It's common to see arguments in philosophy of religion that aim to establish the existence of a perfect being, where the perfections are taken to be maximal expressions of a special subset of personal qualities (e.g., omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection). Standard arguments include ontological arguments and so-called "Stage Two" reasoning in cosmological arguments.
A standard objection to such arguments is that it's not at all clear that such properties are individually possible and/or collectively compossible. But I want to raise a deeper problem that, so far as I've been able to tell, has never been put directly. The problem is that such arguments not only assume that such properties are compossible, but also that they are instantiable as basic or foundational properties. But of course the non-theist will have principled worries, based on what they take to be our best theories about the world, that personal attributes are not properties that can be instantiated as basic our foundational properties -- i.e. they're not ground-floor properties, but rather derivative properties that are grounded (at least in part) in the physical. They will thus have non-trivial, substantive worries that it's metaphysically impossible for personal attributes to exist at the metaphysical ground floor -- at least unaccompanied by physical properties (or whatever the physical is ultimately composed of).
So take
Plantinga's modal ontological argument, for example. He packs these personal attributes into his definition of maximal greatness: What constitutes the property of maximal greatness? Maximal excellence at every possible world. What constitutes maximal excellence? Being essentially all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly good. But what is left unstated yet assumed is that these properties are
foundational properties in a maximally excellent being. But again the problem is that this is contrary to all experience (or at least our best theories): in all our experience (or: in our best theories), those properties come on the scene pretty late, and in any case seem to depend for their existence and functioning on brains and central nervous systems. So it seems they're not ground-floor properties, but rather
derivative properties that are grounded (at least in part) in the physical. So it looks like we have non-trivial worries about the crucial possibility-premise in Plantinga's modal ontological argument.
Similarly for Stage Two cosmological arguments. A generic example of a Stage Two cosmological argument runs (very roughly) as follows: The necessary being at the foundation of reality must be an absolutely unlimited being. For (assuming we can show that a necessary being doesn't have essential internal limits that are knowable, if at all, a posteriori) the only way that a being could have limits is if there were some other entity that limited it, and yet we are talking about the foundation of reality, where (assuming we could show that there is only one "plank" in reality's foundation) there is nothing external around to limit it. So it must have unlimited attributes, where these include the personal attributes mentioned above (Why not also unlimited non-personal attributes, such as infinite spatial extension? Spinoza must be rolling in his grave.). But as with Plantinga's modal ontological argument, what is left unstated yet assumed is that personal attributes are or can be basic or foundational, ground-floor properties, and not derivative, non-foundational properties. But as we've seen, such an assumption is contrary to all experience (or at least our best theories), in which case there are non-trivial worries that a personal foundation of at least that sort may well be impossible. So it's completely question-begging against at least certain standard pictures of naturalism.
What about a liberal naturalist like myself? I'm in print as having Russellian monist -- indeed, priority cosmopsychist -- sympathies. But even on that view, physical characteristics are also fundamental, and essentially so. So we can't get support for the theistic picture from there, either.
