The Ontological Argument

The existence of God is not only a question of faith, it?s also a philosophical question. The Ontological argument of the existence of God is an argument that God?s existence can be proved by reason alone.

Many Philosophers have worked on the question including Anselm of Canterbury, René Descartes and many more. The ontological argument for God?s existence was even formalized by the mathematician Kurt Gödel, but he never published it as he was afraid it would be mistaken for the existence of God beyond doubt instead of what it really is: a logical investigation of the argument.

Of course, the ontological argument is very controversial in philosophy as it has been opposed and criticized by many philosophers including Immanuel Kant.


Anselm?s argument:

1 - God is the entity than which no greater entity can be conceived.
2 - The concept of God exists in human understanding.
3 - God does not exist in reality (assumed in order to refute).
4 - The concept of God existing in reality exists in human understanding.
5 - If an entity exists in reality and in human understanding, this entity is greater than it would have been if it existed only in human understanding (a statement of existence as a perfection).
6 - from 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 An entity can be conceived which is greater than God, the entity than which no greater entity can be conceived (logical self-contradiction).

Assumption 3 is wrong, therefore God exists in reality (assuming 1, 2, 4, and 5 are accepted as true).


Descartes?s argument:

1 - I exist
2 - I have an idea of a supremely perfect being, i.e. a being having all perfections.
3 - As an imperfect being I would be unable to create such a concept.
4 - The concept must have come from God.
5 - To be a perfect being God must exist.

God exists.


And now a proof by Douglas Gasking of the non existence of god:

1 - The creation of the world is the most marvelous achievement imaginable
2 - The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
3 - The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
4 - The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.
5 - Therefore if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can conceive a greater being - namely, one who created everything while not existing.

Therefore God does not exist.

Please remember that this is not a discussion about religion, it?s about philosophical reasoning.

consider the set of all possible spacetime universes, including the null universe. one of them is our universe. we experience that universe because otherwise we would not be here to experience anything (the anthropic principle). therefore, we exist because it is not logically inconsistent that we might exist.

You're so smart, intergamer.

I see a few problems with these philosophies.




Problem #1:

vaxer said:

3 - As an imperfect being I would be unable to create such a concept.

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How does he figure this?

I can do the same thing. Watch.

1. I am nobody.
2. Nobody is perfect.
3. Therefore I am perfect.

His reasoning is just crazy.


Problem #2:

vaxer said:

1 - The creation of the world is the most marvelous achievement imaginable
2 - The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
3 - The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
4 - The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.
5 - Therefore if we suppose that the universe is the product of an existent creator we can conceive a greater being - namely, one who created everything while not existing.

Therefore God does not exist.

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Okay, yes the achievment will be more impressive if the achiever is handicapped, but why would the creation of the universe have to be so amazing that the achiever could only be so handicapped that they had to be nonexistent? I think these men were driven so insane by the question of existence that they had to come up with something so we get this.

And Anselm. His problem is that he uses the word "greater". "Greater" only exists in the human mind, just like time. It's a concept we humans made up to keep things in order.

Let's assume...

God is a perfect being.
Human is imperfect.
Imperfect mind cannot create a concept of something completely perfect.
Therefore God exists.

But...

Because imperfect mind cannot create a perfect concept, it therefore can't understand one either.
Therefore God exists, but all human interpretations of it are wrong.

But...

Only imperfect beings exist in reality.
Therefore God does not exist.

But...

In order to something be imperfect, we must have something to compare it to, a.k.a perfect.
Therefore God exists.

Start from phase one, go over again and again 'til you get bored.

What makes you think that God is perfect in the first place?
I do not think God makes mistakes but that is far away from being perfect.

qwerty said:

What makes you think that God is perfect in the first place?
I do not think God makes mistakes but that is far away from being perfect.

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Because there is no imperfection without perfection.

Remember that the topic here is ontological, not theological. If there's no perfect being we're imperfect compared to... what?

Finn said:

Because there is no imperfection without perfection.

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That's not true. We're imperfect compared to self-consistency.
Alternatively, we are all perfect/everything is perfect/there is no such thing as perfect and perfection is an intractable concept to begin with.

intergamer said:

Alternatively, we are all perfect/everything is perfect/there is no such thing as perfect and perfection is an intractable concept to begin with.

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I think this was what I said exactly. Pardon my English...

Gustav said:

I see a few problems with these philosophies.
I can do the same thing. Watch.

1. I am nobody.
2. Nobody is perfect.
3. Therefore I am perfect.

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That doesn't hold.

1. You aren't nobody, you're you.
2. No one is perfect,
3. Therefore you arn't perfect.

I know it doesn't hold. It's utterly preposterous! My point is that Descartes's argument doesn't hold either.

1 - I exist
2 - I have an idea of a supremely perfect being, i.e. a being having all perfections.
3 - As an imperfect being I would be unable to create such a concept.
4 - The concept must have come from God.
5 - To be a perfect being God must exist.

Click to expand...

First of all how does he know he even created the concept of a being having all perfections? If it's not concievable to us, we wouldn't know it. And also humans are imperfect but we have concieved of things that didn't exist before. And why would that mean the concept must have come from God?

Finn said:

I think this was what I said exactly. Pardon my English...

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just because perfection is an intractable concept doesn't say anything about the existence of god, which itself is intractable and therefore foolish to think about

Can a belief be fundamentally empirical so that it is universally accepted by all?

the key isn't just to be theoretically consistent or to match the data, but to be theoretically a sound result and correctly predict a wide scope of empirical data. then, most or all people ought to be just about convinced.

I've seen the lot of those philosophies a couple years back for courses like Fundamental philosophy, some of them repeated in General ethics and this year in Medieval cultural history.

1 - God is the entity than which no greater entity can be conceived.

For Latinists among you, the actual term here described in perfect (!) lay terms is known as IQM (Id quo maius cogitari nequit): God is something above which nothing greater can be imagined/thought of.

Anyhows, the entire Intelligent Design hypothesis actually stems from the same metaphysical belief in a supreme entity. This property of a divinity is almost universal in religious thought, I assume.

So it seems to be in philosophy... (even a sceptic déist such as Voltaire knew God existed, but he walked away from the world he just turned on the electric switch to spin about... he compares God to a watchmaker who winded it up and walked away from it.)
But you all knew that, I'm sure..

DaFedora said:

So it seems to be in philosophy... (even a sceptic déist such as Voltaire knew God existed, but he walked away from the world he just turned on the electric switch to spin about... he compares God to a watchmaker who winded it up and walked away from it.)
But you all knew that, I'm sure..

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Assuming there is a God (which I don't), why would we ever think otherwise? Are we supposed to believe that God created the world and now spends his all-powerful time sitting on a cloud watching us go about our daily lives like some kind of reality soap? Sounds like a boring-as-hell way to spend your oh-so-important time for the Almighty...

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was convincing the world he didn't exist."

whoops! wrong thread

I've never been handed the title of "the World" before...thanks! I'm so surprised, and have so many people to thank...I didn't even write a speech (laughter from audience).

Blanket statements like those lose street cred faster than you can imagine...tisk tisk. Logically, since the entire world is not "convinced" the devil doesn't exist, then there's no way that statement could be true. Funny, but not true.

I have lost no credibility, it is a quote from Usual Suspects applied loosely to the ontological argument, or more accurately: the study of the nature of existence.

If you say you do not exist, can you prove it? Or is existance determined by the word?

EDIT to Include Nietzsche:

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it?"