The Naked Mage

We're currently studying religion in my Philosophy class, and St. Anselm's argument for the existence of God came up. Most of you are probably familiar with it. I can see its overall shabbiness, but do any of you have any pointers as to how this argument might be demolished?

(In this argument, "God" is defined as "the being than which none greater can be conceived".)

1. God exists in the understanding but not in reality.

2. Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone.

3. A being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality can be conceived.

4. A being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality is greater than God.

5. A being greater than God can be conceived. (from 3 and 4)

6. It is false that a being greater than God can be conceived. (from the definition of "God")

7. Hence, it is false that God exists in the understanding but not in reality.

And so if God exists in the understanding, he also exists in reality; but clearly enough he does exist in the understanding (even as the fool will testify); accordingly, he exists in reality as well.

Synaesthesia

If I were to point out the most important feature of the Ontological argument, it would be that the first six premises:

(1. God exists in the understanding but not in reality.
2. Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone.
3. A being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality can be conceived.
4. A being having all of God's properties plus existence in reality is greater than God.
5. A being greater than God can be conceived. (from 3 and 4)
6. It is false that a being greater than God can be conceived. (from the definition of "God"))

Can be collapsed into one single, equivilent premise:

1) Amongst the properties involved in being "Greater than which nothing can be concieved" is existence.

So the anslam Onological argument can be rephrased as

1)God is a being greater than which cannot be concieved. (God has the properties of Greatness)

2)Amongst the properties of greatness is the property of existence.

Therefore:

3)God exists, QED.

Or rather, God exists, by definition! That is the crux of the argument and obscuring that fact is the purpose of the argument's length.


When I define a person as having the qualities contained in the set B (Set B is the qualities of:being six feet high, having red hair) there is no difference between saying that John has 1) the qualities of set B and saying 2) that John is six feet high and has red hair.

This seems as though it is idiotically obvious to your classmates but it is important that they understand this in order to appreciate what is wrong with the ontological argument.

Anslam asks us to imagine God who has the ALL qualities involved in greatest thing concievable. The argument then specifically assumes that amongst the qualities of G is existence and intelligence and power.

We have defined God as an all powerful being THAT exists. The subtle logical structure of the argument simply obscures what it is doing.

And now for the obligatory parody.

1. Those beings belonging to the set of A exist.
2.A three headed walrus in South Africa belongs to the set of A.

Therefore

3.A three headed walrus exists in South Africa, QED.

Regards,
Synaethesia

bd-from-kg

The Naked Mage:


There are a lot of ways to explain what's wrong with this argument; some of them seem to be clearer to some people, others to others. So let me throw in my two cents.

Aside from the fact that existence is not a property (as Kant pointed out some time ago) which makes the whole argument nonsensical, there is a fatal problem in Step 5.

What steps 3 and 4 show (or would show if existence were a property) is that if one has conceived of a being "greater than which none can be conceived" but which doesn't exist, one's conception is logically incoherent. The conception of such a being must include his existence as part of the conception. In the same way, if one imagines a tiger more dangerous than any other that can be imagined" one is necessarily imagining a tiger that actually exists, since a nonexistent tiger isn't very dangerous. But it doesn't follow that that this super-dangerous tiger does exist. All that follows is that if there is such a tiger, it must exist! In the same way, what (3) and (4) show is that if there is a being "greater than which none can be conceived", it must exist. Not a very interesting conclusion.

John Page

Hey Nakey!

The ambiguous a priori definition of god provided can be interpreted two ways depending on whether the “greatest being” is either:
a) synonymous with all existence; or
b) a subset of all existence.

Assuming god/being definition a), then Statement #3 is false, there can be no “plus”. (Note there is slipperiness here, man’s conception could be false. However, the arguer cannot admit this, it would blow up the whole proof!)

Assuming god/being definition b), then Statement #6 is false because god can be conceived as greater - i.e. a being containing all existence - but the consequences of this are given immediately above.

There is also what I would describe as a red herring; the vagueness of the relationship between “understanding and reality” to wit:
Statement #1 and Statement #7 both infer that understanding and reality are separate.
On the other hand, for Statement #2 to be always true, reality must contain understanding.

Cheers!

Automaton

The key point wrong with this (and pretty much all ontological arguments) is that it assumes what it's trying to prove. I know this has already been stated, but I'll add my contribution.

Existence is not a property, if something exists, that something is merely a collection of properties. Non-existence cannot contain any properties, and the concept of a "non-existant being" is self-contradictory. Thus, a thing's properties (in this case, absolute perfection) cannot preceed that thing's existence. Therefore, no inference of existence can be made from properties, properties can only be determined after existence has been established.

Another problem with the "perfection" ontological arguments (Anselm, Descartes, Hartshorne, et al.) is that it is yet to be shown that absolute perfection is even logically possible.

The Naked Mage

Thanks to all! Keep 'em comin'!

Synaesthesia

The Naked Mage ,

I would be interested in hearing what kind of ideas your various classmates have expressed on the topic. It's always enlightening to be exposed to many different conceptions of the same thing.

Augustine

bd-from-kg,

I may be wrong (most definitely a possibility ), but wasn't Kant's explaination of existance in his explaination of transcendental being in which he described being as both a property and prerequisite for all other properties?

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: Augustine ]</p>

David Bowden

Others have adequately shown how Anselm's argument is formally flawed. My little contribution is rhetorical, but it quickly gets across an important and oft-overlooked point:

"Just because you or I can imagine and define something, doesn't mean it really exists."

...hopefully moving the issue back towards the question of evidence and away from this pious sophistry of Anselm's.

Tell us more about your class, Mage! Do you know if it's going to cover any arguments against God's existence?

-Wanderer

gerald_the_okapi

The Naked Mage

My 2 cents worth : Even if we accept that the ontological argument is valid, even if we accept that a human being can actually conceive of a being greater than all others and not think of Lara Croft, the argument tells us nothing about the characteristics of this being.

Nothing on how this being would interact with humanity, nothing on its motives or aims.

Thus to use this argument to argue for the existence of a particular god commits a subtle equivocation :

An ultimate being exists - my god is an ultimate being, therefore my gods exists.

All the atheists I know accept somewhere in the universe an ultimate being exists - just not a supernatural one

Gerald