My discussion of the Ontological Argument

[Good_Fella]

To Hartshorne and other process guys, God is a being in process, just like you and me. A series of events. He is also the all-inclusive reality, outside of whom absolutely nothing exists. So it is inconceivable for God to have a rival. There is no being, no environment, no nuttin outside of Him that he competes with. So the only way He can be surpassed is by himself. As the all-inclusive being in process, he does so as He moves from one divine moment to the next.

So, yeah, in a sense God is growing. Hartshorne holds that God is finite in his actuality but infinite in his potentiality. (another departure from traditional Christian theism).

Hopefully our conception of God and his reality line up. Our philosophical investigations should help us get our thinking straight about the idea of God and some of his attributes.

I’m probably not being too responsive to your questions.

The idea that God alone can surpass himself presupposes that he lacks absolute perfection and omnipotence by being in need of rising above or going beyond himself and doing better than he has been doing. If this is the case, then how can he be God to begin with?

PAX :harp:

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Doesn’t this bring back the argument that the “greatest painting we can concieve of” which may be worthy of some kind of worship may not actually exist other than an idea, or the “largest island” does not actually exist other than a concept?

Anselm and Hartshorne claim that ultimate greatness makes sense. When speaking of islands and paintings, specific concrete objects, we can get bogged down arguing about what qualities are great-making. But we are talking about ultimate greatness, not the greatest object in a specific class. View this way, ultimate greatness must be the whole of reality or all that is actual any any moment. Surely all value is contained therein. The all-inclusive reality certainly is greater than any part or fragment of it. This is why, IMHO, GCB makes sense.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Hi Fella,

Hartshorne would argue that notion of an unchanging, timeless, can’t-be-improved-upon, infinitely pefect being doesn’t make sense. What makes God “perfect” is his unsurpassable greatness.

 

[Dameedna]

To Hartshorne and other process guys, God is a being in process, just like you and me. A series of events. He is also the all-inclusive reality, outside of whom absolutely nothing exists. So it is inconceivable for God to have a rival. There is no being, no environment, no nuttin outside of Him that he competes with. So the only way He can be surpassed is by himself. As the all-inclusive being in process, he does so as He moves from one divine moment to the next.

So, yeah, in a sense God is growing. Hartshorne holds that God is finite in his actuality but infinite in his potentiality. (another departure from traditional Christian theism).

Hopefully our conception of God and his reality line up. Our philosophical investigations should help us get our thinking straight about the idea of God and some of his attributes.

I’m probably not being too responsive to your questions.

No no, this is very interesting.

Almost as though God decided to come along for the ride of life and into being with this universe and is growring with it in actuality(God’s decision) not outside, but within time. As such, he/it is constrained by it.

It gets rid of a lot of the debate around “knowing” stuff outside of time, even if God’s potential nature is infinite. It can only “exist” in acutality, when it grows alongside…something that is aware of it!!! But it is infinite in its potential.

hahah

err…maybe I’m way off base. Must read about those peeps you mentioned

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Hi Dame,
An implication of an all-inclusive God is that it is impossible for any being to exist outside of His experience. So it would seem that God is along for the “ride of life” of necessity. Anything that He creates will exist within Him. As I said a while back, some parts of Scripture are suggestive of this. In Acts Paul tells the Athenians that “we live and move and have our being in God.” In Col. 1 he makes even stronger statements along these lines.

So I find it easy to reconcile the attribute of all-inclusiveness with Christian theism.

But Hartshorne goes off into something he calls “panentheism.” Pantheism simply holds that the universe is God. Panentheism says that the universe is in God. God is more than just the material of the universe. He is an inclusive whole which transcends the physical universe.

For a Christian, this isn’t much of a difference. And so, while we can believe that the created universe is in God, we put a lot more emphasis on te transcendance part. God is way, way, way more than whatever He creates.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

But back to the argument. I was on youtube yesterday and some guy presented the modal OA this way: there are only three possibilities when it comes to God. 1) God exists necessarily. 2) God exists contingently. 3) God doesn’t exist necessarily.

No. 2 can be rejected because of the principle of Prosl. III, namely that necessary existence is greater than contingent existence, so latter cannot be compatible with our definition of God.

No. 3 is the postivists position that there is no meaningful definition of God. The GCB don’t make no sense and therefore God doesn’t exist necessarily.

So we are only left with two options. This is the significance of the OA that everyone seems to miss. All our focus should be on the meaning of GCB. If speaking of a GCB is akin to speaking of round squares, then game over. Postivism wins. If speaking of a GCB makes sense, then game over. Theism of some kinds wins.

I don’t think I got that across to Cellular in our recent exchange.

 

[ateista]

All our focus should be on the meaning of GCB. If speaking of a GCB is akin to speaking of round squares, then game over. Postivism wins. If speaking of a GCB makes sense, then game over. Theism of some kinds wins.

Hey Frankie Been a while, my friend! The concept of GCB still makes no sense.

There is no such simple attribute as “great”. “Greatness” is always relative to something. The “greatest” human being when it comes to weight is the “fattest”. The “greatest” human being when it comes to height is the “tallest”. It is not necessarily true that the fattest human is also the tallest.

Until the concept of “greatness” is defined in a coherent manner, the whole argument based on “greatness” just hangs in the air, unsupported and meaningless. But, of course we went through this a long time ago.

Have a great day, buddy!

 

[MindOverMatter]

You can’t conceive of God as necessarily existing and at the same time think he might not exist. And you can’t hold that God necessarily does not exist and at the same time think he might exist.

This is what seems to me to be the problem of rejecting the OA Arguement. God is defined as being a neccesary being, as in he is the thing in itself. It is meaningless to speak of God as being otherwise, for by definition God and perfection are one and the same entity; God cannot be God without being perfect. God cannot exist outside of perfection. And because of this, you not talking about God untill you talk about Objective Neccesity. So one does not have to show that God is perfect, because that is the definition of God. Therefore you cannot speak of a God “being” perfect as if perfection is a property which God must obtain first, because God doesn’t exist outside of it. Perfection is timeless, eternal, and therefore so must God be timeless. What i mean is, there is no concept of God outside of perfection. Perfection is Gods being, and so you are not speaking about God unless you are speaking about an “objective-perfection”. And so it follows neccesarily that there is no such thing as the Christian God out side of that concept. Its not what he has, it is what he is; he is perfectly being or perfect being. Therefore if he is objectively possible, then he must exist; for it is “imposible” for an objectively perfect being to lack existence; for you would nolonger be talking about perfection if that could be the case.

That being the case, how can the OA be Conceptually true, but not actually true? How can it be possible for perfection to exist objectively and not actually exist at the same time? Perfection transcends the nature of possibility for the simple fact that it is the ground of possibility; as in it cannot fail to exist. Also, in respect of “Modal Logic”, God cannot be used in modal logic, because it is meaningless to speak of God as possibly not existing. If you define God as being that which is the “ground of all being”, then it is equally meaningless to say that God is possible in one world but not possible in all worlds, because then you are nolonger talking about God by definition.

The only flaw i can see in the OA is that the Atheist can deny that there is any such thing as an Objectively Perfect Being by rendering it a meaningless concept; as in God is not possible in any world; but as soon as you say that it is a meaningfull concept, then it becomes meaningless to reject that a perfect being neccesarily exists. In otherwords its a contradiction in terms.

 

[Good_Fella]

Hi Fella,

Hartshorne would argue that notion of an unchanging, timeless, can’t-be-improved-upon, infinitely pefect being doesn’t make sense. What makes God “perfect” is his unsurpassable greatness.

Frank, isn’t the idea of perfection in itself something immutable, beyond time, and complete? Of course such notions of God cannot make sense to the human mind. Kant was correct when he argued that the categories of the human mind and understanding apply strictly to the physical world. Since God is “unsurpassable” he defies any system of epistemology and logic. For this reason I don’t believe we can prove God’s existence by taking recourse to any system of logic.

The idea that God is “a being in process moving from one divine moment to the next” makes no sense, for God exists in eternity beyond physical time and space. With God there is no series of sequential moments. The categories of past, present, and future are non-existent in eternity. What we perceive as a process in creation is purely intuitive and contained within the realm of our immediate experience in time and space. What we precieve as a process unfolding in time could be described at best as a single instance to God, so to speak. Even the notion of a single instance with reference to God’s one eternal act seems to imply the existence of time which does not exist in eternity. We speak of God through the projection of our own experiences in this world. We can only describe God’s being in finite terms.

No, we cannot fully understand and accurately define God and thus prove his existence by relying on the categories of human understanding to which any system of logic is subjected and restrained by. All we can do is try to understand what God essentially is in our limited understanding and use of language relative to our own immanent experiences in this world. God is not an idea or object of thought that can be eventually and directly communicated to the mind through the use of pure reason. In faith we believe that there is an eternal, immutable, and perfect being. In our limited understanding, which is confined to the physical world of time and space, we cannot know with absolute certainty that God exists by arriving at an equation or formula as we can ascertain a mathematical proposition or any ‘a priori truth’ in our world of facts.

At best we can only try to describe God in terms relative to our existence and by appealing to the notion of an ideal higher standard. Of course, a perfect being would be unsurpassable, with no need to surpass himself, and so he would be an unacquisitional object of knowledge of the human mind. Human knowledge is restricted to that which is imperfect and surpassable. We cannot prove the existence of something if we are unable to acquire the knowledge of its existence in the first place. Likewise it’s a futile endeavour to try to disprove God’s existence by relying strictly on our finite power of reason. Pure reason only serves to help us acknowledge the facts of our finite world. It is through faith the we come to know God, however incomprehensible he is to our minds. It has been said that the more we think or talk about God, the more we realize how much we cannot comprehend him as an object of pure thought.

But we have arrived at a ‘sense’ of God’s existence by discovering within ourselves a moral law of human nature that is communicated by the exercise of our conscience. The common notion of right and wrong transcends the world of facts but is internally experienced as something tangible and certain. I agree with C.S. Lewis that the physical order of existence is nothing more than a system of facts. Physical phenomena are not the subjects of any law in the strict sense, since it isn’t a question of what should or should not be with them. But through the experience of human conscience we discover that we are subject to a moral law which dictates what we should or should not do in a given situation. This faculty that we discover as operational within ourselves points to the existence of God. Since the conscience is concerned with right and wrong, with what should or should not be, it cannot be an epiphenomenon of our nervous system. Efficient causality must be traced back to God in whose image and likeness we have been created: a person somewhat like ourselves, not merely an impersonal higher ordinance in an order of facts.

Finally, we sense God’s existence without having to rely on the principles of formal logic to ascertain a true fact by spontaneously perceiving the order of creation.

How varied are your works, Lord!
In wisdom you have wrought them all.
Psalm 104, 24

For if they so far succeeded in knowledge
that they could speculate about the world,
how did they not more quickly find its Lord?
Wisdom 13, 9

I bless the Lord who counsels me;
even at night my heart exhorts me.
Psalm 16, 7

PAX :harp:

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Hey Frankie Been a while, my friend! The concept of GCB still makes no sense.

There is no such simple attribute as “great”. “Greatness” is always relative to something. The “greatest” human being when it comes to weight is the “fattest”. The “greatest” human being when it comes to height is the “tallest”. It is not necessarily true that the fattest human is also the tallest.

Until the concept of “greatness” is defined in a coherent manner, the whole argument based on “greatness” just hangs in the air, unsupported and meaningless. But, of course we went through this a long time ago.

Have a great day, buddy!

Hey Ateista, you Auld Hound you!

Very good to see yer face agin!

This is the thot I’ve been toying with. It goes back to my mountain worshipper example which I may have used before in another thread (I used it again in this one). Let’s say a tribe worships a particular mountain. Some explorer from another valley stumbles into camp and observes the tribe’s worship of the mountain and asks why they worship this mountain when there is bigger mountain over yonder. And so the tribe checks it out and indeed finds it to be a bigger mountain. So the tribe starts worshipping the new one. But this time they worship with the nagging doubt that this is the most worshipful mountain. Might there be a bigger one out there somewhere? So they keep on the look-out for bigger mountains and, when they find one, transfer their worship to the new, worthier object. By this time they realize that it is very likely that the current object of worship is not the Greatest Mountain. There surely is a bigger one out there somewhere. So they decide to worship the Greatest Mountain Wherever It May Be, The Ultimate Mountain.

Eventually, a tribal philospher is reflecting on the trajectory of their worship and ponders this “bigger is greater” principle that is behind their worship. Mountains are big, to be sure, but a whole mountain range is bigger yet. And beyond that is the whole earth, and beyond that the universe. So shouldn’t the proper object of our worship be the Universe? Is not everything contained therein to the maximal degree? Is not the Universe the Greatest Conceivable Being?

 

[FrankSchnabel]

So what I’m wondering is whether the greatest conceivable being, however it is actualized, is the whole of reality, however we conceive it. How can there be anything greater than all that exists?

 

[FrankSchnabel]

All quantity and all value is contained therein. All properties are exemplified in the whole of reality to the maximal degree. The fattest, the tallest, the goodest…

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Hi Fella,

Frank, isn’t the idea of perfection in itself something immutable, beyond time, and complete? Of course such notions of God cannot make sense to the human mind. Kant was correct when he argued that the categories of the human mind and understanding apply strictly to the physical world. Since God is “unsurpassable” he defies any system of epistemology and logic. For this reason I don’t believe we can prove God’s existence by taking recourse to any system of logic.

I haven’t given up on reason when it comes to proving God’s existence. Aquinas thought it possible to reason one’s way to the realization of God’s existence. And of course so did Anselm.

As Pope Ben sed in his Regensburg speech, God in his nature is reasonable. I think this must be the predominant Catholic view. Incidentally, there is a very good discussion of this in Chesterton’s Father Brown mystery, The Blue Cross, I think it was called.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Hi MOM,

The only flaw i can see in the OA is that the Atheist can deny that there is any such thing as an Objectively Perfect Being by rendering it a meaningless concept; as in God is not possible in any world; but as soon as you say that it is a meaningfull concept, then it becomes meaningless to reject that a perfect being neccesarily exists. In otherwords its a contradiction in terms.

Zactly. The proper (and only) place to attack the OA is the meaning of Perfection or Greatness.

 

[MindOverMatter]

So what I’m wondering is whether the greatest conceivable being, however it is actualized, is the whole of reality, however we conceive it. How can there be anything greater than all that exists?

The Arguement For Pure Existence
The greatest being is “Pure Existence”.

My argument goes like this……………

Anything that has dimensions and forms, can only have dimensions and forms because they exist; therefore forms and dimensions cannot be, them selves’, necessary beings, for that would mean that they would necessarily transcend Existence, which is absurd.

Therefore, although Existence permeates and accompanies existing forms, Existence is the only necessary being hierarchically, and cannot logically be made synonymous with dimensions and forms. There for Existence is a being in its own right and is timeless. It is the Ultimate-Reality. And as I said at the start, it is “Pure Existence”, for it is without form and dimension.

The neccesity of Inteligent design.

Also, on the event of this argument being inescapably true, then one must admit that, so far as the origin is concerned, dimensions and forms cannot be ultimately caused or explained by natural events, and instead one must necessarily postulate that anything which has form and dimension is purposely and eternally caused by Existence; or rather “emanates” necessarily from the Ultimate being, so long as anything that has dimension logically reflects the nature of Existence or its Divine plan. What I mean by this is that, anything that exists, exists because it reflects the will and nature of Existence; which gives me reason to believe that there are many creations that exist apart from our Universe, so far as that reflect the glory of existence; and those things which do not reflect that nature and will of existence, do not exist. So for me, the concept of a Personal Existence at the root of all being, is the only feasible and reasonable explanation so far as a personal cause is the only sufficient cause possible when compared to the impossibility of a natural cause. It is illogical to claim otherwise.

Formulated By M.A.J Linton.
What do you think of my argument for Pure-Existence?

 

[Good_Fella]

I would like your opinions of my discussion:
(I could add a Christian appendix that I’ve written, which shows how the God is the Ontological Argument is perfectly compatible with the God of Christianity, if people would also like to see.)

The biggest drawback of St. Anselm’s ontological argument is that it fails to prove God is a divine Person or a Trinity of Persons. It starts and concludes on these assumptions. It does lend support to our faith, but it fails to prove to us or convince the athiest that the Judaic-Christian concepts of God are true. Couldn’t Plato draw upon this line of reasoning, given a few minor modifications here and there, to prove the objective existence of the Forms (although no individual Form is a single First Cause of everything that exists apart from itself) which are the absolutely perfect and unsurpassable causes of everything that exists in time and space? If we destroy everything that is round, according to Plato’s reasoning, the form Roundness will still exist.

St. Anselm’s God and our God could just as well be an impersonal form of causation in the physical order of things. “That which is greater than anything that can be thought” does not necessarily have to be a person or a trinity of persons, does it? Certainly we could have no idea of roundness unless we first perceived something emulating such an idea. Roundness is not something that we could have thought of on our own without the use of our senses. All we have to do is look up and observe the core of the sun. The idea that God is absolute perfection and goodness and truth - greater than anything we can ever hope to imagine - rests on our sense of higher standards that appear to transcend particular instances in which we experience these values or qualities in a corruptible state. They do not in the least necessarily have to be personified and translated into the Godhead, do they? I’m afraid St. Anselm doesn’t satisfactorily address this question. He believes God is a Trinity of Three Divine Persons, a conviction which has initiated an argument that cannot be proved - at least not by empirical and deductive standards. Nor does it prove the existence of God the Father alone. At best he has provided a strong argument that simply converges on our assent of faith.

It’s all about faith. God does not will to condescend as an object of thought deduced by pure reason. He desires that we believe in him (cf. Jn 20:29 ) at least insofar that we discover him in the signs of his works of creation (Wis 13:9) and in the law of love and freedom written in our hearts (Ez 36: 26-27). The principles of formal logic are a part of God’s creation, but they serve to help us only understand what is true in our finite existence. They are not a means by which God has to prove himself as actually existing. God has directly revealed himself without any dependency on any part of his creation through his prophets and apostles by his spoken word as he so chooses. Reason cannot supersede faith, so we mustn’t expect it to be a divine vehicle of revelation. God had to approach us first by revealing himself, now that we had a sense of his existence. We could not have known in faith that God exists unless he had first revealed himself to us. Our certainty of his existence is a matter of faith, not logical deduction. Personally a true Christian has no need of an ontological argument, which amounts to nothing more than religious vanity, so St. Thomas Aquinas believed. We perceive God in his works, we do not conceptualize him through them. Creation is not a medium of God’s direct revelation. Anything indirect cannot possibly reveal God to us as someone evident, but only serve to help support our faith that does not rely on evidence.

There is still the question of whether there is such a thing as the absolute form of Roundness eternally existing beyond physical time and space in a metaphysical sphere of its own. But that’s another topic associated with this reply. Still I believe the form of roundness is an eternal idea of God made manifest in his creation, which I believe is completed (cf. Gen 1:31), notwithstanding the thoughts of Henri Bergson and the idea of the universe as an ongoing process of becoming. It is through my perception of roundness, or beauty, or truth that I ‘sense’ the existence of a personal Someone who is Goodness and the cause of what I intelligbly perceive and aescthetically appreciate as established in faith.

For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and diversity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.
Romans 1, 19-20

PAX :harp:

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Hi MOM,

So you are positing “pure being” or an ultimate reality. Dimensions, forms and time, presumably, are derivative of pure being. But pure being itself is without form, dimension or time. It must therefore be changeless.

Isn’t this just Monism?

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Hey Fella,

The biggest drawback of St. Anselm’s ontological argument is that it fails to prove God is a divine Person or a Trinity of Persons. It starts and concludes on these assumptions. It does lend support to our faith, but it fails to prove to us or convince the athiest that the Judaic-Christian concepts of God are true.

This is true. But what I am starting to appreciate more and more is what the OA succeeds in doing as opposed to what it can’t do. The OA succeeds in eliminating some options from consideration. Enlightened by the Anselm’s definition of God, we can conclusively eliminate those arguments by atheists and agnostics who claim to disprove God on empirical grounds. That’s progress.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

Fells sed:

St. Anselm’s God and our God could just as well be an impersonal form of causation in the physical order of things. “That which is greater than anything that can be thought” does not necessarily have to be a person or a trinity of persons, does it?

This is true, as Dameedna and I have been discussing. What the OA seems to accomplish is to make it clear that some kind of Ultimate Being or Reality exists. That shouldn’t be an issue anymore. That God is a personal triune Being was not something that can be demonstrated by philosophical reasoning. That required Revelation.

 

[FrankSchnabel]

The principles of formal logic are a part of God’s creation, but they serve to help us only understand what is true in our finite existence. They are not a means by which God has to prove himself as actually existing. God has directly revealed himself without any dependency on any part of his creation through his prophets and apostles by his spoken word as he so chooses. Reason cannot supersede faith, so we mustn’t expect it to be a divine vehicle of revelation. God had to approach us first by revealing himself, now that we had a sense of his existence. We could not have known in faith that God exists unless he had first revealed himself to us. Our certainty of his existence is a matter of faith, not logical deduction. Personally a true Christian has no need of an ontological argument, which amounts to nothing more than religious vanity, so St. Thomas Aquinas believed. We perceive God in his works, we do not conceptualize him through them. Creation is not a medium of God’s direct revelation. Anything indirect cannot possibly reveal God to us as someone evident, but only serve to help support our faith that does not rely on evidence.

Faith and reason go hand in hand, as JPII sed in Fides et Ratio. We need both. And, yes, God didn’t need reason to reveal himself. But he has given us reason a tool, and we should use it as best we can. We learned first about God through revelation. We are discovering after the fact that reason supports Revelation. That is useful in dialogues with unbelievers.