Would the Real Ontological Argument Please Stand Up?
Dr. Craig responds to a caricature of the Ontological Argument and presents the actual premises of the argument.
VIDEO: Let's start with everyone's favorite argument for God, and if this isn't your favorite argument for God then you're wrong. It's the argument that asserts that if you can think of it, it's real. I call it the imagination game, but you may know it as the ontological argument. Allow me to demonstrate. I have produced here for you the greatest possible presentation. If this, the greatest possible presentation, did not exist then you could produce a greater possible presentation. But you cannot produce a greater possible presentation than this, the greatest possible presentation. Hence, this is the greatest possible presentation. Checkmate.
DR. CRAIG: All right. Let's stop it there, Cameron. I think he has really caricatured the ontological argument. It is not based upon your ability to imagine that God exists. So imagining the greatest possible presentation (or he'll give some other parodies later) are not at all analogous to the ontological argument. The argument is based upon the possibility that there is a maximally great being – one that is omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect, and necessarily existent. It's not just a matter of imagination. It's a matter of what you think is possible.
CAMERON BERTUZZI: Metaphysically possible.
DR. CRAIG: Yes.
CAMERON BERTUZZI: All right. We'll continue.
VIDEO: You see, the ontological argument treats existence as if it's an attribute and then reasons that God must have this attribute since he is by definition the greatest possible being. Yes, I know this is philosophical masturbation at its finest.
DR. CRAIG: Can we put up the actual premises of the ontological argument in the form that Alvin Plantinga defines it? This is how the argument actually goes.
- It's possible that a maximally great being (called God) exists, where maximal greatness is defined as omniscience, omnipotence, moral perfection, and necessary existence.
- If it is possible that a maximally great being exists then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
- If a maximally great being exists in some possible world then it exists in every possible world.
- If a maximally great being exists in every possible world then it exists in the actual world.
- Therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world.
- Therefore, a maximally great being exists.
- Therefore, God exists.
This is how the strongest modal versions of the ontological argument go. What he's attacking in the video is an extremely weak version of the ontological argument, and his criticisms of that simply don't apply to these modal formulations of the argument.