The Possibility of the Existence of God, the Maximally Great Being

THE ARGUMENT:

Belief in the existence of a maximally great being is more plausible than belief in its non-existence.

The existence of a maximally great being is possible.

I am not happy with this as it is not clear enough. God is this being and God is not a being or a spirit but the being or the spirit. This is so that we are not saying God is just another entity in the universe.

My modification is, The existence of THE maximally great SPIRIT is possible. I will put aside my preference for changing this further to, That Spirit than which a greater cannot be conceived.

Is it more than possible, that is, plausible?

The answer is yes. The maximally great spirit by definition is not a complicated physical entity. Indeed physical entities need to be put together and kept together. For example, as great as a man may be, if he is dissembled in a car crash he is not great any more. A being that has parts must depend on other things to exist and to stay the way it is. Christians believe that God is a simple being that is not composed of parts but is pure spirit and is an immaterial reality. God then depends on nothing outside himself. God then to be great must be non-physical (that does not mean he can’t take on a human nature without detriment to his divine nature).

My own mind is a similar simple and united entity though I have many different thoughts and feelings and experiences. This shows me that the concept of a simple entity being a mind is not absurd.

The concept of God as maximally great spirit is rational. That means it contains no incoherence or self-contradiction. Thus there is no reason to not believe. It makes sense to believe just in case. We fail to respect the being if we do not believe. Also we deprive ourselves of enjoying a relationship with this being. If we take a chance, we will soon see signs that the being really exists. We will see that we are engaged in a relationship with a person and not just an idea. God has to reveal himself when we have a relationship with him.

The existence of the maximally great spirit is a unique claim. It is the claim that an all-powerful and all intelligent and all perfect and all-simple being, to name but a few attributes, exists. When we understand that the being will have all these properties we see how sensible it is to suppose that this being exists. For example, if the being is not perfectly intelligent then it is not maximally great.

We cannot argue: there could be a maximally great unicorn and there we may suppose such an entity exists. The unicorn would be a created being and would not really be maximally great.

God is a concept that is coherent. It is a nice concept. And simple. The alternative just creates difficulties and problems. If we accept the simplest adequate view we are doing the sensible thing. Belief in God is plausible.

THE REFUTATION:

The human mind makes errors about good and evil all the time. The argument can only apply to a person who knows exactly what a maximally great being is. Otherwise the person is using the words without meaning. We all have limitations so such people do not exist.

You would need to be able to prove spirit really exists. And you would need to prove that being spirit is good. In fact, Christians say we hope to rise again implying that surviving death as a spirit is undesirable and inadequate. It is only good because the alternative is non-existence. That would be a negative goodness. It is not a positive goodness. So it might not be good to be a spirit. It could be a case of being wanting to do things and being unable to without having a body. Or it could be a case where you have no brain or nerves and no feelings and just float around aimlessly. A spirit God as a spirit God, cannot suffer for others. God is said to have become man in Jesus Christ. But that is different. He had to take on an additional nature in order to do it.

Christians say that God is infinite in all perfections. He is perfect without putting it to any use. He doesn't even have to create unless he chooses to. He would still be perfect. This is rubbish. God might be perfect in his own way. But what about other kinds of goodness? Religion likes to claim that God is the ultimate source of all goodness. Imagine a mother and child could exist by chance and without being made by God. Surely her love for her child would deserve more praise than God's for it exists by chance and she continues it? She creates it. She creates it against the grain - there is no God to help her. Love produced without the assistance of God is the best love of all. Love against the grain is the most authentic love. Atheism no matter what flaws it has or how much it is abused or misused by atheists, does open the door to real goodness.

Christians say that God by definition as perfect does not mean that God is perfect in his own way. For Christians, God is the source of all perfection. Thus belief in God is incoherent. We have seen how it is nonsense to imagine that the Christian God can be really perfect in every way in himself. Remember the mother in the atheistic universe. She might be hypothetical, but you would insult her even if she were not. What does that say about you?