K
Krebsbach
Guest
Just curious. Does anyone think St. Anselm’s ontological arguement successfully proves the existence of God?
Kordially,
Karl
Kordially,
Karl
- Status
E
EnterTheBowser
Guest
I do not. I am sure that there are some people who do.
M
mosher
Guest
I think that it does when read in the context of the whole of the writing that it is encapsulated within. If you read the whole of the Prosologium the Ontological Argument is filled in.
K
Krebsbach
Guest
Hey bowser and mosher,
I’'ve been intrigued by Anselm and his argument for some time. He was successful in at least limiting the argument to one of meaning. He eliminated both empirical atheism and theism as possibilities. The only thing left to argue about is whether the idea of God makes sense. If it does, then one has to conclude that God exists necessarily. I would say, though, that Anselm didn’t quite get the job done with respect to proving his concept of God is meaningful. But I think that later philosophers were successful in doing so.
Bowser, I agree with Mosher that one has to read the whole of the Proslogion to get at Anselm’s strongest argument.
I’'ve been intrigued by Anselm and his argument for some time. He was successful in at least limiting the argument to one of meaning. He eliminated both empirical atheism and theism as possibilities. The only thing left to argue about is whether the idea of God makes sense. If it does, then one has to conclude that God exists necessarily. I would say, though, that Anselm didn’t quite get the job done with respect to proving his concept of God is meaningful. But I think that later philosophers were successful in doing so.
Bowser, I agree with Mosher that one has to read the whole of the Proslogion to get at Anselm’s strongest argument.
B
brotherhrolf
Guest
I think St. Thomas Aquinas gave a better proof.
E
EnterTheBowser
Guest
Well, actually, it would be great if one of you could present the good (that is, enhanced by whatever other things in the Proslogion you find enhancing) form of Anselm’s argument. I’m only familiar with one version of his argument, and I don’t have the time to read the whole Proslogion right now. That done we might be able to discuss the argument; as it stands we can’t, since what the argument is, is not clear.
J
john_doran
Guest
the topic is controverted, but i think he might be talking about norman malcolm’s (there are others who agree, but he’s the most prominent) reading of the text, which locates what he considers to be the strongest argument in the Proslogion III - it’s a modal argument concerning necessity and possibility.
i don’t have the text to transcribe - either malcolm’s or anselm’s - but you might have some luck finding it (malcolm’s article was published in the Philosophical Review in 1960).
in a nutshell, though, malcolm argued that god’s existence is either necessary or impossible, and is impossible only if logically contradictory. and it isn’t, so he necessarily exists.
K
Krebsbach
Guest
Thanks John,
There are then two modes of existence, necessary (has to be) and contingent (possible could not be). Only the former is consistent with greatness. So God necessarily exists.
One can reject our presuppositions, but the position taken is not atheism as traditionally understood but the belief that the very idea of God doesn’t make sense. It does therefore seem that Anselm was successful in clearing a lot of ground in that he eliminated two possibilities: empirical atheism and theism. If the premises are correct, then these two positions must be confused. IOW, it wouldn’t make sense to find no objection to the idea of God but find the factual evidence to be lacking or negative (empirical atheism). Or find atheism to be logically unobjectionalbe but find that the factual evidence favors theism (empirical theism).
IOW, if belief in God’s existence makes sense, unbelief does not. those are the only two choices we are left with.
kordially,
karl
Anselm and his modern defenders like Malcolm and Hartshorne begin by saying that the only satisfactory way to think of God from a religious standpoint is to attribute greatness to Him. IOW, as my kids used to say: “He is the bestest!” If someone were greater then we would have to worship him instead. He has to be the greatest conceivable being. He has to be unsurpassable by anyone except Himself.
There are then two modes of existence, necessary (has to be) and contingent (possible could not be). Only the former is consistent with greatness. So God necessarily exists.
One can reject our presuppositions, but the position taken is not atheism as traditionally understood but the belief that the very idea of God doesn’t make sense. It does therefore seem that Anselm was successful in clearing a lot of ground in that he eliminated two possibilities: empirical atheism and theism. If the premises are correct, then these two positions must be confused. IOW, it wouldn’t make sense to find no objection to the idea of God but find the factual evidence to be lacking or negative (empirical atheism). Or find atheism to be logically unobjectionalbe but find that the factual evidence favors theism (empirical theism).
IOW, if belief in God’s existence makes sense, unbelief does not. those are the only two choices we are left with.
kordially,
karl
A
asteroid
Guest
I don’t think anyone has, or will, prove the existence or non-existence of God through any form of logical argument or philosophy. I’ve seen “proofs” for both the existence and non-existence but they’re all flawed at some point.
I always found philosophy of religion more interesting when it dealt not with the existence (or otherwise) of things, but the meaning of beliefs/dogmas/statements, and whether sets of beliefs/dogmas/statements could be logically cohesive - regardless of whether the unprovable beliefs were actually true.
I always found philosophy of religion more interesting when it dealt not with the existence (or otherwise) of things, but the meaning of beliefs/dogmas/statements, and whether sets of beliefs/dogmas/statements could be logically cohesive - regardless of whether the unprovable beliefs were actually true.
K
Krebsbach
Guest
Hi Asteroid,
what is flawed about the ontological argument in its modal form?
what is flawed about the ontological argument in its modal form?
M
mosher
Guest
For those who don’t know the ontological argument it is the following:
That than which nothing greater can be concieved must exist.
God is that than which nothing greater can be concieved.
God must exist.
The problem with this is that it implies a necessity of a being that than which nothing greater can be concieved and even the relevant text in the Proslogion is inadequate in addressing this objection.
Another poster stated that St. Thomas did a much better job. I agree. In fact, I would say that St. Thomas has definatevely proved that God exists by necessity. However, it is not any of his so called “five ways of Thomas” that does this. Rather, it is the unity of the the five ways that seal the argument. Taken as individuals each has problems but those very problems are addressed in the other ways.
That than which nothing greater can be concieved must exist.
God is that than which nothing greater can be concieved.
God must exist.
The problem with this is that it implies a necessity of a being that than which nothing greater can be concieved and even the relevant text in the Proslogion is inadequate in addressing this objection.
Another poster stated that St. Thomas did a much better job. I agree. In fact, I would say that St. Thomas has definatevely proved that God exists by necessity. However, it is not any of his so called “five ways of Thomas” that does this. Rather, it is the unity of the the five ways that seal the argument. Taken as individuals each has problems but those very problems are addressed in the other ways.
E
EnterTheBowser
Guest
I’ll get to more details of the modal arguments as soon as I can, but this is a busy week for me, so it could be a few days. That aside, I want to say: the words “greatest” or “best” or “most perfect” have been thrown around a lot. What do they mean?
K
KBarn
Guest
I love the ontological argument, but what St Anselm is saying essentially is that the existence of God is self-evident. I don’t believe that St Thomas found it adequate. In question 2 article 1 he writes:
A
asteroid
Guest
K
KBarn
Guest
It certainly is possible to prove the existence of God. What, for example, are the logical flaws in the Five Ways described by Aquinas in the Summa? Aristotle, Aquinas, Augustine, etc. all proved God’s existence from His effects, a posteriori. While this does not prove all that Christians believe of God, it proves several important things. Namely, that God is necessary, immutable, eternal, uncaused, and His own act of existence. Consider Aquinas’ proof from Efficient Causality:
What is the flaw in this logic? Yet it demonstrates the logical necessity, if causation does exist, for a being that is an uncaused cause of all things.
E
EnterTheBowser
Guest
Well… let’s say that that thing, Z, turns out to colliding branes, or fluctuations in a quantum vacuum - whatever theoretical physicists are talking about these days. Would it really be reasonable to call such a thing God? Would it have a mind? Would it have desires and a will? There’s a major gap between the conclusion of this argument and even some sort of deism.
K
KBarn
Guest
With all due respect, are you an expert in quantum mechanics? I am not. But I do know a little bit about it. And I know a little bit more about logic. NOTHING can reduce itself from potency to act. A thing that is potentially hot cannot become hot unless an agent heats it. A thing at rest cannot be induced to motion except by an agent in motion already. Hence Newton’s law of inertia. Would it be reasonable to call the Unmoved Mover a mind? Aristotle apparently thought so. He was not spiritual man, but he reasoned to the logical necessity of a Prime Mover as the ultimate source of all change and efficient causality, calling it “the Self-Thinking Thought.” Muddying the water with terms borrowed from Quantum Mechanics does little to engage the topics of philosophy and metaphysics, which underlie any meaningful science. In fact, I usually find that people who use them usually don’t understand them and use them more to bedazzle than to demonstrate anything substantial.
Like I said in a previous post, philosophy cannot prove everything that Christians hold about God. It is beyond philosophy because God is infinitely beyond us. We cannot understand him a priori, that is from His essence. We can only understand him from His effects, a posteriori. So to prove the Trinity, for example, is beyond the power of the human intellect. Read some Thomas Aquinas (I suggest ‘On Being and Essnce.’) or C.S. Lewis (I suggest ‘Miracles’) If you do, you will find that a convinced atheist is every bit as closed minded and dogmatic as a fideist.
E
EnterTheBowser
Guest
I am not an expert in quantum mechanics, nor, for that matter, in much of modern theoretical physics. But I do know a little. And I too know a little more about logic. Tell me - what logical system - I’m most familiar with classical logic, but I know a little about others - includes that last statement as an axiom or a theorem?
It seems to me that you’re arguing that every event has a cause, or that events can’t happen without causes, or something to that effect. Am I right? Incidentally, Aristotle thought a lot of stuff, including that his system of syllogistic logic was all there was to logic. But maybe he had a good argument here. So maybe it would be a good idea to present the argument, instead of appealing to authority.
In one sense, yes, we’re going to need to look to philosophy to justify the methods of science. But when we start talking about cosmological arguments, then terms from theoretical physics - speculation about just what went on way back when - become mildly relevant.
Okay.
K
KBarn
Guest
I am not arguing that every event has a cause. That is self-evident, otherwise the law of noncontradiction would be violated because a thing cannot be potential and actual in the same species at the same time. A thing cannot be cold (potentially hot) and actually hot at the same time. My argument is that the chain of causation that we witness daily is grounded in something which is itself an uncaused cause. I have no need to summarize Aristotle because the above (St. Thomas’ argument) actually does that, more or less. I am simply suggesting, yes, from tradition that a man need not be religious in any sense of the term to believe in God. Aristotle was not a religious man. To him, however, God (the Unmoved Mover and Self-Thinking Thought) was a logical necessity, the ground of all change and efficient causality. And while we Catholics believe that He is more than that, we admit that much of what Aristotle attributed to God was true, that reason can confirm what revelation proclaims.
J
john_doran
Guest
no, perhaps not, but what’s your point? what causes the branes? what causes them to collide? what causes the fluctuations in the quantum vacuum? assuming you believe something like the copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics to be the best, what is it you find more appealing about that particular hermeneutic over and against, say, a bohmian hidden variables approach (not that they’re necessarily incompatible…)?
i’m pretty sure you and i have covered this ground before, but, yes, the uncaused cause must reasonably be supposed to have a mind and will: if not, then since the initial conditions for the existence of the universe have been around for all eternity, then the universe must also be eternal. but the universe cannot be eternal, since the expiration of an infinite number of sequential temporal moments is absurd…
there’s a (major) gap between the premises of any argument and its conclusion…again, what’s your point?
- Status