Is proof of God, based solely on the definition of God, possible? St Anselm of Canterbury was up for the challenge. God did say: "I Am Who Am", so I guess Anselm figured his chances at success were pretty high.
Titled as the father of scholasticism, Anselm was an Italian Benedictine abbot in the 12th century. I was going to google him and give everyone a brief history, but I figured you could do that yourself if you wanted! Or I can do another post separately. Maybe. Provided a few nice renditions, anyways....
His monks asked him to come up with a proof of God not based on scripture, dogma, fathers of the church teachings, tradition, nothing. They wanted a fool proof extra-religious argument. Anselm said "Sure! I'd love to do that for you guys. In fact, I am going to do even better, and come up with an 'a priori' proof of God, which means a proof that does not rely on any prior experience." Well, maybe not quite in those words, but more or less. (St. Thomas' proofs of God are 'a posteriori' proofs, or require prior experience of the world.) His (Anselm's) argument is based solely on the idea of God.
Just as we had the pleasant opportunity to struggle with words and definition making, Anselm began with making a definition of God, the perfect definition of God. He came up with this: God is "that greater than which nothing can be conceived". We also played with it and turned it into perhaps a more cognitive form, saying that God is that substance which is greater than anything that can be conceived. I think this 2nd definition is more relatable to the formula of a perfect definition that we had discussed, and seeing it helped me realize that St. Anselm's definition was indeed a perfect definition, "substance" being the genus division, and "greater than which nothing can be concieved" being the particular difference. None of us could think of a better definition, and none could disagree, and none could contradict. Anselm was not defining God as creator, savior, founder of a church, but as what He is completely.
Both the "fool" and the one who believes in God must agree with this definition before they begin to argue God's existence, just like any argument, where agreement on terms must be established in order to even spend your time arguing your side. If the fool will agree to this as your definition of God, he has simultaneously agreed to His existence. Very convenient for us, but why?
As Dr. so clearly stated, if that greater than which nothing can be conceived did not exist, then that greater than which nothing can be conceived would not be that greater than which nothing can be conceived, because then the lowest thing, a rock, a worm, would be greater than that greater than which nothing can be conceived, because it possess the the quality of existence, since something that exists is greater than something that does not exist. So that greater than which nothing can be conceived must have existence, since that greater than which nothing can be conceived IS that greater than which nothing can be conceived.
At this point I really feel like I can't reread that paragraph, but kudos if you can get through it and get something out of it! So relieved I don't have to think through all that and figure it out anymore. Got it down finally. Dr. says it helps to think of "that greater than which nothing can be conceived" as "T" and it isn't so confusing sounding. So you can try that. When you get it, you can do an "I am debt free!" scream, but instead it could be an "I understand the ontological argument" scream.
Thought this would be a fun video clip to include just now, for everyone's enjoyment, and very apropos. :)
INCONCEIVABLE!
St Thomas takes St Anselm's proof even farther by saying that God is existence itself, included in His very essence. We come into and out of existence, but God eternally IS because God is the Necessary Being.
Existence is the most fundamental aspect of a thing, because without it something cannot be anything at all. Not the smallest thing, not the greatest thing!
I found it a pretty convincing argument, but am excited to hear all the objections. I assume there must be objections to the actual definition of God St. Anselm proposes too, since that would be the root of any logical argument. I guess we will find out!
Homework is to read pgs 50-56, and consider,(perhaps take a few notes as well...) If you can think about being, can you necessarily infer its existence? Hmmm....
And a final few photos on what we are up against here.
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| Richard Dawkins, the most famous atheist in the world. |
There are a bunch of crazy people out there. Thanks for Logic class Dr Chojnowski!
See ya next time!
Dani
