The
Ontological Argument is accredited to St.
Anselm (1033-1109) and is formulated as such: God is “something than which none
greater can be conceived;” or, God is the most perfect being that can be
thought of. Anselm adds to this formulation a caveat—if God exists only in our
minds, than a being greater than God can be thought of that exists in reality.
For Anselm, to think of something being greater than God is impossible since,
for Anselm, existence is a requirement for anything to be perfect. Thus, God
must exist; “And certainly it exists so truly that it cannot be thought of as
not existing.”
The
greatest weakness of Anselm’s argument is that the word “perfect” is ambiguous,
if not altogether vague. Epistemologically, we cannot verify that any concept
that anyone has of perfection is indeed perfect. If we argue that human beings
are inherently imperfect creatures (as the traditional Judeo-Christian
interpretation of human beings maintains) it would seem to follow that they are
incapable of thinking of anything as perfect. If we consider for a moment that
each culture has relative standards of perfection (to say nothing of
individuals), it seems that the Ontological Argument could just as well be a
proof for polytheism, not just monotheism. That is, the Ontological Argument is
not an argument for any particular god. Obviously, in considering his own
culture as more perfect that any other, Anselm never considered this as a
possibility.
It
should also not go unnoticed how it seems Anselm arbitrarily requires existence
for something’s perfection, meaning, we don’t know if he’s left out some
additional requirement or if there is a requirement more important than existence
that he’s neglected to mention or think of. We cannot be certain that
perfection requires a thought-of object to actually exist, particularly when we
have no experience with perfect things in our own experiences (low standard for
perfection notwithstanding).
Our
lack of experience with perfect things highlights a lesser observed problem
with Anselm’s argument, namely that for something to exist is to place
limitations upon the existent object. While the Abrahamic god is often given as
a being “without limitation,” no one has definitively defined what “without
limitations” actually means. In actuality, it doesn’t mean anything because we
have no concept of things that do not have boundaries. To do so is an attempt
to conceptualize nothingness, and we
characterize nothingness as the space between objects and their inherent
boundaries.
Fourth,
as pointed out by the clever Austrian philosopher Douglas Gasking, an
ontological argument can be used to show that God does not exist:
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.
6. An existing God therefore would not be a
being greater than which a greater cannot be conceived because an even more
formidable and incredible creator would be a God which did not exist.
7. God does not exist.
Lastly, we should consider
our own existence and the existence of others for a moment. We exist yet we are
not perfect. There is no reason to assume that any existent being who is more
moral, more powerful, and/or more intelligent than us qualifies as perfect
(even if they are closer to
perfection as they exhibit these qualities). If perfection indeed requires
existence and we know for certain that we exist, as opposed to a hypothetical
god, it might be that we are more perfect than God by virtue of existence.
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