asaris

It's a notoriously difficult argument to refute -- as nietzsche pointed out, the most used 'refutation' is Kant's -- that existence is not a property. But it keeps coming up. The Plantinga book I cited was written in the 1970s. The problem with claiming existence is not a property is it's then hard to say exactly what it is.

It's certainly not circular, or, at least, not obviously so. "God exists" nowhere shows up as a premise, so if you're going to claim it's circular, you have a bit more work to do.

Firefly wrote:
No, the assumption is that he exists in some possible world. That's not the same thing as assuming he exists. The other 'assumption' you accuse the argument of (that he's perfect) is closer -- what it claims is that if God exists, he is perfect. It can assume that, because that's just what we mean by the word 'God'. If there was a really, really powerful being floating around somewhere, who did most of the things traditionally attributed to God, he still wouldn't be God, since he wasn't perfect. God means, by definition, the perfect being.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche