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Here’s one example, as given by St. Thomas Aquinas:
Those things are said to be self-evident the truth of which is obvious once the meaning of the words is clear. For example, when we understand the meanings of the words "whole" and "part," we immediately realize that every whole is greater than its part. Once we understand the meaning of the word "God," however, it immediately follows that God exists. The word itself signifies "that being a greater than which cannot be signified." That which exists in fact and in the mind is greater than that which exists in the mind alone. Thus, since the moment we understand the meaning of the word "God" he exists in our minds, it follows that he must also exist in fact. Thus God's existence is self- evident.
This is basically St. Anselm’s proof—almost a thousand years old. For a time, it was generally felt that Kant had disproven it, but it is back in contention, as reformulated by Godel and Plantinga. The consensus among philosophers currently is apparently that it is sound, that nobody has found a fatal flaw.
It could be argued that "great" is not an entirely coherent concept; but no matter. The proof works as well if we substitute "important" or "real" or several other terms.
3 comments:
It is absolutely amazing how much sense people can find in nonesense. For centuries, church philosophers had the most compelling arguments to "prove" the Earth was flat, stationary and the center of the universe. (All notions that have been proven irrefutably false. For example, if the Earth was stationary, everything would fall off the planet!)
I have already disproved the existence of god from the bottom up, as well as from the top down. From the bottom up we find that the bible is loaded with erroneous content. For instance, Genesis is mythical, therefore it follows the "creator" is also.
From the top down, I have proved that it's impossible for omnipotence to fulfil the criteria of infinity.
Nevertheless, let me humor your hero's ontological argument.
First, there's a major controdiction. It is claimed on the one hand, that, God is greater than can be signified. On the other hand, it's claimed that the moment we understand the word of god he exists. Well, which is it? How can you understand that which cannot be signified? This is impossible.
Another obvious flaw is found within the statement "The moment we understand the meaning of the word god it follows he exists in mind and fact."
Well, I can imagine Superman, Santa Clause and invisible pink elephants, does this mean they exist for real? Of course not.
It's true that the whole is greater than it's parts. This is why we do not need a god to explain thoughts and ideas. The cumination of billions of neurons working together to be stronger than the individual parts results in cognition.
I just read a similar argument as Aquinas' in Philosophy Now magazine. One that is just as easy to refute.
The common fault these philosophers have is that they assume the antecedent. They need to take a step back and prove their premise first, which they can not do, because god does not exist in the first place.
Jeff, I have been responding to your comments less and less because you have mostly been repeating yourself. But there is, I think, something new here.
You accuse those who offer proofs of God’s existence of assuming the antecedent, and there is something to this. The truth of the matter is that few who believe in God seem to have arrived at that point by examining one of the logical proofs. They get there through some direct personal experience of God, which makes it virtually or entirely impossible for them to, in practice, doubt his existence. Therefore, these proofs are to them just a sideshow; St. Thomas himself said as much of his own. Moreover, in forming these proofs, the philosophers probably all already believe in God’s existence beyond a shadow of a doubt. They are, in that personal sense, “assuming the antecedent.”
This, however, should not bear on the validity or strength of their proofs in logical terms; it is neither here nor there. And there are proofs of God’s existence that begin with the formal supposition that God does not exist. Descartes, for example, does this in his Meditations, positing first that his thoughts and perceptions are presented to his mind by some “evil genius.”
You seem, by the way, to have missed the significance of the Ontological Argument entirely; your comments do not address it.
You are also buying into a common “urban legend” in believing that, until relatively recently, people in the West (and hence the Church) believed the earth was flat. The average farmer might have, but not an educated clergyman. Two thousand, five hundred years ago, Pythagoras had already demonstrated that it was a sphere.
Nor did Christian theology ever have anything invested in the notion that the earth was the centre of the physical universe. That notion came from Ptolemy, a pre-Christian Greek astronomer. It was Nicholas Copernicus, a Catholic priest, who first demonstrated this was not so.
Yes, good, you admit it, people have a personal experience of a god, then build arguements to justify their delusions. The same happens with children when they justify Santa Clause is real, or when someone with schizophrenia comes up with elabrate ideas to support his delusions.
Descart started with another false premise, that there was an evil genius who planted the idea of a god. Those who planted the delusion in his head actually believed that god existed, thus they were not evil geniuses.
People had the idea the Earth was flat because the bible states there are angels at the four corners of our planet. Guess you don't know the story of Colubus if you think only farmers believed his ship would fall off the world.
An Italian philosopher, Giordano Bruno, was burned to death by the Catholic church because his idea of an infinite universe disputed the Church's dogma that we were at the center.
But I know, unlike Pope JP who was human enough to take responsibility for his cult's atrocities, you will simply burry yourself in defense mechanisms of denial.
Not only have I disproved Aquinas' argument, but so have you by admitting he assumed the antecedent. If someone used the same line of reasoning to prove Superman is real, I suppose you would buy right into it.
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