Don Page’s Optimal Argument for the Existence of God and the Optimal Theodicy

[Kingpoleon]

1. The actual world is the best of all possible worlds.
2. That there are good and bad physical things, generally those dealt with by a measurement of pain/pleasure, suffering/joy.
3. That the laws of the universe are mathematically elegant.
4. That the second is best as can be for finite being.
5. That the third is best as can be for another Other being.
6. Goodness is maximized by this third fact only if the Other has maximal knowledge, thus omniscience.
7. Goodness is maximized universally only if the Other has maximal power to actualize the BOAPW, thus omnipotence.
8. Given omniscience, omnipotence, and the BOAPW, omnibenevolence follows.
9. This Other being, being omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, can be called God.

Notes: Without God, it would seem that the goodness of the universe could be increased by violations of the laws of physics whenever such violations would lead to more pleasure within the universe. However, with God, such violations might de- crease God’s pleasure so much that total goodness would be decreased. Perhaps the actual world does maximize total goodness, despite suffering that is a consequence of elegant laws.

Alternative framing:
1. The world is described by the simple hypothesis that it is the best, maximizing the pleasure within it.
2. It is most plausible that either (a) our universe exists in isolation, or (b) our universe is created by God whose pleasure is affected by the universe and who has a nature determining what gives Him pleasure.
3. Our universe could have had more pleasure.
4. If God exists, it is possible that the total pleasure of the world (including both that within our universe and within God) is maximized subject to the constraint of His nature.
Conclusions:
5. If our universe exists in isolation, 3 implies that it could have had more pleasure and hence the world could have been better, contradicting 1.
6. Therefore, 1 and 3 imply that option (a) of 2 is false.
7. Then 2 and 4 implies that it is most plausible that God exists and created our universe.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.7544.pdf
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1212.5608.pdf

[afleitch]

Don Page is an Evangelical Christian who concedes the 'weakness' of his own argument stemming as it does from his first assumption;

'I tend to be skeptical of philosophical arguments for the existence of God, since I do not believe there are any that start with assumptions universally accepted. My own attempt at what I call the Optimal Argument for God (one, two, three, four), certainly makes assumptions that only a small fraction of people, and perhaps even only a small fraction of theists, believe in, such as my assumption that the world is the best possible.'

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2015/03/20/guest-post-don-page-on-god-and-cosmology/

This is from correspondence with theoretical physicist Sean Carroll.

Also;

'In view of these beliefs of mine, I am not convinced that most philosophical arguments for the existence of God are very persuasive. In particular, I am highly skeptical of the Kalam Cosmological Argument.'

So 'FF' from me on that.

He's a very fair minded person who is aware of the limitations of philosophical arguments for god. With respect to him, I do think he's trying to and is self conscious of the fact he is trying to construct an argument to satisfy and square his religious beliefs. More self reflection like that I think is always welcome.

[Kingpoleon]

Don Page is an Evangelical Christian who concedes the 'weakness' of his own argument stemming as it does from his first assumption;

'I tend to be skeptical of philosophical arguments for the existence of God, since I do not believe there are any that start with assumptions universally accepted. My own attempt at what I call the Optimal Argument for God (one, two, three, four), certainly makes assumptions that only a small fraction of people, and perhaps even only a small fraction of theists, believe in, such as my assumption that the world is the best possible.'

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2015/03/20/guest-post-don-page-on-god-and-cosmology/

This is from correspondence with theoretical physicist Sean Carroll.

Also;

'In view of these beliefs of mine, I am not convinced that most philosophical arguments for the existence of God are very persuasive. In particular, I am highly skeptical of the Kalam Cosmological Argument.'

So 'FF' from me on that.

He's a very fair minded person who is aware of the limitations of philosophical arguments for god. With respect to him, I do think he's trying to and is self conscious of the fact he is trying to construct an argument to satisfy and square his religious beliefs. More self reflection like that I think is always welcome.

I find Page fascinating on that front alone. The most important thing to note is just how often people change their mind about God’s existence based on arguments: as far as I can tell, none do. Maybe Flew?

Page acknowledges his own presupposition, which makes him, as far as I know, distinct among the Arguers Over God.

[afleitch]

More than that, is the argument the right one? Or is it merely western conditioning to frame 'god' as the assumption and 'no god' the rebuttal. Imagine if the question were different as indeed it was in many parts of the world prior to western philosophical hegemony.