I see the Ontological Argument breaking down into two parts. The first is the intuition that if you're imagining the greatest thing ever, and if you can think of a way to improve it, it wouldn't be the greatest thing ever. This is iterative and in principle allows any starting point to arrive at God. The second intuition is that the greatest thing imaginable must be actualized if it's truly the greatest. The best beach vacation you can imagine would only be better if you're really there.
Kant, a firm Lutheran and desperate believer, rejected much of traditional theology, especially the OA. He argued "existence isn't a predicate," such that this second intuition secures nothing. While the second intuition gets all the discussion in history, I think the first intuition is the more important intuition, as it gets to the heart of what people really mean when they say "God". If I see two men wielding a lightning bolt and one bolt is puny while the other is massive and steaming off energy, then the second man must be Zeus.
While the "greatest being to be thought" has become an abstract container within Christianity, Mormon culture has taken the concept seriously. The OA, in its original form, seems best suited to begin consideration with a single, supernatural entity that has transcended humans long ago as an essence. But the Bible doesn't provide such an easy starting point. Instead, it tells us Jesus -- a deity -- was a man, and he shares the stage with two other very different kinds of deities. A body poses challenges: does lightning-bolt size really count? There is no limit to the size of a bolt one can imagine. Judgments of physical attributes such as "beauty" are subjective -- in fact, the Bible suggests the plainest look may even be best. But these are minor challenges when compared to the plural Gods problem, since "greatest" assures exclusivity. The Christian "trinity" patches things by declaring three equal to one by fiat. However, Mormonism holds true to the OA's first intuition and aims to secure two revealed beings, the Father and Son, as true all-powerful equals.
The Father is the great creator because he created this world. The Son is the great redeemer because he died for all on this world. But wouldn't the father be a greater creator if he'd created two worlds instead of one? The OA urges an infinitude of worlds created and also an infinitude of worlds redeemed. Another problem: how does an embodied Savior stack up against a Father who is Spirit? Well, we don't need to answer that if we give the Father a body as well. Okay, what about roles? Without relying on proof by declaration, like the trinity does, can we really say the infinite creator and infinite redeemer are equal roles? Possibly not, as Joseph Smith decided that Jesus needs to create worlds also, and lest the old man whoop his boy in the eternal log chop, Jesus will need to create an infinitude of them. But once the Son is both infinite redeemer and infinite creator, has the script flipped, and now he's officially beating dad? Joseph Smith, again, seems to have the solution.
Incredibly, even though my mom taught me that the Father was also the Savior of his own mortal world, I can find nothing semi-official to back it up. It seems to be one of those truths that Chapel Mormons know about and nobody can say where they got it from. This quote by Joseph Smith seems to demand it, but it would be nice to find it more explicitly. But if we run with it: the father and son are equals because they both are both infinite creators and infinite redeemers, according to Joseph Smith. But making father and son literal equals only exacerbates the original problem, because if they tie, then how can there be an exclusive greatest being?Joseph Smith wrote:The Scriptures inform us that Jesus said, “As the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power”—to do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious—in a manner, to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life, as my Father did, and take it up again.
Let's hold that question a moment and look at how another Mormon thinker tried to resolve the problem of God's exclusivity, in this case, with deified men. Orson Pratt resolved the problem of a 'greatest being' by making God a category that exalted beings share membership in. It's your everyday Duns S-c-o-t-u-s solution. Well, we can give up at any time and invent a category, just as early Christians did with "substance" so that 3=1 by fiat. Yet, if we do that now, then don't we waste all that finessing to make the Father and Son so similar? Fortunately, Mormons seem to have found their way by continuing to press the OA intuition into extreme territory. Their solution, however, requires a major theological sacrifice. I think though, that the sacrifice has been made. This isn't me trying to find a solution for Mormonism, it's me pointing to what Mormonism seems to have come up with already.
Here's the thought experiment: Imagine if Lou Midgley, lost in the eternities (as he was once lost in the theaters of Europe, according to Dan), meets an apologist from another world. They begin comparing genealogy, and it turns out that while Lou's Heavenly Father was the Savior of his home world, as Joseph Smith implied, Lou's Heavenly Grandfather was a repentant alcoholic and garbage man from the Rose Park of his mortal world. With a twinkle in his eye, Lou's counterpart apologist mentions smugly that his own Heavenly Grandfather just happened to be the redeemer who died for Lou's Heavenly Grandfather, who was a total failure until the very end! I highly doubt Lou would find this acceptable. A related intuition from Joseph Fielding Smith:
My mom also taught me that this world had the most wicked and the most righteous inhabitants -- it's the most polarized world of God's infinite creations. The problem with the OA intuitions of Mormonism is that they're wrapped up in the parallel intuition of making oneself feel special. It's always this dispensation, of this church, of this world, of this Father-Savior where all the big action happens. We're the best of the best. And this runs into conflicts. In some world out there, a counterpart to Lou comes to learn that he comes from a long line of repented garbage-man gods. Some were tranq addicts. There are other marks of disntinction. It's said that we can become Gods, but the Father's world count will always exceed ours. Not Jesus's! Jesus actually co-created all of the Father's worlds up to this point in the pre-existence. Their world count together, is already infinite. The OA implies that even if I become immortal and create my first planet, I can't be the "greatest being to be thought." My children will suggest that there are greater beings out there who created an infinite number of worlds, lived sinless lives, and died for infinite worlds also. Exalted men are only patronized as Gods.Joseph Fielding Smith wrote:Perhaps this is the reason Jesus Christ was sent here instead of to some other world, for in some other world they would not have crucified Him, and His presence was needed here because of the extreme wickedness of the inhabitants of this earth
And so the OA rules out deification. Dan will be okay with that as he has denied it anyway. "God" becomes a consolation container, at best. But even if we clear the field of all the "garbage Gods", we still have the competition between father and son, and their fathers and sons who were all both infinite creator and savior. I do think Mormons have solved the competition problem, not by making a container, but making "greatest being to be thought" holistic. This is not by definitional fiat or waxing mysterious, or creating a category in desperation. The chain really is holistic. Imagine I become a "God", create a planet, and pick a savior. When this savior becomes a father and creates infinite worlds, I will be surpassed. But could we then say that my son, an F-S God achieved the highest status possible? Nope. He's orphaned. His children will have me for the Grandfather God and even if my God is on the F-S chain, I'm the gap, the non-savior sinning mortal. It would be better for those inhabitants calling him God not to have that gap; to have a pure line of Fathers who were sinless Saviors.
The infinite F-S chain makes the specialness of any God in the chain dependent upon all the other Gods in the chain. If any God were not also a savior, it's a gap. They must be equal. If a God sins and "ceases to be God", then that's also a gap. From the perspective of any person created anywhere, their God is God not only because of personal greatness, but the greatness of all predecessor Gods in the chain, because it would have been better for any inhabitant anywhere to have a God with a greater pedigree than a lesser one. I think this is a very good solution to the OA when the OA is forced to work out multiple beings as "best". As a bonus, Kant also rejected the cosmological argument, and certainly, no non-Christian philosopher or scientist thinks we need Aristotle's framework. Infinite causal chains aren't seen as a big deal anymore. Causal chain language has been updated with possible worlds and relations between counterfactuals, and even other systems. Even the kooky "infinities filled with stuff" of Mormonism is similar to modern metaphysics. When Christian theologians laugh at the "infinite regress" of Mormonism, they don't have much to stand on. I think the F-S chain is a better solution to an OA constrained by multiple beings than the trinity is, by far. In fact, it may be the only seriously OA-driven ontology out there.
Yet it does have some major problems. The most obvious is scrapping deification. Like I've said, I'm not making the call, Mormons seem to have made it themselves by wanting everyone to be special, but not so much as each themselves need a special connection to deity that most don't have. In that regard, they fail Kant as Kant would have demanded they think in universal terms. Think about how those born on other worlds you require as lesser might feel. Also, Mormon leaders have consistently found ways to make sure God and Jesus have a higher status. Another problem is the Holy Ghost gets scrapped. Mormon teachings about the HG are completely illogical and the HG was never worked into the Mormon eternities. He's got to go. Another serious problem is Mormon "infinity" intuition fails to get them what they want. Jesus is special (rare) because he died for infinitely many. The problem is, the entire tree of Gods and their worlds can be produced algorithmically; they all add up to infinity. Yet, the F-S chain is also countably infinite. There are as many saviors in the eternities as there are people (see Hilbert's Hotel). Mormon leaders, with a God abacus, could have made significant discoveries in number theory. Had a Mormon thinker carefully dwelt on the problem of making a savior both rare while also having an infinite chain of saviors, a Mormon could have beat Georg Cantor to the idea of orders of infinity. If I ever find within the JD or Millennial Star "worlds without number" equated to real numbers (or a concept that maps to real numbers) while the number of Gods equates to integers, such that the number of Gods in an infinite regress of Gods is dwarfed by the number of creations, that could make Mormon theology the GOAT in my mind.
An example of truly impressive theology, although totally unrelated to this discussion, is Jonathan Edwards' invention of compatibilism, which is accepted both by a good portion of Christianity and virtually every atheist alive (I'm not personally an avowed compatibilist). The OA is also very good, as it's insightful and original, and to me is still the best argument for God, and is the best way to define God. In contrast, the cosmological argument sucks, not just because the model is outdated, but because it was ripped off from Aristotle. Kurt Goedel reinvented the ontological argument, there has been no comparable modern interest in the cosmological argument. When "faith meets reason" I want to see revelation inspire original insights, not borrow ideas from the progress of the outside world and then work their religion around it. And then, I want to see those original insights matter for something beyond their insular religious community. I think Jonathan Edwards gets an A+ for compatibilism, Anselm an A for the OA, Mormonism's F-S Chain gets a qualified B-, the cosmological argument gets a C, the trinity gets a D, and the Mormon doctrine of the Holy Ghost gets an F. I only award the "B-" as everything I need to know to arrive at the F-S chain came from my mom and dad, but these are piecemeal insights and doctrines that emerge as a whole only as a culturally constructed tapestry, there is no singular article (to my knowledge) that puts enough of it together to earn this. And so one could argue that the fair grade is a C+.
