Philosophy: St. Anselm’s Ontological Argument Essay (Critical Writing)

Introduction

One of the earliest ontological arguments, in defense of the de facto existence of God, is that of Anselm of Canterbury (St. Anselm). As of today, it is being often referred to as such that contributed rather substantially towards the theological legitimization of Christianity during the Dark Ages. Nevertheless, even though St. Anselm’s argument does make a certain logical sense, it is far from being considered as such that represents an undisputed truth-value. In this paper, I will aim to explain why it happened to be the case.

Main body

Discursively speaking, the mentioned argument in defense of the existence of God, can be best defined as being thoroughly deductive. Its sub-sequential phases are as follows:

1. It is thoroughly plausible to presuppose that, being the cause of all effects, God is something of which nothing can be greater.
2. Given the fact that the above-idea is thoroughly comprehensible, it will be logical to assume that God does exist in people’s minds as a ‘thing in itself’.
3. It will also be fully appropriate to assume that something that exists in people’s minds, on one hand, and as the part of the surrounding reality, on the other, is necessarily greater (superior) to what exists merely as an abstract idea.
4. If God existed merely in people’s minds, they would be able to conceive (mentally) the entity much greater than what the concept of an omnipresent deity stands for.
5. It is utterly impossible for just about anyone to imagine such an entity, which in turn implies that God does not only exist as an abstract idea but also as the surrounding reality’s integral part (Malcolm 43).

Nevertheless, there are indeed a number of reasons to think of St. Anselm’s line of argumentation, in this respect, as being conceptually fallacious. Probably the first person, who realized that this is indeed being the case, was the theologian’s contemporary Gaunilo. According to him, while using St. Anselm’s logic, it is thoroughly possible to prove the factual existence of the heavenly island (much more beautiful than the most ‘paradisiacal’ island that people have ever seen with their eyes).

The reason for this is that the idea of such an island does exist is well conceivable – quite contrary to the fact that there is not even a single objective proof that the concerned place is there to be found in reality. After all: “Since a perfect island that exists in the understanding and in reality is a greater island than one that exists in the understanding alone, a perfect island must exist” (“Module 3 Lecture Notes” 1). Gaunilo’s objection, however, does not appear thoroughly sound, either.

The reason for this is that it is based on the axiomatic (non-provable) assumption that whatever exists objectively is necessarily ‘greater’ to what exists as merely an abstract idea. For whatever reason, both: St. Anselm and Gaunilo were tempted to think of the notions of ‘existence’ and ‘perfection’, as such that organically derive out of each other. Yet, there can be no good rationale to consider the mentioned line of thinking even partially sound – something that can be easily shown, in regards to the existence of those individuals who can hardly be considered ‘perfect’.

Therefore, when it comes to exposing the fallaciousness of St. Anselm’s argument, one would be much better off referring to the so-called ‘theorem of incompleteness’ by Kurt Godel (Gorman, Sokol, and Wayne 1053). According to it, just about any argumentative system of reasoning, based upon the set of axiomatic assumptions (such as ‘God exists’ or ‘God does not exist’), can be defined as being either incomplete or self-contradictory.

The first of these definitions refer to such a system, within the methodological framework of which, a particular suggestion can be proven neither valid nor erroneous. The second definition refers to such a system, within the methodological framework of which, a particular suggestion can be proven simultaneously both: valid and erroneous. Nevertheless, as we are well aware, the reality’s observable emanations can be the least referred to as be being self-contradictory. After all, it would prove rather impossible to suggest that a physical object (for example) happened to be existent and non-existent at the same time.

What it means is that, in order to be consistent with how the universe operates (and hence – more of less discursively legitimate), the ontological statements must be observable of the possibility that they are in fact incomplete. This, in fact, can be defined as the main principle of science – even though humanity’s scientific knowledge is thoroughly objective (something that can be illustrated, in regards to the ongoing technological progress), it cannot possibly be referred to as being ‘all-encompassing’.

Moreover, there can be no end to the process of people learning more and more about nature’s actual essence, which in turn creates the objective preconditions for humanity to periodically reassess the validity of the previously legitimate scientific theories. However, the introduction of God (the ultimate reason behind all reasons), as the argumentative system’s main cornerstone, automatically makes it complete. The reason for this is that the existence of God, whose ways are mysterious, makes it quite possible to prove the validity of just about any idea/suggestion – regardless of how implausible it appears to be.

The fact that, as recently back as a few centuries ago, Christians believed that the torturing and killing of infidels/heretics was a thoroughly ‘godly’ deed, proves the soundness of this suggestion perfectly well. Nevertheless, as it was pointed out earlier, one’s complete (religious) perceptually-cognitive worldview is necessarily self-contradictory. In other words, if one were to assume that God indeed exists, he or she would be consequently forced to assume that the surrounding reality is full of contradictions, which in turn would make it possible for effects to define their own causes. Yet, one does not have to be a philosopher to realize that this is far from being the actual case, otherwise people would be able to walk through walls and it would be possible to boil water by the mean of placing it in the deep-freezer.

What it means is there is no God – at least in the sense of an omnipotent deity. The reason for this is that the existence of such a deity would prove inconsistent with the existence of nature, as we know it. It is either God or nature. Yet, since the existence of the latter has been well-confirmed, the existence of the former remains the subject of speculations. Thus, contrary to what St. Anselm used to believe, God is in fact nothing but an abstract idea, which has very little to do with the actual ways of the world.

What has been said earlier allows us to speculate, as to what can be deemed the actual reason why, despite being logically sound, St. Anselm’s argument does not appear to hold much water – the fact that this argument is essentially a ‘sophistic’ one. After all, while deploying St. Anselm’s deductive approach to confirming the existence of God, one will also be able to prove that, after having left the barrel of a gun, a bullet never ceases being suspended in the year, which in turn prevents it from being able to reach its target.

The reason for this is that, in theory, the distance between the gun and the target can be divided into an indefinite number of ‘stretches’, which means that it will take this bullet an indefinite amount of time, in order to go through each of these ‘stretches’, before reaching the target. Apparently, it never occurred to St. Anselm that it does not make much of a sense, whatsoever, considering one’s mental projections of some abstract ideas, as such that are being necessarily reflective of the surrounding reality’s manifestations, in the first place – something that today’s psychiatrists are being well aware of.

Conclusion

I believe that the deployed line of reasoning, in defense of the suggestion that St. Anselm’s argument is irredeemably fallacious, correlates with the paper’s initial thesis perfectly well. Apparently, there is indeed very little reason to believe in God’s existence, simply because people are intuitively inclined to think that there must have been some intelligent/omnipotent cause behind everything. After all, as it was shown earlier, if there was indeed such a cause, the universe would not be functioning in the way it does. What it means is that one’s belief in God is nothing but the indication that the concerned person is cognitively infantile – pure and simple.

Works Cited

Gorman, David, Sokol, Brian and David Wayne. “Godel’s Theorem.” PMLA 110.5 (1995): 1053-1056. Print.

Malcolm, Norman. “Anselm’s Ontological Arguments.” The Philosophical Review 69.1 (1960): 41-62. Print.

Module 3 Lecture Notes. Print.