Many Christians struggle to defend the truth of the Christian worldview, but what if there was a podcast dedicated to answering the toughest objections to Christianity? That's the mission of the daily apologist podcast and on today's episode I finished my interview with Dr. Josh Rasmussen on the ontological argument for the existence of God So let me try and get some clarification on at least that third pathway. Yeah, right because admittedly I see What you're trying to accomplish in that and in using the modal cosmological argument Now, I'm not clear specifically and and maybe it's just my inability to think through it on the spot so so explain to me how the the modal cosmological argument You're saying if it's possible if it's possible for contingent finite imperfect things to be caused is that I got you there so far Roughly, yeah, I was kind of abbreviating but yeah.
Yeah, it's like really have to get this clear. That's fine Yeah, if it's possible for those things to be caused. Yeah Then they are Okay, so the goal here. Thank you for that.
So the goal is to see if we can show That possibly there's a maximal being. Okay, that's the goal because we already have an independent Resource for deducing the actual existence of a maximum being from its possible existence. Okay so all we're trying to do is see if we can show the possibility of a maximum being and So the argument is that if it's even possible for there to be a kind of non circular ultimate explanation of The fact that there are let's say Non-maximal things gotcha and because it's non-circular then the only way that that could even possibly there could be a possible explanation is if that Explanation is itself maximal It just gives you to the possibility of a maximal being and so the question that the audience is going to ask is okay I see that but how does that break the symmetry or the stalemate of these two things in the ophthalological argument? They might say well, that's a cosmological argument.
That's great But how does it break the stalemate of the ontological argument? It gives us a reason to think that a maximal being is possible without Having because basically we have a question. Is it possible that if there's a maximal being or is it possible that there is no Maximal being only one of those possibilities is really possible. Okay.
No, that's true So what we need to break the stalemate is some reason to prefer one possibility over the other doesn't all also apply to the other To the other one and so this modal cosmological argument is a support It's a reason to think that it's possible for there to be a maximal being and so if there's a possible maximal being that Exists as the cause of these things then it breaks the symmetry the the stalemate between the impossibility and the possibility because it's a positive case For the possible for the maximum being existing. Yeah, then for its impossible existence. Yeah, or even it's possible non-existence Yeah possible non-existence. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, that's right. You got it. Okay, so so then that is be the first one to admit live on the podcast that that is new to me and I am excited about that because one of the things that You know, you always have when you have this conversation with somebody is hey If it's if it's possible that a Maximal great being just it's just equally possible that he doesn't exist Yeah, and so you do have it. Well, I got to see that that that's true So I really can't go any further with the ontological argument because there is this possibility versus Yeah, it's not possible and I think that I'm just asking you Dean.
Yeah, how how you have kind of responded to that symmetry yourself Yeah, prior to hearing these symmetry breakers. Well, I really have just said You know, it's I usually would go to another argument to to share that. I would say okay Well, now I'm gonna support the ontological argument with Probably my favorite argument, which is the column argument and say okay Well, what if we change the background information here to okay ontological argument here? And now let's look at the column and if the column true doesn't that support the possibility of the maximum degree being?
but the problem is and I agree with Dr. Ben Arbor on this Is I'm not sure that the column gets you a maximally great being it might get you a timeless space list and material Being that's personally powerful. And then the worry is maybe you're switching arguments now And that's usually what what I'll what I'll get is well now you've switched the argument You're not supporting the ontological argument. You're supporting the column argument You mentioned Ben Arbor on this failed.
Yeah, he says you've abandoned the ontological argument in favor of the column Which is yeah, and then I just show my hands and you're absolutely right This is really interesting because Ben and I we've actually talked about this this very issue and he's kind of worked out an interesting He sent me a draft a couple years ago with a kind of probabilistic argument where you have all these different arguments Like from design from morality from cause and effect and each of those adds to the probability of the possibility I agree of a maximal great and maybe that is kind of a helpful way of thinking of it Yeah, so each of these classical arguments you might think adds the probability of the possibility And that might be kind of a helpful way of sort of thinking of it where it's it's almost like what these other classical arguments are doing Is providing sort of different supports of different features and then what the ontological argument is doing is sort of organizing those features It's like well, why knowledge via the design argument why morality via the moral argument? Why sort of fundamental existence by the cosmological argument? Well because those are all great making and oh by the way We would expect those great making features to be predicted by this more singular property of absolute profession There's a kind of simplicity there that sort of predicts this and that predictive success You can kind of think of this scientifically You have a hypothesis that there's this absolutely perfect foundation and this hypothesis has predictive success revealed via these other classical arguments And then that predictive success pumps the probability of the possibility And maybe that's kind of intuitively what you're kind of picking up on when you're doing when you're having these conversations Maybe that's what's going on there actually maybe It is helpful I think to have kind of more of a clear path where like this model cosmological arguments Or I actually have a publication on planning a small argument where I support it in another way through what I talk about is a kind of uniformity of value So I say like well if one degree of value is possible then unless we have some reason to think that some other degree of value is impossible We should just treat them as all possible. That should be kind of your default sense and and then I wasn't able to find a way of reversing that But I consider a few possible ways of reversing that and that would be actually a fourth strategy for breaking the symmetry There you go.
So make sure you send me those links because I want those in the description of the podcast because invariably there'll be people that listen This podcast and what we used to say I was in the Marine Corps for six years What we used to say in the Marine Corps is you know, sometimes people will get lost in the sauce of everything And that's okay. That's fine for sure. Um, so now that we've we've broken at least the the stalemate as I like to say There's there are a couple other objections that aren't I would say are as major as that one but are still very relevant and they're out there in Where I where I deal the social media, you know area the blogosphere things like that And one is just One of these well, let me rephrase that we can edit this this back later So there's an there's an objection that is out there in the social in social media land And then there's one that actually comes from a close friend who he asked him like hey, do you want me to ask? You know, dr.
Rasmussen is question then and he's like, yeah, I'll do it So the first one would be as the manual Kant critiques and so He talks about the use of the predicate and basically seeks to undercut and sell because um the way in which I'm trying to remember the way in which um Kant says that the way in which and some uses the predicate presupposes that God exists and therefore it is circular at least I think That's the rough version of that existence itself. It is a predicate or it's a real predicate. Yeah or real property Yeah, so With that objection, I guess my question is does that objection you think that objection applies? It doesn't apply to these updated versions Although I just want to say it's interesting because when I read Kant for myself on this I've teased out three different objections that he had and it seemed like the existence isn't a predicate objection Wasn't even his main one, but that's the one that sort of gets taught in the schools and stuff And so it kind of standard replies like well, even if well first of all His argument against existence being a credit a predicate doesn't seem like it's a good argument Anyway, but why I don't want to chase that because the sort of standard replies that look even if it isn't a predicate Because he says something but like it doesn't add to a thing, but like what do you mean?
I mean adds to everything I don't want to chase that because like even if existence isn't a predicate We don't need that. Well, all that we need is that there is this existence called necessary existence And intuitively that would be the kind of thing that would make a thing great Especially if it's necessary existence with respect to great attributes. So the necessary existence of love is great You know the necessary existence of um, you know being intelligent That's great. And so even if his existence doesn't quote like add to a thing The necessary existence seems like it would intuitively add something and this is kind of a standard You know like in graduate school.
This is kind of like a response Like even skeptics of the analogical argument would sort of give this line Um, and sort of the dialectic. So I don't think that that argument really removes the best versions of the analogical argument Though I think it may in fact call it a question Um, maybe Anselm's original formulation or a certain version of that But but it doesn't do what you're saying is that that doesn't hold weight in these updated iterations Yeah, I don't see that it does I mean I did see scott klifton had a little video on the analogical argument and a beautiful video And when he had an argument at the end where he was calling the question necessary existence as well He had to say something like if there if existence isn't a predicate or because existence isn't a real property Then neither neither is necessary existence and maybe because he was thinking that necessary existence has to be defined in terms of existence I'm not sure but sort of a standard move or standard way of articulating necessary existence It's just to put the necessary operator out in front of the sentence So you have necessarily x exists or if you don't like exists just say necessarily x is powerful And you know, that's fine too And though that will get you or just x is powerful in all possible worlds is another way of putting it So that doesn't seem to be a problem And you can formulate that rigorously in terms of contemporary mode of logic And I think that's really the the insight that Kant wasn't working with our latest tools You know, and so this Kantian objection I actually talk about this in one of my articles on the cosmological argument because he's got sort of similar set of Objections to these different arguments and one of the things I point out is that he wasn't working with our best logic that we have today And I think that even explains why this objection doesn't really come up as like the best objection to the argument today I don't see that. Yeah, it's kind of a historical relic Yeah, that needs to be buried Yeah, well, I mean, I don't necessarily want to bury anything, you know, it's always good for people to explore things But but it does kind of sadden me a little bit. I will say this Dean is I'll see almost like these Almost like memes or idea packages that are like floating out there And it's like, you know what?
Like we're actually past that like we've worked through that we've gotten very precise And when I say we I mean Atheists and theists alike like we're not that those aren't the objections we're worried about We're not thinking about those But the problem is is that these greater insights and understandings and clarification They're sort of locked behind the scenes in academic halls Which by the way is like really great that you have a show like yours Where we can sort of unleash and unlock and unveil some of these things. Yeah, well, I mean, that's that's one of the things You know kind of an offshoot of the topic real quick That's one of the things that you know, just individually and collectively at the daily apologist one of the things that we want to do is we want to stretch Um, not we want to stretch the knowledge in the mind of the believer because Um, these are things whether they know it or not that they will invariably run up against whether it's Objection or whether it's the stalemate that we've been talking about With regards to the ontological argument and they need to know those things. They need to stretch those things They need to explore those things One and this is kind of getting into why do apologetics and why do philosophy one Um, so that we can be really good defenders of truth, but two Um, I find it, you know, and amazing I've been looking at the ontological argument for maybe a month and a half max but the idea of Understanding more about god as a maximally great being In in riches my relationship with him because I know more Uh more about him through that type of argument and even with things like the teleological argument or the cosmological argument those families of arguments Um, those those enrich my relationship with him and deepen my relationship with him more so If more so now than when I then I didn't know those things So that's kind of I'm glad I appreciate you you saying that and that's really the purpose of what we have going on here specifically with this This podcast and so kind of moving if if you can if you want to kind of let go for it I really would just resonate with what you're saying there. Um, and even just like Just understanding like that god is great and you can't even think of it being greater than god Like that brings you into worship And I have to tell you actually I was in worship when I came up with this New way of breaking the symmetry the fourth way that I mentioned briefly on the continuity of value But it was like there was something about like being acquainted with god's goodness and worship That like drew me in to his nature and I think of his nature And that sort of led me that opened up new doors in philosophy and what you're saying is going the other way Like when you see more in philosophy that can open up new connections to god Because you're seeing oh like he's just purely perfect and you understand that the list that this is what really touches me is Because I would sort of be worried like well did somebody just sort of make up an arbitrary list of properties Um to sort of capture their culture and that's their god and every culture has their own god So how can I like have any confidence that one particular god is real?
It's like well if you realize that Actually the classical concept of god is a concept of a being that has actually a very simple elegant nature And that predicts all of these classical properties of omniscience omnipotence Uh, you know moral perfection. It's not just an arbitrary list and it happens to match the sorts of things that we find in Historical encounters with the divine the ultimate divine. Yeah, and I mean I would even say That the text of scripture outlines god as having those properties Which is which I find really cool too So let me let me move on. I mean, I would love to talk to you for hours just about that concept Um, so one question that I that I get has to do with um knowledge Um, and I'm not completely sure Where my friend is going with this and it seems to be with the ability to know That other people or beings exist a priori because I guess he he would like to say that this is a call to knowing that god exists A priori yeah through the possibility.
Yeah, and so his the question that he has is can we have knowledge of the existence of anyone other than ourselves? a priori Well, anyone is a little trickier Um, if he said anything Then I would say well. Yeah, the argument from logic that I outlined earlier I think you can know a priori that logic exists and that logic has a necessity to it And then you can deduce that the existence of logic such as the principle that nothing can be both read and not read at the same time That that's that principle is true. And so corresponds some conceptual reality or abstract reality Whether or not you're thinking about it like before you were born.
Nothing could be both read and not read it said it. Yeah, that was true Even before you're born there's no married bachelor before it. This is really important because what you're seeing within your mind is a kind of transcendent beam Of reason you see it in your mind, but but you also see that it's not contained only in your mind You see that it transcends your mind by reason itself you deduce that reason has a necessity And so therefore it doesn't depend merely on whether you're thinking about it And that's a really key argument. I think it doesn't open it up because if you can see a priori that something exists outside of you Namely these being beams of logic these principles and they actually have a kind of structure of a thought Now it removes at least one barrier to the ontological argument He was a little more precise because you know, how can you show that anyone?
Yeah exists and I think they're yeah And that's because he would say that god isn't just a thing That god is personal. Yeah, the question is How how could I know based on the ontological argument that god Exists a priori You know, it might be that the ontological argument is like precisely a pathway You know to see that there is this supreme being I mean I would argue that a reason I think that god is personal is because god has an aximal mind And having an aximal mind is what is predicted by supreme absolute perfection or supreme greatness Otherwise we can imagine a greater being So let me ask this question if if you can't know Anyone a priori does that just shut down the ontological argument if you can see that you can't know In other words, you have to be able to somehow know that you can't know And and I want to just sort of leave that open. I'm kind of an explorer at heart, you know, there's different personalities I'm an explorer. So that's what I'm going to lean into and I want to sort of invite anybody who's considering this To sort of explore that like how like write out the argument like write out the premises try to show that nobody can know And it usually what happens It's kind of just assumed that you can't know and you people think of examples Like well, I can't know that my mom exists just a priori or it's sort of by definition if it's a priori then It doesn't lead to external reality.
Well, you can break that I think with the argument from logic So so really you would have to somehow show that but if you could then I think it would Um reveal that the ontological argument has to be problematic somehow gotcha So real quick just for a listen, I should have done this before I Raise the question or afterwards a question. What does it mean to what is what is a priori mean for listeners? Yeah, that's why it's kind of saying the light of reason or by reason Um, you know, you sort of see it not through your five empirical senses through seeing or hearing or you know through through smelling it You don't smell that two plus two equals four. That's not how it works Um, you might think what you're using kind of introspection where you sort of that interligh where you kind of sense what you're thinking and feeling But you can have thoughts about logic like two plus two equals six And you know, you're having that thought like I just had it by introspection But you don't know whether it's true just by introspection You need this other faculty to verify that two plus two equals six doesn't match with reality And it's sort of blindingly obvious.
So we almost like look past the window and we don't see the window itself But the window there is is the a priori faculty reasoning where you can just it sort of clicks It's like oh two plus two equals four. I think it'd be both green and not right green You know, it's like I think people skate passes because the laws of logic some of them are handed to them by authority And so they really believe it by hearing somebody say yeah, these are the truths And then they think oh, these are all the truths and they don't know actually we haven't even Demonstrated that the goal is in completeness there and sort of opens up the fact that there are a priori truths that You know, we haven't even demonstrated so we don't even have the limits We don't even know the limits to what we can know a priori at least that hasn't been demonstrated gotcha Well, um, it has been Uh a great time talking. It's hard to stop. It's just so much harder.
It's hard to stop. Um, so I would just say once again Thank you for your time. I greatly appreciate it And so what I do with all of my guests is I say hey if you have Um, uh something that is coming to publication if there's a website that we can reach you at if there's a podcast that you have Anything that you want to to plug so our listeners can get more of dr. Josh Rasmussen Where can we find that what's coming down the pipe for you?
Yeah, so probably for your listeners, um, just my my academic website joshwellarasmuson.com And you'll probably have a link below for them. Um, and then my work that's the most relevant to this conversation would be my book I reason can lead to god and in the final chapter of the book actually include I call it a secret argument Which, um, is a version of this kind of modal cosmological argument It's precisely laid out as a way of breaking the symmetry. Although I don't present it as a way of breaking the symmetry Um, but that is you could use it. It's sort of like a key that you can use to unlock The door into the onological argument So that would be I think helpful.
I just love what you're doing I now i'm getting even more of a feeling of like what your ministry is And I feel like I just want to tell you dean like this is so important for people so we quit banging so encouraging like people need They need this stuff. Yeah, I appreciate that Outstanding and ladies and gentlemen, thank you once again for for tuning in to the daily apologist podcast between this episode and next episode Make sure you go ahead and catch us on all the social media platforms that we have that's instagram twitter Facebook tick tock a Pinterest All of them are at the daily apologist. You can definitely catch up on podcast at www.videleapologists.com to find our blogs or videos Are events that have been canceled throughout the year because of covid-19 You can also check out our link to our social media there as well And remember as you move from that stuff to our next episode remember to equip yourself to engage culture