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The Ontological Argument for God is one among several attempts at proving that God exists without a strong contingency on observation. I think it's terrible! Although there are many good ways to refute it, I think the important thing is coming up with a refutation that is easily conveyed and easily comprehensible.
The Christian philosopher St. Anselm of Canterbury, in the 11th century, phrased the argument in a way similar to this:
- (1) God is, by definition, a being greater than anything that can be imagined.
- (2) Having existence is greater than not.
- (3) Therefore, God must exist in reality: if He did not, He would not be a being greater than anything that can be imagined.
The trick is in (1). There's an occasional functional distinction between a definition and a premise. (1) cites a definition but then uses it as a premise. By "occasional," I mean that, often times, the two are functionally the same. In this case, though, they are different, but conflated to subtly beg the question. A true premise would read as follows:
- (1) God is sometimes regarded as a being greater than anything that can be imagined.
Continuing on, we would get:
- (2) Having existence is greater than not.
- (3) Therefore, God is sometimes regarded as existing in reality.
Look what happens when we fix (1)! We find out that the Ontological Argument was trivial the whole time. Of course God is regarded as existent! He's also regarded as not existent. Big deal.
I believe that's what mainly went wrong with the Ontological Argument. Other problems, like improperly referring to "existence" as a property transferrable across fundamentally distinct things like concepts and beings (this is the problem at the time addressed by the monk Guanilo, and later by St. Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant) , might just be byproducts.
But what's the easiest, quickest way to refute it? Though not thorough, this is pretty good:
"An atheist would say, 'False premise. God is not a being greater than anything that can be imagined. God, a fabrication, is neither a being nor greatest.'"
Don't be too hard on St. Anselm, though. He founded the Scholastic movement, which started a chain reaction of Western philosophical development that brought us to where we are today.
4 comments:
Descartes certainly didn't think that ended it. For him, the idea of God was innate. In fact, unlike with any other idea, it was impossible to negate subject and predicate in order to maintain logical consistency. In any other analytic statement, one could simply deny that a subject having such-and-such a property existed at all, rather than say that p (the predicate belonging to the subject) did not belong to the subject, which, of course, would contradict the definition of the subject. With the idea of God this is impossible, and thus the ontological argument works. I suppose it must be somewhat like this - any other subject is contingent in some way. Thus it is not logically contradictory to say "Well, imagine that s did not exist - then certainly p would not hold true of s! Thus p does not belong to s necessary, but contingently on our first positing that s." God is conceived of as a being that is not contingent in any way. Thus, to say "Imagine that God does not exist" is to ask someone to imagine something not possible in any world.
Of course, this does not traverse the supposed chasm between idea and reality. To say that we cannot imagine the non-existence of a thing, and to rely on its modal necessity, does not lead to our believing that that thing necessarily must exist in reality. For some philosophical systems, though, this should work. Descartes again: "If I can think of some thing, then everything that I clearly and distinctly perceive as belonging to that thing belongs to it in reality." If something is thoroughly consistent in thought, according to this kind of realism, it has to actually exist.
I don't want to get into Kant's refutation. It's well-known, pretty good, and hardly needs more commentary.
I object to this in your post: "Of course God is regarded as existent! He's also regarded as not existent! Whoop-dee-doo." Assuming the concept of God is the concept of something that necessarily exists, is it true that people regard God as not existing? It seems like this is a case where words ("non-existent God") are combined in such a way as to produce a conceptual nullity, in much the same way as "square circle" signifies nothing, not even the negation of a thing. I agree that people can express the combination of words necessary to negate God's existence, but is that combination a coherent concept?
I'm struggling with another objection to objections to the ontological argument, but here goes. Someone might say that the very real idea we have of the existence of things rests on the existence of God. That is, "Being" is fundamentally ideal, but still applies to a reality that is not mere illusion. That "Being" as a concept cannot exist without the assumption of an Infinite Being implies that God necessarily exists.
I suppose the key dispute is whether the apparently analytic judgment "God necessarily exists by definition" can break free of its sterile tautology and say, in addition, "This definition necessarily applies to a real thing." Philosophies where ideas are subjective can dispose of the argument easily.
Also totally agree that Anselm was the hotness. His dissection of the concept of being was awesome.
I think the major fallacy of contextual equivocation that both the OA and subsequent cracks at it commit is with regard to the word "god." We refer to the mere concept of god with the nickname, "imaginary god." But this is just a nickname -- this concept is not a type of god, it's a type of brain activity. The OA, however, treats "imaginary god" and "real god" as different variations of the same type of thing. It says "imaginary god + existence = real god!" It fails to recognize that the imaginary god, which is not a type of god but rather a nickname for a concept (brain activity), already exists. It exists as brain activity.
At this point, usually someone jumps in and says, "but can't 'real god' be considered a mere concept?" It can indeed. As long as we're consistent, we can talk about either actual beings or about concepts of beings. But we must stay consistent. The OA doesn't.
Here's what happens to the OA when we just talk about actual beings:
- Fix A: "Actual context OA"
1) God is an actual being that is greater than everything.
But we have to stop there, because this begs the question -- actual beings always exist. Here's what happens to the OA when we just talk about concepts of beings:
- Fix B: "Conceptual context OA"
1) A concept of God is that of a being that is greater than everything.
2) In order to be great, God has to exist.
3) Thus, a concept of God is that of a being that exists.
You said:
"Assuming the concept of God is the concept of something that necessarily exists, is it true that people regard God as not existing?"
Yes, but that's because they regard God as not greatest. If they regarded God as greatest, they would regard God as existent. That regarding God as existent follows from regarding God as greatest is accepted by both theists and atheists.
But after the air of academic assumption clears, the atheist doesn't really agree that God means "that which is greatest." His definition might be that God is a social construct -- that it's an aggregate monster of an abstraction, with metaphysical tentacles tied to brain patterns and artifacts throughout history and into the future.
There's no way to jump from the conceptual context OA to the actual context OA. The only reason the OA looks like it jumps the gap is because it equivocates (cheats) its way there.
Hey Stan. Thanks for stopping by and also, stay classy. Thanks for leading me into this Chinese finger trap puzzle today. I took a Phil of Religion course a couple years ago, and I generally 'like' this argument for the existence of God, but I think I like it for the fun it has with language and the motivation behind it more than anything else. I never got to take a logic class, but am constantly realizing that I should. Thanks.
Peace,
Thom
P.S. The word verification word is 'poozoo'. I'm disturbed.
In college I liked this argument as well... I was impressed with how elegant it was and how inviolable it appeared.
And it gets a lot of play in apologetics circles even to this day!
Poozoo eh.. that doesn't sound like any place I'd like to visit.
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