the argument from propsitions. Redux.

Consider Goldbach’s conjecture:

(G) Every even number greater than two can be expressed as the sum of two primes.

No one, mathematician or otherwise, has either confirmed or refuted this conjecture. I suppose this hasn’t happened yet for two related reasons. No human mind has yet been able to cognize a set whose cardinality is ∞, and if they could cognize such a set, the task of confirming the conjecture would be an endless process- there just is no final member of a set with a cardinality of ∞.

But what’s crazy is that Goldbach’s conjecture, regardless of our failure to find it out, is either true of false; which means as of right now the proposition expressed in (G) is either true or false. Okay, so maybe that doesn’t seem crazy yet. But give me a sec.

Consider that propositions are things only minds can be acquainted with. Why so? Because minds are the only things that can think and therefore they are the only things that can be acquainted with propositions. What’s worse is that propositions seem to depend on minds for their existence. Why so? Because propositions are inexorability linked with intentionality; that is, propositions only have meaning in virtue of what they refer to. And minds are the only things that can refer; which is to say, minds are the only things that have intentions. Why so? Because no conglomerate of atoms ever refers to anything, silly. (just for a fun thought experiment think of the merelogical sum of any atoms you prefer (I’m currently thinking of Michelangelo’s David, and, well, my brain), after you have whatever atom conglomerate in your mind, ask yourself what thing those atoms refer to.)

So if propositions depend on minds and any unambiguous proposition whatever has a certain truth value out of de dicto necessity, then it follows there is a mind that is acquainted with the proposition expressed in (G). But if there is a mind that is both acquainted with the proposition expressed in (G) as well as its truth value, this mind must be of an infinite caliber, and this mind is what all men mean by the term ‘God’.

the argument from universals.

An argument for platonic realism regarding universals (that abstract entities exist and can do so without dependence on their instances) takes the following form:

(1) There is a possible world where there are no particular things colored red.

(2) Despite the fact of (1), the following propositions are true, and necessarily so; that ‘necessarily, red is a color (there is no possible world where red is not a color)’, and ‘necessarily, red resembles orange more than it does blue, (there is no possible world where red doesn’t resemble orange more than it does blue’, and also that ‘necessarily, no single indivisible entity can be both red and green at the same time (there is no possible world where a single thing can be both red and green).

(3) Since the propositions expressed in (2) are necessary truths, they are also true in the possible world expressed in premise (1). But (1) stipulated that that there is a world where no particular thing is colored red. So the question is, if propositions are true or false in virtue of the content they express, how can it be the case in the possible world where there are no instances of red that propositions expressed in premise (2) are true? The way it out is to assert (4).

(4) In a possible world where nothing in particular is colored red the necessary propositions expressed in (2) are true because they refer to the form of red, which is an uninstantiated universal. Therefore,

(5) Platonism in true.

The only way out of this consequence, it seems, is the denial of the last part of (3); namely, that propositions can only be true or false in virtue of the content they express and refer too. To say it another way, one must deny that propositions need not have intention to be true or false. But this seems crazy, and I cannot even begin to conceive of what this might look like, so pending further enlightenment by some sneaky Aristotelians, I must declare (5).

Well, assuming everything I’ve articulated adds up, consider the following proposition:

(6) Necessarily, to be a person is to have rational faculties (either dormant or otherwise).

If (6) is true, then so is

(7) There is a possible world where there are no instances of persons, but since (6) is necessarily true, it’s also true in such a world. But if (6) is true (and necessarily so),

(8) (6) is (necessarily) true in virtue of the fact that it expresses, namely, that a person necessarily has rational faculties (dormant or otherwise). If this is a fact, then there is at least one person, and He must necessarily exist, since (6) could only be true in virtue of this fact. And if there is a person that exists necessarily, then he can be nothing other than what men call God.

... No, I presume I may say that we
more certainly know that there is a
God than that there is anything else without
us. When I say we know I mean there
is such knowledge within our reach which
we cannot miss, if we will but apply our
minds to that, as we do to several other
inquiries.

John Locke,
Chapter X of Essay Concerning Human Understanding

What if the Universe is Infinite?

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the universe really has existed forever, without beginning. Although I have objections to this, I will concede it momentarily.

Imagine the universe exists without a beginning. Does this entail atheism? Of course not. There may have been a God who created an eternal universe. Does the existence of this possibility entail theism? No, of course not.

But if the universe exists eternally, certain cosmological arguments are undercut. For example, those that require that the universe had a beginning. My cosmological argument is one such, and would be undercut should it be shown that the universe is in fact infinite.

But cosmological (and ontological) arguments that only require the universe to be contingent are not undercut. Those atheists who posit an infinite universe still beg the question of why there exists a universe at all, rather than no universe. Such a universe would still require something logically prior to it.

Can't the universe exist by necessity? I posit 'no', as I commit no logical fallacy when I imagine a "world" in which nothing exists - no matter, no energy, no time, no space. Anselmian theists maintain that God is logically necessary, unlike the universe. Thus, He may be logically prior to the universe.

what the heavens are abstract objects?

A week or so ago James Gibson let me borrow Peter van Inwagen’s essays on philosophical theology, and the first article is a critique of all (known) ontological arguments, with special attention given to Alvin Plantinga’s formulation.

I’ve yet to fully comprehend the meat of van Inwagen’s argument against all known ontological arguments, but I definitely have beef with something van Inwagen says in the preliminary stages of his argument. I’ll quote the beginning of the section III at length:

Let us now turn to ontological arguments. We said that there were ontic
arguments that could be regarded as arguments for the existence of a
Deity. But this is vague, since it is not clear in the case of every set
of properties whether it could be instantiated only by a Deity. For
example, could something that is not a Deity instantiate the set {N, being the
maker of the world}(1)? It seems (epistemically) possible that, if
there were a necessary being who was the maker of the world, this being
might also be rather limited in power and knowledge, indifferent to the
sufferings of its creatures, and perhaps even made the world out of some
inchoate stuff that existed independently of its will. Should we be
willing to apply the term ‘Deity’ to such a being? Perhaps some would and
some wouldn’t, and this indicates the concept of a Deity (and hence our concept
of an ontological argument) is vague.
Let us therefore replace this vague idea of an ontological argument with a more precise one. It is clear that, whatever ‘Deity’ might reasonably be supposed to
mean, and Deity must be a nonabstract object. (I shall call nonabstract
objects concrete without regard for the etymology or philosophical history of
this word.)
I am not sure how to go about analyzing the notion of an abstract object, but I
think it is an important and intelligible notion. There are things that we
can see, hear, be cut or burned by, love, hate, worship, make, mend, trust in,
fear, and covet. These are the sorts of thing I mean by “concrete
object.” And there are things we could not possibly stand in anyone of
these relations to, for example, properties, propositions, sentence-types, sets,
and systems of natural deduction- and these I call “abstract objects.”
Let us suppose that the distinction between abstract and concrete objects is
clear enough to go on… (pg. 28)

My point of contention is this ostensive distinction between abstract and concrete objects doesn’t at all make clear the salient differences between the two. What exactly is the criterion for a certain object to be either abstract of concrete?

I’ve never actually done any studying on the distinction between abstract and concrete objects; they’ve only come up as peripheral points in the metaphysics literature I’ve been exposed to. To my knowledge I don’t think there is even a book whose primary content is the exposition of the distinction. In the little research I’ve done Frege’s On the Foundation of Mathematics and David Lewis’ The Way of Negation seems to be the primary places to which our current assay has been inherited. At this point I’m going to give my current and extremely tentative view of the nature of the distinction and what objects I think fall into which category.

In my experience thus far I’ve come to think of the word ‘abstract’ as having two different senses: the first is adjectival and referring to a type or class of object and the second sense verbal and epistemological.

When ‘abstract’ is used in the former sense it’s about an entity which has no spatial or temporal location. An entity that I almost always read about being in such a category is numbers. The number 1 for instance is an object which has no spatial location and no duration within the universe. It’s also been argued that properties such as “redness” and “being snub-nosed” are things are also abstract entities; but if the criterion for being abstract is that an entity must necessarily not be extended in space and have a specifiable duration then I don’t know what to make of the idea of that properties are abstract. Surely it’s the case the whiteness and being snub-nosed has been extended in space and time, for my door is white and Socrates was said to be snub-nosed, and those things are (and were) extended in space and time.

I suppose this is where the verbal and epistemological sense of ‘abstract’ usually comes into the discussion. Philosophers have maintained that properties are extended in space and time, but the mind has the capacity to abstract from its experience certain properties like whiteness and snub-nosedness from the spatial/temporal things which have such qualities and to think of such properties “in abstraction,” that is, as things in themselves and apart from the object which ‘actually’ have them.

Indeed, some philosophers have maintained that all abstract entities are reducible to the set of things which humans have abstracted from the things which actually have them, and numbers too, are no different. This view says numbers are only true of the world when there is a number of objects, and when the mind observes these objects they abstract from the number of things to think of just number themselves, and only at this point do numbers take on a mode of existence that lacks spatial and temporal dimensions.

For such philosophers then, there presumably is only one genuine sense of ‘abstract,’ and this sense is the epistemological sense which describes the ability of the human mind to artificially remove a property of a thing spatially and temporally extended and to be thought of without being such. Such a construal is often what allows philosophers to make sense of mathematics while still being materialists.


Along with the non-spatiality criterion, Frege thought that the second requisite to be an abstract object was to be causally inefficacious. But I think this account flies in the face of some serious tradition. Plato would deny such a construal. Abstract objects, though neither spatial or temporal entities are surely causally efficacious. What accounts for the possibility of predication in sensible objects (like the white pages in my book) is that such instances stand in certain causal relations to abstract entities, like the form whiteness. If Plato’s account is correct, then abstract entities are not only causally efficacious but causes par excellence.

From what I can tell so far the only unanimous criteria for an entity to abstract is the non-spatial/temporal criteria.

So what of concrete objects? The most obvious contrast that concrete objects have to abstract ones is that concrete objects are spatially and temporally located. May we say then to be concrete is exist temporally and spatially? I think this is uncontroversial, and so it has my tentative alliance.

Well maybe not. If dualism is true or if humans have genuine conscious states that escapes physical description (and reduction), then there is the possibility of existing without being spatially located, for consciousness has no spatial location (if so, where?). But maybe this is too quick. Even if it is the case that consciousness itself is not located anywhere spatially speaking, the perspective had by a conscious state it seems must necessarily be a conscious state of some spatial location or another. I can’t imagine myself being conscious without having a point of view, a vantage point of some space in the universe. Does necessarily having a spatial perspective allow consciousness to join the class of concrete objects? I have no idea.

But let’s pretend the consciousness cannot be admitted to class of concrete objects, does this mean that consciousness is an abstract thing? No. To be abstract an entity cannot be temporally situated, and it seems to be the case that all conscious states are temporally situated.

So this seems to imply that conscious entities are neither abstract nor concrete, and I have no idea how to make sense of this.

Notice, however, that just because something is not concrete it does not mean that it doesn’t exist. Abstract entities, whatever they are, must exist in at least some fashion, or else we wouldn’t be able to intelligibly discuss them.

So let’s go back to van Inwagen’s construal. He seems to think that if God exists, then he’s a concrete object. But what of the fact that to be concrete one must be spatially and temporally located, and if God did exist, and assuming it’s possible he can have a temporal mode of existence, he most certainly would not be spatially located anywhere. So it’s not all clear how van Inwagen thinks that if God does exist he must be a concrete object. Assuming I’m right here, that van Inwagen has misconstrued the mode of God’s existence, I don’t know what kind of implications this might have on his argument.

Any thoughts?






____________________________________

Notes
1. N = the property of necessarily existing.


Works Cited___________________________

SEP on abstract objects.
SEP on God and other necessary beings.


Further Reading________________________

Edward Zalta's webpage.
Edward Zalta's online papers on extremely sexy topics.

Just a Brief Thought on Anselm's "Blasphemy"

I was browsing the blog and re-read Chris' clever post on Aselm's blasphemy. I can't help but wonder if he read Anselm's own rebuttal to Guanilo, and just forgot to include it when responding to the relevant historical text on the matter. I am also curious as to whether Derek's modal ontological argument, or his rehashing of Descartes' ontological argument have been at all considered since their posting. At any rate I had a brief thought on the part where Chris offered his own theological perspective. He argues,

1. God exists and man by necessity of being in every way inferior to him is proved to not exist. Or...

2. Both Man and God exist. Man being in every way inferior to God proves that existence is not a perfection. Therefore the argument is void. Or...

3. Man exists and is therefore in that regard equal to God.

All three assume that existence is binary: either on or off. Either an object exists or it does not. But this is not the whole picture. Certainly there are modes of existence. For example, man's existence is contingent, meaning his creation and sustainance is dependent on things outside himself (for us theists, man's existence is considered dependent on God, but even the atheist must admit that humans are dependent on things like food and water). But God (if He exists) exists necessarily, and a se. He is the source of existence, and sustains even His own. So while the attribute of existence is communcated to man, it is so in a limited sense. This is like sight, which man has, but God has without limits (He is omniscient). This is also like power (or free will), which we reference in God with the term 'omnipotence', while man is only 'potent', and has within himself only a limited ability to determine.

So while man shares in divine attributes, they are only communicated in a limited way, hence 'image of God', not 'exact duplicate of God'. So your lines of reasoning need to be reworked in light of this modality. I have taken the liberty of doing this work for you:

1. God exists and man by necessity of being in every way inferior to [Him] is proved to [exist contingently]. Or...

2. Both Man and God exist. Man being in every way inferior to God proves that [God exists necessarily]. Therefore the argument [still works]. [And]...

3. [That 'man] exists and is therefore in that regard equal to God[' is a void argument].

Arguments (1) and (2) no longer debunk the ontological argument, and (3) no longer renders Anslem a blasphemer (phew!).

a Cartesian ontological argument.

(well, my rehashing of it anyway)

I have a concept of a perfect square. A perfect square is a geometric figure of four sides, made up of four equally perfect straight lines that form four perfect 90-degree angles. My concept of a perfect square is something I’ve actually never seen before; no perfect squares have ever been presented to me through my perceptual experiences. Every time I see a hunk of matter stacked squarely it’s had imperfections: either two of its sides were longer than the other two, or the lines weren’t truly straight, or the angles were slightly off the 90-degree mark.

Despite the fact that I haven’t seen a perfect square it nevertheless seems to be the case that my conception of such a square is innate. This is because in order for me to know I haven’t yet perceived a perfect square it must be the case that I already know what a perfect square is; if I didn’t already know (what a perfect square is) how could I possibly know I haven’t seen one yet?

If I have a concept of perfect square it must have come from something perfect; for how could something perfect come from something imperfect? Well is it possible that I invented such a thing as a perfect square? Surely not, for despite what I would like others to believe about me, I’m far from perfect, and since something perfect cannot come from something imperfect, it follows that I am not the source of my own conception of a perfect square. In order for me to have a concept of a perfect square then, it had to come from something perfect, a perfect being, so to speak. And there is only two possibilities for a perfect being.

The first possibility is a perfect square that exists in the universe (independent of my mind) that causes me to somehow have a concept of itself. But this is impossible, since despite being perfect in all respects to being a perfect square, perfect squares don’t contain within themselves the causal power to produce a replicate of itself in my mind; surely such an attribute is irrelevant to nature of a perfect square.

Well, what’s the other possibility? The only other possibility is a perfect being that is both the source of perfect things and also had the ability to cause concepts to exist in other things, and the only thing that seems to satisfy such a description is a being identical to God. Therefore God exists.


“And let us make man in Our image.”

-an ancient Hebrew text.

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)).

St. Anselm: Blasphemer ?

"Well, I argue, alongside St. Anselm of Canterbury, that the very conception of God may demonstrate the necessity of His existence. For, a maximally perfect being is one that exists. Isn't it better to exist than to not exist? It is at least better for a good being to exist than to not exist. Therefore the very notion of a perfect being is a notion of a being that exists. The conception of God, is the conception of a God that exists. God, if He exists, has the property of existence, necessarily. This is not meant as a proof, but as a demonstration that the very order of this place, the nature of our thoughts and the existence of anything, including our ability to think, all coheres with and is evidence of God's existence."    -L

Anselm's ontological argument has popped up in two separate posts here at Raw Theology, and while those presenting it may not have directly meant it as proof of God's existence, Anselm did. Rather than covering it everytime it popped up I felt I should address it in a separate post. So here we are, and here I go.

I first heard the argument a few months ago in an interview with philosopher Collin McGinn. He went over it briefly as one of a few examples of some of the arguments for God's existence. Himself an atheist, McGinn didn't spend much time on it and seemed to feel it was an antiquated self-evidently daft argument that was no longer considered a worthwhile line of reasoning by modern theists. He was interestingly enough not able to produce a clear refutation of it, but my feeling was that he hadn't really bothered to look into one for the already stated reason. Having had no other encounter with the argument myself, I accepted the impression of the argument he portrayed. The argument immediately struck me rhetorical slight of hand, but I didn't at the time reason out why or really even think too much about it because what are the chances someone would bring up a 10 century old argument that I assumed was largely unknown.

Imagine my surprise when it happened. Twice.

It would seem Anselm is now in front of me waiting for an answer, and after a little thought I've come up with one (or two).

The Argument:

1. God is defined as "something of which nothing greater can be imagined".

2. If someone can imagine God, then God exists in the imagination.

3. Something that exists is greater than something that does not exist. (example, you'd rather have a real $100 than an imagined $100)

4. Therefore if "something of which nothing greater can be imagined" exists just in the imagination, then something greater than "something of which nothing greater can be imagined" can be imagined. But certainly this cannot be.

5. Therefore this "something of which nothing greater can be imagined" must exist in reality as well as the imagination.


To be honest, my initial thought upon hearing this was, well, "poppycock." My second thought was Anselm has just given us the ability to conjure stuff out of thin air by adding "perfect" in front of or "of which nothing like it but greater can be imagined" behind it's description.

1. The 'Teleportron 9000' is a perfect teleportation machine. Being perfect, no greater teleportation machine can be imagined.

2. If someone can imagine the 'Teleportron 9000', then the 'Teleportron 9000' exists in the imagination.

3. Something that exists is greater than something that does not exist.

4. Therefore if 'Teleportron 9000' exists just in the imagination, then a teleportation machine greater than 'Teleportron 9000' can be imagined. But certainly this cannot be.

5. Therefore the 'Teleportron 9000' must exist in reality as well as the imagination.

Or even more on topic...

Imagine there exists an irrefutable proof of God's existence of which no greater such proof can be imagined. Now imagine there exists irrefutable evidence disproving God's existence greater than any such evidence imaginable. According to Anselm we've just popped into existence two things which can't co-exist.

or just for fun...

Imagine there exists an imaginary friend of which no greater imaginary friend could be imagined. Wait.....wait...that actually kinda works. Huh. Anyway, I later found I wasn't the first to think of this. This refutation is known as "Gaunilo's Island" after a contemporary of Anselm's who answered him by calling into existence the perfect island.

Anselm's argument has for almost one thousand years failed to convince anyone who's heard it that god exists. The people who accept it's conclusion were invariably believers before they heard it and it's rejecters invariably dis-believers.


The shorter version of the Anselm argument is:

1.God is the greatest possible being and thus possesses all perfections.
2.Existence is a perfection.
3.God exists.

As I thought about it from a theological perspective, something about that second point kept bugging me. Then it hit me. Romans 3:23,"for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God". Maybe not directly applicable but it got me thinking. I am far from a theologian but isn't there a general notion in the Abrahamic religions that man is in every way inferior to God? Assuming this be the case, then by Anselm:

1. God exists and man by necessity of being in every way inferior to him is proved to not exist. Or...

2. Both Man and God exist. Man being in every way inferior to God proves that existence is not a perfection. Therefore the argument is void. Or...

3. Man exists and is therefore in that regard equal to God.


But then that would be blasphemy.

Anselm's ontological argument is at best unconvincing and at worst seems an afront to the religion it was creatd to validate.

-Chris