2. The Ontological Proof (II) We have seen that, if someone wishes to challenge the soundness of the Modal Ontological, he denies the truth of the second premise of the simplified version: – It is possible for God to exist. (‘God’ being understood in Anselmian terms, i.e the Being than Whom none greater can be conceived.)

3. One way to show that it is not possible for an Anselmian God to exist is to show that the Anselmian conception of God is incoherent – In other words, one shows that the Anselmian conception of God is just as incoherent, though in a subtler way, as the concept of a square circle, or a four-sided triangle, or a married bachelor.

4. The Anselmian conception of God is incoherent because the concept of an omnipotent Being is incoherent. – Can an omnipotent Being create a stone too heavy for Him to life? If you say “yes,” then there is something the supposedly omnipotent Being cannot do, namely lift the stone He’s created. If you say “no,” then there is still something the supposedly omnipotent being cannot do, namely created the stone.

5. This paradox, say the critics of the possibility of an omnipotent Being proves that the concept of an omnipotent Being is incoherent. Therefore, there cannot be one. – The Proper Conception of Omnipotence. “For [EVERY] proposition p, if it is logically possible that God bring it about that p [is true], then God [is omnipotent]” Richard Gale in the Phillips Anthology, p. 44

6. More simply, God is omnipotent if He can bring about any logically possible event or entity. Consequentially, it is not a blow to God’s omnipotence that He cannot create a logically impossible entity, e.g. a square circle. – A square circle is not a logically possible entity. – A square circle is bogus and phony. – A square circle is a fraud and chimera.

7. – Thus, God’s “inability” to make a square circle is not a genuine limitation on His power or abilities. – Response to the “Paradox of the Stone” ‘A stone too heavy for an omnipotent Being to lift’ is just as bogus and phony as a square circle. If the Being in question is truly omnipotent, then there is never a stone too heavy for Him to lift.

8. This is so in exactly the same way that there is never a square that is a circle. – If it is a square, then it is not a circle. – If the being is truly omnipotent, then the stone is not too heavy for Him to lift. Since it is just as bogus and phony as a square circle, God’s inability to make ‘a stone too heavy for an omnipotent Being to lift’ is not a genuine limitation on God’s power or abilities.

9. The Anselmian conception of God is incoherent because the various Aselmian divine attributes are not compossible, i.e. the same being cannot possess all of them at once. For example, omnibenevolence is not compossible with omniscience. – Definitions Omniscience: A Being is omniscient if and only if the Being possesses all possible knowledge, including knowledge of what it is like to do everything that can be done.

10. Omnibenevolence: A Being is omnibenevolent if and only if the Being is perfectly just and merciful. Thus, an omnibenevolent Being would never wrong anyone. – An Argument for the Incompossibility of Omniscience and Omnibenevolence 1.) There can be a Being, call the Being D, that is both omniscient and omnibenevolent. (Assumption for Reducio)

11. 2.) D knows what it is like to torture an innocent child to death (from No. 1 and the Definition of Omniscience) 3.) If D knows what it is like to torture an innocent child to death, then D has actually tortured an innocent child to death. (Premise) 4.) D has actually tortured an innocent child to death. (from Nos. 2 & 3)

12. 5.) If D has tortured an innocent child to death, then D has wronged someone. (Premise) 6.) D has wronged someone. (from Nos. 4 & 5) 7.) D has not wronged anyone (from No. 1 and the Definition of Omnibenevolence) 8.) D has both wronged and not wrong the same person, i.e. the innocent child D has tortured to death. (from Nos. 6 & 7) [No. 8 is self- contradictory.]

13. 9.) Therefore, there cannot be a Being that is both omniscient and omnibenevolent. QED. – Response to the Argument The argument is valid, i.e. if all of its premises are true, then its conclusion must be true. Thus, an Aselmian theist must challenge the truth of one of the argument’s premises. It would be rather hard for an Anselmian theist to challenge the truth of No. 5

14. – No. 5 claims that torturing an innocent child to death is sufficient for one’s having wronged someone, namely the innocent child one has tortured to death. – If this is not true, then it’s nearly impossible to see what can be sufficient for one’s having wronged someone.

15. An Anselmian theist must deny the truth of No. 3. Why believe No. 3 is true? – One might claim that the only way someone can know what it’s like to do something is to actually do that thing. – Thus, if one knows what it is like to torture an innocent child to death, one must have actually tortured an innocent child to death.

16. – Is it possible for someone to know what it is like to do a thing without actually having done that thing? » Through imagination, humans often seem to know what it is like to do something without actually having done that thing. » Writers often are able to imagine what it’s like to do something they never have done and then describe what it’s like in their fiction.

17. » For example, Stephen Crane had never been in an actual battle when he wrote The Red Badge of Courage, a novel about, among other things, what it was like to be in a Civil War battle. » Many veterans of the Civil War claimed that Crane captured what it was like to be in a Civil War battle better than anyone else.

18. » Thus, it seems Crane was able to use His imagination to gain at least some knowledge of what it was like to be in a Civil War battle. » If Crane, with his limited imagination, could do this, then why can’t God, with His unlimited imagination, know perfectly what it is like to torture an innocent child to death?

19. – God’s “Creative Knowledge” » Since God is the Creator of humans, he must have a unique and special knowledge of them. » This unique and special knowledge must be analogous to the unique and special knowledge a parent, especially a mother, has of her children.

20. » God’s unique and special knowledge of humans must include knowledge of what it is like for a human to torture an innocent child to death. » “Since God has a [special and unique] knowledge of all His [creatures], knowing each one of them as it is, distinct in its own nature, He must know all the opposed negations and

21. » “opposed privations.... Consequentially, since evil is the privation of good, by knowing any good at all and the measure of any thing whatsoever, [God] knows every evil thing. Saint Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, Question No. 2, Article No. 15 » In this argument, Aquinas relies on the Augustinian (ultimately Platonic) idea that every evil is the privation, or negation, or perversion of some good.

22. » Thus, one may know any evil by knowing the good of which it is a perversion. » Let us assume that to know what it is like to torture an innocent child to death is to know a particular species of hate. » Since hate is the perversion of love, God can know what it is like for humans to hate by knowing what it is like for them to love.

23. » Another way to put it is to say that, since God is their Creator, God knows what it is like for humans to sin. » “[Satan is sinful because he vacated [the] being God have him, emptied it of all of its once scintillating possibilities. [Satan is sinful], not for what he is, but for what he is not.” D. Q. McInerny, “Evil” in Perennial Wisdom for Daily Life, p. 106

24. » Since sin is nothing more than humans’ vacating the existence God gave them, who would know better than God what that vacating is like. – Given all of the above, Anselmian theists have reasonable, if not conclusive, responses to the claim that omniscience and omnibenevolence are not compossible.

25. I’ll give Alvin Plantinga the final word on the Modal Ontological Proof. – “[I]f we carefully ponder [Step (B.) of the simplified version], if we consider its connections with other propositions we accept or reject and still find it compelling, we are within our rights in accepting it.... Hence... our verdict must be as follows: [S]ince it is rational to accept its central premise, [the modal ontological proof] does show that it is rational [if not obligatory] to accept its conclusion. And, perhaps that is all that can be expected of any such argument.” Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, p. 221