The Ontological Proof (II)

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The Ontological Proof (II)

• We have seen that, if someone wishes to challenge
  the soundness of the Modal Ontological, he denies
  the truth of the second premise of the simplified
  version
• It is possible for God to exist.
• (God being understood in Anselmian terms, i.e
  the Being than Whom none greater can be
  conceived.)

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• One way to show that it is not possible for an
  Anselmian God to exist is to show that the
  Anselmian conception of God is incoherent
• In other words, one shows that the Anselmian
  conception of God is just as incoherent, though
  in a subtler way, as the concept of a square
  circle, or a four-sided triangle, or a married
  bachelor.

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• The Anselmian conception of God is incoherent
  because the concept of an omnipotent Being is
  incoherent.
• Can an omnipotent Being create a stone too heavy
  for Him to life?
• If you say yes, then there is something the
  supposedly omnipotent Being cannot do, namely
  lift the stone Hes created.
• If you say no, then there is still something
  the supposedly omnipotent being cannot do, namely
  created the stone.

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• This paradox, say the critics of the possibility
  of an omnipotent Being proves that the concept of
  an omnipotent Being is incoherent. Therefore,
  there cannot be one.
• The Proper Conception of Omnipotence.
• For EVERY proposition p, if it is logically
  possible that God bring it about that p is
  true, then God is omnipotent
• Richard Gale in the Phillips Anthology, p. 44

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• More simply, God is omnipotent if He can bring
  about any logically possible event or entity.
• Consequentially, it is not a blow to Gods
  omnipotence that He cannot create a logically
  impossible entity, e.g. a square circle.
• A square circle is not a logically possible
  entity.
• A square circle is bogus and phony.
• A square circle is a fraud and chimera.

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• Thus, Gods inability to make a square circle
  is not a genuine limitation on His power or
  abilities.
• Response to the Paradox of the Stone
• A stone too heavy for an omnipotent Being to
  lift is just as bogus and phony as a square
  circle.
• If the Being in question is truly omnipotent,
  then there is never a stone too heavy for Him to
  lift.

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• This is so in exactly the same way that there is
  never a square that is a circle.
• If it is a square, then it is not a circle.
• If the being is truly omnipotent, then the stone
  is not too heavy for Him to lift.
• Since it is just as bogus and phony as a square
  circle, Gods inability to make a stone too
  heavy for an omnipotent Being to lift is not a
  genuine limitation on Gods power or abilities.

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• The Anselmian conception of God is incoherent
  because the various Aselmian divine attributes
  are not compossible, i.e. the same being cannot
  possess all of them at once.
• For example, omnibenevolence is not compossible
  with omniscience.
• Definitions
• Omniscience A Being is omniscient if and only
  if the Being possesses all possible knowledge,
  including knowledge of what it is like to do
  everything that can be done.

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• Omnibenevolence A Being is omnibenevolent if
  and only if the Being is perfectly just and
  merciful. Thus, an omnibenevolent Being would
  never wrong anyone.
• An Argument for the Incompossibility of
  Omniscience and Omnibenevolence
• 1.) There can be a Being, call the Being D, that
  is both omniscient and omnibenevolent.
  (Assumption for Reducio)

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• 2.) D knows what it is like to torture an
  innocent child to death (from No. 1 and the
  Definition of Omniscience)
• 3.) If D knows what it is like to torture an
  innocent child to death, then D has actually
  tortured an innocent child to death. (Premise)
• 4.) D has actually tortured an innocent child to
  death. (from Nos. 2 3)

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• 5.) If D has tortured an innocent child to
  death, then D has wronged someone. (Premise)
• 6.) D has wronged someone. (from Nos. 4 5)
• 7.) D has not wronged anyone (from No. 1 and the
  Definition of Omnibenevolence)
• 8.) D has both wronged and not wrong the same
  person, i.e. the innocent child D has tortured to
  death. (from Nos. 6 7) No. 8 is
  self-contradictory.

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• 9.) Therefore, there cannot be a Being that is
  both omniscient and omnibenevolent. QED.
• Response to the Argument
• The argument is valid, i.e. if all of its
  premises are true, then its conclusion must be
  true.
• Thus, an Aselmian theist must challenge the
  truth of one of the arguments premises.
• It would be rather hard for an Anselmian theist
  to challenge the truth of No. 5

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• No. 5 claims that torturing an innocent child to
  death is sufficient for ones having wronged
  someone, namely the innocent child one has
  tortured to death.
• If this is not true, then its nearly impossible
  to see what can be sufficient for ones having
  wronged someone.

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• An Anselmian theist must deny the truth of No. 3.
  Why believe No. 3 is true?
• One might claim that the only way someone can
  know what its like to do something is to
  actually do that thing.
• Thus, if one knows what it is like to torture an
  innocent child to death, one must have actually
  tortured an innocent child to death.

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• Is it possible for someone to know what it is
  like to do a thing without actually having done
  that thing?
• Through imagination, humans often seem to know
  what it is like to do something without actually
  having done that thing.
• Writers often are able to imagine what its like
  to do something they never have done and then
  describe what its like in their fiction.

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• For example, Stephen Crane had never been in an
  actual battle when he wrote The Red Badge of
  Courage, a novel about, among other things, what
  it was like to be in a Civil War battle.
• Many veterans of the Civil War claimed that
  Crane captured what it was like to be in a Civil
  War battle better than anyone else.

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• Thus, it seems Crane was able to use His
  imagination to gain at least some knowledge of
  what it was like to be in a Civil War battle.
• If Crane, with his limited imagination, could do
  this, then why cant God, with His unlimited
  imagination, know perfectly what it is like to
  torture an innocent child to death?

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• Gods Creative Knowledge
• Since God is the Creator of humans, he must have
  a unique and special knowledge of them.
• This unique and special knowledge must be
  analogous to the unique and special knowledge a
  parent, especially a mother, has of her children.

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• Gods unique and special knowledge of humans
  must include knowledge of what it is like for a
  human to torture an innocent child to death.
• Since God has a special and unique knowledge
  of all His creatures, knowing each one of them
  as it is, distinct in its own nature, He must
  know all the opposed negations and

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• opposed privations . . . . Consequentially,
  since evil is the privation of good, by knowing
  any good at all and the measure of any thing
  whatsoever, God knows every evil thing.
• Saint Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, Question No.
  2, Article No. 15
• In this argument, Aquinas relies on the
  Augustinian (ultimately Platonic) idea that every
  evil is the privation, or negation, or perversion
  of some good.

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• Thus, one may know any evil by knowing the good
  of which it is a perversion.
• Let us assume that to know what it is like to
  torture an innocent child to death is to know a
  particular species of hate.
• Since hate is the perversion of love, God can
  know what it is like for humans to hate by
  knowing what it is like for them to love.

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• Another way to put it is to say that, since God
  is their Creator, God knows what it is like for
  humans to sin.
• Satan is sinful because he vacated the being
  God have him, emptied it of all of its once
  scintillating possibilities. Satan is sinful,
  not for what he is, but for what he is not.
• D. Q. McInerny, Evil in Perennial Wisdom for
  Daily Life, p. 106

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• Since sin is nothing more than humans vacating
  the existence God gave them, who would know
  better than God what that vacating is like.
• Given all of the above, Anselmian theists have
  reasonable, if not conclusive, responses to the
  claim that omniscience and omnibenevolence are
  not compossible.

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• Ill give Alvin Plantinga the final word on the
  Modal Ontological Proof.
• If we carefully ponder Step (B.) of the
  simplified version, if we consider its
  connections with other propositions we accept or
  reject and still find it compelling, we are
  within our rights in accepting it . . . . Hence .
  . . our verdict must be as follows Since it
  is rational to accept its central premise, the
  modal ontological proof does show that it is
  rational if not obligatory to accept its
  conclusion. And, perhaps that is all that can be
  expected of any such argument.
• Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, p. 221