Ontological argument Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Kurt Gödel=== {{Main|Gödel's ontological proof}} Mathematician Kurt Gödel provided a formal argument for [[existence of God|God's existence]]. The argument was constructed by Gödel but not published until long after his death. He provided an argument based on modal logic; he uses the conception of properties, ultimately concluding with God's existence.<ref name="OppyStanford">{{cite encyclopedia | url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/#GodOntArg | title=Ontological Arguments | publisher=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy | date=8 February 1996|encyclopedia=substantive revision 15 July 2011 | access-date=2011-12-09 | author=Oppy, Graham | at=Gödel's Ontological Argument}}</ref> <blockquote> '''Definition 1''': x is God-like if and only if x has as essential properties those and only those properties which are positive '''Definition 2''': A is an essence of x if and only if for every property B, x has B necessarily if and only if A entails B '''Definition 3''': x necessarily exists if and only if every essence of x is necessarily exemplified '''Axiom 1''': If a property is positive, then its negation is not positive '''Axiom 2''': Any property entailed by—i.e., strictly implied by—a positive property is positive '''Axiom 3''': The property of being God-like is positive '''Axiom 4''': If a property is positive, then it is necessarily positive '''Axiom 5''': Necessary existence is positive '''Axiom 6''': For any property P, if P is positive, then being necessarily P is positive '''Theorem 1''': If a property is positive, then it is consistent, i.e., possibly exemplified '''Corollary 1''': The property of being God-like is consistent '''Theorem 2''': If something is God-like, then the property of being God-like is an essence of that thing '''Theorem 3''': Necessarily, the property of being God-like is exemplified</blockquote> Gödel defined being "god-like" as having every positive property. He left the term "positive" undefined. Gödel proposed that it is understood in an aesthetic and moral sense, or alternatively as the opposite of [[privation]] (the absence of necessary qualities in the universe). He warned against interpreting "positive" as being morally or aesthetically "good" (the greatest advantage and least disadvantage), as this includes negative characteristics. Instead, he suggested that "positive" should be interpreted as being perfect, or "purely good", without negative characteristics.<ref>{{cite book | title=The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology | publisher=John Wiley & Sons | author=Maydole, Robert E. | year=2011 |page=574 | isbn=978-1-4443-5085-2}}</ref> Gödel's listed theorems follow from the axioms, so most criticisms of the theory focus on those axioms or the assumptions made. For instance, axiom 5 does not explain why necessary existence is positive instead of possible existence, an axiom which the whole argument follows from. Or, for Axiom 1, to use another example, the negation of a positive property both includes the lack of any properties and the opposite property, and only the lack of any properties is a privation of a property, not the opposite property (for instance, the lack of happiness can symbolize either sadness or having no emotion, but only lacking emotion could be seen as a privation, or negative property). Either of these axioms being seen as not mapping to reality would cause the whole argument to fail. Oppy argued that Gödel gives no definition of "positive properties". He suggested that if these positive properties form a set, there is no reason to believe that any such set exists which is theologically interesting, or that there is only one set of positive properties which is theologically interesting.<ref name="OppyStanford" /> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page