Proof of God's existence or not so much?

Question

This is a proof or ontological arguement, known as St Anselm's proof. It is simple deductive logic.

1) Any idea of God has to be of the greatest being that ever existed.

2) But the existence of something just in the mind is inferior to an existence in reality.

3) So, as God is the greatest conceivable being, He must exist in reality, as well as in the mind.

By the way, i'm not saying I believe in this proof, I just want to see how people deal with it.

Answer 1

Not at all. Point number 2 assumes what the process is attempting to prove, namely, that God does exist.

Answer 2

Firstly, the way you have set up this argument renders it unsound, however, I will interpret it as follows:

1) I can conceive of a perfectly supreme being - "God" (ie contains all the perfections to a higher level than which can be conceived).

2) Existence is a perfection.

C) Therefore, "God" exists.

Now, firstly, you cannot simply change the first premise (as someone has suggested) to 'Unicorn" or "Island" etc. As Existence is not a part of their definition. A perfectly supreme being has all the perfections, whereas the greatest unicorn that can be conceived does not, as part of its definition, need to exist.

You can tackle this argument four ways:

1) Take issue with premise one, and argue that in fact, I cannot conceive of this being. (eg one perfection may be wisdom, however, to possess wisdom requires one making mistakes, hence the being would have to be imperfect to possess wisdom to a supreme level as it would require that being having made a mistake and hence being imperfect). So this really requires you to look at what the 'perfections' may be, and, see if you can find ways that they are incompatible.

2). Kant's objection, that existence is not a predicate. (search this, probably on Stanford's online encyclopedia of philosophy).

3). Hume's objection, that you cannot move from A Priori truths (relations of ideas - these are merely logical/definitions etc) to A Posteriori truths (matters of fact - actual existential claims about the world). So, for example, a circle is an A Priori definition, circles do not actually exist in the world, because a circle is simply a definition. This may be hard to grasp at first, but it is probably the best way to attack the ontological argument and you should have no problem finding literature on this.

4) This is my favourite (source is W.Grey Prof of Philosophy University of Queensland). It is evident that building the universe would be a very difficult thing, however, what is more difficult, would be building it while at the same time not existing. It is also evident that possessing all the perfections is an extremely difficult thing, however, what is more difficult is possessing them while at the same time, not existing. Wouldn't you agree that a supremely perfect being that did not exist, would be more perfect than a surpemely perfect being that did exist. So, if I can conceive of a supremely perfect being, then, for it to be the most perfect, more perfect than any other being I can conceive, it must not exist. Hence, the supremely perfect being (God), does not exist. (It goes something like that, his paper is far more cogent however).

(ps if you are interested in arguments for the existence of God and their refutations, read David Hume's 'Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion' first published 1777, it is the best).

Answer 3

In four years of studying university philosophy which included Philosophy of Religion I've not found one proof that proves the existence of god. Furthermore, if you are famalair with Eastern Philosophy, Aquinas' proofs better prove Buddhism than Christianity.

No this does not prove the existence of God.

A polytheist would likely say that one god is not greater than another, Premise 1 assumes that I can not imagine any being greater than a deity, well if I don't believe in god in the first place, then I can imagine greater beings. As well, just because my imagination could be limited, that doesn't mean there is nothing out there GREATER than what I have an idea of.

I do not accept that the existence of something in the mind is inferior to physical existence. Well, if it is not drawing the line between physical and non physical, what are the parameters of "in the mind" and "reality". Love is only in the mind, but most will argue it is reality as well, though abstract.

The greatest conceivable being to a human might turn out to just be an alien, or an android, should we worship them? And how does the greatest concievable idea translate to obligatory physical existence? Ideas and beliefs do not make something exist.

1) Any idea of a flying monkey has to of the greatest monkey that ever existed.

2) But the existence of something just in the mind is inferior to an existence in reality.

3) So, as flying monkeys is the greatest conceivable monkeys, them must exist in reality as well as in the mind.

There, according to Anselm, I just proved the existence of flying monkeys.

Answer 4

I dealt with it by looking up ontological...

It rather assumes you believe in the existence of a supreme being. If you do believe in it, it's true, if you don't, it's not true.

So basically, it's not true.

It's not truly a 'Proof' of anything. St Anselm was probably a bit weak of mind I think but horses for courses eh?

God says:
"I refuse to prove I exist for proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing" Then something about a fish and God disappearing in a puff of logic.

Answer 5

I am an atheist, but I fully admit that ontological argument IS logically sound argument. It is obviously wrong, but because of its nature of being logically sound, one has to be careful when he or she talks about why objecting to this argument is rational.

Building a ground for objection to Anselm's argument is very easy.
2) is objectionable to anyone who simply does not agree with it. Why is it that non-existence less perfect than existence? It is perfectly reasonable for anyone to imagine a non-existent perfect island that is much better than islands in existence.

Now for other types of ontological arguments given by numerous other philosophers..

The problem of ontological argument to me and many other philosophers is that it assumes "existence" as a property. I find that this is a common mistake people make. Even academic philosophers mistakenly think that existence is a property because of our language.

Consider the ontological argument generally this way.

God, G, entails perfection, P.
P exists.
Therefore G exists.

This is just a tautological statement. From tautological statement, only tautology comes. Ontological argument essentially describes what God is, nothing about its existence.

Answer 6

There are many 'proofs' of God, but when you look at them you get the distinct idea that they were designed to 'prove' the existence of God only to one who already believed in it. If you don't already believe in God, the proofs leave you cold.

And this one in particular! Basically it says that God must exist because you can't imagine him! Or because you can. Am I missing something?

BTW is Anselm a saint? I had always heard him referred to as Anselm. The Archbishop of Canterbury after the Norman Conquest, sometimes called the founder of Scholasticism.
The Teleological argument is better, but even there, there is so much evidence on the wrong side of that argument.

It seems clear to me that God doesn't -want- to be proven. Otherwise there wouldn't be such a thing as faith!

Answer 7

What do we mean when we say that something exists? As far as human beings are concerned, nothing exists unless it manifests itself in some form, shape or manner to man or to his extended sensory perceptions. Can an 'idea' be proof or just an illusion. One can say 'any idea of God has to be proof of mental illness', how do you know if that statement is true or not. both statements carry equal weight (#1 of the proof and the mental illness statement).

If something is claimed to exist but does not impinge on man in any way whatsoever, we can safely say that it does not exist as far as human existence is concerned. This purported mirage may still exist somewhere in the universe or another universe. However, since this alleged object or event does not manifest itself to us, it does not affect us in any way whatsoever and we must simply state that it does not exist as far as human beings are concerned. This 'inferior' state of the mind, as it's put in #2, is increasing in knowledge from the 'flat-earth days' to now and i see no ending.

The leap from conceiving the 'greatest being' to something based in reality is a supernatural (ie irrational) leap. Religious people argue that, although they cannot prove that god exists, atheists cannot prove that god does not exist. This argument is inherently faulty.

It is logically impossible to prove that an object or event does not exist. However, it is the essence and the backbone of science to provide evidence that something does exist. If something exists, such as energy, matter or space, it manifests itself to us by objective evidence. We can measure such manifestations.

Anyway, that's my logic./

Only persons, who do not utilize logic, will accept as true statements that are completely unsupported by factual evidence. Yet, this form of irrationality and lack of fundamental logic is the foundation of all religions. Since approximately 80 % of the world population accepts the completely unsubstantiated statements of various religions, 80 % of the world population suffers from a severely distorted and thus ineffective worldview.

Answer 8

I'm on my way to law school and can do formal logic forward and backward. That's not deductive reasoning because it doesn't follow any of the rules associated with it. At best, it's partially there because of the "either/or fallacy" and circular reasoning.

An interesting question, but the way in which it's presented greatly weakens the argument that god exists although I do believe there is a creator.

Answer 9

The ontological argument is beautiful. It is obviously false but it is hard to describe why it is obviously false.

Frankly, it is nothing more than trying to define God into existence. (Replace (1) with the greatest unicorn that ever existed). It is therefore a cunning misuse of language. It's clever misleading rhetoric but poor logic.

Answer 10

it's an incredibly difficult statement to refute and I don't think that Kant dealt with it at all properly.

See also Descartes' ontological proof. Again, a very good arguement!

see also Anselm's answer to Gaunillion, when faced with the problem that his logic could define the perfect island in to existence.

Russell once celebrated the fact that he could see no flaw in Anselm's logic...but later went on to say that he'd refuted it! Typical Bertie!