The modal version of the ontological argument in the light of N.A. Vasiliev's logical ideas

The present paper deals with the modal version of St. Anselm's ontological argument (the so-called «modal argument», or MA, developed by N. Malcolm and A. Plantinga) and the logic used therein. The authors focus on the problem of conceptual connection between the logic of this argument and some implicit ontological and epistemological assumptions inherent in it. Since this argument is constructed, in general, as a reductio ad absurdum, one of its most important prerequisites is the assumption about the logical consistency of the concept of God. This means, in effect, that God is obliged to obey the laws of classical logic (at least, the law of non-contradiction). However it is not clear how the thesis of God's rationality is consistent with the divine omnipotence. The most effective solution to this problem, in our opinion, is to apply N.A. Vasiliev's idea of the division of logic to the "empirical" ("human") and metalogic ("divine"). In the light of this division it is natural to assume that God is subject to the metalogical law of non-selfcontadiction, but He doesn't have to follow the "empirical" law of non-contradiction. And since in MA the concept of God is essentially the modal one, it is important to find out what kind of modal logic could adequately describe the nature of the divine necessity. It is unlikely that this role can play such a strong system as S5, which is the basis of MA. Rather we should call "divine" the minimal modal logic T. But then the modal argument causes the following fundamental questions: (1) How does as the existence of worlds which are subject to some "imaginary" logic affect the validity of the argument? (2) What is more important: to preserve the traditional concept of God while losing the chance to prove His existence in worlds with other "empirical" logic, or to prove the existence of God in all possible worlds, which can be thought of, but at the same time reject the classical concept of Him?

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