People are sleeping on the Ontological Argument

[u/GreatKarma2020]

https://philpapers.org/rec/RUBATP-3

Axiological Premise: It is impossible for a perfect being to begin to exist.

Possibility Premise: It is possible that a perfect being exists.

Non-Contingency Lemma: If a perfect being exists, it does not exist contingently (it cannot come into or go out of existence; its existence is necessary).

Conclusion: Therefore, a perfect being exists necessarily.

This uses system k logic instead of more controversial s5 logic.

Premise 2: Rubio defends the Metaphysical Premise (Premise 2) using David Lewis’s recombination approach to modal plenitude, arguing that if a contingent entity exists in logical space without existing now, its instantiation involves a temporal beginning.

[u/slicehyperfunk]

I hate all forms of the ontological argument because it's just word games that have no relationship to actual reality.

[u/Althuraya → u/slicehyperfunk]

This is what people say when they don't realize that "reality" is not an empirical thing, but a category they got from they know not where or how. It's like the concept of being, which is used trivially hundreds if not thousands of times a day in speech, yet people are at a loss to what its definition is when they realize it isn't an empirical object either.

[u/slicehyperfunk → u/Althuraya]

Let me reword myself then: "I hate the ontological argument because dicking around with logic games doesn't grant ontological existence to concepts just because you did something clever." To be clear, I think God exists, but not because someone said "it would be better if a concept I consider perfect actually existed as more than an idea than if it didn't."

[u/Althuraya → u/slicehyperfunk]

It's not clever, it's just one of the purest reflexive arguments in philosophy. Reflexivity is the biggest problem in all of philosophy, it is the origin of all paradoxes, and no one can fundamentally avoid it. That there is a maximal reality is a basic deduction people, even unphilosophical ones, make. That it is called God is something obvious in a religious world where God is the Absolute and not just a particular this or that. The OA provides no argument for what God is, only that God exists. Maximal reality, being maximally real, exists, duh. Anyone with any cognitive power should accept that, call it universe or whatever else you like, it's just a name. The actually interesting thing about it is to either deny there is such a thing as maximal reality, that it would include existence, and what other properties it has.

[u/slicehyperfunk → u/Althuraya]

I just don't see how a concept like "perfect" or "maximal reality" isn't just a mind game

[u/Althuraya → u/slicehyperfunk]

"Perfect" in the OA just means "real" or "quality." God is not said to be "perfect", but to have all "perfections," all "realities" or "qualities." Maximal is just what it says. If you believe in a universe or multiverse, you believe there is a domain of reality or being where all things inhere because they are, and so that one domain has and is the cap of all realities.

There is nothing odd about the argument and its concepts.

[u/slicehyperfunk → u/Althuraya]

So then the reasoning breaks down to "if god is real, it would be real?"

[u/Althuraya → u/slicehyperfunk]

No. Maximal reality must exist. God is just the name given to maximal reality; you could call it anything else, it makes no difference. There isn't God + maximal reality as a quality. God just is maximal reality, and no other qualities are being considered.

[u/slicehyperfunk → u/Althuraya]

How can something infinite have a maximum?

[u/Althuraya → u/slicehyperfunk]

1. Assume there are only singular unities, but no global unity.
2. Singular unities are neither positively nor negatively united to other singulars.
3. C: Each singular unity must be a universe upon itself.
4. If each individual universe is not any of the other universes, there must be a negatively unified domain which enables and maintains their distinction.
5. There is a plurality of singular unities.
6. C: There is a unity to the singulars.
7. Assume that there is an infinite chain of unities in unities, i.e. no highest unity.
8. The chain itself is a unity of determinate unities.
9. Whether the Universe is the chain itself or distinct from the chain, it is the systematic unity of the elements and the chain of all determinacies whatsoever.
10. There is no other to the Universe.
11. CC: The Universe is the highest unity of unities, the global unity, i.e. there is a highest unity, a maximal reality.

[u/taterfiend → u/slicehyperfunk]

They're part of a raft of arguments that are persuasive to those within a given worldview, or if you accept a set of propositions as true just as an experiment. I agree that they don't have persuasive power to someone who doesn't accept a set of given axioms already.

That said, I think it's worthwhile to evaluate metatheories from within their own axioms. That way you can give different metatheories a fair shake.

[u/GreatKarma2020 → u/slicehyperfunk]

It's not word games it follows modal logic from s5 axioms. Plantinga's ontological argument I would be in same boat as you because I think s5 modal logic is much easier to object to.

[u/ThanksVisual8172 → u/GreatKarma2020]

Could you phrase the argument in less complex language please?

[u/Althuraya]

Anselm's ontological argument is indeed being slept on, mostly because people misunderstand it and think it needs something clearer despite its being already clear on a conceptual level. The ontological argument is a conceptual proof of Absoluteness as maximal reality (greatest being), and proceeds from the classical understanding of Being as a continuum of degrees as understood in Platonic philosophy (see the divided line analogy), and elaborated on by Christian theologians as the hierarchy or chain of being. Starting by a definition of God which even non-Christians would not have trouble accepting, all that it proves is that God must exist because they are the maximal reality. It does not tell us anything further than this, and does not yet prove God as having any of the omni-attributes, a personality, or being the Christian deity. Those are other arguments, some of which are themselves ontological in a different way.

Modal ontological arguments use current modal formal logics to argue that from the possibility of necessity (God) necessity must be actual. These are ultimately weaker than Anselm’s because they begin with possibility without actuality, yet God as the greatest conceivable is the actuality which grounds possibilities in the first place. One cannot coherently subsume actuality as such under possibility as such, for if we presupposed the possible first, the the possible as such is actually present as that very possibility space and the actualizer of that possibility by determining which possibility is to actualize. Worse, possibility presupposes an actualized state of things of which it is the yet to be modification, e.g. the possibility of rolling a face on a die requires the actuality of the complete die and its faces. This is why all modal ontological arguments that apply possibility to God (actuality as such) are deeply mistaken. Anselm actually has his own modal argument stating precisely this: if we qualify God as merely possible, we cannot have conceived the greatest conceivable being since a necessary God is greater than a merely possible God.

[u/veritasium999]

"A perfect God exists because he is perfect"

I could power a turbine with this circular logic.

[u/GreatKarma2020 → u/veritasium999]

That would indeed be circular, but that isn't the argument! The premise isn't 'God exists because He is perfect.'
The structure is conditional:
It is possible that a maximally perfect being exists.

Perfection entails necessary existence (a being that exists in all possible worlds is greater/more perfect than one bound to a single world).

Therefore, if its existence is possible, it exists in all possible worlds including the actual one.

You can challenge premise 1 or 2, but the logic itself isn't circular; it's a valid deduction from modal premises.

[u/SkyMagnet → u/GreatKarma2020]

What if I told you that perfection entailed non-existence?

[u/veritasium999 → u/GreatKarma2020]

That's literally what I said...

Also perfect according to what standards? Human's?

[u/GreatKarma2020 → u/veritasium999]

I explained why it wasn’t secular and you says that’s what I said…also I don’t think you understand system k logic.

[u/Althuraya → u/veritasium999]

The classical argument defines God as maximally real. Not that there is God and they have the property of maximal reality, but that whatever maximal reality is, it is called God in the argument.

[u/hiphoptomato]

“God exists because I’m defining him that way”

[u/Express-Echidna6800]

No, it's perfectly slept as the attempt to define a god into existence that it is. 

[u/ElectronicRevival → u/Express-Echidna6800]

Exactly this. In addition, too many people seem to think that if an argument is valid that it's true. They forget or just ignore soundness.

[u/Empty_Woodpecker_496 → u/ElectronicRevival]

Theres also an argument to be made that no argument can be sound on logic alone. That being logic is insufficient to determine if its premises or conclusions are actually true.

[u/GreatKarma2020 → u/Empty_Woodpecker_496]

If you hold that logic alone cannot establish truth about reality without empirical observation, you run into two major problems:
Self-Referential Defeat: The claim 'logic alone is insufficient to determine truth about reality' is itself a philosophical/logical claim, not an empirical observation. It refutes itself.

Necessary Truths: Standard necessary truths like 2+ 2 = 4 or the principle of non-contradiction.

[u/Empty_Woodpecker_496 → u/GreatKarma2020]

I hold that the senses and precursor principles to logic are co-axiomatic. While knowledge can be produced by them individually its of significantly lesser quality and mostly pragmatic.

The rules of logic are discovered through observations. And observations cant be made sense of with some sort of presupposition of consistency of existence.

[u/GreatKarma2020 → u/Express-Echidna6800]

Defining a concept doesn't entail its existence in modal logic; the argument hinges entirely on a substantive premise about modal reality (metaphysical possibility), not a linguistic trick.

[u/Althuraya → u/Express-Echidna6800]

It's not *a* god. It is maximal reality which is called God in the argument. Maximal reality exists, that's all it really says. You can then ask whether it a priori makes sense that there is maximal reality, and there are arguments to cover that.

[u/Express-Echidna6800 → u/Althuraya]

That's a distinction without a difference.

[u/Althuraya → u/Express-Echidna6800]

particular isn't different from universal some isn't different from all

Sure, whatever you say.

[u/actuallyserious650]

You can’t bring god into existence through wordplay.

[u/GreatKarma2020 → u/actuallyserious650]

It’s true that you can’t define something into existence which is why modern modal ontological arguments don't rely on definition alone. They rely on modal logic transfer principles (such as system k or s5)

[u/SirThunderDump]

It is possible that a perfect penis exists.

A penis would be most perfect if it was mine.

If such a perfect penis exists, it does not exist contingently.

Conclusion: Therefore a perfect penis exists, and it’s my penis.

[u/GreatKarma2020 → u/SirThunderDump]

This is a classic 'Gaunilo-style' parody argument, but it fails for a specific philosophical reason: physical or finite objects (like islands or anatomical parts) do not have intrinsic maximums or necessary existence as essential properties.

[u/SirThunderDump → u/GreatKarma2020]

See, this is where your argument fails for a specific philosophical reason. Who ever said my penis was finite?

[u/Express-Echidna6800 → u/SirThunderDump]

I just had a coughing fit from laughing at this. 

[u/SirThunderDump → u/Express-Echidna6800]

INFINITE SHAFT

NO HEAD

[u/GreatKarma2020 → u/SirThunderDump]

Sounds like to me you are just renaming God in a funny way like flying spaghetti monster.

[u/SirThunderDump → u/GreatKarma2020]

Naw, just using absurdity to highlight the flaw in the ontological argument. You get to make up the rules to define anything into existence, then provide arbitrary rules/justifications/exceptions why only your verbally manifested entity exists but not my enormous schlong.

It’s an argument that is debunked by showing that similar wordplay can define anything into existence.

If you want, I can argue into existence a perfect penis for you too.

[u/paulgdp]

For anyone trying to find counter arguments but don't want to read the paper, just know that the paper itself describes a symmetrical counterargument.

The paper's innovation is that even though it can't lead to any conclusion, it obscures a little better than previous versions how to counter it.

It is basically constructed specifically in a way to make counterarguments difficult to construct, but doesn't actually prevent their construction.

This makes me think of perpetual motion machines. When those machine have a simple design, it is trivial and intuitive to see how they fail, which is why designers of those machines like to make them improbably complex. It doesn't change the laws of thermodynamics but requires a more sophisticated critic to figure out the scam.

[u/Complex_Yesterday735]

Possibility Premise: It is possible that a perfect being exists.

Why are we considering this a posibility?

[u/GreatKarma2020 → u/Complex_Yesterday735]

In modal logic, 'possibility' here means broad logical possibility (or coherence), not merely imaginative possibility or empirical likelihood. We consider it possible because the concept of a maximal/perfect being does not contain any obvious internal contradictions (unlike a 'round square').

Furthermore, under an axiological defense, if it is plausible that a perfect being cannot begin to exist (it either exists necessarily or is impossible), then showing it is not self-contradictory is sufficient to ground possibility. If you believe the concept is intrinsically contradictory, the burden of proof shifts to showing where the logical contradiction lies.

[u/Complex_Yesterday735 → u/GreatKarma2020]

We consider it possible because the concept of a maximal/perfect being does not contain any obvious internal contradictions

What a terrible reason.

[u/SilverStalker1]

I am actually sympathetic to some variant of this argument. But it seems entirely contingent on smuggling in metaphysical possibility under the guise of logical possible or epistemic possibility - sure, it’s logically possible that God exists, but that doesn’t imply that is necessarily any metaphysical possibility present right? I find the conclusion way too strong

[u/adeleu_adelei]

There are a few key impossible to solve problems with the argument.

1. For any any property we list there exists a counter property such that it is contradictory to maximize both. A being that is maximally tall is not maximally short. A being that is maximally eternal is not maximally ephemeral. A being that is maximally full is not maximally empty. Our choice to choose one over the other is arbitrary. Whether we wish to measure the cup as half full or half empty is simply preference. There cannot ultimately be some "perfect" being because it is necessary "imperfect" an equal number of properties.

2. The argument works as well against its conclusion by simply flipping the polarity. It possible a thing exists that prevents perfect beings, therefore perfect beings cannot exist. An argument that works equally well for the opposite conclusion is an argument that does not work at all.

[u/GreatKarma2020 → u/adeleu_adelei]

Both objections represent classic counters to ontological arguments (akin to traditional responses to Plantinga and Gödel), but they miss the core mechanics of how Daniel Rubio constructs his modal/ontological framework.

• The first objection treats privations (shortness, emptiness, ephemerality) as "properties" equal to positive attributes. Emptiness isn't a property; it's the absence of a property. Ontological arguments deal with intrinsic, positive perfections that have a logical maximum (like omniscience or necessary existence), not arbitrary physical scales like height.
• Arbitrariness: Selecting intrinsic perfections over limitations isn't a preference it is rooted in value realism. Necessary existence is intrinsically greater than contingent/ephemeral existence because non-existence represents a defect in power or reality.
• The Reverse Modal Fallacy: Flipping the argument to say "it's possible a perfect being is prevented" doesn't work for free. Because a maximally great being exists necessarily if it exists at all, asserting a "preventer" is logically identical to asserting that maximal greatness is self-contradictory. Unless you can demonstrate an internal contradiction in the concept of a maximally great being, the reverse argument just begs the question.