The Ontological Argument?

Since we're talking so much about philosophy these days...



I don't really understand how the Ontological Argument for God works. If you think it's possible for God to exist, then he must really exist? How does that follow?

To be honest, even having covered the argument in my Philosophy of Religion course at undergrad I still think it goes over my head. If I’m remembering correctly, the argument is relatively uncontroversial in showing that if it is even possible for God to exist, he must exist necessarily. The tricky part is showing that it is possible for God to exist.

Alvin Plantinga has written a book on the subject called The Nature of Necessity, wherein he formulated a version of the argument based upon possible worlds. Talking about possible worlds is a bit of a digression in and of itself so turn back now while you still can.

Basically they are a helpful tool used in Modal Logic (logic which deals with what is possible and what is necessary). A possible world is a “way things could have been”. They are not the same as a multiverse, as there could be possible worlds that contain the multiverse or possible worlds that contain just one universe if such is a way things could have been. Possible worlds were first conceived by a philosopher called David Lewis. Lewis was an eccentric guy who thought of them as Concrete Entities just as real as the Actual World (which is just this one). Most philosophers do not think this, but view them either as abstract objects or just rhetorical devices.

Back to Plantinga’s argument, which despite having read his book I posses a only very rudimentary grasp of. The argument is designed to show that if God exists in some possible world, he must exist in every possible world and therefore must exist in the actual world. I am sorry to say that such is the limit of my understanding, even after an Undergrad in Philosophy Plantinga’s more complex works still go over my head and this one is as lofty as it gets.

All in all this is a fascinating subject but you can probably see just how complicated it can get if you delve farther into it. Read his book if you’re really interested, but if you’re like me you would probably benefit from going back to it after your first read through.

I've been listening to the Reasonable Faith podcast as I jog for a few years now. The ontological argument pops up now and then and I had a great day a few months ago where I was like "I get it! I GET it! This is brilliant! What a great argument! People should hear about this!"

But now I can't remember how it works. (If I ever really got it in the first place.)

I still enjoy trying to wrap my head around it, but the bottom line for me is that this isn't an argument that easily bolsters my faith (my primary reason for learning apologetics) or that is likely to be useful when interacting with non-believers. So at this point its nothing more than an intellectual curiosity for me.

Funny... the Ontological argument is the argument I find most compelling, but the one I use the least.

It is sort of like a cementing element to all other arguments for the existence of "God".

And, for me, that is where things need to go: not just AN argument, but several/many arguments that show an overwhelming probability that God does exist.
After all, the Ontological argument, even if it holds, only points in the direction of the God of the Bible (thus why I use quotation marks above), but not at God. It is more of a "if the deity in question does not fulfill this argument, then it is not God".

And that brings me to how I usually do use the Ontological argument... that is in response to "Why do you think YOUR God is the one God, and not Thor or Odin or Qetzlcoatl?"

mikel.withers wrote:
It is sort of like a cementing element to all other arguments for the existence of "God".

And, for me, that is where things need to go: not just AN argument, but several/many arguments that show an overwhelming probability that God does exist.

Yeah, I think that's where I find its greatest usefulness, as part of a cumulative case.