Existence by Definition: The Modal Ontological Argument Examined

The following is a philosophical analysis of the video essay, "The Ontological Argument." Video content is highlighted in red.

 

[0:00—0:27] In the year 1078, a monk named Anselm of Canterbury astonished the world by arguing that if it is even possible that God exists, then it follows logically that God does exist. Anselm’s argument came to be called the Ontological Argument, and it has sharply divided philosophers ever since.

If I had to name the single worst argument in the history of Christian philosophy, it would probably have to be the modal ontological argument for the existence of God. Not because it's a bad argument per se, but because of how aggressively bad it is. It's an argument that practically insults you with its own arrogance, and I find it genuinely baffling how Christian apologists try to defend this thing.

Imagine a hypothetical community of PhD scholars have been toiling for years on the ultimate argument for God's existence. Allegedly, this community is comprised skilled professionals who have devoted their lives to administering the Word of God and bringing souls unto salvation. Finally, the time comes to reveal their masterpiece of philosophical brilliance. This is the result:
 
"God exists because I say so, and if you don't like it, then you're just a stupid dummy head who eats babies."
 
Ask yourself right now. If you were a true-believing Christian, how exactly would this make you feel? How would it feel to know that your best and brightest minds were getting paid actual money to go on television and defend your God with this level of scholarship? 

Well, I don't know about you, but if I were a Christian, then I would be outraged. I would make it my personal business to ensure that all good Christians deny the blasphemous heretics who insulted my God with this level of prideful arrogance. So when the team at Reasonable Faith are basically doing exactly that with the ontological argument, I can't help but get confused. Most ordinary Christians seem to have the exact opposite reaction. They actually feel impressed with this thing, as if it were the greatest achievement in the philosophy of religion.
 
If that sounds a bit hyperbolic to you, then just listen to what this argument is supposedly saying:

1. It is possible that God exists.
2. Therefore, it is actual that God exists(?).

Ask yourself right now, how exactly is the mere possibility of anything supposed to logically entail its own existence? That has never been a thing in the history of math, science, or philosophy. It's as if the argument hasn’t even begun yet, and we can already tell that it is nothing but a giant failure waiting to happen.
 
It's important to understand that when we say it is possible for God to exist, we’re saying exactly that. It is possible. As in, maybe God exists, or maybe God doesn't exist. We don't know yet. At best, all we can establish is that the mere proposition itself---God exists---has at least one self-consistent interpretation. Yet according to Christian apologists, this simple fact, in an of itself, somehow supposed to logically entail God's real existence in the real world. 

I'm very sorry, guys, but that's just not how the world works, and you don't need a PhD in philosophy to understand why.

But who knows? Maybe I'm just being harsh. Maybe the ontological argument really is a triumph of Christian philosophy. William Lane Craig certainly seems to think so, and he even convinced a team of Reasonable Faith animators to put together an entire video about it. So by all means, guys. Take it away.

[0:27—0:42] The 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer called it a “charming joke,” but many prominent 20th century philosophers, like Charles Hartshorne, Norman Malcolm, and Alvin Plantinga, think that it’s sound.

 

Okay, let’s just talk about this for a minute. There is a lot of subtle manipulation going on here, and I think it deserves to be recognized for what it is.

First off, take a look at this image and think about the message it seems to convey. On the right, I can clearly see three examples of "prominent 20th century philosophers" who think the ontological argument sound. In contrast, I'm only shown one example of a 19th century philosopher on the left, and apparently he dismissed it as a "joke." Furthermore, the guys on the right are clearly painted in red, while the guy on the left is painted blue—a color palate that just-so happens to correspond with right-wing conservatism and left wing liberalism. The obvious subtext therefore seems to be pretty obvious. The ontological argument is a highly sophisticated piece of good conservative deduction, and it is only an arrogant liberal minority that finds it objectionable.

This kind of thing really bothers me because on some fundamental level, they have to be doing it on purpose. It's so wildly misleading, too, that I can't help but question the integrity of those doing it. For starters, the overwhelming majority of modern professional philosophers are atheists [1]. That means, by definition, the majority of PhD-wielding philosophers---you know, the people who supposedly analyze this stuff for a living---are unconvinced by the ontological argument. Not only that, but it is generally understood that most theistic philosophers are unimpressed by it as well [2]. That means, for all practical purposes, the ontological argument is broadly considered to be a complete failure. Defenders of this argument are very much a minority within mainstream academic philosophy.
 
Now take a look at these supposed champions of the ontological argument. The video very clearly says that "prominent philosophers" think it is sound. Yet Charles Hartshorne and Norman Malcolm are basically nobodies [3]. Their contributions to philosophy are minuscule at best, and even dedicated students of philosophy have likely never heard of them. As far as I’m aware, Alvin Plantinga seems to be the only recognizable name in the bunch, but even he is widely regarded as a total crackpot. We’re seriously talking about a guy who wrote a 90-page essay in defense of the proposition that [4]:
 
“It is entirely right, rational, reasonable, and proper to believe in God without any evidence or argument at all.”
 
I'm sorry, guys, but these are not exactly intellectual heavyweights. If these really are the best examples of "prominent philosophers" you can gather, then what exactly does that say about the professional quality of your argument? It’s almost as if the production team at Reasonable Faith is counting on the fact that you've never really heard of these guys and that you'll just take their word for it that these supposedly "prominent" philosophers are held in high regard. 
 
Bear in mind now that I'm not saying any of this to debunk the ontological argument just yet. After all, ad hominen attacks are meaningless in philosophy, and we don't settle debates by appealing to authority. All I'm saying is that if you're going to contextualize the argument before presenting it, then the least you can do is be honest about it. And if you can't be honest about it, then what exactly does that say about the quality of your arguments? The ontological argument is not well respected among mainstream academic philosophers, and it is dishonest to give viewers any impression to the contrary.

Here it is: God can be defined as a maximally great being. If something were greater than God, then that being would be God. And in order to be maximally great, a maximally great being would have to be all powerful, all knowing, and morally perfect, in every possible world.

And there you have it, folks. The glorious ontological argument in a nutshell. God exists by pure, freaking definition. They don’t even try to hide it, either. It's all right there in black and white:

Step 1: Define the word “God" such that God as a maximally great being.  
Step 2: Define maximal greatness such that a maximally great being exists in all possible worlds.
Step 3: Define the actual world as a subset all possible worlds.
Step 4: Conclusion, therefore, God exists in actual world.
 
Can you see now why professional philosophers might describe this argument as “a charming joke?” It’s a textbook example of the classic logical fallacy known as begging the question. The argument just flat-out assumed its own conclusion by rote definition, and Christian apologists actually expect us to be impressed. So please allow me to make this perfectly clear, just in case there is any confusion.

 

When you define a word like "God," you are not generating information about the world. Rather, you are telling us about yourself. It's a declaration that, if and when you should ever happen to encounter the empirical manifestation of a particular set of properties, then you shall refer to that manifestation of properties as "God." However, it is an entirely separate matter as to where or not such entities actually exist somewhere to generate those manifestations in the first place. That is a matter of empirical investigation. It is therefore not logically possible for this argument to do what it claims.

[0:42—1:03] Possible worlds are simply ways the world could have been. To say that something exists in a possible world is just to say that, if the world were that way, then the thing would have existed. For example, even though unicorns don’t exist in the actual world, it seems at least possible that they could have. So we can say that unicorns exist in some possible world. On the other hand, a married bachelor does not exist in any possible world because the idea of a married bachelor is logically incoherent. It could not possibly exist.

This is not entirely accurate, so let's take a moment to clarify a few things.
 
Strictly speaking, possible worlds are not literal worlds per se. They are not alternate realities, they are not parallel dimensions, and they are not alien planets. Rather, a "possible world" is nothing but a collection of logically conjoined propositions with a self-consistent interpretation. For example,
 
"It is raining outside," and "I like pizza."
 
When I "imagine" a possible world, all I am doing is assigning a truth value to each of these propositions and then looking for contradictions. In this case, the world is said to be possible because the logical conjunction of those two propositions can be interpreted as true.

 

Now consider another hypothetical world:

"Jim is a bachelor" and "Jim is married."

This world is said to be impossible because conjunction of these two propositions has no self-consistent interpretation. It has nothing whatsoever to do with "the world" per se, but the basic rules of language. The standard English definitions for words like “married” and “bachelor” are logically exclusive from each other, which means the rules of binary logic do not allow for a true interpretation of any proposition expressing such a concept. Therefore, the idea of a married bachelor is incoherent and meaningless. Or, in the language of possible world semantics, we would say that “a married bachelor does not exist in any possible world.”
 
Notice how this only reinforces the idea that God’s existence has been asserted outright through pure definition. After all, if God is defined as a maximally great being in every possible world, then by definition there is no possible world without God. The very proposition itself---God does not exist---is therefore a logical contradiction. A thing that exists by definition cannot, by definition, not exist.
 
So once again, the ontological argument fails miserably under its own rules. It’s like trying to prove the existence of unicorns by simply defining the word "unicorn" as "a thing that totally exist.” And since unicorns are now officially things that exist, there is no possible world such that unicorns do not exist. 

Do you see the problem, here?

[1:40—1:50] So if it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then we can say that he exists in some possible world.

Except it's not possible for a maximally great being to exist. As we have already clearly established, nothing gets to exist by the mere virtue of its own definition. 

 

Incidentally, what exactly is this "if" nonsense? Remember that this entire argument began by straight-up defining God as a maximally great being in all possible worlds. This entire sentence is therefore logically and grammatically absurd. Just watch:
 
So if it is possible that a [being which exists in every possible world, including the actual world] exists, then we can say that [a being which exists in every possible world, including the actual world] exists in some possible world.
 
I am honestly baffled by this statement. What in the actual hell are you people even trying to say? I cannot tell if the makers of this video are being deliberately obtuse, or of they genuinely don't understand the implications of their own argument.

[1:50—2:05] But wait, a maximally great being would not really be maximally great if it existed in only some possible worlds. To be maximally great, it has to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and morally perfect in every possible world.

Yes. We know. That's literally what you defined "maximal greatness" to mean. All you did was reinforce every objection I’ve made up to this point. So unless you honestly would have us believe that pure, unfettered definition has the magical power to influence reality, then this argument has long-since failed.
 
But while we're on the subject, where exactly is it etched in stone that existence in every possible world is somehow "greater" than not existing in them? Are apologists really so childish as to think that greatness is determined entirely by numerical magnitude? For example, consider a morbidly obese man who weighs 450 lbs. Would it really be "greater" of him to weigh 460? Just because some number happens to be larger, that doesn't automatically make it a "greater" thing to possess.
 
Think of it this way. Imagine a possible world where Nazis have taken over the planet Earth. The bad guys have officially won, and they do nothing but oppress humanity for millions of years until finally all going extinct. Is that really such a “great” place for a morally perfect and all-powerful God to exist in? Just sitting there doing nothing while evil rules the world without any interference?

 

Which brings us to yet another fundamental problem with the ontological argument: The idea that "greatness" is some kind of objectively verifiable property of things. This video would actually have you believe that, in principle, scientists could hypothetically invent a device that empirically quantifies the supposed greatness of both material and immaterial objects. That's just nonsense! Greatness is not an objective thing to be measured or quantified. Greatness is what philosophers call a value judgement. That is to say, while it may be your sincere opinion that power, knowledge, and existence are “great” things to possess, other people are not necessarily obligated to share that assessment. All it means is that you personally consider certain traits as desirable to possess. It's a profoundly basic concept known as the fact/opinion distinction, and even children understand how it works.
 
But it gets worse than that! Even if we're feeling generous and decide to arbitrarily impose a standard by which to measure greatness, we still end up with all kinds of weird logical absurdities. For example, suppose I can lift 100 lbs of weight over my head, but my friend Carl can lift 200 lbs. Naturally, we might feel inclined to say that Carl has “greater strength” than myself. Indeed, that relation would indeed be objectively verifiable. That's fine, but remember that God is defined outright as a maximally great being. Therefore, God must, by definition, possess the power to lift the maximum weight possible. Except this is clearly a meaningless thing to say, because strength is not a bounded variable. You tell me how many pounds of God can lift, and I will tell you about my Super God who can lift just one more. It is therefore not logically possible for any being to possess maximally great strength because there is no such thing as a maximally great number!
 
That may sound like a philosophical nit-pick, but just be patient. The makers of this video are actually going to use that exact same argument to against a parody being of maximal greatness. Both William Lane Craig and his video production team therefore know, with conscious malicious forethought, that this is a deal-breaker for their own argument.

[2:05—2:25] So think about it. If a maximally great being exists in any possible world, then it exists in every possible world. And if it exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world. That is, a maximally great being actually exists.

Okay, let’s think about it. If a maximally great being does not exist in some possible world, then it exists in no possible world. And if exists in no possible world, then it does not exist in the actual world. That is, a maximally great being actually does not exist. 

 

Remember that is your own argument, guys. You're the ones imposing the all-or-nothing condition on your God’s possibility. Therefore, if it is even possible that God does not exist, then God cannot exist. Are you sure you want to go down this road?

[2:25—2:32] Thus, the atheist has to maintain not simply that God does not exist, but that it is impossible that God exists.

Okay. Done. It is impossible for God to exist. As we already demonstrated earlier on, necessary existence is not a logical possibility. 

 

But it gets even worse than that! Remember that I have no obligation whatsoever to show that it is "impossible" for God to exist. Rather, I only have to show that it is possible for God to not exist. Again, the apologists are the ones who imposed this all-or-nothing attitude onto their God. So if it is even possible that He doesn't exist, then it is necessary that He doesn't exist. Let us therefore cut to the chase and settle this right now:
 
Imagine a possible world such that God does not exist.
 
Ask yourself. Was that sentence meaningful to you? Was it comprehensible and self-consistent? Or did I just barf up an incoherent string of meaningless, self-contradictory nonsense?
 
This is yet another reason why necessary existence is absolutely not a coherent concept. You tell me about the all supposedly amazing properties of God, and I will immediately imagine a logically possible world without Him in it. And since that contradicts the idea of existing in every possible world, we have an instant proof by demonstration and deduction that such a God cannot exist.

So there you have it. It is impossible for God to exist. I have officially met the very burden of proof which you just demanded. Now can we please stop wasting people’s time with this nonsense?
 
I apologize if my tone sounds harsh, but philosophers have been pointing this stuff out for centuries. This isn't exactly rocket science, either, which makes it difficult to understand what possible motivations could drive the people at Reasonable Faith. Are they really so incompetent at basic philosophy that they don’t even understand their own argument? Or are they just that cynical in their exploitation of the naïve credulity of their audience? I honestly can’t tell.

[2:32—2:41] Here is a summary of the ontological argument. Steps 2-6 are straightforward and largely uncontroversial.

This is yet another complete fabrication of the collective imaginations at Reasonable Faith. Premise #3 is actually quite controversial, and obviously so. I mean, just look at: If God exists in some possible world, then God exists in all of them? In what logical universe does that even begin to make sense? It’s like trying to say that if Bill owns a home in California, then Bill owns a home in every state in America. It's another classic fallacy known as affirming the consequent, and any first-year philosophy student can see it.

Remember that the key to the ontological argument is the premise that God exists in every possible world. Yet for some very bizarre reason, the formal version of it always leaves this little premise out. Thus, a far more appropriate parody would look something like this:

1. Bill owns a home in every state in America.
   
2. Bill owns a home in California. 
3. If Bill owns a home in California, then Bill owns a home in every state in America.
4. If Bill owns a home in every state in America, then Bill owns a home in Maine. 
5. Therefore, Bill owns a home in Maine. 

That's the real argument being made here. Silly, isn't it?

 

[2:41—2:50] But what about point #1? Clearly, if it can be shown that the idea of a God is logically incoherent, then the argument fails.

 

Okay. Done. The idea of God has definitely been shown to be logically incoherent. I gave you at least five reasons off the top of my head, and I'm sure philosophers could probably give you a few dozen more if they put their minds to it.

 

[2:50—3:02] But is the idea of a maximally great being absurd? Like a married bachelor, or a square circle, or the smell of blue? This doesn’t seem to be the case. 

Seriously? It doesn’t “seem” to be the case to you? Is that really how logic works in the world of Christian philosophy? As in, let's just define God outright as existing, and nobody could possibly have any reason to object to that?

[3:02—3:12] The notion of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly morally being that exists in every possible world seems to be a perfectly coherent idea.

Seriously? Again? It just “seems” to be coherent to you? You see nothing wrong with existence as a matter of pure definition? That's your big argument?

[3:12—3:33] But couldn’t we parody this argument and make it work for everything? Why not say, “It is logically possible that a maximally great pizza exists, therefore, a maximally great pizza does exist.” However, the idea of a maximally great pizza is not like the idea of a maximally great being.

And, as if circular logic wasn’t bad enough, we now get to watch as a PhD philosopher of religion plows headlong into the fallacy of special pleading. Maximally great pizzas are totally not like maximally great beings, even though both of them were asserted outright via the same mechanism of rote definition..

[3:33—3:54] In the first place, there aren’t intrinsic maximal values that make pizzas great. There could always be one more pepperoni to increase its greatness. It’s not even obvious what properties make a pizza great; thin crust or thick crust? Extra cheese? Anchovies? Its relative to the taste of the consumer.

And as if special pleading wasn't enough, we now get to watch this video plow even further into yet another classic logical fallacy known as kettle logic---an argument that, once accepted, only serves as a counter-argument against your own position. Reasonable Faith has just admitted openly that greatness is not some objectively measurable thing. It’s a value judgement! They even further undermine themselves by admitting to the problem of unbounded variables---as in, there could always be “one more” pepperoni! These are the exact same arguments that I just provided against the idea of a maximally great being, which means Reasonable Faith is only debunking themselves.
 
This is exactly how we know that the makers of this video are nothing but out-and-out liars. You cannot possibly expect me to believe that someone would go through all that trouble explaining maximal greatness and necessary existence, despite knowing full-well that these ideas are obviously incoherent in every other context.

[3:54—4:08] In the second place, a maximally great pizza would have to exist in every logically possible world. But that would mean that it couldn’t be eaten. So, it wouldn’t really be a pizza, because a pizza is something you can eat.

Not unless it’s a self-regenerating pizza that instantly replenishes itself every time you take a slice. That would be pretty "great," don’t you think? It certainly "seems to be the case" to me.
 
But hey, if that’s how you want to play it, then fine. Meet Eric, the God-Eating Penguin [5]. By definition, Eric is a maximally great penguin that eats God in every possible world. Therefore, if God exists, then Eric would have no choice but to eat Him. Therefore, if Reasonable Faith wants to prove God's existence, then they must first dis-prove the existence of Eric---except the moment you do that, the very same logic applies equally well to God, and the argument fails again.

[4:08—4:40] The idea of a maximally great pizza turns out not to be a coherent idea. The idea of God, on the other hand, is an intuitively coherent idea. Therefore, His existence is a possibility. And the ontological argument shows that, if God possible exists, then God actually exists. 

And there you have it, folks. The modal ontological argument in a nutshell. God exists in every possible world because Christian philosophers say so. Not only does it beg the question by outright assuming its own conclusion, but it actually confuses subjective preferences with objectively verifiable properties. It then attempts to maximize unbounded variables, it fails to grasp its own logical implications, it justifies itself through pure, touchy-feelies, it fallaciously affirms the consequent, it neglects essential premises of its own argument, it commits special pleading, and it outright debunks itself through its own kettle logic. Philosophers have documented all of these problems, and more, over the last hundred years or more, yet proponents still have the colossal arrogance to present this thing as some kind of monumental achievement in Christian philosophy.
 
I genuinely apologize if my tone is feels off-putting, but how else am I supposed to react when presented with such baffling nonsense? This isn't just a bad argument. It's an absolute dumpster fire. If I were a Christian, I would be enraged by this. Decades of research into the very best arguments of mainstream Christian philosophy, and this is what they come up with? God exists because… it would be… like… totally awesome if He did? Are apologists really that incompetent? Or do they have so little regard for your intellectual capacity that they actually expect you to feel compelled by this nonsense?

You tell me…

Thank you for reading.

References:

1. David Bourget and David Chalmers, "The 2020 PhilPapers Survey" [link]
   
2. "Ontological Arguments," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [link]---There is fairly widespread consensus, even amongst theists, that no known ontological arguments for the existence of God are persuasive.
   
3. "It seems fair to say that analytic philosophers, in general, even analytic philosophers who are theists, have largely ignored Hartshorne’s philosophy."---Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
   
4. Nicholas P. Wolterstorff & Alvin Plantinga, "Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God," 1983  [link]
   
5. See The Problem of Omnipotence
6. Eric the God Eating Penguin