ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

In his Proslogion, Anselm argued, “God is that than which a greater cannot be thought. God could not be this if he did not exist so God exists. We have the idea that God would be that so it must be the same in reality as well if he is that than which a greater cannot be thought.” There is little agreement about what this means.

Anselm may have argued that once you understand what God is you will see that God must exist just like when you know what 1 is and what 2 is you will know that 1+1 are 2. In other words, it would be logically necessary for God to exist just as it would be logically necessary for 1+1 to be 2. The idea of God is full of paradoxes meaning you don’t know if it is coherent unless you have logical proofs that he exists which would show that it must hold together. Therefore the proof would be no good unless there were other proofs for God’s existence. You have to prove God exists to be sure that you understand what he is before the ontological argument can work. No such proof exists and all that are offered as proof are just superstition.

Some say, and Anselm might have meant, that if it is logically possible that God exists he must exist. The argument fails because it assumes that we know all about what is logically possible and logically impossible. We do not. It is logically possible to our minds that there might never have been a God so if this means that there is no God then it means there is no God. If the argument works one way, it works the other. To accept the argument would really to be make yourself out to be a better God than God and become a know-all.

Imagine there is nothing not even God. The thought makes sense. It could have happened. So God’s non-existence is a logical possibility – it could have happened.

The critics have said that versions of the argument that say it is about God being a logically necessary being fail for something could be logically necessary without us being aware of it (page 42, Reason and Religion). But if God can be logically done without in our minds then he should be dropped for the sake of simplicity and simplicity is inseparable from rationality. This should be done even if we are wrong for we don’t know and have to do our best. And if there were a God we would know for he would raise our intelligence to perceive that he exists. They say it would destroy our freedom to believe but belief is not faith which is belief mixed with commitment so who cares? When we can reason about spirits and about causality and necessity and still cannot see how God has to exist like 1 has to be 1 then it follows that he is NOT logically necessary.

This version of Anselm’s argument is the modal version and is spelled out in the Handbook of Christian Apologetics (page 71). It presupposes that God is a consistent concept for if God were not it would not be logically possible for him to exist. But you have to deal with the problem of evil and with many others for example the creation problem before you can say that and these people all put these things down as inscrutable mysteries! The possible world version says that it is possible that there is a world where that than which a greater and better and more powerful cannot be thought exists and if it exists in that world it exists in all possible worlds and in this one. It too relies on God being a consistent idea. This version has been used and defended by Plantinga.

Others think that Anselm was not giving a philosophical proof for God but was merely saying that when you see that if God exists he has to be that than which a greater cannot be thought you will see evidence of this in your own spiritual life and you will sense it and you will understand this in your mind and see that God must exist in reality and not just in your mind or thinking.

Another interpretation of Anselm also holds that he was not trying to prove God at all. It says he was only wondering how it could be true that God exists if God exists. In other words, he wants to know how God can make himself exist and concludes that it is because he is so great that he causes himself to exist. Since he is the greatest in the mind being that than which a greater cannot be thought he is the greatest in reality.

Descartes taught that when you have the concept of God as that than which a greater cannot be thought this thought must have been made by a being as great for thoughts are real things and what is a great thought can only be created by a greater and better being. This argument is defended in the Handbook of Christian Apologetics (page 68). So the idea of God proves that God exists by virtue of the design argument. He is assuming that good things can only be made by equally good or better things which is wrong. If nothing, not even God existed, there would be some good in that so good has to exist the same way as 2+2 have to be 4 and does not require a creator or anything to exist to be true. Also, we cannot really imagine what God is like with any accuracy. Can you imagine what it is like to be a being without parts? You cannot. So, how can you imagine God? The thought of God does not prove that he exists for we cannot think of what God is like but only what our experience says he might be like. We only think of symbols of God and not God.

We are able to think of the infinity of numbers so we could think of the idea of there being infinite good.

The Handbook replies that we cannot think of anything at all being limited unless we know that infinity and unlimitedness is possible (page 69). It says that infinity is there even if we do not realise it and that it must have come from God. But we see so many different things around us and the things we judge as limited are seen as less than that. A child can see things as limited without realising that we are in infinite space and that numbers have no end.

Believers hold that God is existence or God is being – because he causes existence he must be existence. Some say that there must be a that than which a greater cannot be thought for existence is a quality and so it would not be that than which a greater cannot be thought if it did not exist. But existence is not a quality or a power. There is such a thing as nothing. Nothing exists and you don’t say that a power or quality called existence causes it!

The New Catholic Encyclopaedia argues that the Anselm argument was not an ontological argument; ontological has to do with being and the nature of it. In other words, it is not scientifically or rationally proving that there is a being. What it is doing is saying is that one must believe in God as that than which a greater cannot be thought and since the understanding develops our insight to what this means we will see it validate and verify itself. In other words, we believe on faith and cannot understand God and the more we understand the more we see that God is that than which a greater cannot be thought and must exist. It is like believing that Napoleon lost everything at Waterloo and the more you understand it the more sure you are that it happened. It is only an argument that works for believers. It was not for unbelievers. Gaunilo, Anselm’s critic, said that it was mad for Anselm to define God arbitrarily and then claim to prove that definition and he argued that to imagine an island greater than which cannot be thought does not mean that island exists. Anselm replied that the definition was not arbitrary for God would have to be above human understanding and that his argument applies only to God and not to anything like an island that is greater than anything that can be conceived for the island might be beyond our understanding but it is not something that is as great as God who is infinitely great and perfect. I would reply that it makes no difference. What has quantity have to do with it if it is something than which a greater we cannot think of?

You can tell by the argument that it is intended to be a priori. That is it does not argue from any existing thing that there is a God. It argues that there is a God like one would argue that 1=1 which is an a priori truth. The premise that the supreme being is that than which a greater cannot be thought and the other premise that God must exist in reality when he is that than which a greater cannot be thought are both a priori meaning that the conclusion must be (page 23, Taking Leave of God). But we do not see their truth in the way we see 1=1 as true so they are not a priori and the argument fails.

             The argument says that God is that than which a greater cannot be thought.  It is said that if this is a definition of God then the argument is an ontological argument.  Those who deny that the argument is ontological say that the assertion is not a definition but merely an attempt to make us see how beyond all our ideas of greatness God must be.  Gaunilo mistook the argument to be saying that God is the greatest possible being but that would be a definition.  But rather than a definition of God the argument says that God is mysterious and undefinable. 

            The argument assumes that the personal three in one God of Christianity is that than which a greater cannot be thought.  But why should it be this idea?  There are other ideas.  There are other things that are more important even than God and therefore have more right to be considered to be a power that which no greater or better can be thought.    The that than which a greater cannot be thought isn't so great if it has unnecessary components.  It should be basic.  Why not say that intelligence is that than which a greater cannot be thought?  Why not say that consciousness is that than which a greater cannot be thought?  It makes more sense to say one of these things. Intelligence is better than love for love is dangerous and impotent without it.   Consciousness is better than love for only conscious beings can love.  The Bible describes God as love.  It seems it would go for the idea that love, God, is that than which a better or greater cannot be thought.  But then love is no use without intelligence.  The Christian God is too complicated to be that than which a greater cannot be thought.

        St Anselm left the world nothing that should perturb atheists.  Christians have little to do when they ponder over the pathetic argument he left. 

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