A Short Argument that There is No God
I was thinking about Mackie and Plantinga on the problem of evil today and I thought of the following short argument that, I think, captures the spirit of Mackie’s point and avoids Plantinga appeal to transworld depravity. I would be interested to know what people thought of it.
1. If there is a God then He is metaphysically free and always freely chooses to do the right thing.
2. Thus, if there is a God it is possible that something be (metaphysically) free and always freely choose to do the right thing.
3. If it is possible to be free and always freely choose to do the right thing then, if God were to create a world He would create a world in which there were creatures that were metaphysically free and always freely choose to do the right thing.
4. But the world that we find ourselves in is not a world where we are free and always freely choose to do the right thing, and if we assume that God created it, then
5. It is not possible for something to be metaphysically free and always freely choose to do the right thing
6. So, there is no God
March 31, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I have to admit I am unfamiliar with Mackie and Plantinga you are discussing, but perhaps my comment is still relevant as it deals with your #3 exclusively:
Why should God choose to create a world in which there were creatures that were metaphysically free and always free to choose to do the right thing?
Perhaps, God being metaphysically free and always free to choose to do the right thing would choose not to create a world in which the creatures were metaphysically free and always choose to do the right thing. It is God’s prerogative to create whatever world God sees fit: Leibniz would say that this is the best of all possible worlds. I suppose this could be taken to imply that God does not live in the best of all possible worlds if God has provided us with a different world than God exists in and ours is best, but I think there are ways around this. Maybe the best world has only one God and lots of us, or a spectrum of levels of metaphysical freedom from the least free all the way up to God(s) is the best world.
March 31, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Hi Richard, I think that proper form of 2 would be
p: it is metaphysically possible that some *one* thing, namely God be (metaphysically) free and always freely choose to do the right thing.
So, the jump to:
q: it is metaphysically possible that there are multiple agents each of which be free and choose to do the right thing.
isn’t so straightforward.
March 31, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Hi Noah, Thanks for the comment!
The idea behind (3) is that God would want to create the best possible world that he could for us (since he is all-loving) and a world where there are free agents who always freely choose to do good is better than a world where there are free agents who sometimes freely choose to do evil. So if God could create such a world and He wanted to create a world it follows that he would create that world over any other (again, or else he isn’t all loving). So while I agree that it is God’s perragotive, if he is a moral being like they say He is then He is obligated to create the best possible world for us.
March 31, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Hey Tanasije,
I take it that if something is logically possible then if there is a God he can do it. If there is nothing contradictory in there being one being like that, why can’t God make other beings like that?
March 31, 2008 at 7:57 pm
The idea is that one it might be metaphysically possible for there to be one thing like that, it is metaphysically impossible for there to be other things like that.
One can think of such possibilities where it is metaphysically possible for one thing to have some property, but not multiple things. The simplest example being the property of ‘being the only X’.
March 31, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Right, I agree, but why think the thing we are talking about is like that? It is straightforward why there can’t be more than one thing which is ‘the only x’, nothing like that is going on with ‘being free and always freely choosing the good’
March 31, 2008 at 8:04 pm
I don’t have good argument about that. But doesn’t seem obvious to me that it is not the case, especially that there will be the implicit asymmetry of Creator vs. Creation.
That is, if God for example is supposed to be ground (reason) for everything else there is, there will be necessarily some properties that God will have but not his creations. From there, what might be metaphysically possible in case of God, might not be for his creations.
March 31, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Hi,
My problem is that I am not convinced that God believes “a world where there are free agents who always freely choose to do good is better than a world where there are free agents who sometimes freely choose to do evil.” I don’t presume to know what God believes to be the best world. Perhaps our view of better worlds is the same as what God would consider to be better, but because I have no access to that information, I cannot make this assumption.
It looks like we are in this situation:
If God Exists –> We live in a perfect (metaphysically free, free to do the right thing, etc.) world.
and
If We do not live in a perfect world –> God does not Exist.
If I am right that this is our situation, then we are arguing the contrapositive of the same statement. My understanding of the world God would create does not require us to be metaphysically free (at least under these circumstances) and yours does. Unless we can resolve the sort of world that God would create and compare it to our world, we will be unable to resolve who is right. Therefore I do not believe your original argument to be conclusive because #3 has not been established.
April 1, 2008 at 6:33 am
Hi Noah,
You say,
“My understanding of the world God would create does not require us to be metaphysically free (at least under these circumstances) and yours does.”
Perhaps it doesn’t, but then if your understanding of God includes the claim that He is a supremely loving being then your understanding is contradictory. How can you possibly maintain that God could have created a world where everything is just as it is now except that people do not freely choose to rape and murder and yet He doesn’t do that? I find it hard to believe that you really think that a world with serial killers and torture and war and yet also has free moral agents free choosing to do the right thing isn’t straightforwardly worse off than a world just like that without all of that suffering! I mean, c’mon!
Tanasije,
“I don’t have good argument about that. But doesn’t seem obvious to me that it is not the case, especially that there will be the implicit asymmetry of Creator vs. Creation.”
I don’t think there is a an argument for that. You keep pointing out properties where it is logcally possible that only one thing posses that propert. So, it is not logically possible that two thing be the one and only x. I haven’t disagreed with you. What I do disagree with is your claim that it is isn’t obvious that there can be many beings who are free and always freely choose to do the good. I have given an argument that it is possible; namely that God can do what is logically possible and it is logically possible that there be more than one being that are free and always freely choose to do good. There is nothing contradictory in imagining that there are two such beings, nothing contradictory in imagining that there are two, one of whom is infinite and has always existed and the other finite and made in the image of the first. So, you would have to show that there is something wrong with this idea, like you can show with there being more than one ‘one and only x’. It should be obvious that you can’t do this.
April 1, 2008 at 7:53 am
As I said, I don’t have an argument that being free agent and always freely choosing the same thing falls in the same category as “being only X”, or that it is dependent on the distinction between Creator and Creation.
But just pointing that this is a possibility that you jump over in your argument. That is from possibility of ONE thing with property p, possibility of multiple things with property p doesn’t follow (and add to this that they have already different properties because of the Creator/Creation asymmetry).
April 1, 2008 at 8:09 am
3. If it is possible to be free and always freely choose to do the right thing then, if God were to create a world He would create a world in which there were creatures that were metaphysically free and always freely choose to do the right thing.
How does (3) avoid the freewill defense (fwd)? (3) is exactly what the fwd shows is false. It follows from the fwd that, possibly, there is no feasible world w (i.e., no world that God could weakly actualize) such that, for every being E God creates in w, E does no wrong at all. In short, it is possible that God cannot actualize the kind of world that you describe in (3).
April 1, 2008 at 8:16 am
Excuse me to use this blog for this question, but if Mike is the person I think he is, and if he wants, I was wondering is his Philosophy of religion blog moved somewhere, or simply ‘discontinued’?
April 1, 2008 at 11:02 am
Hi Richard,
I’m not sure how you intend the phrase “metaphysically free and always freely chooses to do the right thing” to be understood. For example, if we assume that the only real form of free will is the libertarian one–that is, that having free will
entails the ability to do otherwise–then we could just bite the bullet and say that God could have freely chosen to do the wrong thing in any given circumstance. (God might always freely chose to do the right thing, but if so it would be a matter of luck.) In that case, God could not bring it about that a person always freely chooses to do the right thing, for God’s bringing it about would be inconsistent with the action’s being freely chosen.
April 1, 2008 at 11:11 am
Hello,
I do not think that a world in which all those bad things you say are gone is not better than this world. That isn’t the problem. The issue is that someone maintaining the “God works in mysterious ways we do not understand” line of argument can easily ignore your #3.
You are right to now accuse me of dodging the issue about how God could allow rape, war and other bad stuff could happen, but if this is the case, then I have successfully postponed the conclusion that God does not exist. Instead of arguing whether God exists, we are now arguing the details of possible things God would allow. Now we have arrived at a definition of faith: that there is some master plan, even if we cannot see how particular events could possibly be part of it.
April 1, 2008 at 11:26 am
Hi Tanasije,
The blog migrated to WP and is offline while I work out some issues with it. Thanks.
April 1, 2008 at 2:17 pm
It follows from the fwd that, possibly, there is no feasible world w (i.e., no world that God could weakly actualize) such that, for every being E God creates in w, E does no wrong at all. In short, it is possible that God cannot actualize the kind of world that you describe in (3).
The darkened script is a little sloppy. It should read instead, “. . .such that, for some free being E that God creates in w, E never freely goes wrong.” The sort of freedom Plantinga has in mind is libertarian freedom; but I guess that’s widely known.
April 1, 2008 at 4:02 pm
You think it’s easy to make the best possible world? You try! Trust me, I tried one where the creatures were metaphysically free and all chose to do the right thing, and it was terrible! No one developed morally, no one really took goodness to heart, no one really loved my creation in the right way. Man, what a bummer. So I made this world. It’s the best I could do. Which, by happy coincidence, is the best anyone could possibly do. Biatch.
All-knowlingly, All-powerfully, and All-Lovingly Yours,
God
April 1, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Having looked at God’s post, I see no logical error in his reasoning. There may be a factual question, but I don’t see how we limited creatures could challenge God on that one.
Josh
PS Happy April Fool’s Day!
April 1, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Shesh! I turn my back for a second and everyone is ganging up on me!
I guess I can take a “break” from grading exams to do some bloging 
Tanasije, you say “That is from possibility of ONE thing with property p, possibility of multiple things with property p doesn’t follow”
It does follow, unless there is some contradiction in there being more than one of the thing we are considering.
Hi Mike, thanks for the comment!
You ask “How does (3) avoid the freewill defense (fwd)? (3) is exactly what the fwd shows is false.”
The free will defense only shows that (3) is false on the assumption that God could not have made us so that we always freely choose the good. This is what (1) and (2) are supposed to show. No matter what your view of free will is it is possible that God should have made us so that we always freely choose the good (this is the spirit of Mackie’s point). Plantinga wants to show that there is a possible world where God exists and He cannot get rid of evilbecause in that world everyone is a transworld deviant, but (3) is meant to challenge Plantiga’s assumption that it is possible for God to create a world that is not the best of all possible worlds. But that entails that God knowingly chooses to create a world with suffering, when He didn’t have to, which means that we have the problem all over again.
Jason, thanks for comment.
“I’m not sure how you intend the phrase “metaphysically free and always freely chooses to do the right thing” to be understood.”
I don’t think it matters which theory of free will one endorses. Take your favorite and plug it in!
“For example, if we assume that the only real form of free will is the libertarian one–that is, that having free will
entails the ability to do otherwise–then we could just bite the bullet and say that God could have freely chosen to do the wrong thing in any given circumstance.”
OK, let’s say that. I never meant to imply that God couldn’t do otherwise, surely He could. But the claim is that, though for every act that he performs he could have done otherwise, He none the less chooses to do the right thing every time. There is no biting the bullet here (unless you think that by merely allowing that God could choose to do evil we have allowed to much? I guess some people think that God is bound by independent moral laws…
“(God might always freely chose to do the right thing, but if so it would be a matter of luck.)”
Why would it be a matter of luck? It would be a matter of His choosing. Libertarian free will does not mean ‘chance’!
“In that case, God could not bring it about that a person always freely chooses to do the right thing, for God’s bringing it about would be inconsistent with the action’s being freely chosen.”
I suppose if one thought that free will just meant randomly producing actions then it would be impossible for God to create a creature with that kind of free will that always chose the good (though I’m not sure…if he knows everything, then He should know the (random) choices that I will make. If that is the case then He should be able to look at the set of all possible human beings and arrange them into the ones that (randomly) choose only the good, those that randomly choose only the bad and those that randomly choose a mixture. Hecould then just create the ones that always (randomly) choose the good. What’s wrong with that?
Noah, thanks for the response!
I agree that someone can maintain that response if they want. One can in the end retreat from reason and cling to faith, and who knows, in some cases faith is a good thing. But it seems to me that in most cases it is extremely terrifying to meet someone who believes things in the face of plausible evidence to the contrary. But we can leave that aside. If one adopts the response that you have then you are in effect admitting that WITHOUT some AMAZING story that we learn later about why this world had to be so fucked up it is reasonable to assume that there couldn’t be a God. You can hope for that amazing story, but I doubt that any story could be told that would moraly excuse a being who could stop suffering (serial killers, rapists, tortue, war, poverty, to name a few) but didn’t.
God, I mean Josh
I know you are joking and all, but there is a flaw in God’s argument. If He really created a world where there were metaphysically free creatures who always chose to do the right thing, and if those things that you have God complaining about are examples of things that are right then those free creatures would indeed have done those actions. If, on the otherhand, those things that God complains about are not really right, then He wouldn’t complain if free creatures who always choose the right fail to perform them (unless He is less than perfect… 
April 1, 2008 at 7:10 pm
No matter what your view of free will is it is possible that God should have made us so that we always freely choose the good (this is the spirit of Mackie’s point).
That’s false, and not Mackie’s view. Mackie’s view is that if compatiblism is true then God can make a world in which we are free and never go wrong. Mackie denies that libertarian freedom is genuine freedom. If there is libertarian freedom, and if there are true counterfactuals of freedom (neither of which is even mentioned, let alone disputed, in this argument), then there is no interesting argument against fwd here. You write,
Plantinga wants to show that there is a possible world where God exists and He cannot get rid of evilbecause in that world everyone is a transworld deviant
What Plantinga in fact argues is that there is a world in which every possible creaturely essence (creaturely essences exist necessarily, as all properties do for Plantinga) that God could instantiate is transworld depraved. This means that, possibly, were God to instantiate any of these creaturely essences E in any (maximal) and strongly actualizable state of affairs T, then E would do something wrong. Nothing that is said in (1) or (2) precludes this possibility. What is said in (1) is this.
1. If there is a God then He is metaphysically free and always freely chooses to do the right thing.
In actualizing the best feasible world, God would be doing what is right, even if some agents go wrong in the best feasible world. And (2) says this.
2. Thus, if there is a God it is possible that something be (metaphysically) free and always freely choose to do the right thing.
Plantinga never denies that it is possible that every free agent always goes right. He never denies that there are such worlds. So, (2) has nothing to do with fwd. What Plantinga says is that, possibly, there is no feasible world in which some free creature does no wrong. The set of feasible worlds is a subset of the set of possible worlds that have the property that God can actualize them. FWD entails that possibly, God cannot actualize every possible world: he can actualize only some subset of them (i.e., the feasible ones) and in all of the feasible ones, we free creatures do something or other wrong.
April 1, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Oh well, then we could say that A follows from A an B (if not B)
OK, I seeing that you have A LOT of objections, and also God himself has an objection, I think I will say OK, let’s call that “not B” implicit in the argument
April 1, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Oops, that should A follows from A or B (if not B)
April 1, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Thanks for the response Mike!!! This is really helpful.
You’re right about that, I didn’t mean that Mackie said that (I only meant it in the spirit of Mackie’s point). He thinks that if compatiblism is true then God could make us so that we freely choose the good. I am claiming that it actually doesn’t matter what view of free will one has. So, if as you say we adopt libertarian freedom and true counter-factuals of freedom it should be easy for God to make a creature that always goes right. He can pick from all the counterfactuals of freedom the ones that ensure this and actualize those; He can then ensure that the world is such that the antecedent of the counter factuals where the creatures go wrong never show up. So, though the world Plantinga talks about may be possible it is not one that God would actualize given better alternatives.
What Plantinga in fact argues is that there is a world in which every possible creaturely essence (creaturely essences exist necessarily, as all properties do for Plantinga) that God could instantiate is transworld depraved. This means that, possibly, were God to instantiate any of these creaturely essences E in any (maximal) and strongly actualizable state of affairs T, then E would do something wrong. “
Maybe I am misunderstanding something here. Is the claim supposed to be that since there is some possible world where every possible creaturly essence is a transworld devient that means that in any given possible world there will be at least one creaturely essence that goes wrong (with respect to some morally significant action)? Or is the claim supposed to be that there is a possible world where any creaturely essence God makes will go wrong? I have been reading PLantinga’s argument as the latter, it sounds like you are saying the former.
April 3, 2008 at 10:53 am
It dawned on me last night that how to explain all the good in the world would cause a problem for you. You say that all the evil things are evidence that God could not exist, but someone of faith would take all the good things as evidence that God does exist. So the onus is on you, if you want to maintain your argument, to give a positive account of where the good in the world comes from.
And if God were to come down from on high to tell me a story (regardless of the subject matter), it damn well better be freaking amazing.
April 3, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Why would that cause a problem for me? A person of faith simply cannot take all the good in the world as evidence for the existence of a God that is all-powerful, all-knowing, and morally perfect since such a being would not allow a world like this to exist.
As for where the good in the world comes from (if there is no God), I assume it comes from the same place as everything else; namely the choices that people make. Due to our limited capacities and limited rational resources some of make good decisions and some of us make bad ones. Where is the problem for me supposed to be?
“And if God were to come down from on high to tell me a story (regardless of the subject matter), it damn well better be freaking amazing.”
April 3, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I guess I ought just stick to the ‘amazing story’ argument for maintaining a perfect God.
My concern about the origin of the good was more about countering an argument against the existence of God based upon all the bad things in the world. Your argument hinged on the existence of even one bad thing, so I was a bit off. Shows me right for thinking of something at night and publishing it the next day without thinking about it again.
April 26, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I’m inclined to just throw benevolence out the window. (i.e that god doesn’t match our interpretation of ‘all good’… why would he?)
But I have a back door solution to keep it using a bit of science - first 2 reasonable assumptions…
1) imagine there are multiple universes.
2) imagine that any two universes that are identical are the same thing
now a moral assumption
3) assume god prefers that you exist to you ‘not existing’
now god tries to fix all of this by creating every possible universe so every potential you exists some of which are evil some good some suffer and some are happy.
we are left with
1) ‘why doesn’t god change the two assumptions’ [that might or might not be a valid complaint]
2) thats a pretty neutered version of god [yes indeed, no random intervention in the universe for him]
3) the god seems to want people to exist even if they suffer terribly and want to die (think of the marginal case) [a challenge to benevolence to some degree - or possibly an inevitable cost - if one believes in qualia one might argue such people have their qualia turned off - hehe...]
April 27, 2008 at 9:02 am
Hi GNZ,
You ask “I’m inclined to just throw benevolence out the window. (i.e that god doesn’t match our interpretation of ‘all good’… why would he?)”
The idea is supposed to be that He is a perfect being and a perfect being would, by definition, be a morally perfect being. So if God is perfect then he is maximally benefecient.
But I don’t get your argument in the rest of the comment. God could satisfy your 1, 2, and 3 by creating only the universes where I do good and do not suffer. Granted that means there will be fewer mes, but there will still be many unerverses and I will exist…so why does He have to create all the ones where I suffer?
April 30, 2008 at 1:12 am
Hmmm.. not sure one can treat perfection like that, after all is he also perfectly evil? or perfectly ‘blue’? But I can see what the point is.
“Granted that means there will be fewer mes”
My point is that this god sees that as a fatal flaw. he effectively has to kill the other yous and he doesn’t want to do that, he considers it evil in the same way that it might be evil to kill ALL the yous.
In order to do that he does need to make some ‘yous” suffer where they could just not exist - which is effectively a statement against euthanasia. The idea that a life with suffering is better than none at all is a view I’m sympathetic to as it applies to myself, so I guess the idea doesn’t seem too far out to me in relation to a god, although I’m not committed to enforcing it on anyone else (while the god would have to be).
May 1, 2008 at 2:46 pm
“is he also perfectly evil?”
No, evil comes about via the misuse of free will and God does not, perhaps cannot, abuse His free will in that way. Is he perfectly blue? Not literally, but if he is the source of blueness then he must be perfectly blue in the sense of containing its essence, perhaps….
OK, but I see your argument now. But now I can’t see any reason to think that it’s true. Why is it that not creating the other possible worlds where I exist is to ‘effectively kill’ those possible beings? If God never creates them, then he never destroys them…Consider this, if what you say is true then it would become immoral for God to end the world; for that would mean that there are possible beings that do not get created (anyone who would have been born AFTER the end of the world) and so ending the world would be ‘effectivelly killing’ these creatures…
May 1, 2008 at 3:07 pm
> No, evil comes about via the misuse of free will and God does not, perhaps cannot, abuse His free will in that way.
yes, I suppose it rests on defining a certain set of things as being fundamental attributes, like free will power knowledge etc (so god is the perfection of them) still not entirely sure why but its a bit intuitive - does anyone (authors) expand on the why of that?
In this model he never does ‘end the world’. He follows every possibility until via some necessity it ceases (if it ceases at all). One could then argue about what things are necessities for ending the world but I guess one could try to throw in various things here if one wanted.
> Why is it that not creating the other possible worlds where I exist is to ‘effectively kill’ those possible beings?
I would think that, to a god who is above time, making you cease to exist at any moment including the moment you would have been created seems very similar. He is fully cognizant in that decision of your full potential that he is snuffing out. Maybe you have a model for why that would be different in nature?
> I can’t see any reason to think that it’s true.
This may not provide a reason to beleive it is true vis a vis materialism, but seems to imply a god from first principles that is surprisingly difficult to disprove without actually being designed specifically in order to be difficult to disprove.
May 1, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Hmmm…you have an interesting view.
But I am still not getting it all. He does not make it so that I cease to esist. What ceases to exist is a counter-part to me in some alternate universe. Having that thing gone does not effect me or my potential. I am still free (or not) to do what I do, so he is not suffing out my full potential. He is snuffing out the possibilities where I suffer. How is that wronging me?
May 2, 2008 at 7:35 am
> But I am still not getting it all.
Hmm, not a good sign for my resolution to try to explain myself better!
OK.
have equal and individual* moral weighting. if he cares about you then he cares exactly the same about you+1.
I’m trying to maintain a god’s eye view in order to consider the god’s morality. To the god you and alternate you (’you+1′
If he makes you and you+1 the same person there may be no apparent person suffering but there is now one less ‘you’. In the same way that it could be considered moral for him to create anything in the first place - it would seem likely to be immoral for him to reduce that creation (putting aside ‘preventing suffering’ for the moment) or for that matter to fail to also ‘create’ anything that is almost identical (i.e. ‘you’ or ‘you+1′).
As to your point - In the end you might get an anthropic principle effect where the only you not snuffed out is the you that was not effected, so your conclusion could be that ‘you’ never suffered. that might (?) make sense from your retrospective point of view while not making sense from the god’s.
*although there could be complex necessary interactions between alternate yous (think quantum mechanics).
May 2, 2008 at 11:12 am
Your argument is not an argument, it is neither deductively valid nor inductively forceful and definitely not sound. Please do not state any opinion you ever have from this day forth. The universe would explode from incomprehensible stupidity if you did so. Please go take a critical thinking course, before any more arguments are stated.
May 2, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Wow, Smitty Dinkle, you are a real asshole (and wrong). Don’t post here again unless you are prepared to back up your claims without the insults. Shesh…I don’t what they teach you at EMU but ’round here, we mind our –expletive deleted– manners.
GNZ,
“it would seem likely to be immoral for him to reduce that creation (putting aside ‘preventing suffering’ for the moment) or for that matter to fail to also ‘create’ anything that is almost identical (i.e. ‘you’ or ‘you+1′).”
So, god must create an infinite number of ‘you’?
May 2, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Yes
(Although it may not actually be infinite, since you may be able to count every unique you with an very large finite number.)
May 5, 2008 at 11:04 am
ROFL, wow. And while yes I may have been an asshole, no I am not wrong please go look up the definitions of the terms I used. I am actually doing a project on reconstructing arguments and this one is as bad as the ones I’ve seen for creationism, if not worse. He makes several conclusions/premises which are not backed up by any other premise, making this argument invalid, if he intended for this argument to be forceful then he has failed again seeing as the probability of his overall conclusion being wrong is greater than that of being right based on the premises provided.
P1)If P then Q
______________
C1/P2) If Q then Q is possible
P3) If Q is possible then P would make everything Q
____________________
C2/P4) We are not in Q, and if P and not Q then there is no P
first of all the amount of assumptions present in this argument is mind boggling
The Missing P1) P would only make Q
The Missing P2) If Q then P (this one might be seen in P3 but does not appear to be conditional to me)
And Richard, at EMU I am taught by emu’s. And my name is Smitty Dinkle. lololololololololololololololololol
May 5, 2008 at 11:14 am
ooooo I forgot how silly of me
C3) There is no P
May 6, 2008 at 3:30 pm
That’s better Smitty…but you’re still wrong. The way you symbolize the argument is incorrect. Here’s what it really looks like.
1. If G then M
2. Thus, if G then it is possible that M
3. If it is possible that M then, if C then W
4. But not W and if we assume C, then
5. It is not possible that M
6. So, not G
Now, as we have seen, we can argue over the soundness of this argument, I think it is sound, others do not, but there is no question that it is valid…