#860 Why Must God Be the Greatest Conceivable Being?
November 05, 2023Hello, Dr Craig! I am a huge fan of your work. You have done far more for our faith than many ever will. I just had the pleasure of meeting you and seeing you speak in Plano. This got me reading more of your work then I did before. My question is this: Why do you think by definition, God must be the greatest conceivable being, and by that, must be perfectly loving? In your article "Concept of God in Islam and Christianity", you argue for God being tri-personal by saying God by definition is the greatest conceivable being and in turn must be perfectly loving. While I agree I feel as if that is somewhat flawed. Why must God be the greatest conceivable being? If Moloch was real I certainly wouldn't think he was the greatest conceivable being. Also, why must God be perfectly loving? I can certainly envision a possible universe where this isn't true. You and I would argue that without the existence of God, objective moral values and duties do not exist, love being one of these. It appears to me that you have to assume that God exists to believe that a greatest conceivable being must be morally perfect and therefore loving. But wait, that assumes God exists to make an argument for God being tri-personal. As you do with every other question that I have seen posed to you, I am sure you will answer this one with intelligence and eloquence. Thank you so much for the work you have done for our faith and for the opportunity to meet you and get an autograph in Plano. It was a dream come true. I pray God gives you long life, as long as His purpose for you needs.
Franklin
United States
Dr. craig’s response
A
In answer to your first question, Franklin, as St. Anselm saw, God must by definition be the greatest conceivable being because if a being greater than God were conceivable, then that would be God! If that being existed, then there would be something greater than God, to which God would be inferior and which God would be obligated to worship, which seems crazy. On the other hand, if that being did not exist, there would be no such being as God, even though gods (like Moloch) might exist. So even if Moloch were real, atheism would still be true, for there would be no being answering to the description of God.
As to your second question, God must be perfectly loving because such an attribute is a moral perfection and therefore belongs to the description of a greatest conceivable being. Keep in mind that God is by definition a being worthy of worship. While a morally imperfect being might be worthy of admiration or respect, nevertheless such a morally flawed being would not be worthy of worship. As the greatest conceivable being, a perfect being, God must therefore be morally perfect, and therefore all-loving. While we can imagine possible worlds in which there is a Creator and Designer of the universe who is not morally perfect, that Creator and Designer would not qualify as God.
It is correct, I think, to say that in the absence of God, there would be no objective moral values or duties and that, therefore, love would not be good nor would we have an obligation to be loving. There is no vicious circularity here, for in the order of reality God is the basis for objective moral values, but in the order of knowing we may infer the reality of God on the basis of our experience of objective moral values and duties.
- William Lane Craig