Cutsinger's Ontological Argument

[Kilbourne]

Thomist James Chastek has a fascinating article that discusses whether or not Anselm’s argument is tied to mystical experience. Never heard that before, but here’s the article: thomism.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/anselms-argument-and-mystical-experience/

I must read this. Father Robert Barron probably has a similar view. I found a video of a lecture he did at Sacred Heart Seminary where he dwelt almost the entire time discussing the mind-blowing definition of God as TTWNGCBT. The last 5 minutes were on the rest of the argument. Cutsinger also takes a mystical approach.

 

[Kilbourne]

BTW, Cutsinger’s lecture can be found here: cutsinger.net/pdf/anselm.pdf

 

[reggieM]

Hm, interesting reggiem.I’d always heard that Aquinas rejected the ontological argument (I hesitate to say “refuted”, but definitely rejected).

Thomist James Chastek has a fascinating article that discusses whether or not Anselm’s argument is tied to mystical experience. Never heard that before, but here’s the article: thomism.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/anselms-argument-and-mystical-experience/

“To see Anselm’s argument in the way suggested here, we need to get beyond the mere words “that than which nothing greater can be thought” and try to reconstruct the experience by which one can come up with such an idea in the first place. What would be a single, unified experience of the that than which, etc. even if it is experienced within ourselves? To raise the question usually serves as a painful reminder that our appreciation of Anselm’s argument usually does not go much further than knowing the words and the syntactical relationships between them. Any of our experiences may or may not be illusory, but what is it to have the experience of that than which nothing greater can be thought?”

…Interesting. Seems like a very Thomist response.

…Ah, it seems as if Mr. Chastek might back you up on this one reggiem He writes in this article: thomism.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/my-philosophical-bugbears/

4.) St. Thomas refuted the ontological argument. St. Thomas’s refutations of what appear to be ontological arguments are always expressed in terms of denying the self-evidence of some relevant predicate about God, that is, STA denies it is self-evident to us to say “that than which nothing greater can be thought necessarily exists” or “A divine being is that than which nothing better can be thought”. This is true, but it’s not clear that Anselm would disagree.

This seems to lend some credence to what you said; St. Thomas agrees with the Ontological argument and is only refuting silly objections. Not sure if that’s true or not, but it makes sense.

Yes – Mr. Chastek’s commentary was very impressive – thanks for sending that, Marc!
He offered a long response on that blog post to a critic. It does sound like he’d back up my opinion. I learned quite a lot from that. It’s amazing to see the depth such a simple argument can generate.

I really like that argument that ties Anselm’s view to mysticism. That makes sense to me – and yes, it does seem very Thomistic!

 

[reggieM]

I must read this. Father Robert Barron probably has a similar view. I found a video of a lecture he did at Sacred Heart Seminary where he dwelt almost the entire time discussing the mind-blowing definition of God as TTWNGCBT. The last 5 minutes were on the rest of the argument. Cutsinger also takes a mystical approach.

I like the way you describe that – it is, indeed, a mind-blowing definition.

 

[reggieM]

I agree. It has often been argued that what is “greater” is a matter of opinion or even taste, but that is silly. God is the embodiment of all value whatsoever, so my opinion as to what is great is kind of trivial. Charles Hartshorne, a big fan of Anselm’s second argument, says that Anselm conceives of greatness in the most general way possible: * “God is better than anyone or anything else in whatever way it is better to be.”]*

What a great quote – yes, exactly. We’re looking at greatness in its fullest possible meaning. It’s like “absolute perfection”. We can understand that concept negatively – by understanding what would be a flaw and then just take that way to arrive an analogy of perfection. The common argument “ok, what would a perfect ice cream cone be then?” – is also trivial and silly. An ice cream cone cannot be an example of absolute perfection because it is something temporal, limited, dependent, transient and lacking in many qualities – no matter how “good” the ice cream could be.

 

[JohnAlexander]

Hi John,

I take it to be intuitively obvious that a man is greater than a cat, which is greater than a worm, which is greater than an amoeba, which is greater than a rock, which is greater than an atom, which is greater than… a Higgs Boson.

There are real differences of richness of being between each that everyone would agree on. It is not just a matter of arbitrary definition.

I don’t think it is intuitively obvious. What you mean by greater is not defined.

The only way that man can be greater than a cat is if God exists which is what you are trying to prove in the first place. Thus you can’t use the concept in a proof for God’s existence.

 

[reggieM]

I don’t think it is intuitively obvious. What you mean by greater is not defined.

The only way that man can be greater than a cat is if God exists which is what you are trying to prove in the first place. Thus you can’t use the concept in a proof for God’s existence.

You addressed this to Kilbourne but I’ll offer some philosophizing if you don’t mind …

"The only way that man can be greater than a cat is if God exists …" That is a fascinating statement and there are so many ways that is true, certainly. It’s almost a proof for the existence of God in itself.

Because, if we extend that statement out a bit we could arrive at other similar truths. First, the only way [anything] can be greater than [anything] is if God exists. From that, we have: "the term *greater *only has real meaning if God exists – because there would be no need for the term and it actually could never be correct or accurate at all. It would be completely meaningless.

A final point – we mentioned “intuitively obvious”. Then, we considered is a man is greater than a cat. However, let’s take it out to the edges of the scale: “Is it intuitively obvious that a man is greater than a rock?”

I believe your criticism holds true: “The only way that man can be greater than a rock is if God exists …”

However, now we have to consider some intuitive qualities. I think it’s fair to say that it is, and always has been, universally held in all human history in every culture – that a man is greater than a rock. That’s about as intuitively obvious as it gets.

However, if God did not exist, that intuitively obvious notion would be false. Man would not be greater than a rock at all.

That’s the wonder and kind of perverse beauty of the atheistic worldview. It simply cannot live by it’s own principles. It fully accepts, usually without question, these intuitive truths that can only be true if God exists.

So I think St. Anselm’s argument is pointing to that very problem. He’s not starting with God and then giving a proof, but he’s showing that basic human intuition (about what is greater or lesser) moves directly to the existence of God.

The fact that it is universal in human thought and experience to judge and understand things on a hierarchy of value – in fact – that human reason and rational though itself requires the acceptance of a scale of value (true versus false is greater vs lesser) is proof that this intuition has a solid basis.

Once you have that scale established – the basic foundation of reason (as an understanding is greater it is more comprehensive and more true) – then it’s not reasonable to deny that it exists, even though – in a Godless world there should not and could not really be any “greater” anything at all.

This is the argument from perfection in some ways also – since “greater” always points up the scale of perfection and always refers to an endpoint which is greatest, and therefore most perfect.

 

[tafan]

I have always wondered about the fascination of people with the Ontological Arguments. My favorite mathemetician, Kurt Godel, even had one that was not published until after his death en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_ontological_proof.

I have never been liked them. One of the few things I think I would ever agree with Bertrand Russell would be his quote “the argument does not, to a modern mind, seem very convincing, but it is easier to feel convinced that it must be fallacious than it is to find out precisely where the fallacy lies”.

IIRC, it was Father Knox who had the simplistic answer to it I cannot get past. Anyone has the option of not thinking about God, therefore the proof seems to fail.

I will accept Aquinas’ 5 proofs as a much better baseline; and I will accept Pascal’s Wager as a very good path to knowledge of God. And I like C.S.Lewis’s arument in Mere Christianity that the natural law, which obviously exists, had to come from someone.

But the ontological argument has never been one of my favorites.

 

[reggieM]

I have always wondered about the fascination of people with the Ontological Arguments. My favorite mathemetician, Kurt Godel, even had one that was not published until after his death en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_ontological_proof.

I didn’t know about Godel’s proof – thanks for posting that. Now I need to try to figure out what it means.

IIRC, it was Father Knox who had the simplistic answer to it I cannot get past. Anyone has the option of not thinking about God, therefore the proof seems to fail.

I did a quick search for that but I didn’t find anything. I like Msgr. Knox enough to think that you didn’t recall what he said completely. Or else I’m not following it, in any case. It sounds like the refutation we considered earlier on the thread – since a person may think that God is a body (or a giant unicorn), then supposedly the argument fails. But that’s just like saying that people can deny any truth and therefore no logical arguments will work.

St. Anselm’s argument starts with certain premises – and within that structure it works.
Remember, he’s explaining why it is a fool that says in his heart there is no God. So, he’s starting with a fool who is talking in his heart about God.
That’s a different kind of proof.

 

[Kilbourne]

I don’t think it is intuitively obvious. What you mean by greater is not defined.

I think we have. First, it is Cutsinger’s contention that Anselm’s “greater than” principle compares real beings, as a class, to mental beings, as a class. Thus any real being, which is a being having independent existence, is greater than any idea or mental being, which does not have independent existence. Mental beings depend on the existence of a thinking subject.

 

[Kilbourne]

To assert that real being is greater than mental being, according to Cutsinger, is to affirm the existence or being itself is a matter of degrees. Moving first from the realm of mental beings (the bottom link in the chain of being) one first makes the transition upward to the lowest real being. IOW, we have moved into the realm of independent existence.

From the lowest real being, say, a Higgs Boson, we move on up the chain. As we go up, we not only are adding mass, but we are also qualitatvely adding faculties. We are adding richness to being. Therefore, we are justified in saying that a higher link in the chain has more richness of being, more faculties, than the lower. Comparing a cat with a rock, who can deny that a cat is the greater being?

 

[Kilbourne]

John and Reggie,

It does seem that, once we accept that there are degrees of being, we are set on a trajectory to affirm God’s existence.

 

[tafan]

I didn’t know about Godel’s proof – thanks for posting that. Now I need to try to figure out what it means.

I did a quick search for that but I didn’t find anything. I like Msgr. Knox enough to think that you didn’t recall what he said completely. Or else I’m not following it, in any case. It sounds like the refutation we considered earlier on the thread – since a person may think that God is a body (or a giant unicorn), then supposedly the argument fails. But that’s just like saying that people can deny any truth and thefore no logical arguments will work.

St. Anselm’s argument starts with certain premises – and within that structure it works.
Remember, he’s explaining why it is a fool that says in his heart there is no God. So, he’s starting with a fool who is talking in his heart about God.
That’s a different kind of proof.

Start at the end of your post and work backwards:
Anselm was doing a proof for fools? Ok, why are so many interested in it and why do we think it is useful?

As to Knox’s comments on it, I would refer you to the book “The Belief of Catholics”, in the chapter 4, The God Who Hides Himself. Actuall, Knox is quite critical of the ontological approach. He gives a couple of pages of criticism to it, starting with this paragraph after stating the proof:

This attempt to prove the existence of God, or to declare the proof of it unnecessary, without reference to the effects of his power which we experience in his visible creation, is a permanent temptation to the human mind. Intellects as far removed from one another as those of Anselm, Descartes, and de Bonald have umdertaken it, and it is probable that they will never lack successors. Protestant thought, in our day, is much wedded not to these but to similar speculations. Thus, you will seldom read any piece of non-Catholic apologetic without coming across some reference to man’s sense of his need for God, or man’s notion of holiness, a notion which can only be perfectly realised in God. The implication of all such language is that it is possible to argue directly from the existence of concepts in our own mind to the existence of real objects, to which those concepts correspond.

You will note that he does not say “therefore no logical arguments will work” (to quote you); what he says is a purely mental approach without relying on the effects of God’s power which we experience is the problem. And I think this, in a certain sense, mirrors Aquinas’s problem with the Ontological proof.

As to my exact reference, that is further down a couple of paragraphs:

“But at least,” St. Anselm would retort, “it is impossible to think of an imperfect God, and therefore it is impossible to think of a non-existent God.” To which the atheist replies with some justice that, since God does not exist, it is not necessary to think about him at all.

You can find the entire book on line here ewtn.com/library/CHRIST/BELIEF.txt

Finally, as to Godel’s proof. Well, there was a time in what almost seems like a previous life when I could follow the man’s work. Now, I look at the wikipedia page I posted and get tired-head really quick. But, unlike the his Incompleteness Theorems; his ontological proof does not interest me enough to tackle.

Now, jumping to the end your post, you are correct; it is a different type of proof that Anselm attempted and the fact that the greatest logician of our time attempted the same thing illustrates it quite well. It backs up what Fr. Knox said, they are purely logical proofs, seeking to prove through logic what Aquinas sought to proof based on our experience. Not the way to find God, IMO.

 

[tafan]

Start at the end of your post and work backwards:
Anselm was doing a proof for fools? Ok, why are so many interested in it and why do we think it is useful?

As to Knox’s comments on it, I would refer you to the book “The Belief of Catholics”, in the chapter 4, The God Who Hides Himself. Actuall, Knox is quite critical of the ontological approach. He gives a couple of pages of criticism to it, starting with this paragraph after stating the proof:

You will note that he does not say “therefore no logical arguments will work” (to quote you); what he says is a purely mental approach without relying on the effects of God’s power which we experience is the problem. And I think this, in a certain sense, mirrors Aquinas’s problem with the Ontological proof.

As to my exact reference, that is further down a couple of paragraphs:

You can find the entire book on line here ewtn.com/library/CHRIST/BELIEF.txt

Finally, as to Godel’s proof. Well, there was a time in what almost seems like a previous life when I could follow the man’s work. Now, I look at the wikipedia page I posted and get tired-head really quick. But, unlike the his Incompleteness Theorems; his ontological proof does not interest me enough to tackle.

Now, jumping to the end your post, you are correct; it is a different type of proof that Anselm attempted and the fact that the greatest logician of our time attempted the same thing illustrates it quite well. It backs up what Fr. Knox said, they are purely logical proofs, seeking to prove through logic what Aquinas sought to prove based on our experience. Not the way to find God, IMO.

 

[reggieM]

Start at the end of your post and work backwards:
Anselm was doing a proof for fools?

No - not *for *fools, but *about *fools. St. Anselm’s argument came out of his attempt to explain that Psalm passage “The fool has said in his heart there is no God”. So, his ontological proof has that starting point and moves from there. If a person (the fool) says that there is no God, he can’t then say later (quoting Msgr. Knox): “it is not necessary to think about [God] at all”. Obviously, you have to think about God in order to say there is no God.

To say that “God does not exist”, you can’t also say that “I don’t want to know what God is defined to be” – without being doubly the fool.

St. Thomas’ criticism is similar and that’s why it doesn’t ring true for me either. He says, basically that “some people might not agree with St. Anselm’s definition of what God is.”

But the strange thing is that St. Thomas agrees with St. Anselm’s definition as being correct. Therefore, I think St. Thomas is saying: “You need another argument to prove the first premise which is the definition of God.”

But can any Catholic deny that God is that which nothing greater can be conceived?

That’s something we haven’t really discussed yet. I don’t see how it’s possible for a Catholic to reject that definition. There could not be something greater than God – by definition. So, to say that “people have another definition of God” is a pretty weak argument. Sure – people might think that God is a giant unicorn – but why bother even talking about that?

It’s the same thing with any of St. Thomas’ five arguments. They “could be” dismissed like this – as an atheist might make these claims:

“Things can move by themselves”.
“Things can create themselves”.
“There can be effects without causes”.
“Something can come from nothing”.

Do those refute St. Thomas’ arguments? Actually, yes – they do refute every one of his arguments. The reason being, they deny St. Thomas’ first premises which are not proven in his 5 arguments. St. Thomas’ first premises are assumed – they’re axioms and first principles that he would consider that every reasonable person must accept.

It’s the same with St. Anselm’s argument. Sure, if you deny that God is that which nothing greater can be conceived – then the argument is dead before it gets started.

“God is not as great as natural laws”.
“God was created by mutations and natural selecton”.
“God actually came from another planet.”
“God is a human being who achieved great power.”
“God is a force that exists in the universe”.
“God is an imperfect being”.

… please excuse those blasphemous thoughts, but a person could claim any of those things and “refute” St. Anselm’s argument.

Ok, why are so many interested in it and why do we think it is useful?

I think it is very useful because it shows the power of definition and of the intuitive knowledge that is universal in human life. I don’t think St. Anselm intended the argument “to declare the proof of [God’s existence] unnecessary, without reference to the effects of his power which we experience in his visible creation” but rather as one of many necessary explanations. Certainly, even if a person fully accepts the Ontological Argument, you can’t stop your knowledge of God there – St. Anselm would undoubtedly agree that many other arguments are necessary.
The Ontological Argument serves a very useful, if rightly limited, purpose. It’s the same reason why St. Thomas used 5 arguments and not just one. Each shows something about God.

As to Knox’s comments on it, I would refer you to the book “The Belief of Catholics”, in the chapter 4, The God Who Hides Himself. Actuall, Knox is quite critical of the ontological approach

.

Thanks for finding and posting those quotes. I could be totally wrong but I sense a bit of anti-Protestant bias from Msgr. Knox that is very common to see in the fervor of Catholic converts. He states that Protestants always use those kinds of arguments and that gives him a negative impression. I’m very sympathetic to that (if I’m right) – people tend to distance themselves from their previous errors too strongly at times, being very sensitive to what they left behind. But it’s not a good criticism to say that “Protestants use the argument and therefore it’s wrong” – the fact that Protestants use that kind of thinking is irrelevant to the argument.

You will note that he does not say “therefore no logical arguments will work” (to quote you); what he says is a purely mental approach without relying on the effects of God’s power which we experience is the problem. And I think this, in a certain sense, mirrors Aquinas’s problem with the Ontological proof.

I fully agree with that. I didn’t mean that Msgr. Knox denied logic, but as above, if a person denies the first premise (in this case, you must have a definition of God in order to deny the existence of God) – then the logic won’t work. That is true of every logical argument. Secondly, yes – I agree that St. Thomas was concerned that St. Anselm was indicating the existence of God as self-evident. But I don’t see that his argument is showing that – it’s very much based on observed evidence.

As we’ve argued here, you have to know what “greater” means – and you know that through observation. You have to know the difference in being from thought to actuality also, so it’s not a explanation of a self-evident truth but is also an effects-to-cause argument.

You can find the entire book on line here ewtn.com/library/CHRIST/BELIEF.txt

Thanks for posting that – I admire Msgr. Knox greatly and have read a lot of his work. His view is clear and convincing on this issue – even though I don’t agree with him here.

Now, jumping to the end your post, you are correct; it is a different type of proof that Anselm attempted and the fact that the greatest logician of our time attempted the same thing illustrates it quite well. It backs up what Fr. Knox said, they are purely logical proofs, seeking to prove through logic what Aquinas sought to proof based on our experience. Not the way to find God, IMO.

I don’t see St. Anselm’s argument as strongly a pure logical exercise as Godel’s – but in any case, I also don’t think even St. Thomas’ 5 arguments exhaust the many ways we can use to prove the existence of God. So, I prefer to take the wisdom we can find from St. Anselm and use it within the limits that the argument was set up for. Other arguments are necessary along with it – and I think that’s true for St. Thomas’ five proofs also.

But you make a good case and I understand what you’re getting at.

 

[reggieM]

The only objections from St. Thomas I had seen before came from the Summa – but I’ve since found this:

No difficulty befalls anyone who posits that God does not exist. For that, for any given thing, either in reality or in the understanding, something greater can be conceived, is a difficulty only to him who concedes that there is in reality something than which a greater cannot be conceived. (Summa contra gentiles 1.1l)

That is a much more difficult criticism.

A person could state that “For every given thing, in the understanding or in reality, a greater can be conceived.”

That’s the best counter-argument I’ve seen so far. It’s the claim that we could never arrive at God because we could always think of something greater.

It’s impossible to prove that true – and I think it assumes that human intelligence is capable of an infinite power to conceive of things – themselves of an infinite, unending greatness.

But if that premise was true – then it would support another, different argument: "How did finite human beings receive the capacity for an infinite power of conception in thought (if not from an infinitely powerful Creator)?

 

[mwic]

One can never really give a proof of the reality of anything; reality is not something open to proof, it is something established. It is established just because proof is not enough. It is this characteristic of language, at once indispensable and inadequate, which shows the reality of the external world.

Simone Weil

 

[Kilbourne]

mwic,

I donna unnerstand yer quote. Please 'splain yerself.

 

[Kilbourne]

One can never really give a proof of the reality of anything

I would agree in this sense: How any given thing exists concretely cannot be proven by logic. e.g How Kilbourne exists concrectely at any given time is not a matter of logical proof. But that God exists is different. When we talk about God we are operating at the highest level of abstraction where logical proof is very much in play.

 

[tafan]

One can never really give a proof of the reality of anything; reality is not something open to proof, it is something established. It is established just because proof is not enough. It is this characteristic of language, at once indispensable and inadequate, which shows the reality of the external world.

Simone Weil

Simone Weil is wrong, but she may be on the right track. On can prove the reality of almost everything that exists. As long as one does not rely simply on logic, but also on our experience. We are real, what we experience is real. That is what Aquinas taught us, that is the basis of Thomist philosophy.

I would agree in this sense: How any given thing exists concretely cannot be proven by logic. e.g How Kilbourne exists concrectely at any given time is not a matter of logical proof. But that God exists is different. When we talk about God we are operating at the highest level of abstraction where logical proof is very much in play.

This I take great exception to. We are not operating at any level of abstraction when considering God, and we do not need to. Take the definition from dictionary.com of the word abstraciton

ab·strac·tion   /æbˈstrækʃən/ Show Spelled[ab-strak-shuhn] Show IPA
noun

1. an abstract or general idea or term.
2. the act of considering something as a general quality or characteristic, apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances.
3. an impractical idea; something visionary and unrealistic.
4. the act of taking away or separating; withdrawal: The sensation of cold is due to the abstracton of heat from our bodies.
5. secret removal, especially theft.

I think the second definition is what is meant. The flaw with ontolgical proofs is that it is trying to consider God in the abstract. But God is real, we can know Him, we do not have to consider him in the abstract; we need to consider his general qualities and characteristces. And when we do that, we can prove his existence.