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The Problem with the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God
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you unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered User regular
you unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered User regular
The Ontological Argument for the existence of god has a pretty bad rap in Debate & Discourse. I don't feel like it has any credence as for somehow proving god's existence, but I do feel that the argument itself reveals problems for every philosophical stance. The ontological argument, as first formulated by St. Anslem, was never fully adopted by Christian philosophers and theologians. St. Thomas Aquinas famously argued against the ontological argument. It was picked up by Descartes as a way for a self to know something other than itself. The argument can be formulated in the following syllogism:
Major Premise: God, by his concept, is the most perfect being.
Minor Premise: Existence belongs to the concept of the most perfect being.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.
To expand upon the two premises:
God is a concept that, as a society, we have. The god of this particular argument is formulated as essentia dei est existentia, that God is a being whose essence is existence. This is the god that is discussed in metaphysics. Perfectionm here, is not a value judgement, but a quality judgement: what is perfect is completely actualized possibility; i.e., anything that can be, God is.
It is important, here, to restrict the usage of "God" to "the most perfect being." The common attributes of "all good," "omnipotent," and "omniscient" are much more difficult to discuss and really have no bearing on the ontological argument. We are simply seeking to understand an ontology of God.
Since the essentia of God is existentia, it is argued that any conception of God already contains knowledge of his existence, because even the possibility of talking about any beings at all is allowed only by the existence of God. Thus, God necessarily is because there is possible existence for everything that is possible.
The most successful attack against the ontological argument was put forth by Kant, by attacking the minor premise "Existence belongs to the concept of the most perfect being." Contrary to this, Kant argues that "existence is not a predicate." He does this by structuring his Table of Categories: all predications are assertions about reality and either positive or negative; all propositions about reality are relative The proposition about the existence of something is neither positive or negative and is absolute. Existence is not a predicate of anything, but rather is a sort of "presenting" to thought by existence itself.
The problem with this, however, is that in separating existence from the subject of a proposition, Kant makes existence transcendent: that any subject could be predicated already posits existence; indeed, predication itself is "predicated" on existence. Wherever and whenever there is anything, there is existence. By denying God existence, Kant thus turns existence into God.
Major Premise: God, by his concept, is the most perfect being.
Minor Premise: Existence belongs to the concept of the most perfect being.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.
To expand upon the two premises:
God is a concept that, as a society, we have. The god of this particular argument is formulated as essentia dei est existentia, that God is a being whose essence is existence. This is the god that is discussed in metaphysics. Perfectionm here, is not a value judgement, but a quality judgement: what is perfect is completely actualized possibility; i.e., anything that can be, God is.
It is important, here, to restrict the usage of "God" to "the most perfect being." The common attributes of "all good," "omnipotent," and "omniscient" are much more difficult to discuss and really have no bearing on the ontological argument. We are simply seeking to understand an ontology of God.
Since the essentia of God is existentia, it is argued that any conception of God already contains knowledge of his existence, because even the possibility of talking about any beings at all is allowed only by the existence of God. Thus, God necessarily is because there is possible existence for everything that is possible.
The most successful attack against the ontological argument was put forth by Kant, by attacking the minor premise "Existence belongs to the concept of the most perfect being." Contrary to this, Kant argues that "existence is not a predicate." He does this by structuring his Table of Categories: all predications are assertions about reality and either positive or negative; all propositions about reality are relative The proposition about the existence of something is neither positive or negative and is absolute. Existence is not a predicate of anything, but rather is a sort of "presenting" to thought by existence itself.
The problem with this, however, is that in separating existence from the subject of a proposition, Kant makes existence transcendent: that any subject could be predicated already posits existence; indeed, predication itself is "predicated" on existence. Wherever and whenever there is anything, there is existence. By denying God existence, Kant thus turns existence into God.
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There is no actual realistic argument for god that is based on logic, anyway. I'm okay with people justifying their belief by their own experiences, but as soon as they try stupid bullshit like the ontological argument, they veer off to bad direction.
Major premise: "Chicken, by its concept, is the most perfect being."
Minor premise: a perfect being is necessarily infinite
Conclusion: Chicken is infinite
You can call God whatever you want; the fact of the matter is that there can only be one perfect being, because if there were another perfect being, it would have to be the same being; otherwise it would not be perfect.
Major premise: John Doe, by his very concept, is the most average person.
Minor premise: The most average person necessarily exists.
Conclusion: John Doe exists.
Is this similar?
John Doe does "exist," if we take John Doe to be a quality of an unknown person or a description of a class or set. The "most average person" would be mere corporeality, and indeed this is how we speak of corpses of the unknown dead. They are completely "average," in that they are simply corporeal. It is possible to talk about "John Doe," and thus John Doe exists.
Of course, this is not to say that John Doe is a "real person," because existence is not a judgement or proposition about actual reality.
Because if something is perfect, it is absolutely actualized. Remember to heed the advice I gave in the OP: do not think of "perfect" as a value judgement, as good or bad. Perfection is something akin to completion. In "nonexistence," nothing is actualized and therefore imperfect.
1) Marvelous -- what does that mean?
2) What do "Intrinsic" and "Quality" mean.
3) Impressivenes has nothing to do with perfection per se, that is something we add to it.
4) Non-existence is for impossible beings; all possible beings exist. If God is possible, it is impossible for him to not-exist.
5) God is not necessarily a Being: if essentia dei est existentia and existence is not a being, then God is not a being. This does not mean that God does not exist.
6) Faulty conclusion.
This is because humans can only think in terms of being. Humans reify nothingness into being. Nothingness is just that -- non-existence.
God's essence is that he is perfect. Therefore, if God exists, he is necessarily perfect. That would be akin to saying it is not necessary that matter be extended -- matter is extended by definition.
Perfect doesn't exist as an intrinsic quality unless you go to some pain to redefine it.
From another angle, the idea of "perfection" as it is defined in this argument is a human construct, and one that is flawed when actually analyzed. There is no evidence that perfection is a thing that is real outside of human speculation. You are postulating when you say the essence of God is perfection, because you have not experienced "God."
This is worked around by saying that the presence of God inspired the idea of perfection in man, but this has nothing behind it either. You could just as easily say that perfection is just an abstract extension of more mundane values to their hypothetical extreme.
Well for something to be created, it is necessarily imperfect, because there can not be more than one being which is perfect.
Completely serious question here: with regards to your comments 1 & 2 - how is your jackassery with definitions (eg: "perfect") any less valid than Kakos' jackassery with definitions in 1 &2?
For example, we can't actually imagine something infinite, only something really really big. Trying to imagine an infinitely rock, at best, results in imagining one that stretches any further than the eye can see but is not infinite. Same with perfection. Can you imagine what the definitively perfect being would look like, to the point where it could be described and shown to be perfect? If you can't put it in words, it's too abstract.
This problem arises if you accept Kant's argument. If existence is not a predicate of any being, but is rather solely Existence itself that allows for beings, than Existence is infinite. Thus, I experience perfection whenever I encounter anything, because existence is absolutely present.
Non-existence is the perfection of not being.
Except a perfect being couldn't fail at making something and he'd have to fail at it if it were imperfect.
QED God blinks out of existence in a puff of logic.
No, you cannot. That is why the metaphysical God is not a being -- you cannot "think" of God, and to imagine him, you turn him into a being. We do the same thing with space, time, and Being.
That is how we use the word "perfect." It is how it has been defined in philosophy since antiquity. It is also how we use "perfect" in the linguistic sense -- think of the perfect and imperfect tenses.
What is this saying?
Again, perfection isn't a term that makes sense intrinsically unless you redefine it. Perfection is the state that can only relate to other values an object has.
You are actualizing nothingness, turning it into a non-being. Mere sophistry.
Whenever you experience anything, you are experiencing "existence." It transcends everything. If we reject that God is existence, we turn existence into God.
Why is the actualization of nothingness into a non-being sophistry?
Existence isn't transcendent. Existence just happens to be a value of everything that we can experience.
Which is fine, I guess, if you want to use a really loose definition of "God."
I think 99% of the population that actually believes in a being called God would disagree though.
Further, perfection isn't what is being discussed, here. It is as Poldy did: the "perfection" of god isn't perfection at all, it is rather something else, like "completeness."
So give a rigorous definition for "perfect" as you are using it in this thread. Because this far all I see is a bunch of hand-waving.
"Perfectionm here, is not a value judgement, but a quality judgement: what is perfect is completely actualized possibility; i.e., anything that can be, God is. "
"Perfection is something akin to completion."
"because there can not be more than one being which is perfect"
etc...
Because you are using nothingness in a way that it cannot be used. You are saying "nothingness" but winking while you say it. Nothingness is, by its very definition, the absence of existence.
Existence is the absence of nothingness.
I still don't see why this has anything to do with "God" as the concept is applied in the vast majority of the world.
Perfection is the complete actualization of possibility. A "perfect" golf score would be 18: every hole would be a hole in one. A "perfect game" for a baseball pitcher would be no hits, no walks, no runs. It doesn't matter if it is done through fly balls or 27 strike outs.
Major Premise: The perfect sandwich, by it's concept, is the most perfect sandwich.
Minor Premise: Existence and it being in my hand so that I can eat it belong to the concept of the most perfect sandwich.
Conclusion: Therefore, I must be holding the perfect sandwich in my hand right now.
Not surprisingly, I am not, because it doesn't work like that.
Essentially, all the Ontological Argument proves is that the God as you define him includes his existance as part of the concept so if you believe that this concept of God is true, you also have to believe that God exists.
I'm no expert but I don't think that's how golf scoring works.
Scoring a perfect golf score of 18 is perfect.
Therefore god is a golf score of 18.