Those who believe that there will be a New Heavens and a New Earth understand that what we have right now is not the best possible world (in the sense that Leibniz understood it to be).
"World" here includes both time and space. This argument misunderstands the proposition.
It still is quite clear though that we don't really demonstrate things in general without reference to a person.
Not necessarily. Many people (Blaise Pascal) have done logical and philosophical proofs for personal edification.
Any atheist with any training in philosophy will more than likely be a skeptic, and will not be able to account for existence, knowledge, and morality.
No, but he's questioning whether he needs to.
The ontological argument itself depends on the assumption that God exists (it also will never lead one necessarily to conclude that it is the Christian God, or that scripture is God's word, it just leads to some general 'God'). It is reasoning from the creature back to God, while not addressing the underlying presuppositions.
Actually, no. Greatness is defined in terms of worship-worthiness and therefore the only worldview which this being could possibly be is the God of Scripture. Reasoning from creation to creator is what all theistic argumentation does---even a TA. Further, the OA is just a TA in reverse.
Actually the burden of proof is on the atheist. The atheist must find a system that is both consistent with itself and with the world around us.
Why? What compelling reason does he have?
You misunderstood what I was saying with the "Gold in China" analogy. The form of the TA shifts the burden of proof onto you because it's a claim not simply that God exists, but that God is a necessary being. In order to demonstrate this, you either have to prove it directly (an ontological argument) or indirectly (transcendental). The indirect argument means that you must examine every single possible alternative system in order for it to be logically valid. "China" in this analogy would be "unbelief" and "gold" would be "grounding for phenomenon X."
I don't see how it promises everything and delivers nothing. It is an argument, not a promise.
Eric, you missed my point. You claim that the argument proves that God is necessary---it doesn't, or rather it only does so in theory. Because you are finite, it cannot do so in practice.
My objection to the transcendental argument is that it has no audience. Here is what I mean by this: in practice it boils down to a lot of bare assertions and unstated presuppositions without the logical force to back them up. In theory it is valid, but in practice it is not capable of validity given the finitude of the presenter. Further, the subtlety of the argument is lost on many. Thus, most will not understand it and rather than being enlightened will simply be confused by it. Those who actually understand it, on the other hand, will be able to see through the fact that you can't actually present a valid form of the argument given what this would involve.
Further, if the argument is valid in theory (which I will grant that it is), then all of the classical arguments are, in fact, just transcendental arguments in reverse. Thus it would make much more sense to continue fine-tuning these arguments rather than attempting the Sysyphian task of actually trying to present a TA.
If Christianity is the only possible way of accounting for reality, then a conclusive argument for Christianity would by default accomplish all that a TA attempts to accomplish. A transcendental view of Christianity entails that a transcendental argument is itself the most cumbersome and least efficient possible way of presenting the Gospel.