The modal ontological argument and the necessary a posteriori

✍ Scribed by J. William Forgie

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 779 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7047
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00141327

✦ Synopsis

It does not seem difficult to construct a concept of God such that if God possibly exists then He actually exists. Let "is divine" be short for "is omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good." Then suppose we understand God to be a being who is divine in all possible worlds. If this concept is instantiated in some possible world W, then W contains a being who is divine in all possible worlds. It appears to follow from this that every possible world, including the actual world, contains a being who is divine in all possible worlds. Thus if God is possible (exists in some possible world) He is actual.