Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109) formulated the original Ontological Argument a thousand years ago: first define “God” as the greatest possible being that we can imagine. Next, consider existence only in someone’s mind versus existence in reality—the latter is obviously greater. Finally, since “God” must be the greatest possible being, he must exist in reality. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t meet the definition of the greatest possible being.
This is a popular argument for Christianity, but how is this not wishing something into existence? If we can simply think God into existence, what else can we think into existence?
There are other issues: look at that first step in the argument. It defines God as the greatest possible being that we can imagine. But in step three, we are talking about beings that exist, and the definition of “God” from the first step no longer applies. Definitions have switched mid-argument.
Next, “greatest” is subjective. Was the English military victory at Agincourt or the Greek holding action at Thermopylae greater? Was the Hoover Dam or the Taj Mahal the greater civil engineering project? Is the greater god the omnipotent one, or is he the one limited in power but who surpasses his limitations by getting things done through cooperation? The greatest possible being is like the highest integer—you can always go a little higher.
God from the first point in the argument (God is the greatest being that we can imagine) is undefined, just like the greatest political candidate. These are subjective categories.
Next, given the genocide, slavery, and other backwards thinking in the Old Testament, God is clearly not the Greatest Possible Being.
Next, the Greatest Possible Being is perfectly satisfied and has no needs. No needs means no motivation to change or create, so it can’t be the creator of our universe.
Next, if we’re just imagining things into existence, other less-pleasant things could come along as well. The Ontological Argument invites its negative version: define “God” as the worst possible being that we can imagine. Then consider existence only in someone’s mind versus existence in reality—it would obviously be worse if this being actually existed. Finally, since “God” must be the worst possible being, he must exist in reality.
Lastly, many philosophers have rejected the argument. David Hume observed that to think of a unicorn (for example) is to think of it existing. Adding a second step, “Now think of the unicorn existing,” is meaningless. The same is true for God—the idea of God is the idea of God existing, and the argument no longer works.
The Ontological Argument is effective, not because it’s right, but because it’s perplexing. A God who wanted a relationship with humans wouldn’t be findable only through opaque arguments.
Continue to chapter 9.
Image credit: in hiatus (CC BY 2.0) via flickr
Notes
Anselm of Canterbury: Born in Italy, Anselm became abbot of an abbey in Normandy, France. He became the second archbishop of Canterbury installed after the conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy. He died in 1109 and was canonized in 1163.
xkcd cartoon: www.xkcd.com/1505.
2-Minute Christianity 
Pingback: 7 Psalm 22 Prophecy: Not a Good Fit for Jesus | 2-Minute Christianity
All the problems you note with defining God as the greatest possible being are accurate if this is not for supercharging ones belief that they are loved and can share this love with others.
The rebellion and crushing of Jerusalem is a vivid reminder of the cost of believing in a God that will bless you with a military victory. It is very important to understand what one means by “God”.
LikeLike
And what do *you* mean by “God”?
LikeLike
Sometime soon I am going to figure out how to change my name from zarhoth. To me the word “God” is a pointer to all of life in all people and things with all of its complexity and unfathomable nature. It is important for me to love this notion of God more than my faith tradition, tribe, and understanding of scripture.
LikeLike
zarhoth: It’s not obvious to me, either, how to change your name.
“To me the word “God” is a pointer to all of life in all people and things with all of its complexity and unfathomable nature”
Do you call yourself a Christian? You can define “God” anyway you like, though I try to use something closer to how the typical American Christian thinks of God–you know, supernatural, all-knowing, interacts in our world, and so on.
LikeLike
“American” Christianity is full of sects with different beliefs and worldviews. Some of this is due to the tragic corruption by slave holders who emphasized personal salvation and loyalty to Christ to feel free from their inhumane actions. Some 4 out of 5 members of the sect I am part of voted for Trump. Its not surprising that people do not trust Christians or the Bible when there are so many bad examples that are a satire of this ancient tradition. The more I think about this the more I recognize this was the situation in the 1st century where if you said you were a Jew, the second question was what kind of Jew?
The Pharisees were literalists who punished anyone who broke any law. The Sadducees were close to hedonists. The Essenes believed only by isolation could you be faithful. The Zealots prepared for rebellion. In 68 ad the rebellion started and culminated 4 years later with 90% of people in Jerusalem and surrounding areas dying and about 10% being enslaved. This was so bad the Romans did not hold a victory celebration.
That was then and now we have a worldwide challenge of how we are going to come together to make a better future for all of us. What matters is we embody the teachings of Christ. Who cares what we call ourselves if we don’t.
LikeLike
“ “American” Christianity is full of sects with different beliefs and worldviews. Some of this is due to the tragic corruption by slave holders who emphasized personal salvation and loyalty to Christ to feel free from their inhumane actions.”
The Bible gives a lot more support to the slave owner than to the abolitionist.
“Some 4 out of 5 members of the sect I am part of voted for Trump.”
Hard to imagine Christians voting for that.
“That was then and now we have a worldwide challenge of how we are going to come together to make a better future for all of us. What matters is we embody the teachings of Christ.”
Why? I don’t see him as particularly enlightened. He didn’t say a word against slavery, for example.
LikeLike
Just curious, how do you find more support in the Bible for the slave owner?
Why did Moses lead people out of Egypt? How can one say they love their neighbor if they own them?
Feel free to insert your choice of name for “Christ” and “God” and what version of loving your neighbor worded the way you like. What would you choose?
LikeLike
“how do you find more support in the Bible for the slave owner?”
Lev. 25:44-46 is God giving the Hebrews a green light to chattel slavery (slavery for life).
Jesus updates the OT a bunch of times, using the form, “You have heard it said that X, but I say Y.” He never speaks a word against slavery.
Paul uses slavery as an example; again, he doesn’t speak against slavery.
“Why did Moses lead people out of Egypt? How can one say they love their neighbor if they own them?”
Dunno. Good question. All I’m saying is that the “slavery is A-OK in the Bible” case is easy to make. You’ve got to do gymnastics to argue that Jesus/God hated the institution.
LikeLike
Consider Matt. 22:37 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”. The second “Love your neighbor as yourself” is what all the law and all the prophets “hang” or descend from.
In Matt 22:29-32 Jesus is recorded as making the case that we will be like angels instead of physical and the Lord God he is referring to is the God of the living not the dead. The word “angels” refers to ghostly memories of loved ones and the Egyptians had a very similar concept of the dead being judged by the living.
In Matt 22:44 Jesus repeats David’s identity question. The interpretation I hold to is that David is saying in a somewhat cryptic way what Jesus repeats that a leader must be a servant to all and the enemies are our own contradictions and imperfections.
In Matt 22:15-21 Jesus makes an identity issue out of paying taxes that is relevant here. Paying taxes to Caesar is the easy part. What do we owe to the Lord of the living?
Like the ancient teachers of the law, you can summon up all the passages you want from Leviticus and others. This one chapter which part is found in Mark 12 is where Christians like me start when interpreting what is written in the Bible. If you choose another starting point, what does this say about your understanding?
LikeLike
You say that the Bible is inspired by God? All of it? Then you can’t pick and choose. You can’t focus on “God is love” and ignore Lev. 25:44-46, which explains how slavery for life looks.
But drop the assumption that this is anything more than a manmade book, and then, yes, you can highlight or ignore whatever you want.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Umm, most Christians I know agree with you that the Bible is written by people inspired by real life situations and awareness. Of course we ignore Lev 25:44-46 because slavery is a gross violation of loving ones neighbor. To us “God” is a placeholder for the mysterious and divine aspects of life. You correctly point out the problems with seeing “God” as a worldly ruler and holding the Bible as infallible.
Your issue would seem to be with Fundamentalists who want a powerful dominating God because they want to be powerful and dominating. They claim the Bible is inspired by God so they can use it to judge people and claim that those that do not agree with them are going to hell. At heart they worship a God that essentially says “obey or die”.
More enlightened moderate Christians like me know that Jesus was opposed to the leadership of his time that were very much like the Fundamentalists. Leaders over the last 1600 years give or take have embraced Christian terminology and symbolism to give credibility and support for their political and military goals. The challenge for all of us is resisting this and calling it out as a corruption of what Jesus taught.
LikeLike
“Of course we ignore Lev 25:44-46 because slavery is a gross violation of loving ones neighbor.”
“Of course”?? How can you just pick and choose the rules of an omniscient, omni-benevolent god?
Or are you saying that the OT is contradictory?
“To us “God” is a placeholder for the mysterious and divine aspects of life. You correctly point out the problems with seeing “God” as a worldly ruler and holding the Bible as infallible.”
Did God walk—actually *walk*–in the Garden of Eden? Did he show up at Abraham’s house? Did he chat face to face with Moses “as a man talks to a friend”?
Do you just dismiss as metaphor any passage that sounds weird or makes God look bad?
“Your issue would seem to be with Fundamentalists who want a powerful dominating God because they want to be powerful and dominating.”
At least they’re consistent. If you dismiss action A as hyperbole or metaphor or parable and embrace action B as wisdom from God Himself, they the interpretation is up in the air. You interpret a passage this way and your neighbor interprets it another way, and you have no grounds by which to correct him.
“They claim the Bible is inspired by God so they can use it to judge people and claim that those that do not agree with them are going to hell. At heart they worship a God that essentially says “obey or die”.”
And how do you do it?
“More enlightened moderate Christians like me”
Is this tongue in cheek, or are you serious? It sounds wildly pompous, when there are 45,000 Christian denominations with many conflicting doctrines.
LikeLike
Actually there are as many conflicting doctrines as people that know the Bible, Christian or otherwise. This is the human condition as simple as I can state it.
I have stated above as in Matt 22, God is of the living and life and not of obedience and domination. All the examples you cite are metaphorical. I will note that both Abraham and Moses are recorded as being in intense situations. My guess is you either have to meditate a lot or be in an intense mindset to make sense of these.
LikeLike
“Actually there are as many conflicting doctrines as people that know the Bible, Christian or otherwise.”
Pretty much.
“This is the human condition as simple as I can state it.”
I have much, much higher expectations of God as an author than pre-scientific men.
“I have stated above as in Matt 22, God is of the living and life and not of obedience and domination.”
God demanded obedience in the OT quite a bit.
“All the examples you cite are metaphorical.”
And you get to decide which is metaphorical and which is history. That’s not presumptuous?
“My guess is you either have to meditate a lot or be in an intense mindset to make sense of these.”
Simply drop the supernatural presupposition, and it all fits into place.
LikeLike
Again if you read the Bible literally and interpret it as historical and factual, you will end up with the high expectations and contradictions until you dismiss the whole thing as mythological. Fundamentalists require the supernatural presupposition and you reject the supernatural presupposition.
As crazy as it might sound, I am somewhere in the middle. Was the bush burning or was Moses tripping? All I know for sure is the day after anyone dies that I am close to, the sky is extremely bright even if they were a cat. I’ve dreamed of meeting many people before meeting them. I have real questions if we share a consciousness and most of the time we are either too dense or too self centered to notice. Ask me about ghosts and I will burden you with the notion that I will put them to work in my household.
At the same time I have been part of the scientific community and studied economics, history, and political science and have spent a lot of time trying to understand the future.
Hopefully I am giving you things to consider and in some way this is of service to you. You cannot shake my faith in what I cannot know and cannot describe. There are passages in the Bible I resonate with and many more that I do not. I used to hate the story of Noah until I learned of the Burckle Crater. The story of Moses and Exodus took me decades and lots of historical tidbits to like. Do I fully understand these stories? Of course not. All I can truthfully claim is partial knowledge and theories.
LikeLike
“you reject the supernatural presupposition.”
Right, but not out of hand.
Why lower the bar of evidence for Christianity? Why not other religions also?
LikeLike
I respect the members of other religions and their scriptures even though I may only know a tiny bit of their culture and tradition. It is hard work knowing even the Christian tradition and in no way can I claim to have mastered even this. Experience is key sort of like romance. There is part of our experience that is not fully conscious yet we act on this as if it were.
LikeLike
It sounds like Christianity is just a pleasing thing that you do. It’s not like it’s a history book. You weren’t drawn to it because it’s the result of evidence.
Is that right?
LikeLike
At times there is a historical or evidential aspect to the Bible. You are correct this is not what drew me to it. To say a struggle between the material and the divine is just pleasing is not correct. Very few clergy get what is it is like to grow up outside of the church community with parents who were estranged from it. There is a lot of tension between those that experience the church as children and those of us who experience it as adults. There is a second tension between those of us who have experiences and those who have not. The third tension is between those of us who are willing to face the reality of the economic and climate related impacts and those that go to church to escape from reality and feel good. The fourth tension and probably the most severe is the 9p21.2 mutation of C9orf72 which limits how excited the members of my family can get.
LikeLike
“C9orf72”
Is that ALS?
LikeLike
The gene appears to regulate transcription and the nerve cells overheat if they get too busy. I liken it to the ultimate party killer. Somewhere earlier you mentioned DNA is not my friend. I suspect you didn’t know how funny that was.
LikeLike