[3] How can we outline this argument? This essay critically examines Plantinga's modal version. Ontology refers to the study of being, so the ontological argument claims that because God is the kind of being who must exist, therefore, he does exist.Most arguments for God’s existence start from something we observe in the world that logically infer God as the cause of these observable effects (e.g. And how does it bear on the ontological argument? Plantinga has expressed a modal logic version of the ontological argument in which he uses modal logic to develop, in a more rigorous and formal way, Norman Malcolm's and Charles Hartshorne's modal ontological arguments. Alvin Plantinga is one of the greatest living Christian philosophers. Such an argument works like this. The principal issue to be settled with respect to Plantinga's ontological argument is what warrant exists for thinking the key premiss "It's possible that a maximally great being exists" to be true. A being, then, has the maximal degree of greatness in a given world W only if it has maximal excellence in every possible world. One of the most curious arguments for the existence of God has been presented by St. Anselm, René Descartes, and many other theologians throughout the centuries: the Ontological Argument. Is there a possible mountain just like Mt. Normally, existential claims don't follow from conceptual claims. [42] But perhaps we can repair the argument. They try to gain objective meaning from an entirely subjective word, and fail because of it. The idea of a maximally great being is intuitively a coherent idea, and so it … The idea of a maximally great being is intuitively a coherent idea, and so it seems plausible that such a being could exist. Be that as it may what is presently relevant in Findlay’s piece is this passage: Not only is it contrary to the demands and claims inherent in religious attitudes that their object should exist “accidentally”; it is also contrary to these demands that it should possess its various excellences in some merely adventitious manner. We know what actual beings are — the Taj Mahal, Socrates, you and I, the Grand Teton — these are among the more impressive examples of actually existing beings. The classical formulation of the argument is (1): 1. Most forms of the ontological argument rely on the premise that existence is greater than non-existence, or that necessary existence is greater than conditional existence. J. N. Findlay once offered what can only be called an ontological disproof of the existence of God. William Lane Craig considers Alvin Plantinga's version of the ontological argument as having "the best chance of being cogent" (WLC 2004, p. 125: WLC 2008, p. 183), because "the formulation and defense of the argument provided by Plantinga are the most sophisticated in the long history of the ontological argument, profiting from the missteps and oversights of his predecessors" (WLC 2008, p. 183). Indeed, there are worlds in which she does not so much as exist. Debate about the meaning and significance of possible worlds to the discipline of modal logic remains current among philosophers. This means that. [6] Now when Anselm says that a being exists in the understanding, we may take him, I think, as saying that someone has thought of or thought about that being. It’s more helpful since being is implied instead of a thing. Perhaps Kant is thinking along the following lines. The claim is that God does not exist can’t be necessarily false. Take any one of these properties: a thing is a bachelor only if it has it, and if a thing has all of them, then it follows that it is a bachelor. Pruss on Possibility of Maximally Great Being. Atheist philosophers were horrified. One of the most curious arguments for the existence of God has been presented by St. Anselm, René Descartes, and many other theologians throughout the centuries: the Ontological Argument. Here, Plantinga attempted to use the philosophical concept of possible worlds to show the necessary nature of God's existence. All that follows is that (10) All the superbachelors there are exist. Accordingly, B’s nonexistence is impossible in every possible world; hence it is impossible in this world; hence B exists and exists necessarily. Unfortunately for the argument, however, (21′) does not contradict (20). The ontological argument was created by Anselm as an attempt to supply Christians with some sort of arguable foundation for the belief in God which they already possessed. Suppose P1…, Pn are the defining properties for the concept bachelor. Plantinga progressed through a number of versions of his ontological argument. . At first sight, [Anselm’s] argument smacks of trumpery and deceit; but suppose we look at it a bit more closely. All Categories; Metaphysics and Epistemology P2: It is better to exist in reality than to exist conceptually. (For a substantive critique of Plantinga's more technically stated version given in his The Nature of Necessity, see Mackie [1982].). Theism. How are we to think of them? If we take it as (21”), on the other hand, then indeed it is useful in the argument, but we have no reason whatever to think it true. Furthermore, you recall that an object can have different properties in different worlds. But what else is there? In the first of these versions existence is held to be a perfection or a great-making property; in the second it is necessary existence. There is a possible world in which maximal greatness is instantiated. According to the great German philosopher and pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer, the ontological argument arises when, “someone excogitates a conception, composed out of all sorts of predicates, among which, however, he takes care to include the predicate actuality or existence, either openly or wrapped up for decency’s sake in some other predicate, such as perfection, immensity, or something of the kind.”. That is, if W’ had been actual, B’s nonexistence would have been impossible. x is a superbachelor if and only if x has P1 – Pn, and x exists. [39] But of course there are many other versions; one of the argument’s chief features is its many-sided diversity. They try to gain objective meaning from an entirely subjective word, and fail because of it. The Ontological Argument Mass Market Paperback – January 1, 1965 by Alvin Plantinga (Author) See all formats and editions Hide other formats and editions. (25) It is possible that there be a being that has maximal greatness. And suppose P1, P2, … , Pn, are the properties jointly sufficient and severally necessary for something’s falling under C. Then C can be defined as follows: A thing x is an instance of C (i.e., C applies to x) if and only if x has P1, P2, …, Pn. Or, more modestly, perhaps he means to say that if a being does not exist in a world W (and there is a world which x does exist), then there is at least one world in which the greatness of x exceeds the greatness of x in W. Suppose Raquel Welch does not exist some world W. Anselm means to say that then at least one possible world in which she has degree of greatness that exceeds the degree greatness she has in that world W. (It is plausible indeed, to go much further and hold that she no greatness at all in worlds in which she does not exist. By Darrin at 1/17/2009. Since Leibniz first coined the term, 'possible world', in the seventeenth century, it has gained widespread attention. But maximal excellence entails omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection. (27) A Being has maximal greatness in a given world only if it has maximal excellence in every world. And hence it accomplishes at least one of the aims of the tradition of natural theology. Does he mean instead to be speaking of propositions about things external to God, or about his aspects or parts or properties? Nonetheless, it seems to have a bad smell about it. And the version of the ontological argument we’ve been considering seems to make sense only on the assumption that there are such things. Is showing that it’s possible that God exists enough to also show that God actually exists? There is a possible world in which there is an entity whichposs… I will avoid discussion of controversial problems, such as transworld identity, because I do not think this is necessary for the purpose of this critique. In 1974 Alvin Plantinga published his Modal Ontological Argument. Try. Alvin Plantinga has produced an original and important study of the ontological argument. It starts off boldly: “For any being x and world W, …” So (14) is talking about worlds and beings. On Plantinga's Ontological Argument. As is typically done, we might think of a “possible world” as a complete way that things might have been. But what is a possible being? Rainier two miles directly south of the Grand Teton? Although the Ontological Argument comes in many forms, in this article we will be examining Alvin Plantinga’s Modal Ontological Argument. And yet nearly every major philosopher from the time of Anselm to the present has had something to say about it; this argument has a long and illustrious line of defenders extending to the present. Other arguments have been categorised as ontological, including those … I asked earlier what sorts of things (14) was about; the answer was: beings and worlds. [20] But then if (12) is contingent, so is (11). A being of maximal greatness must exist in every possible world, but such a being isn’t necessarily greater or more perfect than other inhabitants of those worlds. Caroline (Parent of Student), “My son really likes.