The Ontological Argument Defeats Christianity
The ontological argument for the existence of God is infamous for two reasons. One is that almost no one finds it very convincing, including theists. The other is that it's surprisingly difficult to pinpoint exactly what's wrong with it. There are dozens of formulations, but here's one that's optimized for clarity and brevity:
- God is a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.
- It's greater to exist in reality than only as an idea.
- Assume God exists only as an idea. In that case, we can conceive of an even greater being—one that exists in reality—which we can then call God.
- Therefore, God must exist in reality.
It's quite a bewildering argument, and I won't concern myself with refutations for now. I just want to show that if this type of argument was sound, Christianity would be false. The easiest way to illustrate this is to repeat the same line of logic with a few words replaced:
- SuperSatan (SS) is a being than which nothing worse can be conceived.
- It's worse for SS to exist in reality than only as an idea.
- Assume SS exists only as an idea. In that case, we can conceive of an even worse being—one that exists in reality—which we can then call SS.
- Therefore, SS must exist in reality.
Satan is supposed to be a pretty bad guy, but he's not a maximally evil being, one than which none worse can be conceived. He doesn't have infinite power or knowledge; he's just a fallen angel who's jealous of God's spot on the throne. (In fact, Satan does relatively little in the Bible to qualify for the vilification he receives within Christianity. Just compare God's kill count in the Bible to Satan's to see what I mean.)
Enter my new character: SuperSatan. He's the worst guy imaginable, which includes being all-powerful, all-knowing, and infinitely malevolent. Naturally, it would be worse for SS to exist in reality than as an idea: after all, he can do a lot more damage if he's real than if he's a product of my imagination. The thing is, there's nothing like SS within Christianity. God's power is supposed to be on a level all its own, but if SS were real, he would certainly be giving God a run for his money.
Thus, either Christianity as practiced by pretty much all Christians is false, or the ontological argument is flawed. (Or both, but that's another issue.) If Christians want to continue believing, they can't very well use this argument as a proof of the existence of God.
This reminds of me of Stephen Law's "Evil God" argument (The URL is very long, but the PDF is worth it): http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=7247672&jid=RES&volumeId=-1&issueId=-1&aid=7247664&fromPage=cupadmin&pdftype=6316268&repository=authInst
ReplyDeleteI've been lurking this blog a lot recently, being a fellow deconverted Christian. Thanks for so many great posts, hope to see more in the future!
"Assume God exists only as an idea. In that case, we can conceive of an even greater being—one that exists in reality—which we can then call God."
ReplyDeleteAssuming God exists only as an idea, I can conceive of an ever greater being--one that exists in reality. I call it an ant.
I mean, that kills the argument right there, no?
Lurker111
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteThanks! I've been meaning to look more deeply into Law's argument; from what I've read so far it seems promising.
Lurker111,
What we call it isn't really the issue; that was more a quirk of my wording than anything else. The argument is meant to show that the greatest conceivable being exists in reality. People can call it whatever they like, but this being would (it's argued) have characteristics (omnipotence, omniscience, etc.) that have been traditionally assigned to God.
You really come up with new and independent twists. I am seriously jealous of your keen intellect, and very glad you share your thinking in this blog.
ReplyDeleteThere used to be (and may still be) "carnivals" where different free thought bloggers would submit posts. It would be nice to see you represented in these if they are still happening.
Exrelayman,
ReplyDeleteThanks! I can't take all the credit, though. People have used tactics similar to this in order to argue that the ontological argument is flawed. My contribution was just to apply it in a way that creates a direct conflict with Christianity.
Like you say, there are many problems with this argument. I'm just amazed that everybody doesn't choke on the first premise. I mean, no, I can't conceive of such a being. Neither, I suspect, can anyone else. (Otherwise, almost by definition, we'd be greater ourselves.) I can write piece of program code that will string together a bunch of adjectives and pop a noun onto the end. But that doesn't mean the resulting monstrosity exists in reality.
ReplyDelete