Ontological Argument
From RationalWiki
The Ontological Argument for the existence of 'God' put forth in the eleventh century by the Christian philosopher Anselm. Like other medieval examples of its kind, the ontological argument is not intended to simply argue for the existence of 'God' in the usual sense - something that would have been taken for granted by most contemporaries - but rather to investigate the divine from a certain philosophical and theological point of view.
[edit] The argument
The reductio ad absurdum argument runs as follows:
- Assume God does not exist.
- 'God' is defined as "that than which no greater can be conceived"
- "That than which no greater can be conceived" must therefore not exist. (from 1 & 2)
- "That than which no greater can be conceived" exists only in imagination, not in reality. (from 2 & 3)
- If "that than which no greater can be conceived" were to exist in reality as well as in imagination, it would be even "greater".
- But that would mean "That than which no greater can be conceived" is not "that than which no greater can be conceived". ( From 4&5)
- "That than which no greater can be conceived" must exist in imagination and also exist in reality for it to be the greatest thing conceivable.
- That means 'God' both does and does not exist (from 1 & 7).
- Premise 1 cannot be true (reductio ad absurdum)
- 'God' exists.
[edit] Logical Fallacies
The argument is fallacious due to several flawed assumptions. The most noticeable of these is the assumption that this which exists in reality and imagination is somehow "greater" than that which exists only in imagination. "Greater" and "greatness" as a quality is not at all defined in this context, and it is only the far overreaching manner in which the term is applied that allows this argument some semblance of logical appeal. The first counter to the argument was developed by Gaunilo of Marmoutier in the eleventh century.
Anselm performed a bit of sloppy reasoning by assuming that there was a difference between our concept of a God and a God which exists in fact, so that he could elevate the latter case as supreme. But if God can be shown to exist through means other than pure reason (such as by direct observation), then his existence is automatically incorporated into the true concept of God. We can have false concepts of God all we want, but the true concept of God always tracks the status of God in reality, whether he exists or does not. So it is never possible to demonstrate the existence of God purely by juggling our definitions of God and making a word salad, which is what the ontological argument is all about.[citation needed]
