Miguel wrote:

Personally, my problem with the OA as a standalone argument is how we can successfully argue for the possibility of God without using additional arguments. Contrary to the universe, contingent things etc which we come to know and interact with through our senses in our ordinary (and philosophical) lives, it is harder to discuss the modal possibility of a transcendent being such as God. If we can argue for the first premiss in the ontological argument, then we probably can also give a more direct, clearer argument for God's existence (e.g. Leibnizian cosmological arguments). I think the OA can be useful to perform a modal weakening of premisses in cosmological arguments (or other arguments for God's existence), e.g. Scotus's, Gale-Pruss, etc. If it's at least possible that the universe/contingent things could have an explanation, and that seems undeniable even to those who wrongly reject PSR, and that explanation is a necessary being, then that necessary being exists.

As a standalone argument, however -- which is how OAs have typically been discussed -- it is not very good, in my opinion.

I don't know about that.

In fact, every argument of natural theology need, at least, good developpment of metaphysic thesis which are front door of metaphysics systems, sometimes only one, sometimes more.
In the case of the ontological argument, you need to defend basics of a modal ontology and, also, what is the link beetween epistemic possibility and ontological possibility. If you can succesfuly defend that we posses a good guide to ontological possibility, then the ontological argument will work, and it's as hard as any other theological argument.
For example, I think that the cosmological argument is maybe harder on this point, especially the rationalist version: you need to defend a version of the principle of sufficient which is easy to accept, but enough to make the case that the necessary being that you've proved is God. That's clearly not an easy ta

Isn't your response to 1) a self-defeating, even self-refuting, proposition? It's equivalent to "This phrase haven't any sense.", which is a variant of the liar paradox.

For 2): well, a unintelligible universe would be the same as a universe where you are always disoriented, like if you were always drunk, or under hard drugs, because you wouldn't understand anything. Obviously, this is not the case.
But then, you will probably get to your skeptic scenario that you've written above; so, I can only advice you to use my first answer

Except that an event with a probability of 0 may happen in theory; if you randomly choose a number beetween 0 and 1, the chance that you pick any of them equals zero, but you're sure to pick one of them.
It's a subject for probability theory, with the events that are almost surely, wich mean that they have a 1.0 probability, for example.

That said, I think that there is something to say about your idea that something wich can't even attribute a subjective probability seems like simply impossible.
Also, other consequences with the destruction of probabilities by authorize brute facts is that you can't use induction, abduction, and skeptic scenarios aren't escapables anymore.
 

Thank you very much, it will be helpful!

(That's not bad. It's not an easy language.)

Hello everyone,

As you see, I'm new to this forum. I'm a belgian student in engineering school, with an interest in philosophy, particularly in philosophy of religion, as you could have guess.

I'm a christian, without any definite denomination, even if I grown up in catholicism. ( Which isn't surprenant in Belgium, where the majority do the basics in it.)

Dr. Feser's blog is one I read when I can. I'm not gonna lie, I'm here mostly for asking question, because I seek the truth.

English is not my native language, so I'm sorry for the bad formulation of sentence.
Pardonnez mon anglais.

Thank you in advance.