Dr Greg Bahnsen - Philosophy of Christianity: The Ontological Argument (Part 4)

All right. The ontological argument has roots in philosophers such as Parmenides, Plato and Augustine. It is an argument that was rejected by Thomas Aquinas as not being grounded in any kind of appeal to experience or facts of the world. And it has been rejected by Immanuel Kant because it depends upon the false notion that existence is a separate predicate. We'll be coming back to that. It's been accepted in various revised forms, however, by the continental rationalists like Descartes and Leibniz. The idealists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries often accepted the argument. And some recent apologists have accepted the argument you'll find in reading through evangelical literature. And then there are also some linguistic analytical philosophers that have accepted the argument, such as Norman Malcolm and Alvin Plantica. Certain process theologians and philosophers also do so. So it's an argument that's by no means eccentric. It has a long and illustrious past. Many people have accepted it. Many more perhaps have rejected it for various reasons. The ontological argument does not, like the cosmological or teleological arguments, portray itself as a philosophically and rigorous philosophical and rigorous expression of what are common intuitive arguments for the existence of God. Okay, if I argue the cosmological argument, I may have to give philosophical precision and get rather sophisticated in the argument. But what I'm getting at is pretty much understood by most people on the basis of common sense and intuition. Okay, everything has got to have a cause. What's the cause of the world as a whole? Now, a lot of people think in this way, whether they can think rigorously and give it philosophical expression or not. Somebody says, look at the order round about us now. How is it that this world has this feature of order and purpose if there isn't a God that gives it order and purpose? That's a common teleological argument. And again, we may try to give it precise philosophical expression, but most people on the street understand the general thrust of the argument. That is not true of the ontological argument. The ontological argument does not explicate what is a common and intuitive notion about the existence of God. It is the product purely of philosophical reasoning and thought. And to complicate matters, not only is this not simply putting rigorous expression to a common idea, the thrust of which is felt by most people, it doesn't appeal to facts about the world. The ontological argument doesn't say, now look, if you just understand the world better, understand these facts, if you just reason from these known premises, from your experience, you'll be able to deduce the existence of God. It makes no appeal to facts about the world. It is what we call a purely a priori argument, purely a priori, because it makes no appeal to experience. It doesn't say, now look, you know from your experience that everything has a cause, or you know from your experience that there's order in the world. What it argues is that just from the a priori investigation of a certain concept, without appealing to experience, you can know that God exists. God's existence is to be proven by the ontological argument, by an appeal to reason alone. Now you may notice in your reading assignment on page 13 how Anselm, when he stated this argument, made the following claim about it. He says, why then has the fool said in his heart there is no God? Psalm 14:1. Since it is so evident to a rational mind that thou dost exist in the highest degree of all. Why, except that he is dull and a fool. Very strong words. Ransom says it is evident to the rational mind that God exists just from the very concept of God. It is evident to the rational mind that God exists and only those who are dull and foolish are going to deny it. So if you're thinking clearly at all, you've got to think that God exists. Anselm wants to claim so he's claiming a very high degree of certainty by appealing to reason alone, saying that only those who are unreasonable deny the existence of God as he is portraying it. Well, we're going to be looking at Anselm's classical case for the ontological argument. Anselm, of course, is a well known Christian saint of Canterbury whose dates are 1033 to 1109. Anselm was influenced philosophically by Plato and Augustine more than anybody else. In fact, he was often called through church history the second Augustine. He was so influenced by him. Anselm adopted the Augustinian slogan I believe in order that I might understand. And by that he seems to have meant that faith preceded reasoning when it came to divine matters. One first believed what God said and then one was to reason about it. Yet elsewhere in the writings of Anselm, you don't find a purist position on that notion of letting faith receive reasoning. In his book Cur Dies Homo, that is why the God man, one of the earliest and lengthiest explications of the satisfaction view of the crucifixion and atonement, he says, somewhat rationalistically, leaving Christ out of view, as if nothing had ever been known of him. This book proves by absolute reasons the impossibility that any man should be Saved without him. Now, although it turns out he smuggles in a lot of biblical premises, his attempt here is to be utterly rationalistic. Let's just leave out everything that God tells us, and let's just reason on the basis of our common understanding. That doesn't seem to fit in with his earlier slogan, I believe in order to understand I. I first have faith, and then reason helps me to understand my faith better. Then also in his monologium, he gives certain rational arguments for the existence of God, for the unity of the nature of God, very much similar to those of Thomas Aquinas a few years later. And so what I'm trying to get across is that Anselm attempts to be Augustinian and to hold very purely to this presuppositional idea that reasoning is founded upon faith. However, he is inconsistent in that. Well, then we come to the proslogium in which the ontological argument is found. The proslogium, the discourse in which Anselm argues for the existence of God according to the ontological argument. This argument begins with the conception of God as all perfect, begins with the conception of God as all perfect, and then reasons from the very nature of God to the necessity of his existence. Okay, we begin with a conception, and some says, if you understand what God is in terms of our conception of God, then necessarily you can deduce God's existence from the conception of God. We can prove the existence of God. And that is what is at the heart of the ontological argument. God's existence is entailed by his very nature. The argument. I'm going to put the argument to you a few ways, just so you kind of get the idea in its most simple form, in the simplest way you can understand this, Anselm says God is perfect. Perfection entails existence, therefore God exists. God is perfect. Perfection entails existence, therefore God exists. Now, that's one way of putting it. Very simple. Let me put it another way now, a little more complicated, and then I'll stated another way a little more at length. He formulates his argument in this way. God is that than which no greater can be conceived. By the way, that very convoluted syntax is what makes your reading so difficult in Anselm, I'm sure many of you had to look at the sentences over and over and over again because you see, he gets the comparison up there early in the sentence, and it's very, very difficult to read. But nevertheless, God is that than which no greater can be conceived. God can be conceived, but there's nothing Greater that can be conceived. So he is that than which none greater can be conceived. He is the highest conceivable. He is the greatest conceivable thing than that which none greater can be conceived. Okay, that's the nature of God. That's the conception of God that we have. No greater is conceivable. He is the no greater is conceivable. One God is then that which none greater can be conceived. Now, and some reasons, a God who exists outside of the mind is certainly greater than one who exists only in the mind. Okay, if God is that which no greater is conceivable. Now, what is greater? Something that exists in the mind alone or something that exists in the mind as well as outside of the mind? Which is greater? A mere idea in the mind or something that actually exists outside of the mind? Well, obviously something which exists outside of the mind is greater than that which exists only in the mind. Thus, if God existed only in the mind, a greater than God could be conceived, namely one existing outside the mind. So if God exists only in the mind, he is not that than which none greater can be conceived. Because we can conceive of something greater than something existing only in the mind. And that's impossible by the very nature of the case. Therefore, God exists outside the mind. Well, what do you think of that argument? What kind of God is he talking about exists beyond mind? He says. Did you say a God? He's talking about. He's saying there's a God that we can't conceive beyond that which we can conceive. Is that basically what you're saying? No, what he's saying is that the greatest type of being we can conceive must exist because he wouldn't be the. You can conceive of something in the mind, conceive of something outside the mind. Obviously something that exists outside the mind is greater than something that exists only in the mind. And if God is the greatest thing you can conceive of, then he must exist outside the mind or else he wouldn't be the greatest. Because you can always conceive of something greater than that which is only in the mind. All right. That he's trying to separate that which is purely thought to the abstract to that which is in some sense concrete. That's the point. He's arguing from a conception to an extra mental existence, from something which is mental to something which is actual. Of course, here mental things are actual also. We mean by actual extra mental beyond the mind. Is he saying in the simple fact that we can conceive of an infinite God. We're finite. That we, being finite, couldn't conceive of something of our own selves. So there has to be something infinite outside of ourselves to put that thought there. That's an interesting question. Pay very close attention to this. Descartes reformulated the ontological argument somewhat along those lines that you're suggesting. How could a finite mind conceive of an infinite object? God must exist to have put the idea into the mind because the finite mind would never have thought of the infinite. Now, that is not purely an ontological argument. So as you see, that really rests upon the. It's gone now, the cosmological argument. That is, where would we get the idea of an infinite if we are finite? Okay, There can be nothing in the effect that is not already in the cause. So there must be an infinite cause to the idea of this idea. So Descartes kind of shifts around on the ontological argument and combines it with the cosmological argument, saying, you know, the thought of God requires God to account for the very existence of the thought. How could we have thought of an infinite God if there weren't an infinite God to have put the idea into our finite mind? That's something of a Cartesian version of the ontological argument, and we're not going to pay any more attention to it than what I've just said. It is in fact resting for its validity on the cosmological argument, which we'll look at on another day. Let's go back now to the ontological argument, Anselm's purest version of it, if you will, where it says the very conception of God as that which is the greatest, the most perfect, requires that he exist outside the mind, because if he didn't exist outside of the mind, there'd be something greater than him. Two problems I see. The result does not lead to the Christian conception of God as a sarilight. Rather, it can allow for superstition, a pantheistic concept of primitive people that they conceived of something their greatest concept was the Son controlled everything. Yes. I think that what is being expressed here is a form of Christian critique of the ontological argument, that it doesn't show the distinctive Christian God to be the one that exists. And some would resist that, of course, and for reasons that I'll show you later. He is actually, I think, trying to argue within a Christian world and life view. And so he's not going to grant that God, apart from the Christian God, has this conception of greatest perfection. However, what you're saying is that if a man just wanted to reason straight out on autonomous, self sufficient, humanistic premises, that he wouldn't necessarily reach the Christian God, even if this argument was a good one. I think you're right. Yes, right in the very first presupposition. I see a problem. And can I find, based on what was said before, the finite mind conceiving of Is the finite mind indeed capable of conceiving the infant? Well, I think we must recognize that Anselm was not saying we conceive of God as He is, that we comprehend God. What he's saying is we know in a formal sense that God is the greatest. And we may not be able to comprehend his greatness, but we can comprehend the statement that he is the greatest. You understand the difference. It's one thing to say that is the largest box in the world sitting out there in the parking lot, another thing to be able to lift the box. Now that's a poor analogy, but Anselm would say it's one thing to say that's the greatest concept that we have and another thing to conceive of everything God is. He wouldn't have to say I know everything about God I've conceived to say nevertheless, that whatever God is, he is infinite. So he's simply saying this is the greatest being there is the most perfect, and if he's going to be the most perfect, he must also exist, because something that doesn't exist would be less perfect than something which is thought of only then. At least it doesn't define God yet. That's right. It doesn't attempt to define God except that he has the highest perfection. Okay, let me. I realize, of course, that this seems to be an argument that is just playing with words. A lot of people. It seems like there's just something wrong with this. It's much too easy. As some people have said, you just can't define God into existence. And it appears that God is just being defined as existing by means of this argument. But before we look at the criticisms of it, I do want to restate it for you and make sure that we've understood it properly. As I've said before, the argument here is turning on the entirely turning on the concept of God. Anselm first defines God as a being than which none greater can be conceived. God is then by definition the greatest being conceivable, not merely the greatest being that happens to exist. God isn't just the greatest of the things that happen to be around. He's the greatest of Anything you can conceive of. If it were possible to think of a being greater than the greatest that actually is, then according to Anselm's definition and its implications, this greatest actual being would not be God. God would not exist. The very fact that there are atheists who say with the fool of the Psalms that there is no God. This suggests that this situation is at least a possibility. Anselm tries to show, however, that on examination, atheism can't even be stated. For the statement that God does not exist is self contradictory. And this is where I think it's valuable. You might want to note in your notes the statement of the ontological argument by Plantica, one of the authors you read in preparation for today. You did read Plant again, preparation for the day. I hope he gives a statement of the argument that puts it as a reductio ad absurdum. Assume that God does not exist. Now, what is God? What do all these premises entail? And it turns out that that premise, God does not exist, is self contradictory. He puts it in the form of reductio ad absurdum. As Anselm says, atheism is self contradictory. As self contradictory as saying that fire is water or water is fire. It's as self contradictory as saying this square does not have four sides. Here we have a square, but it doesn't meet the definition of a square. Here's Atheism saying we have a concept of God, but it doesn't match up to the concept of of God. Atheism is self refuting on logical grounds alone then. And the demonstration by Anselm goes something like this. We can distinguish between the things existing in the understanding and its existing in reality. For example, we can distinguish between a painting that is merely planned and the same painting after it's been executed. Okay. Think in your mind of the artist planning his painting. Here's the idea of a planned painting. Here's the Mona Lisa in conception. But you can also think of the Mona Lisa as executed. You can actually think of the actual painting itself. That atheists speak of God at all shows that the being who is greater than any other that can be thought exists in the understanding. As we all have an idea of God, you know that the idea of God at least exists in the understanding. We all have a mental conception of God, but in this one case it is impossible for the being in question to exist only in the understanding and not in reality. Also, in this particular case, it's impossible that you could have the idea of a Mona Lisa and only the Idea of a Mona Lisa. There's nothing in the idea of the Mona Lisa that means there must actually be a painting the Mona Lisa. It might just be a mental plan. But in the case of God, you can't simply have the idea of a God, because that idea is the idea of that which none greater can be conceived. If God existed only in the understanding and not in reality, then it would be possible to conceive conceivable being who, though otherwise identical with this God, existed both in the understanding and in reality, and in that case would be greater than the being who exists only in the understanding. If you have a God who's only in thought, he's not as great as a God who is in thought and in reality. Now, since this is impossible by definition, no being who existed in the understanding alone could be the greatest that can be thought of. So the greatest conceivable being must exist in reality as well as in the understanding. And that is simply to say that God does exist. Briefly, to deny God's real existence is to imply that there could be something greater than God, something that had real existence. But nothing could by definition be greater than God. Therefore, God must have real existence. Put that by one more time. Okay, let's put it one more time. To deny God's real existence is to imply that there could be something greater than God, namely, something that had real existence. Okay, if you deny that God has real existence, then you have to grant that there's something greater than God, namely, something that really exists, but that by definition is impossible because there's nothing greater than God. That's what we mean by God the greatest. Therefore, God must have real existence. God's nature, which is conveyed by the very word God, includes existence within it. If you want to put it this way, the essence of God, the very conception or nature of God, the essence of God. God implies his existence. The essence of God implies his existence. One more time. The essence of God, the very concept of God as the greatest or most perfect being implies that he exists. Now, this argument from a Christian perspective can be interpreted in a couple of ways. It has traditionally been interpreted in terms of Platonistic philosophy, or, if you will, the type of argumentation you find in the early Augusta. That which corresponds to imperishable truth must exist. Of course, taken that way, Anselm's argument proves only a very formal or contentless being. He doesn't prove the God of the Scriptures, as we've said already. And it's of course true that the ontological argument can Be used and indeed has been used historically to prove almost any kind of ultimate. Whatever a person takes to be his ultimate concept or being in life, he can call his God. So compare the different kinds of gods that are proven by this type of reasoning in Spinoza, Descartes, Hegel, Malcolm Hartshorn, I mean you have process philosophy, analytical philosophy, idealistic philosophy, rationalistic philosophy, pantheistic philosophy, all of them using the ontological argument to prove their ultimate. Why is it that this argument can prove so many different kinds of gods if it proves anything at all? Well, I think the reason for that is that the concept of perfection is by its very nature a value judgment or a value term. To say something is perfect is to say that it has a certain value about it. It's a value laden judgment. And of course what has highest value is going to differ from thinker to thinker. And that's why the ontological argument is so slippery. It can be used for pantheistic purposes, be used for rationalistic purposes, be used for allegedly Christian purposes. It all depends on what your idea of perfection is. And remember I said as we started to study Anselm, you find this cube curious mixture of oil and water. The one hand he wants to be a presuppositionalist, I believe in order to understand. And on the other hand you get this strange rationalistic Platonistic emphasis in him as well. And we find that in other writings and to a certain degree I think we might detect it in this kind of reasoning. Yes, I don't see how this argument would carrying waves of stock with Prometheus or market basin. Okay, why I don't differ with you, but I mean it isn't enough simply to state that it has in stock you have to buy. Well, we imply by this argument that there is a ground, it has its basic implication that there is a Supreme Court. That's right. That's the whole point where Marx is atheistic does not appeal to anything it seems to me. Yeah, and some would say he's a fool. He obviously hasn't thought through the implications of the concept of God. He'd say, Listen Mr. Marxist, you understand what we mean by the term God, don't you? I mean, I'm not saying you have to believe in God right now, but let's just start there. You know what we mean by God, the greatest being, that than which none greater can be conceived, that which has the greatest and highest perfection. You understand? That's what we mean by this term. Marcus says, well yeah, I know that's what you mean, but that doesn't mean there is a God. Anselm says, let's wait a minute. Let's think about that for a second. Is a God that is in the mind only greater than a God who's in the mind and in reality, the Marxist says, well, no. Anselm says, consequently the being than which none greater can be conceived must also be in existence. Right. The very concept shows you that there is a God. Now, to my way of thinking, if I were a Marxist, I would then turn around and say, that's right. I think the greatest exists. I think that which is most perfect exists. I don't happen to think of the Christian God, however, I think the materialistic world, that's the greatest thing, because that's what has highest value. You see, what has been said already now, twice in the class about this argument doesn't necessarily prove the Christian God begins to show you what is wrong with the argument. It's not showing anything more. If it shows anything at all. It's not showing anything more but that the greatest exists, that that which you conceive to be the most perfect exists. But what do you take to be the most perfect? So goes back to your presupposition as to. To what you understand the great thing to be. That's right. Now I'm going to go back toward the end of this class period and argue that Anselm, although he seems Platonistic and rationalistic in this argument and it's certainly subject to criticism, there's another way of interpreting Anselm which is more presuppositional and quite acceptable to me. However, it will not be acceptable to somebody who doesn't share our presupposition. Okay, but we'll get to that in time. Let's keep looking at this argument. Anselm was given the argument that the essence of God, the very conception of God, proves that he exists. Now, what are the criticisms that can be raised against this? Well, on the first hand, we have to ask whether the very concept of a being, that which none greater, can be conceived, is a coherent or meaningful concept. What can it mean to say that there is a being for which there is no greater conceivable? What does that mean? Let's ask ourselves. This is a meaningful idea. Many people have found the idea devoid of clear meaning. I think it's worthwhile to pause just a moment to see what would happen if we were to decide that Anselm's formula is incoherent in itself. We could then say either that because the formula correctly expresses the implications of Christian worship, and yet the formula is incoherent, therefore Christianity is incoherent. Want me to run that past you again? What if it turns out that the idea of a being than which none greater can be conceived is a logically impossible notion? Now, if Christianity implies, as Anselm says, that God is than that which none greater can be conceived. If that is what Christianity demands and it turns out that this doesn't make any sense, then Christianity doesn't make any sense. Or somebody could say that because the formula is incoherent, that is because this formula doesn't make any sense, and yet Christianity is true. Therefore Christianity doesn't imply this formula for God. Okay, what I'm trying to get across is how very important it is to decide whether it's coherent to say that that's what God is. Because if it's not coherent to say that that's what God is, then either Christianity is incoherent because it implies the formula, or this formula doesn't prove the Christian God. On either score, Anselm would have failed in his attempt then to give a Christian argument for the existence of God. Well, so is the formula coherent or is it not coherent? Let's explore further what the phrase a being than which none greater can be conceived could mean. What would a supremely perfect being mean? What could this mean? That God is supremely perfect. Now, a natural interpretation is that there is no quality that other beings have that God does not have. Okay? If he's supremely perfect, that means every perfection is His. And a perfection in traditional philosophical language, especially the Middle Ages, means a property. Any positive property is a perfection. Okay? Now, if God is supremely perfect, that means there is no property, no perfection that other beings have that he doesn't have. Well, that's true. How do we avoid endowing God with physical properties? And if God is every perfection, that means God is a certain size, spatial size, right? Yes. But how can we say that the physical being or entity is a positive thing? Well, that's going to show a defect in the argument here in just a minute. Let's go on. How do we avoid endowing God with evil properties? If God is every property to the highest degree, then how do we know God isn't the most evil being? Because evil is a property. Again, you have not made God the ultimate standard. You're applying a prior ultimate standard of positive traits versus negative traits. Yeah. What this is going to show is that nobody holds that God is supremely perfect in the sense that he has every conceivable property. What you're going to say is he has all the good making properties, if you will. In the Plantica article, you may recall that one interpretation of Anselm, that God has all the G properties, that is all the good making properties, right? He doesn't have evil properties. Now, in the Middle Ages it was often thought that evil was privation. It wasn't a positive thing, it was the absence of being in a way which I don't happen to think makes much sense. Nevertheless, it was the view. Then we have to with deal. If evil is a negative property, then of course God doesn't have negative properties. We're not saying that he has all the good making properties. And if physical things are lower on the scale of being, after all they're not as good as spiritual things, then we might not have to attribute physical properties to God. But it does go to show that how you interpret the argument depends on your presuppositions, what you take to be good and evil. So to avoid the implications that we've been talking about, we're forced to resort to denying reality to evil properties or claiming that although God has the properties of physical things, he has them in a higher, non physical way, analogically. And you begin to squirm a little bit using this argument. A way of avoiding such problems is to stress the thought. The word greater in our definition, as we've said, is an evaluative word. It's a word having to do with values, so that one being could be greater than another, and yet be without some property the other being has. If it is in some way better, for example, morally better not to have that property than to have it. And so we might think of a being that has deceit and a being that does not have the seat, then we would say the being without deceit is better, doesn't have all the possible properties, but it's still a better being. Let us assume then for present purposes, that God's being greater than any other being that can be thought of means at least that he lacks no qualities that could be regarded as making a being who had them superior to a being that did not have them. Or to say it very simple, that God has all the g properties, all the good making properties of things. The definition of God still seems to suggest something about the degree to which God has his qualities, though that he must have them to an unsurpassable degree. God is not merely good, he is unsurpassably good. But the whole idea of God Having a property to an insurpassable degree has its own inherent philosophical problems. Some attributes, for instance love or power, seem to have no upper limits. There doesn't seem to be an upper limit to love or to power. Whereas other properties like truthfulness, do seem to have ceiling limits, they have limits to them. Let me explain. Once somebody has been conceived of as invisible, invariably and completely truthful, you can't conceive of a being that is more truthful than that. It makes no sense to say that somebody is more truthful than a being that is always truthful. See, there's a limit to the idea of an unsurpassed truthfulness doesn't seem to be very sensible. It's doubtful whether it means anything to claim that God has limitless qualities then to a greater degree than any other being does, because then you have to start specifying in what sense qualities have limits, and so forth and so on. Well, we began our first criticism then is what does it mean to say God is supremely perfect? We begin to see some problems here, don't we? We see that all depends on your presuppositions, what you mean by the good making properties, how you define properties, what do you mean by unsurpassable perfection, questions of that nature. But then there's a further kind of problem. Ganelon, the monk who wrote against Anselm, suggests a number of arguments that time prevents us from going over in our readings. But nevertheless, the key argument is what might be called a reduct you out of surdom of Anselm's argument. That is, he reduces he takes Anselm's premise, his manner of arguing, and deduces an absurd conclusion from them, a reductio ad absurdum, showing there's something wrong with the argument because it proves far too much. It proves absurd things too, which had some questions about what a supremely perfect being might mean. And now we have some questions about the reductive ad absurdum that's involved in this argument. Ganelon said, well, I can think of an island that is the most perfect island. Now, obviously the thought of the island is less perfect than the existence, the real existence of the island. Therefore, using your premises, the lost island must really exist. Anselm, the lost island being a traditional literary feature in his day, the idea of an island no man has ever inhabited, it's perfectly endowed with all the most luscious fruits and the perfect weather, unlike Ashland, Ohio and other sorts of things. And so Ganelon says to same there where that the very Concept of this island proves the existence of the island, which is absurd. Therefore, how can you argue from the very concept of God to the existence of God? Anselm attempted to answer that argument, but I just want to list for you now some of the major problems we have with it and then get on to a better way of looking at the situation. Thirdly, the traditional argument of against. Oh, I should have told you up here that the philosopher Leibniz asked the question whether the very concept of God is coherent. He says you must first be conceived that the. You must first be convinced that the concept of God is coherent before Anselm's argument could be used. And that's what we've been asking in some detail of the Leibnizian question. Does this mean makes sense to think of a being than which none greater can be conceived, a supremely perfect being? And then of course, the monk gone alone is known for his reductiata surnum of the argument. And then the traditional argument that has come down from Enlightenment philosophy against the ontological argument is Kant's argument that existence is not a property in the first place. And therefore if it's not a property, it's not a perfection. And if it's not a perfection, you can't argue that the most perfect being necessarily exists because existence is not a predicate, it's not a property. Now, can somebody summarize for me what the argument of Alvin Plantica is against Kant? Let me just explain what Kant is getting at here. Our argument is God has all perfection, which is to say all properties of the good making sort. Okay, Existence is a property, therefore God has existence, or God exists. But now Kant is challenging this second premise, that existence can be counted as a property. He says existence is not really a property. It doesn't add anything to the concept of something. You conceive of the most perfect island, and you see the most perfect island. And in the concept of an existent most perfect island and the concept of a simply hypothetical most perfect island, there's no difference. Existence doesn't add anything to the idea. Therefore, since existence is not a normal property, you can't say that if God has all perfections, that existence is a property of perfection and therefore he exists. He challenges, he takes out, if you will, the second premise of the argument makes it impossible to follow this sustained in the long run or not. The fact is this is a very poor way of arguing against it. How does Planica show that anybody, nobody knows. Okay, Planica says, what could Kant's claim mean here? Kant says existence is not a property. Planica says, what could it mean to say existence is not a property? Well, he pursues three different interpretations, perhaps four if you count Frege's interpretation at the end of the article. He says, here are three or four different interpretations of the claim that existence is not a property. Now, it turns out on some interpretations, the claim's not true at all. For instance, let's look at one of these. Let me help you get into your reading today. Planaga proposes on page 30. Well, he says, after quoting Kant at some length, the point of the passage seems to be that being or existence is not a real predicate. But now skipping down, but what is the content of. Of a concept or of an object? In what ways do objects or concepts have content? Kant gives us very little help in the passage under consideration and understanding. What it is to add something to a concept, what it means to say that a concept contains as much as an object, or what it is for a concept and its object both to have content, the same content of that. And then he begins his argument. Perhaps what he means is something like this. Okay, now remember when I said, if you have a hard time following your reading assignments, that's fine, but at least try to get what the structure of the argument is. If you go through here, at least you can catch the syntax of the argument. Perhaps he means this, perhaps he means that. Lo and behold, you may not be able to understand exactly how he's arguing against it, but at least you should see that what he's saying is. I can't find a very good interpretation of Kant's words. On some interpretations, it's simply not true to say that existence is not a predicate. And on other interpretations, where existence is a predicate, or where it's true to say existence is not a predicate, that's not even relevant to Anselm's argument. Anselm doesn't have to rely on the notion that Kant is refuting. Let me take one example. He says, perhaps what he means is something like this. The content of a concept is. Is a set of properties. The thing must have to fall under or be an instance of that concept. So that if the content of a concept means you must have property one, property two, property three, in order for whatever it is you're talking about to count as that concept, what is a critical, this is a crevice, is something that is in a mountain, property one must be in a mountain or something like that, and it must be more than a foot deep. Okay, you have Property one, property two, anything that doesn't have those properties doesn't count as a crevice. Is that what Kant means? That existence is not a property? That it isn't one of these kinds of properties that you add to something to change the notion altogether? Planicus says, well, if that's what he means, it's obviously false because the properties of a real horse and the properties of an imaginary horse are different. For instance, a horse that you have in mind is neither 12 hands high or less than 12 hands high, but a real horse is either 12 hands high greater or lesser than that. Do you get the point? The properties of a real horse are not the properties of an imaginary horse because a real horse has spatial height, but an imaginary horse doesn't. You know, you can't measure an idea in your head. And so what he's getting at here is, and this has been a time honored maxim since the time of Kant, that existence is not a predicate? Planicus says, well, that's really a silly sort of thing to say, isn't it, if you take it on this interpretation. Then he proposes another interpretation. He says at the bottom of page 31. Now perhaps means to point out that existence differs from pinkness in the following respect. He says, maybe it's not a regular kind of predicate like pinkness. Something being pink is a predicate. And he proposes a way of dealing with this. He gives an objection to it at the bottom of page 32. We might put the charge of triviality as follows. And now what he's saying is, okay, on a second interpretation of Kant's argument, we can reduce it to triviality. He says to say under domain 1 that pinkness is a real predicate but existence is not, really comes to saying that the proposition all existent members of the domain exist, that that proposition is necessarily true, but that all existent members of the domain are pink is not. Well, that looks like a pretty good thing to say, right? How can you prove that paint and existence are different kinds of properties? Well, he says, somebody might say if we take the domain of existing things, to say that some existing thing exists is necessarily true. It's trivial. But to say that some existent thing is paint or not paint is not trivial. That's really to say something. And so that appears to make Kant look very good. He has proven that existence is no normal predicate, it's not a regular property. But then Planinger goes on to say, this is indeed so. But it seems no more illuminating in the present context than the parallel remark that can be made that although all pink members of the domain are pink as necessarily true, all pink members of the domain exist is not necessarily true. That's the end of that. He's done an excellent job of reducing this argument to nothing. What he says, you're just getting at the obvious claim that all existing things exist, but not all existing things are pink. But we could also say all pink things are not necessarily existent, but all pink things are necessarily pink. So I have the concept of a pink wall. It necessarily is pink, but the concept of a pink wall doesn't necessarily means the wall exists. And therefore the idea that existence is a property different from normal properties doesn't pan out. Well, then he turns to another proposal for interpreting Kant's argument. And he says, well, now this one seems to work. This one seems to be fairly good. But then he adds this devastating addendum that although that is a good argument, the interpretation of existence proposed making Kant look good has nothing to do with Anselm's argument. Anselm doesn't use that concept of existence, and therefore Kant's argument doesn't touch him. Okay, now that's about all I'm going to get into Kant, because I realize not all of you are Kant scholars or philosophical scholars are necessarily interested in all those things. But I do want to point out that the traditional argument, like Kant, is the that existence is not a property. Therefore you can't conclude that a most perfect being necessarily exists. And that Mr. Plantica, Dr. Planica here, has shown that this claim by Kant is susceptible to many interpretations, not all of which are true, and the ones that are true are not relevant to Anselm. Okay, now in your reading you also find an attempt to resurrect the argument used by Anselm, this attempt being made by Norman Malcolm, a Wittgenstein scholar and an analytical philosopher in America of no mean reputation, one of the best known philosophers in America in the last 20 years. And it was rather devastating to the philosophical world when Norman Malcolm came out defending the ontological argument, which everybody had just pooh poohed for years now, saying you can't define God into existence. And so Malcolm says that Anselm reformulated his arguments after Ghanawan dealt with them. He says, you find an early form of the argument that says that God is most perfect, existence is a property, therefore God exists. And that's a bad argument. But after Ganelon tried to refute his approach, Anselm gave then a different ontological argument, and this one uses the concept of necessary existence rather than simple existence. Okay, Malcolm says Anselm finally got around to stating his case better by saying that the concept of a necessarily existing God calls for the real existence of him, not just the concept of a God that has most perfection, and that includes simple existence, to put it very simply for you. Now, the first form of Anselm's argument appeals to existence as a property or predicate. But in the reformulation of the argument, Anselm dealt with necessary existence. There's a different notion of existence. It isn't that God has just simple existence. Like any other object, he has necessary existence. And so Anselm, excuse me, Malcolm, tries to resurrect this argument with the new concept of necessary existence. And there are plenty of places you can go to read answers to Malcolm's argument, including the last reading assignment for today out of David Lewis. And my own personal conviction is that most of the people who have argued against Malcolm's reformulated ontological argument are probably right. That, too is mistaken. But that takes us well into the notions of modal logic and so forth that I don't think any of us are interested in following right now. Apart from the validity of Anselm or later Anselm, is there a relative consensus among scholars that Malcolm has indeed discovered something about Anselm? No. That is up for grabs, too. That's up for grabs, too? Yeah. There are some people who argue that Anselm did not reformulate his own argument and people who say he did. Malcolm says he did and tries to do better with the necessary existence argument. Do you have a hunch about Anselm? I don't think he did reformulate his argument. Okay. But if you ask for a consensus of scholars, believe me, I'll have everybody in the philosophical world coming down on me if I claim there was no. That's just hotly debated. Did Anselm change his argument? And then those who believe that he did, what is his argument? And then after that, there's arguments as to whether that's a good argument or not. So it's really up for grabs. But now what does David Lewis argue against Malcolm here? Very simply, David Lewis looks at the claim that a perfect being exists in our understanding. Now, do you all recognize that premise? That's one of Anselm's premises. Right? He says God is by definition the being than which none greater can be conceived. Now, he says everybody has this concept of a perfect being in his understanding. Everybody's got that concept in his understanding. Now, if God exists only in the understanding, then he's less perfect than a being that exists in the understanding and outside the understanding. Therefore, he must exist, exist outside the understanding as well. We've said that over and over and over again. But my point is, this is one of the premises there, that we all have the concept of a perfect being in our understanding. We have the concept of a being than which none greater can be conceived, the most perfect. Now, David Lewis, you see, goes to work on that which seems to be a stepping stone in Anselm's argument. But he tries to pull that away, and he says, now, what about that premise? Do we have in our understanding the concept of the most perfect being? And he says, how are we to understand that premise? And he proposes in broad strokes two ways of looking at it. What do you mean that this being is the greatest or the most perfect. Being than which none greater can be conceived? He says, now, that might mean than which none greater can be conceived in some possible world. The greatness of this God is that he is the greatest being in any possible world. His highest perfectionist. He is most perfect in any possible world. Okay? That is. This is the highest concept of a being, a concept of the greatest being, concept of the most perfect being. If you're thinking of possible beings, this is, of all the possible beings, the greatest. Now, let me tell you a little hint about learning philosophy. You start looking at some of these formulas and you say, you know, it's late at night and I'm tired and I'm drowsy, and it's awfully hard to follow this. The grammar's tough. These are new ideas. Sometimes you have to fill in some of this and make it a little more concrete. We're talking about possible beings, and we're comparing the greatness of possible beings. Now, I dare say it would have helped your reading if you would have distilled in that idea, what are possible beings? Well, think of a few imaginary beings. Santa Claus is an imaginary being, isn't he? Superman is an imaginary being. Batman is an imaginary being. What these guys are getting at is, now, which is the greatest of all those imaginary beings? Is Batman greater than Superman? Is Santa Claus greater than Superman? Is Superman greater than. All of a sudden you guys have come alive. See, you all know how to do it. Now, getting back to Anselm, however, he's saying, David Lewis says Anselm claims that a perfect being exists in our understanding. We have the concept of the most perfect being. Now, Lewis says, does he mean by that the concept of that being which is most perfect in all the Possible worlds. Is it kind of like, is he greater than Batman? Which is the greatest of the imaginary beings in all the possible worlds? Which is the greatest? Okay, now that's one interpretation of what Anselm's saying. He's saying we all have the concept of the greatest possible being. But if you see, if the greatness of this being is the greatness in possible worlds, that doesn't prove that he exists at all. Because to say that he's greatest in the possible world is not to say that we have to compare him with the greatness of beings in the actual world. So, Lewis, point is, if that's how you interpret Anselm, then the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. The fact that I have an perfect being in my understanding is simply to say that in my understanding I understand that being in my understanding, in my mental thoughts, I'm conceiving of that being which is the greatest in any possible world. That doesn't get me into the actual world at all. And so Lewis proposes a second interpretation of Anselm's claim. Here he says what Anselm probably wants to say then, is that God, the concept that I have in my understanding is the concept of a being that is greater in some actual world. He is the greatest being in some actual world. What is this being that I'm thinking about, Anselm? Is it the being that is the most, that is the greatest in any possible world, in which case it has nothing to do with your conclusion? Or is it the being that is the greatest in some actual world? The greatest actual being in our world? And, Anselm, if that's what you mean, then you have to give us some reason to believe that God is the greatest being in our actual world. God is, then? Is that that which none greater can be conceived? None greater in our actual world. But then, Anselm, you see, you're begging the question because maybe there is no greatest God in our actual world. Yes. Is there more than one actual world? Because if there's more than one actual world, then there's not more than one actual world. Isn't there dual reality? No. There may be many possible worlds. A world where there is Wonder Woman in a world in which there is Superman, in a world in which there is Wonder Woman and Superman, and then a world in which there's Wonder Woman, Superman and Santa Claus. These are all possible worlds, but there's only one actual world. What is this? By world you mean universe. And not restricted to just Earth or just starts over precisely one system of Reality. Yes, sir. Don't hesitate. I haven't done my reading yet, that's why. But that will make it harder. When I look at. I agree with what you're saying here. I mean, it makes sense to, to me it's logical. But it seems to me that a non believer could come up with something just as logical from this standpoint. Well, that's what we have here. David Lewis is an unbeliever, is saying, look at this argument. It doesn't pan out. This argument doesn't work. Kant says the argument doesn't work. Yanelan says the argument doesn't work. Leibniz says there's some serious questions about the meaning of the argument. And what we've been looking at is what ways of resurrecting the argument. But now it turns out that Malcolm's attempt to do better by the argument is not working out any better. That's what I'm talking about, David Lewis. That's why the reading is as it is. You have Anselm's argument, Ganelon's argument. You have Planeta responding to Kant's critique. You have Malcolm responding to Kant's critique. But then you have Lewis answering both Planagan and Malcolm. So this is back and forth. Okay, so this is an attempt to show the argument's not working out. Anselm did believe that a man can fantasize. In other words, you could think about an island that doesn't exist. Sure he did. He said that the unique thing is that in the case of God, it's a being there in which none greater can be conceived. He has all the properties, not just the properties of an island. And that's how he thought he escaped Gondola's argument. Well, we've done enough, I think, of the philosophical homework to. To satisfy ourselves that we haven't been irresponsible. I would like to go back now and propose another approach to Anselm, altogether different. Remember I said you could interpret him as trying to argue for God's existence from autonomous premises. Being a Platonistic philosopher, a rationalistic philosopher, and thus understood, Anselm does run into all the problems that are scribbled on the blackboard now. Okay, let me back up and just kind of rehash what we've done in this hour. I introduced the idea of arguing for God's existence. I said the ontological argument is one of three traditional arguments. It's a very difficult one. Doesn't appeal to intuitive concepts like the others do. It is purely rational. That is the Very concept of God proves that he exists. Okay, then we looked at Anselm's statement of the case, and now we've been considering arguments against this. I'd like to suggest now that Anselm, although he equivocates on this, may have been arguing in a presuppositional fashion in the following, Anselm does at times give indications. Then he's trying to give a distinctively Christian formulation of this. The document, the Pros logium, is in fact written as a prayer, isn't it? That's interesting. He's not arguing in the presence of an unbeliever. He's arguing in the presence of God. It's clear then that Anselm has no real doubts about God's existence. He's not suspending the question. He's not saying, maybe God exists, maybe he doesn't. Now, let's look at this. God is a being than which none greater can be conceived. Ergo, God must exist. He's not doing that at all. He's praying to God in this document, after all. I want you to notice this in your reading assignment. Look at page 12, the opening words. And so, Lord, do Thou who dost give understanding to faith. Give me to understand that Thou art as we believe. We believe that Thou art a being than which none greater can be conceived. Anselm's praying to God for greater understanding of what he already believes. Look at page 13, just below the middle. Well, I'm sorry. Right at the middle. So, truly, therefore, dost Thou exist, O Lord, my God, that thou canst not be conceived, not to exist inrightly. For if a mind could conceive of a being better than Thee, the creature would rise above the Creator. And that is most absurd. God, I realize that you're the greatest. I'm praying to you as the greatest. I'm asking you, as the greatest, to give me understanding. Look at page 14. Anselm suggests at the very end of the reading. There, he says, I thank Thee, gracious Lord, I thank Thee. Because what I formerly believed by Thy bounty, I now so understand by Thine illumination that if I were unwilling to believe that Thou dost exist, I should not be able not to understand this to be true. He is saying, God, I realize you granted me belief in your existence, but now you've granted me understanding of that. That, of course, given who you are, you must exist. He says, I had faith. You've now helped me to understand it better. You have enriched my faith with a greater comprehension of how, for a Christian, you must be thought of as necessarily existing. And then I think a very important passage. Page 19. Anselm is answering Ganelon now. And Gonelan has suggested that this concept of God that Anselm has given us is not really in the understanding. After all, Anselm says, God is that than which none greater can be conceived. And Gondolan says, I'm not sure that that's in my understanding at all. And look at how Anselm answers him. This is the second paragraph in the very middle. He says, but I call on your faith and conscience to attest that this is most false. He says, I call upon your faith. I appeal to your conscience. You know very well this is what we mean by God. Ganelon, he says, you're a monk. You haven't got the right to suspend belief in God. As we're arguing these points. That's very strange, isn't it, in a philosophical argument? Now, I don't want to suggest that Anselm is a purist here. I don't want to suggest something that isn't true. He does seem to be going back and forth between a presuppositional and a rationalistic approach to this. But all I'm suggesting is that there are some strong indications here that he's arguing as a presuppositionalist, as one who presupposes belief in God and then goes about to try to understand it better and more philosophically. He writes as a prayer, reasoning in the presence of God. He asks God to clarify his understanding, recognizing his weakness and sinfulness. He says, I long to understand in some degree thy truth which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe that unless I believed, I should not understand. Indeed, the very title that then which no greater can be conceived, is taken by Anselm, as I showed you, as a datum of revelation. He says, ganelon, you know if you have faith, you must think of God in this way. And so when Ganelon replies on behalf of the pool, on behalf of the fool who says there is no God, Anselm refuses to reply to the fool. He replies only to the Catholic, only to the monk. He says, I appeal to your conscience. And so it does seem that Anselm has a particular God in mind, the Christian God. He's not going to let this open up to proving pantheism. And it does seem that his idea of perfection is governed by scriptural notions, then. And so I think you could make a good case of that. The argument here is the attempt to give a presuppositional defense for the existence of God. And we've run out of time, unhappily, because I hate to leave you hanging here, but I'm going to propose at the beginning of our next class hour how we might reconstruct Anselm's argument for our own benefit and satisfaction. Try to make a little bit better of it as a presuppositional argument argument, reassuring those who already believe that this is what we must think of God, that he must be an existent God. He must be a God that necessarily exists. That which none greater can be conceived from a Christian perspective. That is what we must say about God. Okay, thank you.