(From an old Facebook post of mine back in 2018)
Assume Platonism about properties, propositions, and possible worlds. Such is the natural backdrop of the modal ontological argument. Assume further that the key possibility premise of the modal ontological argument is true, viz., that there is a possible world at which maximal excellence is exemplified. Then by Axiom S5 and that premise, we get the God of classical theism -- or do we? Seems to me we don't. For the picture is that God is ontologically posterior to and dependent upon the existence and ontological structure of the platonic multiverse -- God's existence is the ontological consequence of the nature and structure of platonic space. But if that's right, then God is, in a real sense, a dependent being, in which case classical theism is false.
A Quick Objection to the Modal Ontological Argument
Special Issue of Theologica In Honor of Dean Zimmerman
Here. His replies to participants should be available by the end of the year.
Resto Quiñones's New Argument Against Perfect Being Theism
Resto Quiñones, Jashiel. "Incompatible And Incomparable Perfections: A New Argument Against Perfect Being Theism", International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (forthcoming).
Abstract: Perfect being theism is the view that the perfect being exists and the property being-perfect is the property being-God. According to the strong analysis of perfection, a being is perfect just in case it exemplifies all perfections. On the other hand, the weak analysis of perfection claims that a being is perfect just in case it exemplifies the best possible combination of compatible perfections. Strong perfect being theism accepts the former analysis while weak perfect being theism accepts the latter. In this paper, I argue that there are good reasons to reject both versions of perfect being theism. On the one hand, strong perfect being theism is false if there are incompatible perfections; I argue that there are. On the other hand, if either no comparison can be made between sets of perfections, or they are equally good, then there is no best possible set of perfections. I argue for the antecedent of this conditional statement, concluding that weak perfect being theism is false. In the absence of other analyses of perfection, I conclude that we have reason to reject perfect being theism.
Happy reading!
What God Would Have Known...
...is the title of J.L. Schellenberg's forthcoming book, which offers a large number of novel arguments against Christian theism. I've read the manuscript, and as one would expect from Schellenberg, it's clear, tightly argued, and compelling. Required reading!
Metaphysical Grounding and the Cosmological Argument...
...is the title of Thomas Oberle's new paper in Phil. Studies. Here's the abstract:
A premise of the Leibnizian cosmological argument from contingency says that no contingent fact can explain why there are any contingent facts at all. David Hume and Paul Edwards famously denied this premise, arguing that if every fact has an explanation in terms of further facts ad infinitum, then they all do. This is known as the Hume–Edwards Principle (HEP). In this paper, I examine the cosmological argument from contingency within a framework of metaphysical explanation or ground and defend a ground-theoretic version of HEP which says, roughly, that the plurality of contingent facts is grounded in its members.
Happy reading!