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Philosofurs - St Anslem's Ontological Argument
14 years ago
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An essay which examines an argument supporting the existence of God. :3
Is there a God? That's the question that many philosophers and scientists have asked over the centuries. Newton thought that there was proof of God's existence and that his existence was evident from the complexity of creation--he believed that this universe was intelligently designed. This man, Newton, who invented calculus and worked on what we now call Newtonian physics and discovered gravity was a creationist. Interestingly , this man at one point calculated that the earth was six thousand years old by calculating the ages of people in the Bible. Though, perhaps we can forgive him since his knowledge of fossils and carbon dating were somewhat limited.
Many learned people in the history of our world have believed that there is a God for various reasons and have various reason for believing in Him--but one of the more curious aspects of this took root sort of during the middle ages with St Thomas Aquinas but most pronounced in this day and age is that God is somehow provable, rather as though God were some sort of scientific hypothesis that can be described in a lab. The arguments that people use to argue for His existence usually fall on philosophical grounds rather than scientific ones. These arguments are:
As in the last piece I touched on the latter two arguments, now I shall speak on the first listed.
The ontological argument was proposed by St. Anslem writing ca. 1077-1078 believed that the existence of God could be deriven from his very nature--that is that understanding the concept of God would prove God's existence. The outline of his belief begins with the notion that things exist in two ways--either in our thoughts or in our thoughts and in reality. You can think of a chair and it exists in thought, and a chair also exists in reality. On the other hand, you can imagine entire universes--such as in books like The Lord of the Rings--that exist only in thought and not in reality. The second piece of his frame work is that it is greater to exist in reality than in the understanding--his words, not mine. Essentially saying that it is greater to exist in reality than in thought (understanding) alone.
Anything that might be called great is something that exists in either the mind or both the mind and reality; however, one can imagine eating a strawberry, but better than imagining eating one would be to actually eat one--it is better to exist in reality than in the understanding.There is no good thing that you could imagine that would not be made better by having it actually happen or have the object you're imagining actually exist.
Now we move on to the understanding of God and strip down and simplify a definition of Him--In his argument, St. Anslem defines God as "The greatest conceivable being," which I'm sure that many Christians, Muslims, and Jews as well as people from many other non-Western traditions might agree with. God is the greatest conceivable being. Thus, given that,
Why does it follow that God must exist? Because if,
Thus, if God exists only in the understanding--only in thought--then He cannot be the greatest; and this, says Anslem, is a contradiction of the very nature of God.
There are many different ways of analysing and understanding this argument and arguments against it move in many different directions. One of the best counter arguments to this argument that I'd heard was that of Guanilo, and Italian monk who came across Anslem's argument and disagreed. And formulated his "Perfect Island" scenario. Imagine, says Guanilo, the world's most perfect island. Imagine all the fruits, all the beach, all the sand. Imagine all the elements of perfection that would make this island the greatest best island in the world.Next, says Guanilo, let us apply Anslem's logic. Given that:
Because it is the greatest conceivable island and to be the greatest it must exist--the island must therefore exist somewhere out there. The evident problem, says Guanilo, is that through this method, if what Anslem's saying is actually true, it should be possible to quite literally define just about anything into existence merely by adding into the definition that it is the greatest to that it is the best.
St. Anslem would ask, then, whether things are or are not greater when they actually exist? This is itself debatable--the Holocaust: was this better in reality or existing only in Hitler's brain? Sometimes, reality sucks and things that exist in the real world ought to be better. It is therefor not necessarily true that it is better to exist in reality than in the understanding.
Another counterargument posed by St. Thomas Aquinas is that not all people define God the same way. God might be, if you strip down the definition of God, the greatest conceivable being but not all people value the same qualities as greatness. In other words, people have different opinions concerning what would make God great in the same way that I'm sure we all have similar yet differing ideas of what would make Guanilo's Perfect Island perfect.
These are just a few of the counter arguments, and Anslem has a few answers to these criticism, however if I don't stop somewhere I could end up detailing an entire fictional argument. Sufficient is that you now know of St. Anslem's ontological argument and understand the concepts behind it. If there are any questions, please feel free to leave it in the comment section.
St Anslem's Ontological ArgumentBy 
Gato909
Gato909Is there a God? That's the question that many philosophers and scientists have asked over the centuries. Newton thought that there was proof of God's existence and that his existence was evident from the complexity of creation--he believed that this universe was intelligently designed. This man, Newton, who invented calculus and worked on what we now call Newtonian physics and discovered gravity was a creationist. Interestingly , this man at one point calculated that the earth was six thousand years old by calculating the ages of people in the Bible. Though, perhaps we can forgive him since his knowledge of fossils and carbon dating were somewhat limited.
Many learned people in the history of our world have believed that there is a God for various reasons and have various reason for believing in Him--but one of the more curious aspects of this took root sort of during the middle ages with St Thomas Aquinas but most pronounced in this day and age is that God is somehow provable, rather as though God were some sort of scientific hypothesis that can be described in a lab. The arguments that people use to argue for His existence usually fall on philosophical grounds rather than scientific ones. These arguments are:
-The Ontological Argument
-The Argument from Design
-The argument from first Cause.As in the last piece I touched on the latter two arguments, now I shall speak on the first listed.
The ontological argument was proposed by St. Anslem writing ca. 1077-1078 believed that the existence of God could be deriven from his very nature--that is that understanding the concept of God would prove God's existence. The outline of his belief begins with the notion that things exist in two ways--either in our thoughts or in our thoughts and in reality. You can think of a chair and it exists in thought, and a chair also exists in reality. On the other hand, you can imagine entire universes--such as in books like The Lord of the Rings--that exist only in thought and not in reality. The second piece of his frame work is that it is greater to exist in reality than in the understanding--his words, not mine. Essentially saying that it is greater to exist in reality than in thought (understanding) alone.
Anything that might be called great is something that exists in either the mind or both the mind and reality; however, one can imagine eating a strawberry, but better than imagining eating one would be to actually eat one--it is better to exist in reality than in the understanding.There is no good thing that you could imagine that would not be made better by having it actually happen or have the object you're imagining actually exist.
Now we move on to the understanding of God and strip down and simplify a definition of Him--In his argument, St. Anslem defines God as "The greatest conceivable being," which I'm sure that many Christians, Muslims, and Jews as well as people from many other non-Western traditions might agree with. God is the greatest conceivable being. Thus, given that,
1) It is better to exist in reality than in thought alone, and that
2) God is the greatest conceivable being, it follows that
3) God exists.Why does it follow that God must exist? Because if,
1) It is better to exist in reality than in thought alone and
2) God exists in thought alone, then
3) God is NOT the greatest conceivable being, by definition.Thus, if God exists only in the understanding--only in thought--then He cannot be the greatest; and this, says Anslem, is a contradiction of the very nature of God.
::COUNTERARGUMENTS::There are many different ways of analysing and understanding this argument and arguments against it move in many different directions. One of the best counter arguments to this argument that I'd heard was that of Guanilo, and Italian monk who came across Anslem's argument and disagreed. And formulated his "Perfect Island" scenario. Imagine, says Guanilo, the world's most perfect island. Imagine all the fruits, all the beach, all the sand. Imagine all the elements of perfection that would make this island the greatest best island in the world.Next, says Guanilo, let us apply Anslem's logic. Given that:
1) It is better to exist in reality, than in the understanding and that
2) This island is the greatest conceivable island it follows that
3) This island must existBecause it is the greatest conceivable island and to be the greatest it must exist--the island must therefore exist somewhere out there. The evident problem, says Guanilo, is that through this method, if what Anslem's saying is actually true, it should be possible to quite literally define just about anything into existence merely by adding into the definition that it is the greatest to that it is the best.
St. Anslem would ask, then, whether things are or are not greater when they actually exist? This is itself debatable--the Holocaust: was this better in reality or existing only in Hitler's brain? Sometimes, reality sucks and things that exist in the real world ought to be better. It is therefor not necessarily true that it is better to exist in reality than in the understanding.
Another counterargument posed by St. Thomas Aquinas is that not all people define God the same way. God might be, if you strip down the definition of God, the greatest conceivable being but not all people value the same qualities as greatness. In other words, people have different opinions concerning what would make God great in the same way that I'm sure we all have similar yet differing ideas of what would make Guanilo's Perfect Island perfect.
These are just a few of the counter arguments, and Anslem has a few answers to these criticism, however if I don't stop somewhere I could end up detailing an entire fictional argument. Sufficient is that you now know of St. Anslem's ontological argument and understand the concepts behind it. If there are any questions, please feel free to leave it in the comment section.
One thing that often strikes me about such arguments is that the people who promote them tend to see little to no difference between 'a god that is powerful enough to create the universe' and 'a god with infinite power'. I would suggest that anyone who wants to talk about infinite anything read through the 'large numbers' pages at http://www.mrob.com/pub/math/largenum.html , to, hopefully, at least start getting a feel about how big /finite/ numbers can be.
Graham's Number is a good example - when I was younger, when I tried to imagine 'infinity', what I was imagining wasn't anywhere near as big as what I now imagine when I think about Graham's Number. I had a mental blind-spot about large numbers that I was completely unaware of. (And while I still have a mental blind spot about large numbers, it's about large/r/ numbers, and at least I'm now aware of it.)
So here's a sort of meta-counterargument to the ontological argument - if the people promoting it don't even understand finite numbers very well, why should I believe that they have any better understanding of the 'greatest possible' anything?
Numbers have a sort of inherent problem when applied to the natural world. The way I think of it is that you could get infinity from just about anything. How many times can you divide a number into smaller numbers: infinity. How many times can you cut a banana into smaller chunks: infinity. Even after we would divide protons into quarks and the smaller subatomic particles we can't even see, we can still keep dividing infinitely.
Intuitively I can only guess that when applying any sort of logic to God, our brains are so mathematical nowadays (because of the world of numbers we live in) that we can't even imagine how to apply the concept of infinity by using logic. Perhaps that single concept is really God.
Just some thoughts.
Even assuming that subatomic particles can be arbitrarily divided, division would have to stop once the individual units got down to the planck length - nothing can be smaller than that - it's the universal minimum distance. The phrase 'a non-zero distance shorter than the planck length' literally has no meaning - not only can it not be demonstrated in real life, but it cannot even be conceived of as a pure idea. The distance below the planck length is zero. There are no subdivisions.
Math is a pure science.
Reality is not a pure place.
I think that the main problem in the conflict between science and religion is the attempt by fundamentalists Christians and from other religions to use religion as a science--in essence, to sort of blend the two in a very dangerous way that is bad for critical thinking. What I was referring to in Newton was the way in which he sort of believed in a kind of God of the Gaps idea--where you explain phenomena you can't understand by claiming "God did it."
My own religious upbringing was itself a rather healthy affair as a Quaker and later on as a Roman Catholic. I find that applying science to religion about as useful to applying religion to science. You get nowhere. And you're very right--I was brought up religiously but was always given the choice as to what I wanted to do--and since I was brought up among Christians who not only abhorred violence and hatred but taught love and acceptance of all people was what had me coming back. In essence, I agreed with the ideas.
Teaching children, with aid by the parents, of course, to work things out for themselves and nurture their goodness is the best thing that you can do for children.
"I am aware that I am thinking. Therefore, I know that I exist."
Your own existence cannot be a falsehood, in the moment that you are aware you are thinking. A demon (or a computer simulation or something else) could deceive you about all the data you receive from your senses. A demon could deceive you about your past; it could all be a fantasy conjured up, that never actually happened.
But in the exact moment that you are self-conscious that you are thinking, you must exist. It's impossible for anything to trick or deceive you into thinking that you exist when you don't exist. You are only aware that you exist when you are conscious of the fact that you exist. "I think, therefore I am" only applies to those moments when you are consciously thinking about how you're thinking, which gives you knowledge that in that moment, you exist.
1) It is better to exist in reality than in thought alone, and that
2) God is the greatest conceivable being, it follows that
3) God exists.
Why does it follow that God must exist? Because if,
1) It is better to exist in reality than in thought alone and
2) God exists in thought alone, then
3) God is NOT the greatest conceivable being, by definition.\
His logic is flawed in that, other than just obviously not really making any sense, it's dependent on a few factors. One would be that 1) It is better to exist in reality than in thought alone.
Why?
And the other is that God is the greatest conceivable being. It is only the greatest conceivable being to human beings, who are perhaps less complete in their perceptions than, say, aliens who see in 4 dimensions.
Those aliens have about as much evidence for existing as God does.
The problem is that I don't think that Anslem was considering the bad things--disease, evil, war, and strife. Are these things that are better existing in real life than in thought? I think in some cases it might be safe to say that having something actually be real than not be real is a good thing, in other instances it's not, hence why his first premise falls apart.
I think for your last argument you're restate basically what St. Aquinas' critique was--or one of them--that people have different definitions of God. When people think of God they may not think of Amslem's definition. As you pointed out, what if somebody believes and a less-than-perfect Greek god? What if you believe in a Christian God but you think of the vengeful God as the best definition of God while another Christian is envisioning a loving God as what God is.
On other thing I will say is that, yes, Anslem is making his argument from a completely Christina point of view. I don't think he was so much excluding other religions from his thought so much as it simply never occurred to him to even entertain other religions and include them in his writings. Or perhaps he did and I didn't get that far in his stuff to find it out. Either way, it makes no difference since he doesn't mention it in his arguments.
Anslem obviously only thought of the Christian god because he is a Christian. I feel like his purpose in "proving" the existence of God was more to convince himself than anybody else.
As far as my ice cream example goes, it's at this point that my philosophy professor would tell you to suspend disbelief and just 'assume' for the sake of argument that it is better to actually have ice cream than not have it. The point is that there is more than likely something in your life that you could substitute for ice cream that you could agree was better to actually have than to simply imagine having. It's just a hypothetical situation. XD
Even given that, however, there are things, notwithstanding that a person can think of that would not benefit humanity or even one's self were they to manifest.
If God is that than which nothing greater can be imagined, and it's always greater to exist in actuality than in thought, then God must exist in actuality.
"1) It is better to exist in reality than in thought alone and
"2) God exists in thought alone, then
"3) God is NOT the greatest conceivable being, by definition.
"Thus, if God exists only in the understanding--only in thought--then He cannot be the greatest; and this, says Anslem, is a contradiction of the very nature of God."
For one point, what authority is defining "the very nature of God"? What's wrong with "the very nature of God" being defined as being the greatest conceivable fictional being? In other words, why can't God be the greatest conceivable being within the parameters of that which exists in thought alone?
I agree that God is not the greatest conceivable being in existence, and I'm okay with that (being an Atheist). I find it much greater to understand our calculable, quantifiable ties with the universe at large than with a being that we can only conceive--a being that, as far as objective data is concerned, is as fictional as Frodo Baggins. I find it much greater to understand the nature of the universe in which we live, its own defined parameters, our own physiological and biochemical make-up, our history as a species and the nature of our origin from evolution. I think it greater to understand morality and compassion (the natural expansion of the ingroup and reduction of the outgroup) as being derived from logic and reasoning, and purpose being born out of our own consciousness as a species that is self-aware and capable of conceiving higher, more abstract concepts. I see no use or desire for "God" in this perspective, for it allows me to travel further down the road of logic and reasoning alone to derive the best possible ways to function, to love, and to enjoy life as a whole, by the very nature of being able to shed any dogmatic law rooted in unwavering faith and a fallacious notion of infallibility.
Because then God wouldn't actually exist, and better than having something exist in the mind would be to have it exist in reality. In other words, in order to be the best, it would have to actually exist. Anslem does say that God is the greatest conceivable being, and that does imply that God is existing in thought, it's just that in order to truly be the greatest of all conceivable beings, He would have to actually exist. To say that God is the greatest being of those that exist in thought alone defeats his purpose because then God becomes something that isn't real.
Now, even if we consider the notion of God being a being, Aquinas goes so far as to say that God is beyond all categories of being and non being. Therefore one cannot even say that God even exists because existence is a category of being.
Anslem 1: "The greatest conceivable cat is the majestic lion, and so it must be what exists in this box"
Anslem 2: "The greatest conceivable cat is the companionable tabby, and so it must be what exists in this box!"
And then because they forced the cat to be two things at once, the code for the universe ran into an infinite loop. But because god was such a chill coder (and was using python), it popped free after a minute and Schrodinger opened the box to reveal that the cat was dead anyway so none of it mattered in the first place.
Fucking collapsing waveforms, how do they work.
First of all, I apology my grammar mistakes; english is not my native language.
This is kind of thought of an ex-highschool student.
If Lavoisier was right and the "balance" of energy \ mass exists;
God must not exist, otherwise he will be "chaos", something that may add or remove mass.
Pratically speaking, I can't rely that much in mass conservation.
Because the idea of "possibility" exists.
If you sacrifice something, you won't always get 100% of other thing in return.
Part of it will be lost among the environment.
and there is much I cannot see; so my brain tells me it doesn't exist.
100% or 0%, they might be inexstent;
As once someone told me that you can't find any PURE chemical element or total VOID of it.
Of course; information are always processed by someone else before being recepted by our minds.
If someone back there made a mistake, we are completely screwed in our beliefs :P
I believe we adapt everything into our beliefs.
Something to act like a mirror and express ourselves.
Existence of god could be like an imaginary friend with high value.
but depending who listen to this; may generate conflict. (or denial)
I can't even say who I am.
My mind changes from seconds whenever my brain processes something new to react.
My words are different from yours, for sure (intensity, meanings)
It reminds me of NPC characters inside a game. (Keywords to communication)
or perhaps I'm inside the probability believing it is 100%.
O_O'
This could take forever due time response.
Like two mirrors reflecting each other.
If this idea from before become true;
We could be reborn after death.
but since we will forget everything as people says.
"Won't be myself anymore."
*Confusion*
First of all, I apology my grammar mistakes; english is not my native language.
This is kind of thought of an ex-highschool student.
If Lavoisier was right and the "balance" of energy \ mass exists;
God must not exist, otherwise he will be "chaos", something that may add or remove mass.
Pratically speaking, I can't rely that much in mass conservation.
Because the idea of "possibility" exists.
If you sacrifice something, you won't always get 100% of other thing in return.
Part of it will be lost among the environment.
and there is much I cannot see; so my brain tells me it doesn't exist.-
R: 1.-The problem of Lavioser`s Law is it only works in the actual universe, not before the Big Bang (the actual physic laws wasnt the same in "pre-big bang lapsus", as an emblematic example...
2.- thats not actually refutes the St Anslem's Ontological Argument , the two main problems of that argument are the counterargument that Gato displayed in this post, and the second is the counter-argument which says: Perfection doesnt implies necessary existence.
3.- My english is not good too...
PD: Iam catholic and i am studying philosophy in my university xDDDDD
100% or 0%, they might be inexstent;
As once someone told me that you can't find any PURE chemical element or total VOID of it.
Of course; information are always processed by someone else before being recepted by our minds.
If someone back there made a mistake, we are completely screwed in our beliefs :P
I believe we adapt everything into our beliefs.
Something to act like a mirror and express ourselves.
Existence of god could be like an imaginary friend with high value.
but depending who listen to this; may generate conflict. (or denial)
I can't even say who I am.
My mind changes from seconds whenever my brain processes something new to react.
My words are different from yours, for sure (intensity, meanings)
It reminds me of NPC characters inside a game. (Keywords to communication)
or perhaps I'm inside the probability believing it is 100%.
O_O'
This could take forever due time response.
Like two mirrors reflecting each other.
If this idea from before become true;
We could be reborn after death.
but since we will forget everything as people says.
"Won't be myself anymore."
*Confusion*
R: Interesting analogies :3, but i dont think that God could be compared with a greater imaginary friend, is something more related with magical thinking(religion ,metaphysics, myth)and philosophy than science and psycology xDDDD (:you dont say xDDD:)
.. DOnt worry its only my opinion...
Greetings :3 And yep its a confusiong theme