The Modal Ontological Argument

[For_The_Kingdom]

Before I begin the actual argument, a few terms/concepts must be addressed. One of those concepts involves possible world semantics. What is a “possible world� (PW)?

A PW is a set of circumstances or any proposition that could be true, or could be false…or a set of circumstances or any proposition that could be necessarily true, or necessarily false.

Example: Barack Obama is the President of the United States.

If this statement is true, then there is a possible world at which Barack Obama is President of the United States. However, since Barack Obama could very well NOT be the President of the U.S., then it follows that there is a possible world at which Barack Obama isn’t President of the U.S.

So, in essence, there is a possible world (set of circumstances) at which Barack Obama is the President of the U.S. (and vice versa). In other words, it’s possible.

That being said; let’s turn our attention to the difference between contingent truths, and necessary truths. Contingent truths are circumstances or propositions that could be true, but could also be equally false (such as the example above).

Necessary truths are truths that are either true or false REGARDLESS of the circumstances. So in essence, necessary truths are true in ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS. Good examples of necessary truths are mathematical truths, such as 2+2=4 <--- this is true in all possible circumstances and can never be false under any circumstance.

Next, I’d like to turn the attention to the definition of God. God, at least as defined by Christian theism, is a maximally great being (MGB). By maximally great, we mean that God is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (present everywhere at any given time), and omnibenevolent (the ultimate source of goodness)…an ultimately, such a being is necessary in its existence (such a being cannot fail/cease to exist).

The four "omni's"that you see above, those are what we'd called "great making properties." A person is considered "great" based on accomplishments, power, influence, character, etc.

Being a maximally great being, all of those great-making properties are maxed out to the degree at which there isn't anything left to add. It is virtually impossible to think of a "greater being" than one that is all-knowing, all powerful, present everywhere, and the ultimate source of goodness.

Now, the Modal Ontological Argument makes a case that it is possible for such a being to actually exist. In other words; there is a possible world at which a MGB exists.

On to the argument..

1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists

2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.

3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.

4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world (our world).

5. If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists.

6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.

Of course, most of you will agree that it is possible for a MGB to exist. The problem is, once you admit that it is possible for a MGB to exist, you are essentially saying “It is possible for a necessary being to exist�.

Well, if it is possible for a necessary being to exist, then it follows that such a being must ACTUALLY exist. Why? Because a proposition cannot be possibly necessarily true, but actually false (because if the proposition is actually false, then it was never possibly necessarily true).

Again, most of you admit that it is possible for God to exist. Well, if it is possible for God to exist, then God must actually exist, because God’s existence would be one of necessity, and no necessary truth can be possibly true, but actually false.

And under the same token, if it is possible for God to NOT exist, then it is impossible for God to exist. So, God’s existence is either necessarily true, or necessarily false. And again for the third time, at some point in each and every one of your lives, you’ve admitted that it is possible for God to exist.

Therefore, God must exist. And as I close this argument, just for the record, it will take more than you people putting your hand over your ears and shouting “The argument is not valid� or whatever you like to say when a theist bring forth an argument.

You actually have to address the argument (1-5), and explain why any of the premises are false. But I don’t think that you can, can you?

[For_The_Kingdom]

No it doesn't. Not even George Lemaître, the originator of the Big Bang theory said that.

"We may speak of this event as of a beginning. I do not say a creation. Physically it is a beginning in the sense that if something happened before, it has no observable influence on the behavior of our universe, as any feature of matter before this beginning has been completely lost by the extreme contraction at the theoretical zero. Any preexistence of the universe has a metaphysical character. Physically, everything happens as if the theoretical zero was really a beginning. The question if it was really a beginning or rather a creation, something started from nothing, is a philosophical question which cannot be settled by physical or astronomical considerations."
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture ... ecnum=8847

The quote from Lemaître is irrelevant, considering the fact that he agrees with me that the universe had a beginning, which is the point that I was making, and the point that most of you people on here are not quite settled with. That is all he is needed for, was to corroborate the P2 of the argument (KCA).

He has done that, as the quote indicates. However, I am the one that made the further point that the initiator of the big bang must be external..and for that point, Mr. Lemaitre is not needed, because as he admitted, "the beginning is a PHILOSOPHICAL question which cannot be settled by physical or astronomical considerations.

So he is only needed for the science factor of the argument, not the philosophical factor.

In the quote he clearly recognizes a cosmic beginning, even though he stops short of calling it a creation (as most naturalists do).

So when I start the KCA thread, I will use that same quote from Lemaitre, which confirms P2. So thank you.

[For_The_Kingdom]

We're talking about the Modal Ontological Argument here. Why are you throwing in a separate argument (Kalam) without even discussing it? You just toss in the KCA and declare it valid, all without even so much as actually naming it!

Um, I mentioned it only because it was relevant to a statement that I was addressing.

Answer me this honestly please. Who are the ONLY people who propose the Modal Ontological Argument? I can think of a name for this group of people. I've never heard of any other group proposing it.

Dr. Craig and Alvin Plantiga are the only ones that I know of that advocate the argument...not to say that there aren't others.

The argument can be quite intimidating to some people and it requires some very deep thinking, a kind of thinking that most would prefer NOT to engage in. It is the only argument that I am aware of (besides maybe the Argument from Intentionality), that is both difficult to UNDERSTAND and EXPLAIN, equally.

Despite that, I rather enjoy the argument.

Reread Willum's quote again. He talks about this Beyonder character as having tucked himself away in another universe, such that he is not anywhere else. This is not omnipresent.

Then it is also not maximally great.

He can't manifest as the beyonder. Can an omnipresent being make himself non-omnipresent? Can God hide himself away in a single universe, away from all others?

God cannot do something that is logically incoherent, which is what you are proposing that he do. To be omnipotent is to be able to do all things that are POSSIBLE. And it isn't possible for a necessary being to cease being necessary.

And this isn't a short-coming of God, because if God cant do it, then it isn't possible to do.

And again, who are the only people seriously proposing the MOA?

Does it matter?

You'll have to explain just why this being who can do the one thing, in your view, automatically is able to do the other thing. What if it's a being that can create from nothing but cannot manifest in all places?

Then that being isn't maximally great, is he? Because a maximally great being can do it.

Yes, scientists can only go so close to the Big Bang and no further (at the moment). Yet it seems that you just leapfrog what they are stuck with and are able to describe what scientists admit they'd have no justification to describe.
I dislike this. Instead of carefully following the evidence, even if it leads to an infinite regress, you just jump all the way back, leapfrogging everything before it and declare where you've landed to be the First Cause, all without evidence.

Save this for the KCA thread.

[For_The_Kingdom]

Ok, I'm totally cherry picking here, but I had to respond to this.

You are suggesting an eternal past is absurd, yet an eternal God is not?

I think anything eternal fries my brain when I think about it too hard, but if you are going to grant one thing is absurd to being eternal, I think you are destroying your own argument for something else being eternal.

There is a difference in existing eternally, and existing eternally in time. One is absurd, and the other one isn't.

Can you guess which one is, and which one isn't?

[For_The_Kingdom]

[Replying to For_The_Kingdom]

OMG, you are so wrong, and you demonstrated that you don't have the ability to parameterize something less than a APE, so you certainly have no ability to speak even abstractly about any kind of APE.

You are not talking about a creator, because, as you have failed to acknowledge, the building blocks of the Universe; protons, electrons and their transformations, do not need a creator. They are observably and demonstratively immortal.

They are observably and demonstratively immortal.
They are observably and demonstratively immortal.
They are observably and demonstratively immortal.

This beginning of the Universe you so proudly pronounce as your trump card, is just another state of these fundamental particles. No creator needed. Like I mentioned to you: Bosons. If you compress protons and electrons, you get neutrons, compress neutrons, you get Bosons.

As for your comment about thermodynamics being magically different before creation. 1. Do you have any magic justification for that? Because otherwise it shows that you are completely ignorant of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics strength has nothing to do with beginnings or endings. It has to do with the particles, energies and available states. It does not change because of time, or indeed anything.

The God you have demonstrated you DO NOT remotely have the capacity to envision, cannot be shown to out-endure elementary particles. It can't even be shown to exist.

Yet elementary particles can be shown to exist forever, without a creator.

I am not sure how much clearer this can be. A proton, left to its own, will exist ten minutes from now, ten minutes ago, ten million years from now, ten million years ago.

One hundred trillion years from now, one hundred trillion years ago.

Before the creation event, that is your trump card, but not all the matter in the Universe is accounted for by any creation event, therefor, elementary particles could easily exist around it.

If you are talking about a Biblical God, even if we accept everything you say from the Bible as true, you can not justify God predating the creation of the Earth. You certainly have no claims on it being the first cause.

You are not clever by proposing that before a creation event occurred, there was a creator, because, the creation event, was just a transformation from Bosons to the particles we are familiar with.

I am not sure how this can be clearer.

I expect to see you in the KCA thread

[Artie]

The proposition "God necessarily exists" is either true or false. It has nothing to do with properties. God either exists, or he doesn't exist...plain and simple.

In the OP you said and I quote:

"Next, I’d like to turn the attention to the definition of God. God, at least as defined by Christian theism, is a maximally great being (MGB). By maximally great, we mean that God is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (present everywhere at any given time), and omnibenevolent (the ultimate source of goodness)…an ultimately, such a being is necessary in its existence (such a being cannot fail/cease to exist)."

Why can't such a being fail to exist?

[Furrowed Brow]

I reject this argument on the basis that there is no such thing as a "possible world". There is only one reality and one world: this one. The notion of a possible world is nothing more than an idea in someone's head, it is not reality.

Does this argument still apply to me if I hold the strong stance that there is no such thing as "possible worlds".

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: instead of the word "exists" substitute the phrase "true for" or "true in". Think of a possible world as some imaginary world. A necessary truth is then one in which something is true in every alternative imaginary world (that is not an impossible set of circumstances) and accessible from the actual world. In other words it is not possible to conceive of said thing not being true no matter how things stand in the actual world.

Think of possible worlds as the limit on every possibility we can ever imagine. To deny possible worlds is to deny it is possible to imagine things differently. The implication is that the actual world could never undergo change.

[For_The_Kingdom]

There's all kinds of objections to your argument, most of which you haven't responded to or touched on. That doesn't mean they just went away, Kingdom...

Actually, I do my best to respond to every post that is directed towards ME. Very seldom do I address posts that are not directed towards me, even if the post is within a thread that I created.

On top of that fact, you've just made it worse for yourself. Nothing can be "omnipotent, ominscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent" all at the same time. It's an illogical claim.

Please explain what is illogical about a being that posseesses the four omni's.

The universe did begin to exist, in its current format. Where that start came from is the big question. But it is wrong to say that the universe could not be a product of itself, when it has been proven to be "nothing" broken up into pieces. The universe is not a change from nothing, it IS nothing, just in a different configuration. I've explained this to you before, please refer to those threads for a refresher on the topic.

Oh, so I can tell all of the creditors that keeps calling me and asking for money...I will tell them that I will take $0.00 amount of dollars, break it into pieces, and pay them all off??

Foolish, Kenisaw...foolish.

Not only is it not necessary, it's illogical. If you have the time I'd love to read your replies to the responses that people took the time you give you in this thread that pointed out some logical flaws in your OP.

Huh?

[For_The_Kingdom]

You have yet to show that it is necessary for it to exist. I look forward to your explanation of why it is necessary whenever you get a chance to do so...

To answer questions of "why it is necessary"....we will have to wait for the KCA thread...as the question of "why" is irrelevant to the argument.

[Kenisaw]

Ok, I'm totally cherry picking here, but I had to respond to this.

You are suggesting an eternal past is absurd, yet an eternal God is not?

I think anything eternal fries my brain when I think about it too hard, but if you are going to grant one thing is absurd to being eternal, I think you are destroying your own argument for something else being eternal.

There is a difference in existing eternally, and existing eternally in time. One is absurd, and the other one isn't.

Can you guess which one is, and which one isn't?

Why is one absurd?

[Artie]

The quote from Lemaître is irrelevant

You said in post 69 and I quote: "And it is obvious to anyone with common sense that if the universe began to exist, whatever gave it its beginning could not itself be a product of it.

Therefore, an external, supernatural cause is necessary. Now, that is a conclusion that just flows logically/naturally from the premises". No, an external, supernatural cause is not necessary and if you can manage to say "that is a conclusion that just flows logically/naturally from the premises" one must wonder what's wrong with your premises and conclusion.