existed(like God) infinately.

Now maybe our tribe doesn’t make the leap to a creator. Maybe our tribe just ends up being pantheists because they can’t imagine anything greater than the observable universe.

But our imagination for what could be, doesn’t define what actually is?

But the point is that the “God is the GCB” definition is operative here and it make sense. And it continues to make sense, IMHO, even as we progress up the ladder of abstraction and generality. We can move from the universe to the creator of this particular universe to the creator all being.

Only if you presume that this is in fact created.

Why would it be? God wasn’t created he just is.

Why could the universe simply be, in one form or another. The infinite necessary being?

I keep asking this, I’m not really getting an answer

 

[SimonArizona]

And therein lies the problem. The presumption that all this was “created” and not something that has existed(like God) infinately.

But our imagination for what could be, doesn’t define what actually is?

Only if you presume that this is in fact created.

Why would it be? God wasn’t created he just is.

Why could the universe simply be, in one form or another. The infinite necessary being?

I keep asking this, I’m not really getting an answer

St. Athanasius The Great answers this question in his book On the Incarnation of the Word. If the Universe existed eternally with God and He did not create it, then God would be limited to use only what He has available to Him. He is called the Life, the Very Life, the source of all life who gives life to everything. This god who is subject to fashion matter that is alloted to him is not the God I know.

 

[Dameedna]

St. Athanasius The Great answers this question in his book On the Incarnation of the Word. If the Universe existed eternally with God and He did not create it, then God would be limited to use only what He has available to Him. He is called the Life, the Very Life, the source of all life who gives life to everything. This god who is subject to fashion matter that is alloted to him is not the God I know.

I never said the universe existed eternally WITH God. You are seperating the concept of God with the universe, I am not.

Something exists eternally. We go back to the first clause something had to create something. So…something existed. The universe existed, and is infinite therefore not subject to your claims.

Again, there is a presumption here that the universe is actually created, rather than it has alway’s existed.

Why this claim?

 

[St_Gregory]

Isn’t the last few posts more about the cosmological argument than the Ontological?

 

[FrankSchnabel]

My point was that it’s conceivable for necessary existence to be great making and being all good to be great making but the two to be incompatible with each other. So one being may be contingently existing, but all good and another necessarily existing and very good, but not all-good. So then you have a complication of whether the first being would be greater than the second or vice versa. If necessarily existing “trumps” all other potentially incompatible great making properties, then you would be right, the GCB demonstrably and necessarily exists. If OTOH, there is doubt as to wheether for ex. that first being would be greater than the second, then the GCB may not in fact necessarily exist but only happen to exist. I’m understandin the “C” in GCB to piggyback on whether in fact certain great making properties are compatible with certain other great making properties.

The only way I can see that necessarily existing would be incompatible with other great making properties is if someone were to argue that necessarily existing entails lack of free will and that presence of free will is more great making than necessarily existing, etc.

As I said, in the end I think your argument establishes that atheism is at best mere unsupported conjecture.

Mornin jf,

Before we can evaluate whether the various divine attributes are compatible with each other, we must identify what they are. Hartshorne’s procedure is to do it the same way we did for God’s mode of existence. What are the logical alternatives? Necessary vs. contigent existence. Which is compatible with greatness or unsurpassibility ? (i.e. which is “great-making”) Necessary existence.

Life span. What are the logical alternatives? 1) None 2) Some (a span with begging and end or a beginning with no end) or 3) All (no beginning and no end) Which is great-making? No. 3. It is greater to be eternal than to be temporalily existing or have a beginning.

Goodness. What are the logical alternatives? 1) No goodness at all (not conceivable because nothing is all bad) 2) Some goodness 3) all good. Clearly being all-good is greater than 1 or 2.

and so on.

Now if any of these established divine attributes contradict one another, that would nullify the whole argument. Because if we define God as the GCB and we establish that traits A and B are great-making, the presence of A can’t preclude the presence of B or vise versa.

Also, greatness or unsurpassiblity would make it inconceivable for great-making traits to be distributed among multiple beings. Of necessity, they are all present in One.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Hey Dameedna,

You sed: “Why could[n’t] the universe simply be, in one form or another. The infinite necessary being?”

It is a possibility. That’s pantheism, as I understand the term. The universe is all there is. It is the ultimate reality. There is nothing greater. So we recognize the universe as the GCB. That’s God for us and we relate to that and organize our lives around that however we will.

But note that this is not atheism, technically.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Again, there is a presumption here that the universe is actually created, rather than it has alway’s existed.

Why this claim?

This is off the topic of the OA, but the consensus today is that the universe was created. The Big Bang Theory and all that. In Einstein’s time everyone thought the universe was static and always existed, and Albert built a fudge factor (the Cosmological Constant) into his general theory of relativity to keep the universe from expanding. But Hubble gave Einstein a peek into his telescope and showed him the universe was expanding. Still is.

And a created universe out of nothing implies a creator (the Cosmological Argument referred to by Greg above).

 

[celluloid]

Then in other words, God, could be anything.

We could call the universe God if the universe is the greatest conceivable thing.

It’s the nature of this “greatest concievable thing” that is in question.

I think your intuition is correct.

Here’s why:

Premise 1 of the ontological argument is possibly nonsense.

In order for a creator God to be conceivable, God must possibly exist or have existed. God, as Christians conceive it, is the infinite creator of the universe, and therefore must exist. So in order to know that the “greatest conceivable thing” you have to assume existence for a being that is infinite in time.

IOW, you can’t conceptualize a creator God without assuming, at least, prior existence. If God does not exist and has never existed, then it is impossible to properly conceive of such a God, except in ignorance of the facts. Quite simply, the conceivability of all things thought to exist in the past or present have been determined by whether they actually exist or not. (Note that this argument does not preclude future finite yet ultimate gods or beings.)

I can conceive of a unicorn and it can be logically possible for it to exist, so long as I don’t stipulate or imply as part of the definition that a real, genetic unicorn exists at present or has existed in the past. If my concept includes or implies existence (or existence in the past) then it is not logical (by being inconsistent with what we know of past and present fauna), or at least, it is controversial. Since to confirm in the first premise that God is logically possible (and it may not be so), one must use the conclusion and is thus the argument is question-begging.

So, hidden in the first premise is an assumption of existence. Of course I don’t deny that God could be “conceivable” or “logically possible” but we just don’t know if it is.

 

[jfhh]

I think your intuition is correct.

Here’s why:

Premise 1 of the ontological argument is possibly nonsense.

In order for a creator God to be conceivable, God must possibly exist or have existed. God, as Christians conceive it, is the infinite creator of the universe, and therefore must exist. So in order to know that the “greatest conceivable thing” you have to assume existence for a being that is infinite in time.

IOW, you can’t conceptualize a creator God without assuming, at least, prior existence. If God does not exist and has never existed, then it is impossible to properly conceive of such a God, except in ignorance of the facts. Quite simply, the conceivability of all things thought to exist in the past or present have been determined by whether they actually exist or not. (Note that this argument does not preclude future finite yet ultimate gods or beings.)

I can conceive of a unicorn and it can be logically possible for it to exist, so long as I don’t stipulate or imply as part of the definition that a real, genetic unicorn exists at present or has existed in the past. If my concept includes or implies existence (or existence in the past) then it is not logical (by being inconsistent with what we know of past and present fauna), or at least, it is controversial. Since to confirm in the first premise that God is logically possible (and it may not be so), one must use the conclusion and is thus the argument is question-begging.

So, hidden in the first premise is an assumption of existence. Of course I don’t deny that God could be “conceivable” or “logically possible” but we just don’t know if it is.

OK, I think there’s some confusion here, some which I’ll leave for others to clear up.

The issue is that necessary existence is a mode of existence. One can conceive of a necessarily existing unicorn – let’s call that species of unicorn NEU. Now the question would be whether the property of existing necessarily – whether that mode of existence is logically compatible with the NEU’s other properties (for example existing in time and space). If it turns out that just one of the NEU’s other properties is incompatible with that mode of existence, then we would know that NEU is a fictional concept – much like a square circle is, depictable in art, but not actually existent in abstract or in reality.

There’s no indication however that with the GCB, that the property of existing necessarily is incompatible with any other property of the GCB. BTW, as GCB is defined, being the creator of the world would only be a propety of the GCB if being the creator of the world were a great-making property. Being creator of the world is actually a contingent property of the Christian God according to Catholic dogma (which states the world’s existence is a contingent fact and God was free to not create anything at all). So in terms of intrinsic properties, being the creator of the world would not actually be a property of the GCB unless one is to suppose that something created outside of the GCB also exists necessarily.

 

[celluloid]

OK, I think there’s some confusion here, some which I’ll leave for others to clear up.

The issue is that necessary existence is a mode of existence. One can conceive of a necessarily existing unicorn – let’s call that species of unicorn NEU. Now the question would be whether the property of existing necessarily – whether that mode of existence is logically compatible with the NEU’s other properties (for example existing in time and space). If it turns out that just one of the NEU’s other properties is incompatible with that mode of existence, then we would know that NEU is a fictional concept – much like a square circle is, depictable in art, but not actually existent in abstract or in reality.

There’s no indication however that with the GCB, that the property of existing necessarily is incompatible with any other property of the GCB. BTW, as GCB is defined, being the creator of the world would only be a propety of the GCB if being the creator of the world were a great-making property. Being creator of the world is actually a contingent property of the Christian God according to Catholic dogma (which states the world’s existence is a contingent fact and God was free to not create anything at all). So in terms of intrinsic properties, being the creator of the world would not actually be a property of the GCB unless one is to suppose that something created outside of the GCB also exists necessarily.

I’m not arguing that there is any property that is not compatible with any other property. I’m arguing that God existing or non-existing as fait accompli is - possibly - incompatible with the description in P1 as the greatest conceivable being.

I’ll give another example. Suppose you shuffle a standard deck of cards and before your finished shuffling, you make the statement, “After the deck has been shuffled and laid on the table, it is conceivable a black card (x of spades or clubs) will be the top card of the deck” This is true assuming an absolutely random shuffle and that it is not purely deterministic.

Now, suppose you reshuffle the deck and again lay it on the table. You may again say (this time after the shuffle) that it is conceivable that the top card is black. But a friend who is there peeks at the top card and sees a red card (heart or diamond)
He knows it is not possible for the top card to be black. This time, there is something wrong with your statement, which is only made out of ignorance. It is conceivable for it to be black only if it is actually black.

What happens is once the deck has been shuffled and placed on the table, what possibilities remain are fully determined by what is. Either the probability collapses to zero or it is a certainty that the card is black at that point – fait accompli. But in the absence of knowledge, and only for practical purposes, we can assume the same probabilities as if the deck has not been shuffled yet.

Going back to the first premise of the ontological argument, God can’t be the greatest conceivable being if God does not exist, not just because non-existence is an imperfection but because God is not a being at all. As a pure product of the imagination, God is not even as great as sliced bread in that case. God is completely outside the set of greatest conceivable beings.

If God does exist, then the argument is logically sound, if circular. But we don’t have that knowledge and so we can only conclude that God is possibly not conceivable (since God must exist to be conceivable). We are ignorant of P1’s validity because of our ignorance of God’s viability to be considered as a possible being.

Because the argument hinges on God being conceivable or possible, and any wording of P1 -possibly- eliminates God from the realm of possibility, it makes the whole argument inconclusive.

 

[jfhh]

I’m not arguing that there is any property that is not compatible with any other property. I’m arguing that God existing or non-existing as fait accompli is - possibly - incompatible with the description in P1 as the greatest conceivable being.

I’ll give another example. Suppose you shuffle a standard deck of cards and before your finished shuffling, you make the statement, “After the deck has been shuffled and laid on the table, it is conceivable a black card (x of spades or clubs) will be the top card of the deck” This is true assuming an absolutely random shuffle and that it is not purely deterministic.

Now, suppose you reshuffle the deck and again lay it on the table. You may again say (this time after the shuffle) that it is conceivable that the top card is black. But a friend who is there peeks at the top card and sees a red card (heart or diamond)
He knows it is not possible for the top card to be black. This time, there is something wrong with your statement, which is only made out of ignorance. It is conceivable for it to be black only if it is actually black.

What happens is once the deck has been shuffled and placed on the table, what possibilities remain are fully determined by what is. Either the probability collapses to zero or it is a certainty that the card is black at that point – fait accompli. But in the absence of knowledge, and only for practical purposes, we can assume the same probabilities as if the deck has not been shuffled yet.

Going back to the first premise of the ontological argument, God can’t be the greatest conceivable being if God does not exist, not just because non-existence is an imperfection but because God is not a being at all. As a pure product of the imagination, God is not even as great as sliced bread in that case. God is completely outside the set of greatest conceivable beings.

If God does exist, then the argument is logically sound, if circular. But we don’t have that knowledge and so we can only conclude that God is possibly not conceivable (since God must exist to be conceivable). We are ignorant of P1’s validity because of our ignorance of God’s viability to be considered as a possible being.

Because the argument hinges on God being conceivable or possible, and any wording of P1 -possibly- eliminates God from the realm of possibility, it makes the whole argument inconclusive.

You seem to have been referring to the OP. I was assuming you were referring to another argument that someone else made which I endorsed as “excellent”

Since I haven’t frankly gone over the OP, I will apologize for my mistaken assumption and bow out of this subthread within the larger thread

 

[celluloid]

You seem to have been referring to the OP. I was assuming you were referring to another argument that someone else made which I endorsed as “excellent”

Since I haven’t frankly gone over the OP, I will apologize for my mistaken assumption and bow out of this subthread within the larger thread

Different versions of ontological arguments are being thrown around in this thread but what I stated applies to the ones I’ve seen so far.

God is not necessarily conceivable as a being at all, if God does not exist. God is always imaginable, but all sorts of nonsense is imaginable.

 

[jfhh]

Different versions of ontological arguments are being thrown around in this thread but what I stated applies to the ones I’ve seen so far.

God is not necessarily conceivable as a being at all, if God does not exist. God is always imaginable, but all sorts of nonsense is imaginable.

Actually it doesn’t. But if you aren’t willing to consider that possibility, then there’s nothing more to say. I’ll let the person whose argument I endorsed as “excellent” take over from here

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Hi Celluloid,

Welcome. But I must warn you of the inherent dangers of participating in a discussion of the OA. It has already driven at least one person, Dameedna from “Uptop”, to strong drink.

I think your intuition is correct.

Here’s why:

Premise 1 of the ontological argument is possibly nonsense.

I agree, but not for the reasons you cite.

Here is the first premise that I was proposing: The statement “God is the greatest conceivable being (GCB)” is meaningful.

This was assumed by Anselm to be true, but he did not prove it. Logical positivists argue that this statement is indeed nonsense or not meaningful. They say it is like talking about “round squares.” As Vizzini famously kept saying to Fezzik and Inigo (see The Princess Bride) “Inconceivable!”

In order for a creator God to be conceivable, God must possibly exist or have existed.

No, in order to be conceivable, the GCB must first make sense. Are we talking round squares or not? Note that the positivists are not charging that we are talking about unicorns here, with unicorns being an example of something conceivable but not actualized. They are saying the very idea is nonsense. Note also that careful positivists never assert that God doesn’t exist, for that would imply they know what “God” means. They simply maintain that “God” as the GCB is simply meaningless.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

So that is where our focus ought to be. Is the GCB is meaningful idea? If it can be demonstrated, theism is proved, for the other parts of the argument lead inexorably to the conclusion that God exists necessarily.

Trying to make sense of the GCB is not easy. As philosohper Duane Voskuil observes, “It is the whole philosophical problem.” In delving into this we need to rethink a lot of assumptions.

Is anyone up to the task? Is there anyone who who will defend theism from the godless positivists? Yes!! The Metaphysicians are ready, willing and able.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Dameedna,

So is it fair to say that you agree that the GCB makes sense but that, for you, the GCB is only the physical universe?

If so, then I not only declare you to be a Metaphysician (novice class) but also a Theist.

Fair enuff?