a defense of the ontological argument.

My version of the ontological argument:

(1) The concept of God is identical to the concept of the greatest conceivable being possible.
(2) The concept of the greatest conceivable being (henceforth GCB) contains the concept of necessarily existing.
Argument for (2): (along Anselmian lines)
(2a) If GCB failed to exist necessarily then it would be lacking a necessary prerequisite to be such a being, for surly a GCB who does not exist necessarily is not as great as a GCB who actually does, in which case the GCB that does not exist necessarily would not in fact be the GCB, therefore:
(2).
(3) To be GCB is to necessarily exist (entailed by (1) and (2)).
(4) To necessarily exist means nothing more that GCB must exist in all possible worlds.
(5) This world is a possible world.
(6) God exists (entailed be (4) and (5)).

I must concede that this argument is different than Anselm’s in an important respect, for it introduces the modal notion of ‘necessary’ as the type of existence had by the GCB in question. But we still haven’t left the notion of the GCB, so it’s not entirely distinct from Anselm’s either. And in introducing the notion of necessary (existence) we’re able to narrow the arguments scope, which in turn might reveal what St. Anselm was trying to get at as well as point out why Gaunilo's Island and Chris’ Teleportation Device- counterarguments (by why of analogy) have no effect.

Gaunilo’s Island argument (and Chris’ too) serve to counter St. Anselm by using the same argument in order to render a ridiculous conclusion. But the modal version above can easily block such a move, which we can begin to see by replacing the concept of God with the concept of ‘Teleportation Device’ in premise (1).

(1’) The concept of (the Teleportation Device) is identical to the concept of the greatest conceivable being possible.

Which is clearly false; the concept of a teleportation device could never be identified with the greatest conceivable being, for at least two reasons:

-(1’)a The greatest possible being is too big of a thing to be reduced to a teleportation device, despite what a wonderful thing it could be (if it existed), because the GCB must also be able to be conscious, have the capacity to love, create universes, etc.

-(1’)b a teleportation device is clearly a contingent thing (it’s existence is in no way necessary), which is evidenced by the fact that it doesn’t happen to exist, and therefore can never be a necessary being.

But perhaps I’m cheating. By way of the first premise I attempted to weed out Chris’ analogy, and to be fair I need to change some things. In order to carry out Chris’ (and Gaunilo’s) response appropriately, the argument should be reconstructed like so:


(1’’) The concept of the greatest conceivable Teleportation Device (henceforth GCTD) contains the concept of necessarily existing.
Argument for (1’’): (along Gauniloian lines)
(1’’)a If GCTD failed to exist necessarily then it would be lacking a necessary prerequisite to be such a being, for surly a GCTD that does not exist necessarily is not as great as a GCTD that actually does, in which case the GCTD that does not exist necessarily would not in fact be the GCTD, therefore:
(1’’).
(3’) To be GCTD is to necessarily exist (entailed by (1)).
(4’) To necessarily exist means nothing more that GCTD must exist in all possible worlds.
(5’) This world is a possible world.
(6’) GTCD exists (entailed be (4) and (5)).

At first glance this argument seems to fly just as well as the original, but perhaps we should take a closer look. It’s obvious the subject of this argument (the GCTB argument) has changed from the GCB one, but that’s to be expected since that’s how you argue analogically. But the thing to notice is that because the subject of the argument has changed, so has the sense in which the modal term ‘necessity’ is read. Compare, for instance,

(3) To be GCB is to necessarily exist.
and,
(3’) To be GCTD is to necessarily exist.

Despite the identity in syntax between these premises, the way in which these two premises predicate ‘necessarily exist’ to their subjects is different. We can’t read (3’) in the same way we read (3) because the way in which we ascribe the necessity to the greatest conceivable teleportation device is dissimilar to how we ascribe necessary existence the greatest conceivable being, and the way to show this to is to go back to argument that entailed this premise, which would be (2)a (for GCB) and (1’’)a (for GCTD).

(2) said that for the GCB to be such it must necessarily exist, because it wouldn’t be (as) great if it didn’t exist. (1’’)a said that GCTD must necessarily exist for the same reason (that it wouldn’t be as great if it didn’t exist). But the reasons why we say that both need to necessarily exist is different: in the case of GCB the reason why it must exist necessarily is because it’s apparent to our reason that such a being would posses such a property necessarily; that is, we perceive the necessary existence of the GCB to be an intrinsic property of that thing. But when we said that the GCTD must exist necessarily to be such, the reason why we would say that is because it would be greater to us that it actually existed, for if it didn’t, we couldn’t use it, and hence it wouldn’t be so great. But this means that when it comes to TDs, the greatness they would have by existing or wouldn’t have by not existing is external to the thing itself. And this simply isn’t the case when you think of the greatest conceivable being, for in conceiving such a thing we realize that to be such a thing, we think that it must not be great merely because it would make a difference to us, but also because it seems that such thing must exist necessarily to be such a thing in the first place.

Simply put, necessary existence is an essential intrinsic quality a GCB must have to be such a thing, but on the other hand the greatness of a TD might only imply existence when it would be great for us, in which case in terms of thinking about the greatest conceivable TD, it’s greatness would be a matter of an external property of the thing in question.

Some clarifying objections:

Kant’s rejection of the ontological argument, ironically, helps to point out what I’m trying to get at. Basically Kant’s problem is that existence isn’t a predicate (or if it is, it’s never an essential property of a thing). For instance, suppose two people are arguing over whether unicorns existed. Assuming the debate is a semiformal one, the members of the debate decide to define their terms. The one arguing against the existence of unicorns says, “so let me get this straight; when you say that there are such things as ‘unicorns’, you mean an animal that more or less resembles a horse and it has a horn on its forehead?’ The one arguing pro says, “Why yes, the qualities which a unicorn has are as you described, but you mustn’t forget that unicorns exist, that is, they have the essential quality of existing.’ “I thought we’re arguing over whether unicorns exist or not, so you mustn’t assume they exist until you’ve proved it to us!”, responds the opponent. “No no no,” says the man arguing for the existence of unicorns, “The unicorns I’m talking about do exist; they have such a quality! So you’re not thinking of the same thing I am.” “Well,” says the opponent, “if you can’t separate the idea of a unicorn from it’s existence, then it seem you’ve already won the debate, in which case it seems there is nothing to debate about.” “Hmmm, I guess we’re at an impasse.”

Kant says that if existence is a property, it must be assumed to be irrelevant to the object of a thing or else you would never be able to prove to someone who doesn’t already believe in the existence of a certain thing in the first place. This is so, says Kant, because whether a thing exists or not it makes no difference because existence is never an essential attribute of an object; hence why we’re able to debate whether certain things exist.

I think perhaps Kant is right, that one can rightfully separate the existence of certain objects without changing or altering the object in question. This is obviously the case when it comes to things like Islands and teleportation devices. The difference between the greatest possible island that does exist and greatest island that does not is nothing. They’re identical intrinsically speaking since they have all qualities in common. The only way existence would become relevant to perfect islands is when we equivocate between the senses of greatness. Only in the observer-relative sense of ‘greatness’ does existence become relevant. This is to say, again, that a perfect island can be intrinsically great without needing to exist.

But is Kant’s observation true of all objects, whatever? What if we introduce the notion of a type existence such as ‘necessary existence’? Think of GC islands or teleportation devices: examining them with our mind’s eye we see that if they necessarily existed or not it would make no difference; even worse both objects (all created things, actually) could never possess such a property, even if they did exist, because all such objects are contingent things. It’s necessarily false that a contingent thing posseses the property of necessary existence.

But what of the very idea of greatest conceivable being, the very idea of God? If we look to see with our mind’s eye at such a being, wouldn’t we see that to be such a being it couldn’t help to exist necessarily? Isn’t it the case that unlike all other objects, if we tried to remove existence from God’s essence we would cease to be contemplating the same thing? Isn’t the difference between a being who necessarily existed and one who needn’t not to exist to be such being an infinite difference? Doesn’t it seem to be the case that the notion of the GCB includes within itself necessary existence, such that if we took it away it wouldn’t be what it is?



11
Identity of essence and existence in God.

God’s essence cannot be other than His existence.
In any being whose essence is distinct from its
existence, what it is must be distinct form that
whereby it is. For in virtue of its essence we say
what it is. This is why a definition that signifies
an essence manifests what a thing is. In God,
however, there is no distinction between what He
is and whereby He is… therefore God’s essence is
nothing else than His existence.

St. Thomas Aquinas.
Aquinas’s Shorter Summa, 11



*** By the way, the ontological argument has had an impressive list of defenders: Descartes and Leibniz have defended their own versions, and just in the last century you have philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga, Charles Hartshorne, and Norman Malcolm (a student of Wittgenstein, no less, who has a similar argument to the one I presented ((Charles Hartshorne from what I’ve heard argues along the same lines too, but I haven’t read him)).