The Ontological Proof
You know a topic in philosophy is quite the head-turner when two of the more famous philosophers take smacks at it. Such is the case with the ontological proof for the existence of God. Attempting to prove God with no a posteriori observations whatsoever, the argument is blitheringly clever--though, as with all philosophical arguments, it isn't without its detractors. (Though if it didn't have detractors, it wouldn't be an argument, now would it?) Anselm of Canterbury, a theologian in his own right who died just into the 12th century, executed the first recorded version of this proof. (Mind you, this was during the scholastic age, during which time people were madly proving things left and right--supposedly for the practice. Imagine if that sort of thing started up these days...!)
Yet I digress overmuch. Anselm, in a noble gesture of praise, offered his proof of God of existence to the Lord as a gesture of his admiration. (Though the fact that he recorded it makes it likely he might have been hoping for perhaps just a small bit of recognition for himself, too.) Anselm's original dictation of this proof goes something like this:
Anselm begins by saying that anyone can think of something so good and perfect that nothing is better. Not too hard, really. You could try to think in a similar manner right now, with some degree of success. (Though chances are that you thought of God in doing so...sneaky, eh?) Then Anselm takes a trickier step--he challenges that only thinking of that perfect being means that it isn't perfect. In other words, only thinking of it to exist in your mind means it isn't perfect--it can't be perfect if it doesn't actually exist, because a perfect being needs to exist, or else all of its perfection has no reality to it. (It can't be perfect if it doesn't exist--because only existent things can have qualities to them.)
At this point, Anselm really goes out on a limb. He says that since one can't conceive of a being more perfect than this all-perfect being, the fact that you can conceive of it as entirely perfect means that it must exist (because it ain't perfect if it don't exist). Otherwise, you have an impossible conception (and thus, your brain is messed up. So go away.). And then he ties it all together very nicely with the statement that we define the all-perfect being to be God. Ta-dah! Not only do we have the existent all-perfect being, but--guess what?--it's God!
Our good French friend, René Descartes, decided that he could do one better than ye olde Englishman. His version of the proof was similar, but went a li'l something like this:
We start with the end point of Anselm's argument--that God is defined as that being which is entirely perfect. He then makes the point that it is more perfect to exist than not to. (Again--if something doesn't exist, how can it be perfect? There's nothing there to be perfect, if that's the case.) So then, if we conceive of God (the all-perfect being, of course) at all, we simply must conceive of him as existing (because He's all-perfect, and to exist is more perfect than to not exist. Also, to think of something as non-existent, is self-canceling--it's a dead-end thought, since it's irrational to think about something you already define as not existing. It's like trying to touch something when there's nothing present--a futile gesture.)
Now for the coup de gras: by these points, the statement "God does not exist" becomes an oxymoron--it's a self-contradicting, insensible statement. (Think about it--he's proved God's existence, as He is defined to be perfect, and He must exist because of His all-perfectness--since it's more perfect to exist than not to. Through this, we've made it impossible to think of Him without defining Him to exist.) Ergo, the statement "God exists" simply has to be true.
Wow, anyone?
These arguments have stood up rather well to the test of time--philosophers have bopped it with various rebuttals (including that one horribly argumentative fellow by the name of David Hume), but it takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. Yet what makes these arguments so wonderfully clever and piquant is that they don't call on any physical pieces of evidence. While merely frolicking in the playground of the mind, one can prove that God exists in a manner reminiscent of the "just-add-water" school of culinary arts (no real world observations required). One might argue that the atheist schools are simply jealous that they don't have such a nice rationalist argument for themselves.
Yet I digress overmuch. Anselm, in a noble gesture of praise, offered his proof of God of existence to the Lord as a gesture of his admiration. (Though the fact that he recorded it makes it likely he might have been hoping for perhaps just a small bit of recognition for himself, too.) Anselm's original dictation of this proof goes something like this:
Anselm begins by saying that anyone can think of something so good and perfect that nothing is better. Not too hard, really. You could try to think in a similar manner right now, with some degree of success. (Though chances are that you thought of God in doing so...sneaky, eh?) Then Anselm takes a trickier step--he challenges that only thinking of that perfect being means that it isn't perfect. In other words, only thinking of it to exist in your mind means it isn't perfect--it can't be perfect if it doesn't actually exist, because a perfect being needs to exist, or else all of its perfection has no reality to it. (It can't be perfect if it doesn't exist--because only existent things can have qualities to them.)
At this point, Anselm really goes out on a limb. He says that since one can't conceive of a being more perfect than this all-perfect being, the fact that you can conceive of it as entirely perfect means that it must exist (because it ain't perfect if it don't exist). Otherwise, you have an impossible conception (and thus, your brain is messed up. So go away.). And then he ties it all together very nicely with the statement that we define the all-perfect being to be God. Ta-dah! Not only do we have the existent all-perfect being, but--guess what?--it's God!
Our good French friend, René Descartes, decided that he could do one better than ye olde Englishman. His version of the proof was similar, but went a li'l something like this:
We start with the end point of Anselm's argument--that God is defined as that being which is entirely perfect. He then makes the point that it is more perfect to exist than not to. (Again--if something doesn't exist, how can it be perfect? There's nothing there to be perfect, if that's the case.) So then, if we conceive of God (the all-perfect being, of course) at all, we simply must conceive of him as existing (because He's all-perfect, and to exist is more perfect than to not exist. Also, to think of something as non-existent, is self-canceling--it's a dead-end thought, since it's irrational to think about something you already define as not existing. It's like trying to touch something when there's nothing present--a futile gesture.)
Now for the coup de gras: by these points, the statement "God does not exist" becomes an oxymoron--it's a self-contradicting, insensible statement. (Think about it--he's proved God's existence, as He is defined to be perfect, and He must exist because of His all-perfectness--since it's more perfect to exist than not to. Through this, we've made it impossible to think of Him without defining Him to exist.) Ergo, the statement "God exists" simply has to be true.
Wow, anyone?
These arguments have stood up rather well to the test of time--philosophers have bopped it with various rebuttals (including that one horribly argumentative fellow by the name of David Hume), but it takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. Yet what makes these arguments so wonderfully clever and piquant is that they don't call on any physical pieces of evidence. While merely frolicking in the playground of the mind, one can prove that God exists in a manner reminiscent of the "just-add-water" school of culinary arts (no real world observations required). One might argue that the atheist schools are simply jealous that they don't have such a nice rationalist argument for themselves.
posted by LactoOvoRefugee at 5:58 PM
3 Comments:
You'll have to pardon my less-than-wordy comment on this one, but I could not refuse to add my two cents on this topic.
I hardly see this as proof of God. While it is a great rational arguement, and it would be pretty easy to find a god and an all-perfect being to be synonymous (sp?) but there is still no proof that it does exist. A universe without said being is fairly easy to imagine, and in my humble opinion, even easier to disprove, since some things are mutually exclusive, such as perfect good and perfect evil, or what have you. Such a perfect being would also need a perfect body, and as we all know, nothing physical is perfect.
Of course, I might be perfectly wrong
I'd like to add my objection as well. There seems to be some kind of assumption in this line of arguement that assumes that anyone can conceive of a perfect being. This baffles me since I can say with all honesty that I can not conceive of such a being. By the rest of your arguements framework this then would count as concrete proof of the nonexistence of God would it not? So then would my evidence against the existence of God ruin the who principle or are people like myself merely abberations.
My second observation is as follows. Assuming that the proof you have described is not challenged I would point out that though this would prove the EXISTENCE of God it would not prove the NATURE of god, aka what he is like, what he desires, what he does and so on and so forth. This then would be useless to any organized religion since if they cannot prove that they have a monopoly on the knowledge of God's will then they lack anything to use to shepherd the faithful and harrague the unfaithful about. The response to this proof would essentially boil down to:
God exists eh? So what?
YOu have all actually provided a very valid arguement. Kant provided the same arguement in stating that God can not be described through reason or experience. They both fall short, and where these fall short Faith fills in. Those who have faith have the proof return as valid, and those who don't perceive the proof as being false. Simply put by Kant, "You can't predicate existance" he also said in Critique of Pure Reason, "'Being' is obviously not a real predicate; that is, it is not a concept of something which could be added to the concept of a thing. It is merely the position of a thing, or of certain determinations, as existing in themselves."
Anyway, I'm writing a paper on this subject atm, and don't have any time to say more, however it's a very interesting subject.
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