My Brain is On Fire: The Ontological Argument and William L. Rowe March 16, 2015

Sorry this blog post is coming out a little bit late this week. I know, I know, I say that every week, but I mean it this time. My university’s spring break started yesterday, which obviously means they felt the need to kick me out of my house and send me crawling back to spend a week in the soul-draining Western Kentucky hellhole where I grew up with the sorry excuses of human beings into whose clan I had the misfortune of being born. Does anyone else taste salt? Because I’m starting to taste the salt. Regardless, I don’t think I’m going to have the energy to do anything particularly original, so I’m going to spend this post dismantling, point by point, one of the most influential and widely-discussed arguments in the entire history of philosophy: The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God. Just to relax, you know?

So, the Ontological Argument was first detailed in Saint Anselm of Canterbury’s Proslogion in the early 12th century, and it is one of the most horrendously difficult-to-comprehend pieces of philosophy that I have ever been forced to read, so in order to aid in comprehension, I’m going lay out Saint Anselm’s arguments as though he were a fifth grader. Let’s go.

God is, like, the greatest thing ever.

That is to say, there is nothing we can possibly imagine that is greater than God is. You say you can imagine something stronger than God? NOPE! God is stronger than even that! You think a cheetah is faster than God? Nope! God’s faster than, like, the fastest cheetah! To say it as it’s normally phrased, God is here defined as “that than which no greater can be conceived.” If you can imagine something that’s “greater” than X is, then X is not God.

God doesn’t exist. The rap music told me so.

It is entirely possible to imagine a universe in which God does not exist. As a matter of fact, I do it daily.

Even if God doesn’t exist, we can imagine that he does.

We’re doing it right now!

But something that exists is better than something that doesn’t exist.

This was really common thinking back in Saint Anselm’s day, that things that exist in reality are “better” than things that exist only in the understanding. I have a banana, and I can imagine a banana. The banana that exists, the one that fits perfectly in my human hand as though designed by an intelligent agent, that banana is “better” than the one that exists only in my heathen imagination. That’s not to say it’s somehow morally better or anything like that, just that it has more “greatness points” than something that only exists in the understanding.

So we can imagine a being that’s greater than God is.

Here’s where things get tricky. We’ve established that, according to Anselm, things that exist in reality are better than things that exist only in the understanding. Since we’re working off the assumption that God does not exist (second premise), and we’ve established that, in Anselm’s view, things that exist in reality are greater than things that exist only in the understanding (fourth premise), that means we can imagine a being greater than God is: Namely, God + Existence in reality. Because of our definition of God, it is possible to imagine God as being greater than God is (namely, if God existed, he would be greater than he is, since we are working on the assumption that he does not exist.) This is a logical contradiction, since a thing cannot be greater than itself. Therefore:

God exists.

I’ve gotta admit, folks, this one stumped me for a while. It’s not that the logic is good, there is very obviously something wrong with it. The problem is that that something wrong isn’t very obvious. Is it the definition of God? It can’t be, because that’s just a definition. Even if we don’t call it “God,” “that than which no greater can be conceived” is still a roughly coherent concept, and if the logic is sound, it still exists. Is it the second premise? Well, that’s what I’m trying to show is right, so it can’t be that. The third? We can clearly imagine God as existing, since we’re talking about him right now, so that’s out. The fourth was the obvious entry way at first, since it’s somewhat foreign to modern thinking, but after examination, it seemed to hold water. If I have a chocolate cake in my head and a chocolate cake on the table, the one on the table is just better than the one in my head on an intuitive level. It’s better simply because it exists in reality. (There are many problems with this, but I don’t feel as though they make for particularly interesting counter-arguments, so I’m going to leave them alone for this blog post and just grant that things that exist are better than things that don’t for the purposes of Anselm’s argument).

So what could it be? Well, I got the first solution by talking with my friend, Jeff.

Jeff is, like, the GREATEST guy who’s ever lived. He’s awesome at sports, cool with the ladies (and the gentlemen sometimes, too), a total brainiac, a video game wiz-kid, Nobel Prize winner, and president of Earth. As a matter of fact, one could even go as far as to say you couldn’t imagine a guy who’s better than Jeff!

What? You don’t believe that I’m on a first-name basis with the president of Earth? You don’t even think Jeff really exists? Well, fine! Let’s say he doesn’t! We can still imagine that he does, right? And a Jeff who exists in reality is better than a Jeff who only exists in my head. And since Jeff is the greatest possible human being. . .

See where I’m going with this?

And yet, Jeff does not exist. As a matter of fact, as of the last time I checked, Earth doesn’t even have a president! So how can this be? If we’ve defined Jeff as being the greatest possible human being, and existence in reality is a part of being the greatest possible human being, then Jeff must necessarily exist in reality! Isn’t that right, William L. Rowe, professor emeritus of philosophy at Perdue University?

“Why no, Bryant, it is not.”* Says William L. Rowe, professor emeritus of philosophy at Perdue University. “As a matter of fact, what our dear Saint Anselm has proven is not that God exists, but merely that no nonexistent thing can be God!”*

“What an insightful point, Dr. Rowe!” I say, wondering how I could possibly have gotten such an influential figure to appear as a guest on my blog (spoiler alert, I didn’t.) “Would you mind elaborating upon it?”

“Why certainly!”* Dr. Rowe continues. “In a paper of mine, which I titled simply ‘The Ontological Argument,’ I argue that Saint Anselm has proved that no thing that does not exist can be God, but not necessarily that some thing that does exist has to be God. I understand that this is a fairly confusing statement at face value, so allow me to unpack it a little:

Suppose I were to propose the existence of a creature called a “Tombilly.” You obviously don’t know anything about the qualities of a Tombilly, so allow me to define it for you. A Tombilly is a four-legged, slimy, green creature that resembles a long-legged cat and exists in reality. I hope that cleared things up for you. Now, since it is part of the definition of a Tombilly that they exist in reality, it is logically necessary that they exist in reality, right? Therefore, you shouldn’t be surprised to look out your window and see a gaggle of them stuntedly walking down your street tomorrow morning.”*

BUT DR. ROWE! You cry, unable to go a single blog post without showing up to contradict something. THAT’S ABSURD! You can’t just define something into existence like that! That’s not how that works!

“Ah, yes!”* Dr. Rowe responds. Why do you like his arguments, but not mine? “Yes, that’s quite right! And yet it must be so, mustn’t it? If it’s part of the definition of a Tombilly that it exists, then surely it exists!

No. All that we have shown is that no thing that doesn’t exist fits the definition of a Tombilly. In effect, we have shown the opposite of what Anselm intended. Instead of proving that, because it is a Tombilly, it must exist, we have instead proven that, because it does not exist, it cannot be a Tombilly. So, too, with God. No thing that does not exist fits Anselm’s definition of God, but that doesn’t mean that God necessarily exists.

And one more thing. . .”*

Dr. Rowe, professor emeritus of philosophy at Perdue University, I hate to cut you off, but we’re already seven words over our 1500-word limit and getting longer.

“That’s quite alright. I only mean to make one more quick point.”*

Thank you for joining us, and I hope to feature. . .

“Hold on a moment, I just mean to say that if one were to define. . .”*

Thank you, Dr. Rowe.

“IF ONE WERE TO DEFINE GOD AS BEING. . .”*

-click-

A big thanks to Dr. William L. Rowe, professor emeritus of philosophy at Perdue University, for not actually appearing in this blog. For more, check out his books, his Wikipedia page, his journal articles, etc. If nothing else, I feel like he did a fantastic job at thoroughly dismantling the Ontological Argument, and if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in comments. Until then, I’m going to go back to hating every waking moment until spring break ends. Hope you have a wonderful March, and I’ll see you next time!

With all due respect,

Bryant Powell

*Not actual quotes from William L. Rowe, professor emeritus of philosophy at Perdue University.

Citation

Philosophy: The Big Questions. Eds. Ruth J. Sample, Charles W. Mills, and James P. Sterba. Malden, Blackwell Publishing: 2009