Hello, once again, this is Dr. Phil Fernandes, the president of the Institute of Biblical Defense and the pastor of Trinity Bible Fellowship. And we got another question recently from, actually a suggestion from one of our viewers, one of our subscribers to the Phil Fernandes Show. And he wanted me to try to explain Alvin Planting's ontological argument. Now the ontological argument is basically an argument from the idea or the concept of God to God's existence to show that God must exist just based on the definition, the concept of God. And there's been a debate about whether the traditional way of arguing the ontological argument, whether or not that that is coherent or whether it's valid. But Alvin Planting, he used modal logic dealing with the idea of many different possible worlds and what possible worlds could be actualized. Impossible worlds, like a world of square circles. or a world where there's a being that exists that's greater than the greatest possible being, those would be impossible worlds. So with the idea of possible worlds, impossible worlds, the actual world, Alvin Plantinga basically argued like this, and by the way, he's got like about a hundred steps to this argument, about a hundred premises, so this is not going to do it justice, but just something to try to introduce you to the thought of Alvin Planting, an analytical philosopher, Christian philosopher, but it basically, by definition, using modal logic, the greatest possible being must exist as the greatest actual being in every possible world. We repeat that. The greatest possible being, by definition, the greatest possible being must exist as the greatest actual being in every possible world. If there was any possible world where the greatest possible being didn't exist, then you can conceive of a being greater than him that exists in those possible worlds as well. And so the greatest possible being must exist as the greatest actual being in every possible world. Well, the actual world is not an impossible world. If the actual world were an impossible world, it wouldn't be the actual world. It'd be impossible for that world to be actualized. So therefore, the actual world is one of the possible worlds. And since we've already established that by definition, the greatest possible being must exist as the greatest actual being in every possible world, Then, since the actual world is one of those possible worlds, that the greatest possible being must exist as the greatest possible being in this actual world. Now, Norman Geisler is a Thomist. Norman Geisler uses Thomistic philosophy where you have to start in the realm of being. You've got to start in the actual realm before you can argue. And so he believes the ontological argument is usually faulty reasoning and it's invalid. But he admits that Alvin Planting's ontological argument is a valid argument and that it works. However, Norman Geisler says that because he posits the existence of the actual world, it's actually a very unique type of cosmological argument for God. So whatever way you look at it, whether you look at it as an ontological argument or a cosmological argument, you've got Christian thinkers on both sides of the fence and even some non-Christians. who accept the ontological argument, but it appears that Alvin Planting's ontological argument for God's existence is valid. The greatest possible being, God is by definition the greatest possible being, and the greatest possible being must exist as the greatest actual being in every possible world. The actual world is not an impossible world, it's one of the possible worlds that was actualized Therefore, God exists as the greatest actual being in this possible world, the actual world. God actually exists.