St. Anselm, Proslogian 2
And so, Anselm concludes that God must exist, and that his existence is necessary. However, not everyone agrees with Anselm’s definition of God, and simply because the word ‘God’ is referring to a being external to spacial and temporal limits, shouldn’t it be impossible to reflect God’s nature in merely a few words? Maybe it is ludicrous even to attempt to define God, and if we cannot define God, we cannot realistically discuss the issue of God’s possible existence.
René Descartes’ version of the ontological argument makes use of an analogy. Descartes uses the analogy of the triangle to illustrate God’s necessary existence. He states that like a triangle must have three sides, so God must exist. It is impossible to imagine a triangle with less or more than three sides, and it is illogical to think of God without thinking that he exists. However, an analogy compares two things, and they must have some sort of common ground in order for the comparison to work. Many people would therefore argue that analogies in the ontological argument are meaningless, because you cannot realistically compare God with anything we can relate to, since he is beyond our understanding.
Gottlob Frege also made an objection to Anselm’s argument. He said that both Anselm and Descartes try to pass off ‘existence’ as a first-order predicate – that is, something that tells us the nature of the subject (God) – when existence should really be a second-order predicate – something that tells a concept about the subject. If I used another example to illustrate this, it would be similar to saying “the mountains are green” (‘green’ being the first predicate). This tells us about the nature of the mountains - that they are green. But if I said afterwards, “the mountains are numerous”, this is about a concept, not about the nature of mountains, and adds nothing new to my knowledge and understanding of mountains. Therefore the word ‘numerous’ must be classed as a second-order predicate, as Frege says the word ‘existence’ should.
Bertrand Russell was another philosopher who criticized the use of vocabulary in the presenting of the ontological argument. Russell felt that everyday language was misleading, and often insufficient to describe philosophical ideas. He developed the concept of “philosophical logic” which uses words in the layout of a mathematical formula to present ideas in a simple way. This philosophical logic is similar to a syllogism. Russell stated that Anselm’s use of the word ‘existence’ is incorrect. He used this set of premises as an example:
Men exist.
Santa Claus is a man.
Therefore, Santa Claus exists.
Norman Malcolm’s version of the ontological argument states that if it is accepted that God’s existence is logically necessary, it must also be accepted that God exists. Brian Davies summarized Malcolm’s argument as “God is necessary; therefore God ‘is’”. He also said that the word ‘is’ is very ambiguous, as it can have so many different meanings depending on the sentence it is used in, so saying, “God’s existence is necessary” is simply not meaningful enough to prove God’s existence. He used the example of pixies to illustrate this.
A pixie is a little man with pointed ears. Therefore there actually exists a pixie.
Davies further suggested that if a pixie had to exist in order to have the pointy ears, people would accept that without further disagreement.
Despite all the criticisms, the ontological argument does also have its strengths. The arguments are logical, and if one accepts the premises, the argument is a success. Also, the argument is made up of a priori statements, so once it is accepted, you don’t need evidence or further proof to back it up. There are some ways in which the argument succeeds, even though there have been refutes against it. For example, the analogy of the island was put forward by Gaunilo of Marmoutier. This analogy was produced in response to the ideas in Anselm’s Proslogian 2 and stated that if somewhere, there was to exist the perfect island, Proslogian 2 is more or less saying that the perfect island must exist because it is perfect. Of course, Gaunilo’s island is representative of God. However, this argument does not successfully refute Anselm’s one, because Gaunilo is comparing two things that belong to the same category (the perfect island, and other islands), while God is defined by Anselm as being “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”, and so cannot belong to the same category as anything else. Therefore, Gaunilo’s analogy does not undermine Anselm’s Proslogian 2.
In my opinion, I believe that the ontological argument is largely just a play on words, a logical sleight of hand that makes use of too many ambiguous words and also words that cannot even be properly defined. Although it does have its strengths, in that it is logical, and does not rely on experience which can be unreliable, I think that there are too many valid criticisms that go against this proof of God for it to be fully workable. Therefore, I believe the criticisms outweigh the strengths of this argument, and it is not a particularly strong one in proving the existence of God.
