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Being Greater and Doing Better

Consider the following attempted reductio of Anselmian theism (based on Rowe, Can God be Free?):

1. God exists and actualized the actual world and no being could possibly be greater than God actually is (assumption for reductio)
2. There is a possible world, w, which is better than the actual world (premise)
3. Possibly, God actualizes w (premise)
4. Therefore, possibly, God does better than God in fact did (from 1-3)
5. Therefore, possibly, God is greater than God in fact is (from 4)

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Sobel's Argument Against Believing in the Possibility of a Perfect Being

My previous posts on Sobel's Logic and Theism, have been pretty favorable and made only minor criticisms or qualifications. In this post, my criticism will be much more strenuous for, in his criticism of modern modal ontological arguments, Sobel has made a serious error. Sobel wants to argue that there is no strong presumption in favor of the possibility of a perfect being, and that, because of contrary evidence (e.g. the problem of evil), if the ontological argument is to benefit the theist (by showing that, necessarily, there is a perfect being), rather than harm the theist (by showing that...
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