The Ontological Argument

number five the possibility of God's existence now I've rarely shared this argument in a public lecture before not because I think it's unsound but because it's so abstract that students are apt to think that it's either a trick or else that they just don't understand it but tonight I'm going to go out on a limb and share it with you now in order to understand this argument you first need to understand what philosophers mean by possible worlds a possible world is just a way the world might have been it's a complete description of reality so a possible world is not a planet or a universe or any kind of concrete object it's just a world description the actual world is the description that is true other possible worlds are descriptions that might have been true but are not in fact true to say that something exists in some possible world is to say that there is some description of reality which includes that entity to say that something exists in every possible world is to say that no matter which description is true the entity will be included in that description so for example unicorns do not in fact exist but there is some possible world in which unicorns exist on the other hand many mathematicians think that numbers exist in every possible world they exist necessarily now with that background in mind consider the ontological argument which was discovered in 1011 by the monk and some of Canterbury God says and some is by definition the greatest being conceivable if you could conceive of anything greater than God then that would be God so by definition God is the greatest conceivable being a maximally great being so what would such a being be like well he would be all-powerful all-knowing all good and he would exist in every logically possible world a being which lacked any of those properties would not be maximally great we could conceive of something even greater but what that implies is that if God's existence is even possible than it follows that God must exist for if a maximally great being exists in any possible world it exists in all of them that's part of what it means to be maximally great to be all-powerful all-knowing and all good in every logically possible world so if God's existence is even possible he exists in every logically possible world and therefore in the actual world now we can summarize this argument as follows number one it's possible that a maximally great being aka God exists two if it's 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 5 therefore a maximally great being exists in the actual world 6 therefore a maximally great being exists 7 therefore God exists now it might surprise you to learn that steps through a 2 through 7 of this argument are relatively uncontroversial most philosophers agreed that if God's existence is even possible then he must exist so the whole question is premise one is God's existence possible well what do you think the Atheist has to maintain that it's impossible that God exists he has to say that the concept of God is logically incoherent like the idea of a married bachelor or a round square but the problem is that the concept of God just doesn't appear to be incoherent in that way the idea of a being which is all-powerful all-knowing and all good in every logically possible world seems perfectly coherent moreover as we've seen there are other arguments for God's existence which at least suggest that it's logically possible that God exists so I'll simply leave it to you tonight do you think that it's possible that God exists if you do then it follows logically that God does exist

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Keywords: Ontological, Argument, God, William, Lane, Craig, Alvin, Plantinga, Greater, Being, Anselm, Philosophy, Religion, Possible, Worlds

Id: dr36HID62wM

Length: 5min 40sec (340 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 25 2010