Cutsinger's Ontological Argument

[Kilbourne]

Hi tafan,

We are not operating at any level of abstraction when considering God, and we do not need to.

When we consider That Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Thought we are operating at the highest level of abstraction. When we consider God and his attributes (unsurpassably great, all- powerful, all knowing, necessarily existing, etc.) we are not thinking concretely.

The big question is, of course, whether it is possible to infer that God exists from his definition, and I still think Anselm succeeded. But, acknowledging your point to a point, even champions of the ontological argument like Charles Harthorne, came to understand that no purely a priori argument is possible. It is inevitable that we resort to experience in making the argument. This is evident with Anselm’s first argument where the hidden premise of the Great Chain of Being has now been identified by Cutsinger.

 

[mwic]

… On[e] 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.

I wouldn’t attribute my own thoughts to Weil, but I think her point is very similar to yours, despite the opposite conclusion.

“relying simply on logic” – the order of language, and of proof – is how intersubjective/scientific meaningfulness is achieved. That is to say that concurrence on the meanings of terms, and the properties that objects exhibit, are the foundation of proof.

But experience is by definition intrasubjective. I cannot base a belief in the reality of anything on your experience. Your reports about your experiences may factor into my beliefs, but they do so as pieces of evidence, i.e. as language-objects rather than existing-objects.

 

[Kilbourne]

Hi tafan,

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.

Both of Anselm’s arguments ask us to consider his general quality of unsurpassable greatness and from that (with the help of some additional premises) conclude that He exists.

I do agree, however, that on a personal basis we can experience and know God. This is by faith and not logic. But when we engage in logical proofs we–to borrow from mwic-- we are trying to establish “intersubjective/scientific meaningfulness” in order to convince others that He exists.

 

[tafan]

Hi tafan,

Both of Anselm’s arguments ask us to consider his general quality of unsurpassable greatness and from that (with the help of some additional premises) conclude that He exists.

I do agree, however, that on a personal basis we can experience and know God. This is by faith and not logic. But when we engage in logical proofs we–to borrow from mwic-- we are trying to establish “intersubjective/scientific meaningfulness” in order to convince others that He exists.

Again, the problem with the ontological arguments is that it is using pure logic, and not our earthly experience along with logic, to prove God’s existence. We have no experience which tells us what unsurpassable greatness is/means. The ontological proofs are asking us to consider something which is, to a large extent, unthinkable (at least from a starting point).

This is contrasted with Aquinas’s 5 proofs. Each of them is built on a very common and observable fact of our world. His first proof uses the observable fact that anything put in motion is done so by something else. The second: that there is nothing we know of which has caused itself. The third, is that everything that we observe which exists, is dependent on something else. On the fourth, it shows that somethings are greater than others. The fifth, that the world is well ordered. All 5 of these premises have nothing to do with God, and the evidence for them is all around us in our world. From these obervable facts, he then uses logic to prove God’s existence.

Contrast that with the ontological prrofs which, to use your words, ask us to consider God’s general quality of unsurpassable greatness. This is a strange starting point to prove the existence of God, since we have nothing to base what God is/is not prior to the proof.

This continuing desire to proove God’s existence with nothing else except mental logic is misplaced, IMO. Some of our greatest minds continually fall into the trap. But I fail to see where it leads to any understanding of what God is, or helps at all to demostrate God’s existence to others.

As to your last point, I will say we can know God with logic (and with faith). Aquinas showed us that. His 5 proofs and his following questions about God’ simplicity, His goodness, His perfection, His infinity, etc all are arrived at logic.

And I also disagree with your prmise that we engage in proofs in order to convince others that he exists. That is only part of it, and very probably the smaller part. We do it so as to strengthen our understanding of God and to allow our faith to be strengthen (or built upon) our reason.

 

[reggieM]

Contrast that with the ontological prrofs which, to use your words, ask us to consider God’s general quality of unsurpassable greatness. This is a strange starting point to prove the existence of God, since we have nothing to base what God is/is not prior to the proof.

It’s really the same thing. We have no way to know what an Uncaused Cause is. But St. Thomas shows us using a chain of causes, that there has to be an uncaused one. We don’t know what a necessary being is, but by looking at contingent beings, we can deduce that a necessary being exists.

St. Anselm’s argument is similar. You’re right, we don’t know what a being of maximal greatness (perfection) is. But we can follow the hierarchy of values. We all give values to things as good or better. We can also do this negatively, we know what imperfections are. As you said: " On the fourth, it shows that somethings are greater than others."

We know what “greater” means.

For there is found a greater and a less degree of goodness, truth, nobility, and the like. But more or less are terms spoken of various things as they approach in diverse ways toward something that is the greatest, just as in the case of hotter (more hot) that approaches nearer the greatest heat. There exists therefore something that is the truest, and best, and most noble, and in consequence, the greatest being. For what are the greatest truths are the greatest beings, as is said in the Metaphysics Bk. II. 2. What moreover is the greatest in its way, in another way is the cause of all things of its own kind (or genus); thus fire, which is the greatest heat, is the cause of all heat, as is said in the same book (cf. Plato and Aristotle). Therefore there exists something that is the cause of the existence of all things and of the goodness and of every perfection whatsoever—and this we call God.

Notice the bold. Because we see things that are greater, there exist a greatest.

St. Anselm’s argument is similar. God is the greatest being and the process of understanding that supports the belief that He necessarily exists.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

This has probably been answered a billion time over, but here’s a question (know I’m only asking this because it’s very hard for me to wade through the philosophy-ese ):

Why does there NEED to be a “Greatest Possible Being”? What if there’s no such thing as “Greatest”? What if the value keeps going up infinitely?

 

[reggieM]

This has probably been answered a billion time over, but here’s a question (know I’m only asking this because it’s very hard for me to wade through the philosophy-ese ):

Why does there NEED to be a “Greatest Possible Being”? What if there’s no such thing as “Greatest”? What if the value keeps going up infinitely?

That’s a great point, and actually you’re right. When we understand God, the value does go up infinitely – because God’s greatness is infinite. We say He is “complete” and “the fulness of being” but He can’t be contained and measured like that. It’s endless, infinite and boundless perfection and greatness.

Everything that exists has some degree of perfection – by the fact that it exists. But these degrees of perfection are greater or lesser. One way this is measured is negatively. We can see the flaws in various beings – they are temporary, they lack power, they are dependent on other things, they cannot do things.

I think the point is that all of these imperfect beings have to get existence, power and substance from another source – they can’t give it to themselves.

The reason there has to be a perfect being is because there’s no way to explain the lack of being that would exist. A lack of being is potential. Where would that potential come from? Something greater would have to explain the potential. Whereas, a being that is fully perfect, lacking nothing, is an explanation for the source of all being and power and perfection that we see. It is a complete being – not lacking, and therefore not dependent on something else to fulfill itself. A complete, perfect being like that has no potential to explain – it is fully actualized in being, with nothing lacking.

Another idea is based on the word “possible”. For a being that is uncaused, it has no starting point – so it is eternal. In an infinite, eternal state, there can be no possibility of being that would not be fulfilled. So, the greatest possible would necessarily result in an eternal framework. There could be nothing lacking since every possibility for the fulfillment of greatness would be completed in eternity.

A flaw or a lack could also not be explained in an eternal being – where did the flaw come from? How does the flaw affect the rest of the being and why has the flaw not been fixed through infinity? If the flaw could get worse (take away more being) – then there would be no being at all now since there was an infinity of taking away, leaving nothing at all.

 

[Kilbourne]

This has probably been answered a billion time over, but here’s a question (know I’m only asking this because it’s very hard for me to wade through the philosophy-ese ):

Why does there NEED to be a “Greatest Possible Being”? What if there’s no such thing as “Greatest”? What if the value keeps going up infinitely?

The logic of worship demands that the object of worship be the greatest. If I worship X and then someone points out to me that which is greater than X, then I must make that which greater than X the object of my worship (if I am to be rational). Worship of a lesser god makes no sense.

But, you ask, what if the value of what I can conceive keeps going up infinitely? It does seem that the human mind can keep adding value to whatever we can conceive. One solution offered by process theists such as Hartshorne and Whitehead is to think in terms of unsurpassability. God is the unsurpassable being who can be surpassed by no other being, only Himself.

 

[Kilbourne]

But Anselm, Cutsinger maintains, takes a different approach to the problem. He acknowledges that we cannot think about God as a datum consciousness, that is, in a way which completely captures God and puts him in a neat package. But he still maintains that we can think about God in an open-ended fashion. Cutsinger offers this quote from the Proslogion:

But is this really the only way we can think? St Anselm thinks not, and his Reply to
Gaunilo is most instructive and well worth quoting at length. “You say,” he writes,

“that upon hearing of “That-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought” you
cannot think of it as a real object known either generically or specifically or have
it in your mind, on the grounds that you neither know the thing itself nor can you 18
form an idea of it from other things similar to it. But obviously this is not so. For
since everything that is less good is similar insofar as it is good to that which is
more good, it is evident to every rational mind that, mounting from the less good
to the more good we can from those things than which something greater can be
thought conjecture a great deal about That-than-which-a-greater-cannot-bethought.
Who, for example, cannot think of this (even if he does not believe that
what he thinks of actually exists), namely, that if something that has a beginning
and end is good, that which, although it has had a beginning, does not, however,
have an end, is much better? And just as this latter is better than the former, so
also that which has neither beginning nor end is better again than this, even if it
passes always from the past through the present to the future. Again, whether
something of this kind actually exists or not, that which does not lack anything at
all, nor is forced to change or move, is very much better still. Cannot this be
thought? Or can we think of something greater than this? Or is not this precisely
to form an idea of That-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought from those things
than which a greater can be thought? There is, then, a way by which one can form
an idea of That-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought.”

As you can readily see from the words I have stressed in this passage, the “way” of which St Anselm is speaking is the way of negation, the via negativa. Beginning with some contingent and therefore deficient thing, our minds can ascend, through a series of denials, to something which is no sense contingent, but instead absolute. Moving up the Great Chain of Being and Knowing, our awareness passes from the mortal to the immortal to the aeviternal and thence finally to what is truly eternal.

See pages 16-19 of Cutsinger’s lecture.