Countering the Modal Ontological Argument

References:

[christopherjohnson]

*The MOA is meant to inform, not to persuade. Many atheists grant that it is possible a maximally great being exists, and this argument informs them that when they say that, that it is equivalent to saying that a maximally great being exists. It's like this argument:
- David is a bachelor.
- A bachelor is an unmarried man.
- David is an unmarried man.
The argument would not be meant to persuade somebody that David was an unmarried man that didn't already believe he was a bachelor, it would be meant to inform somebody that believed that David was a bachelor but didn't know that he was an unmarried man that the two are in fact equivalent. The same holds with the MOA. Although it is sometimes used to persuade atheists, what it was meant to do is to inform an atheist that believes that a maximally great being is possible that it is the same as saying that a maximally great being exists.*

The Plantinga quote doesn't prove anything new. We've never said that the MOA, or any other argument for that matter, proves God exists with 100% certainty. Even the Modal Perfection Argument which was formulated to reinforce the key premise of the MOA, which follows from the laws of logic themselves if you accept very few assumptions that you otherwise would readily accept, doesn't establish that God exist with 100% certainty, because one could always just deny one of the assumptions.

*I've never heard Craig say that the MOA proves God with 100% certainty. It seems this is another atheist attempt at an ad hominem attack on him.*

The Goldbach's conjecture parody doesn't prove anything that shouldn't already be known to anyone who's had the MOA explained well to them. With both God's existence and mathematical statements, there are two options: either they are possible, and are thus true, or they are impossible, and thus not true. It is up to each individual person to decide whether the first premise of the MOA is more plausible than the first premise of the "anti-ontological argument."

*The great demon objection doesn't work if evil is privatio boni (which you can show by just thinking about it for a bit; when we do evil things, we do them for reasons that are good in of themselves. So evil is nothing more than twisted good.) Since evil is dependent on good to exist, the great demon would be dependent on good to exist, and therefore couldn't be "maximally evil." The first response to this response is based on another version of privatio boni. If something is neither uncorrupted good or corrupted good, then it is morally neutral. And I supported the idea of evil as privatio boni earlier.*

[internetenjoyer]

The Goldbach conjecture argument doesn't follow. The conjecture is not logically possible; whether it's true or false is logically necessary, we just don't know epistemically (ie, "for all we know") which one it is. Plantinga's proof assumes a maximally great being is logically possible, not just "possible for all we know". 

[Shimbabwe]

Maximal depravity would not include things like omniscience, omnipotence, which by definition are great making properties. Maximal depravity would include maximal irrationality, impotence, etc. So, the parody fails very decisively. Secondly @ 10:35, you are back to quasi omnipotence, as it is impossible for two omnipotent, omniscient, beings to co-exist. This is a logical absurdity.

Moreover the Goldbach Conjecture objection  is a complete non sequitir. You would have to somehow show that mathematics are necessary, and causal, in order to present a proper parallel. Neither pseudo objection harms the ontological argument. Oh, and by the way, you can't argue that an unsolved/unproven conjecture is a real objection, without knowing whether it is either necessary or contingent. It appears to me that these objections would cause one to suffer maximal embarrassment. 

[ElectricQualia]

The argument about Goldbach is wrong, it's confusing epistemic possibility with metaphysical/logical possibility.

[RYANTHEGREAT]

You missed the better objection. The Modal Ontological argument is a double-edged sword. If it is logically possible that a maximally great being does not exist in all possible worlds, then a maximally great being necessarily does not exist in all possible worlds. That objection more clearly shows the absurdity of the argument. If it's possible that God exists, then "he" necessarily exists in all possible worlds throughout all time. If it's possible that God does not exist, then "he" necessarily does not exist in all possible worlds throughout all time.

[Asilaygaming]

I think the problem with your example is that a maximally evil or an entity of fully lesser making properties is impossible because properties such as power, existence, necessity and so on would not be part of its ontology.  

[jax]

Could you tell me where you found this formulation of the argument?

[Fafner]

You are correct that the argument by itself can't tell what kind of entity it must be (perfectly good or perfectly evil), but that's not a fair critique of the argument itself, because it was designed in the first place to show something else, namely the special modal status of a necessary being with whatever properties it poses.

[MasterBarryShitpeas]

I've always found that the argument fails before it even gets to the modal logic. It expects you to accept its premise that a maximally great being is 'possible'. This is because it is designed to take advantage of your reluctance to assert that it is NOT possible (and take on the burden of proof for that assertion). In actuality however, I don't know whether such an entity is possible or impossible (since my knowledge obviously doesn't span the universe (of possibilities and impossibilities)...and beyond). Nobody is obliged to just accept that it is possible and NOR do they need to propose impossibility. Someone is perfectly entitled to say "I don't know if such entities are possible". The argument then cannot proceed because its premise has not been accepted. However, even if you supply the premise they're after, they're still in far more trouble than they probably realise or would admit...If for the sake of argument you do accept the premise that a maximally great being possibly exists, you are only accepting that it MIGHT exist. In accepting that, you are also accepting the possibility that it MIGHT NOT exist. If you only accept the possibility of 'might exist' and ignore the 'might not' (as apologists seem to be doing), you're discounting the possibility that it might not exist and already effectively accepting the ontological claim that it does - the claim the argument is trying to justify and so there's actually no need for the 'argument' at all. Anyway, if we run with the premise that a maximally great being MIGHT NOT exist then such an entity DOESN'T exist in AT LEAST one possible world. Since a maximally great entity must exist in all possible worlds in order to be maximally great, a world where no maximally great being exists disproves the existence of maximally great beings...Thus 'possibly exists/might exist' and 'possibly doesn't exist/might not exist' cancel each other out with the same perfectly valid modal logic and definitions of maximally great. That's because they are still only talking about possibilities in the absence of confirmed actuality. It only demonstrates how modal logic works and establishes nothing about what does or doesn't actually exist.

[CounterApologist]

Premise 2 in Plantinga's syllogism defines what Maximal Greatness is, and MG is defined as Maximal Excellence plus existing in every possible world, which means that Maximal Greatness is by definition "necessary".

That's explicitly where god is defined as being necessary in this argument.

[trenthorton]

Defining evil as the absence of good is not the same way good can be defined as the absence of evil, because one can be good for the sake of being good, but not evil for the sake of being evil. We have no reason to suspect that anyone can be evil for the sake of being evil since, in our lives, we only witness people gaining good things from being evil, such as power, safety, or pleasure. What this shows is that we have no reason to think a maximally evil being exists, and the burden is on the proponent of such a being to provide evidence for it's existence. As Plantinga and Craig admit, the ontological argument is not proof of God, it is used in conjunction with other arguments to show that a metaphysical, maximally great being is possible and therefore must exist.

[guillatra]

what's with the paper by shannon? It is discussed on talkorigins.

[CounterApologist]

Further, look at what you said "attributes as maximal greatness" which is "maximal excellence plus necessity", except "maximal excellence" has nothing to do with being "necessary", it could be anything non-contradictory plus "necessary", and it's "proven" necessary by the MOA. That's why the argument doesn't "prove anything" which was a point I made explicitly in the video.

[MyContext]

A square is a defined thing which actually has references. Whereas the term conceive amounts to limits of what you can imagine, but has no intrinsic references to support whether what is conceived is actually true. We have the capacity to invent all sorts of stuff in our mind, which does not exist. Which is why substantiation is an important requirement with regard to premises of any argument.

[Fafner]

3. And last thing, I agree with your general critique of the argument that it doesn't really work for someone who already doesn't find theism plausible (and therefore possible...). But what about people who do find theism plausible? Any argument is as good as it's premises, so there can't be a perfect argument with indisputable premises. So the ontological argument might work for people who find it's premises plausible, and I see nothing wrong in using your basic intuitions as the premises.

[CounterApologist]

And I've said you haven't shown that there is "no case of doing evil without some glimmer of good intention", it's an assertion. When presented with various evil scenarios you come up with contrived justifications to explain why it's the case.

The issue is whether or not something can have a "perfectly good" or a "perfectly evil" nature. Logically, the argument can be made either way with the same objections framed for either position. That's the point.

[CounterApologist]

I effectively addressed this point at 8:38 in the video (did you watch it?). Good is as much dependent on evil in the way you say. You need multiple beings for it to begin to apply. The great demon can create so that he has something to destroy, as your god creates so that they can be loved.

Your assertion that "evil must be defined" is an assertion, you define "good" as god's nature, I define evil as the demon's nature; from there we get the opposite.

[GlobalWarmingSkeptic]

On Goldbach's:
The reason why you can't use the Modal Ontological Argument here is because we know that there could be something that logically contradicts it. If we, for example, find an even number above 2 that isn't the sum of two primes, then that would logically contradict the conjecture.

You don't have that luxury with a maximally great and necessary being because there IS no logical inconsistency with saying "A maximally great being necessarily exists."It is internally consistent

[CounterApologist]

What is and isn't metaphysically possible is a designation that's largely up to any individual philosopher. I'd love to hear his distinctions on exactly how we can evaluate things like omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence in a way we can't evaluate the coherence of Goldbach's conjecture.

[CounterApologist]

I might be able to, though I have a few ideas lined up for some new videos ATM. Could you point me to some resources that lay out what information theory explicitly claims?