Ontological Disproof of a Supreme Being

Okay, I know there is an ontological "proof" that goes in the other direction, but I think this one is more compelling.  I note that not all of the proofs need to establish that God exists, they only need to show that this is a reasonable belief.

Now it seems to me that belief in God, and particularly the belief in a supreme being, is equivalent to belief in the non-existence of certain other beings.  If we can show that the existence of these other beings would be plausible, then it would follow that belief in God would be implausible.

Suppose that we create a rank order of all being that exist, from the most powerful to the least.  It would seem that there would necessarily be a being at the top of the list, the most powerful being in existence.  This might seem to support theism at first glance.  However, this would not be the case.  To consider this being to be supreme, is to state a property of the next ten thousand beings on the list.

The combined power of the next ten thousand beings cannot exceed that of the first.  This is a distribution of powers that we should regard as implausible.

Next we have the moral argument, which I am publishing for your amusement.  If God exists there is no objective morality.  There is objective morality, therefore there is no god.  Theists have pointed out that the moral argument for the existence of God is proper in form.  They must acknowledge that this disproof is as well, since the two proofs are nearly identical in form.

This is not really a valid argument since a theist could argue against the existence of objective morality.  It is based on faulty assumptions.  However, I doubt that many theists would actually make that argument.  They are likely to make an argument that the existence of God is compatible with objective morality.  Some have even gone so far as to claim that the existence of objective morality implies that God exists.

However, consider for a minute that they may be wrong on both accounts.  The existence of a supreme being would make it so that rational assignments of blame and credit would depend on the will or opinion of a single individual, namely the supreme being.  It is only when power is relatively evenly distributed between several beings that objective morality can exist.

Objective morality consists of moral and ethical values that are universal and general.  It will be in the interest of any individual to assign blame and credit according to the ideal system of moral and ethical values, because these are precisely the moral and ethical values that every other being will have an interest in supporting.  No individual could improve their own situation by departing from this standard.

In contrast to this, if God exists it will be in the interest of every individual to assign blame and credit in conformity with the divine will.  It is noteworthy that some Christian apologists acknowledge this and actually posit divine command theory as an objective morality.  This would logically place God above any and all moral and ethical considerations.  Again, this is something that Christian apologists have actually done.

However, if this were so then it would be meaningless to say that God was good.  That would be making a moral evaluation of God, who is placed above moral evaluation.  It follows that when Jesus said, "Why do you call me good, for only God is good?" he was speaking nonsense.  That would be a very odd belief for a Christian to hold.

Of course astute readers will question whether morality out to be seen as the moral and ethical preferences of a rational individual.  They might instead define it in terms of compassion.  Interestingly enough one version of this divine command theory has it that it is the commands of a loving creator that are binding.  That is interesting.  Suppose the creator wasn't loving.

Many atheists believe as much.  We were formed by the processes of evolution.  This in no way implies that we are compelled to "obey" evolution.  Evolution neither loves us nor issues commands.  Evolution is not a being and has no will.  It is a process.  Perhaps this is why the theists see atheism as implying amorality.

I'm trying to come up with the best argument for theistic morality.  Perhaps love might have some objective definition.  I'm not quite sure about this.  Then the goodness of God could have objective meaning.  It would be His loving nature.  However, this would be something different than divine command theory.  Morality would be in terms of love.  We should follow God's will because it is the loving thing to do, since He is a loving creator.  Morality compels Him to love us, and us to love Him and each other.

Of course atheists would still counter that the amount of pain and suffering in the world gives us no reason to believe that the universe was created by any such being.  I suspect that this line of argument will go back and forth to no end.  I personally think that the atheists are right here.

I have a system of moral and ethical values that doesn't depend on interpersonal value comparisons, as a morality based explicitly on love would.  If there were some state of the world that would improve things for one being  while making things worse for another, we would need a way of assessing whether that state would be preferable to the status quo.  Under my system the individual merely has to have some way of assigning credit and blame.  It is this method that is given an objective status by virtue of the fact that in order for us to make effective assignments of this kind, other beings must have a similar method of making such assignments.

So a morality based on love would depend on an objective method of performing interpersonal value comparisons.  We could persuasively argue that humans are incapable of doing this, but that wouldn't be fatal to our theory.  God could issue commands to humans that would be a good approximation to the ones that they would adopt so as to maximize the well-being of all.  Since God would be capable of making objectively valid interpersonal value comparisons, then He would know what rules would be best.  I should point out that many of the Old Testament commands strain credulity, but that is another matter.

It seems that the first premise of my moral argument is invalid as well, although it might amuse some atheists and provide and it contains a useful argument against divine command theory.  In any case people might counter that there is no objective morality, that the two forms of morality I have put forward are really subjective.  I would argue that any individual would be more concerned with whether there was a system of moral and ethical values that would be independent of their own mind or opinion.  That is certainly a looser definition of objectivity.

However, in the case of universal love, this might have an objective definition provided we were able to compare the experiences of various different individuals.  In the case of the atheistic system that I have put forward, this would also be independent of the opinion of any individual or small group of people.

I must argue against the possibility that if a large number of people had a harmful or perverse system of moral values that this would undermine my argument.  First, in order for it to be rational for an individual to assign blame it must by the case that the behavior is of a class that would tend to harm someone that the one performing the evaluation cared about.  It must also be the case that other individuals will see that it is of a class that would cause them to have a similar assessment.  The action will in fact be in such a class or not, this does not depend on the opinion of anyone.

Of course, this has the same problem that Kant's categorical imperative has.  We cannot assign a given behavior to a unique class.  In fact we must start out with rules or classes of behavior and then assign blame or credit accordingly.  The problem that this  system has is that it might be in the best interest of an individual who lived in a society with perverse morals to have morals that are somewhat perverse.  I think it is more likely that such an individual would do better to choose a different society.  Good morals encourage others to help those we care about and discourage others from harming them.

I believe that my ontological "disproof" is valid, although it is only a proof of the plausibility of atheism.  I also suspect that if people are to have an atheistic system of moral and ethical values that it will have to be along the lines that it is likely to be of the form that I have described.  If our understanding of neurology allows us to have an objective method of performing interpersonal value comparisons, then it is possible that the two methods might converge.

For the time being, however, I think this is out of reach.  Interpersonal values would seem to require a godlike power, which is something that most individuals, by definition, will lack.