The "ontological argument"

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Maybe you've heard of it, maybe you wish you'd never heard of it, maybe you're like wtf does "ontological" mean? Basically, it's the idea that we can prove that God exists purely by thinking about existence in general. It doesn't depend on the existence of causes or appearances of design, but just plain damn existence itself. Somehow, we can prove that God is actual by showing that God is possible, or some such thing.

Now, without proving my point almost at all, I will say that the ontological argument has been shown to be invalid or unsound in virtually every form that it has taken. The original one is morbidly unclear, referring to "beings in the understanding" and the greatness (or lack thereof) that can attach to them. One of the newest ones revolves around a sort of newfangled theory of what words like "possibly" and "necessarily" mean (the theory of "possible worlds," where an object is said to be one that must exist if it exists in all of these could-be realms). But, %^@ me, last night I decided to dabble in trying out an ontological argument of my own... and here it goes.

• 1. God ought to exist.
  2. Whatever ought to be, could be.
  C. So God could exist.
  3. God would not be dependent on anything else for Its existence.
  4. Therefore, something could exist that doesn't depend on anything else for Its existence.
  5. If this being didn't necessarily exist, then whether It existed would depend on something besides Itself.
  C2. Therefore, God necessarily exists.

The weight of the argument bears down on (1). (1) is, to me, even if I sort of believe it anyway, really weird-sounding. Like it seems to make God into a self-created being, but unless a being already exists, it can't do anything, including create things (such as itself), so how could God be obligated to exist if God wasn't already in existence? So (1), like many ontological-argument axioms, seems to beg the question.

[peter]

I'm not sure if the logic would stack up even if the following were wrong Mighara, but aren't there eye-watering numbers of examples where 2. is not true? Take the world, it isn't perfect (there is suffering in it) but it should be - but it never could be.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

How do we know that the world could never be perfect? We could, I guess, inductively argue this: the world has never been, so it never will be, so. However, the sun has risen for ages and ages, and yet astrophysics says that one day it won't just stop rising, it will go nova and incinerate everything in its perishing aura's path. I'd be wildly leery of extrapolating the future of all things on the basis of a finite past.

EDIT: More to the point, "'Ought' implies 'can,'" is a conceptual claim, i.e. the very meaning of the word "ought" applies only to things that "can" be. To reject the possibility of perfection means rejecting the possibility of "ought" in the first place, which might be within reason, but I'm not a moral nihilist so I don't buy it.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

There is a very, very, very deep reason for ought-implies-can, btw. I'll start with what might seem like a sort of non-sequiterish consideration, viz. the question of cognitivism vs. noncognitivism in ethics. Prescriptivist noncognitivism is the idea that ought-assertions are really just fancified imperatives, e.g., "It is wrong to smile on Sunday," means, in code, "Don't smile on Sunday."

Even if this isn't totally true, I do believe that all ought-sentences/assertions correspond to imperatives/prescriptions. For every, "Thou shalt X," there is a, "Go do X," given to us. Now, if that's true, though, well, consider the following. An assertoric/declarative sentence/function or w/e is satisfied (in the semantic sense) when it is true, i.e. when it "corresponds to the facts." "Delilah doesn't know how to dance," is true if and only if Delilah doesn't know how to dance.

Prescriptive/imperative sentences/functions/w/e are not semantically satisfied in the same way. That is,

• "Go do X," is done if and only if go do X.

is quite the piece of ungrammatical work. However, an imperative sentence is semantically satisfied if the action commanded thereby, is in fact done.

So...

For us to understand the ability to use the imperative mood in sentence-construction--for imperatives to make sense on a semantic level--the following principle must correctly apply to a given imperative:

• A prescription holds (we'll say) if and only if it can be complied with, for the sake of being complied with.

This holding rule is more important when it comes to figuring out how we know right from wrong/ought from ought-not, but let's go with it for the ought-implies-can question's answer. Now, suppose that a prescription cannot be complied with. Then it doesn't hold. So to issue a prescription that the target couldn't comply with, would be to pre-defeat the possibility of the correlated imperative's semantic satisfaction. Therefore the very act of prescribing something realistically depends on the possibility of acting on the relevant prescription. If an ought-to-X-function implies a do-X-function, then ought-to-X implies can-do-X.

There is more to it (a "proof" of quasi-indeterministic free will, and a "disproof" of utilitarianism in normative ethics, no less!) but I will stop here.

[wayfriend]

1. God ought to exist.

Your ontological argument, like all the ones I've seen, begin with a premise that excludes the atheistic point of view. They all exclude the possibility that maybe there is no god at all.

Craig, as another example, had it this way:

1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists.
2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
5. If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists.
6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists.

... but it all depends on that first premise, doesn't it! That it's possible that god exists.

So it seems to me that the ontological argument also proves, by reductio ad absurdum, that the premise must therefore be wrong. To wit: since there is no direct evidence that God exists, the ontological argument shows that the premise must indeed be wrong, since it leads to contradiction with facts.

7. Since no maximally great being seems to exist, a maximally great being must not be possible.

Therefore, God ought not to exist.

I'm not saying I don't believe in God. I'm just saying the the ontological approach seems blatantly flawed to me.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

As I've mentioned, few seem to get the "pith" of the Ontological Argument (at least, Anselm's iteration). Though it's framed in an analytical deductive manner, it's really a synthetic inductive argument . It shows that thought is directed toward the "ever-greater totality" — the lines-of-convergence that meet at the vanishing-point of the horizon — which can never be reached and grasped by thought ("greater-than-which nothing can be thought").

The Argument doesn't really start from a this-worldly, self-evident premise, such as "God is that greater-than-which …".

Rather, it ends, through self-contemplating the motions of our thoughts, with the realization that "God is that greater-than-which …"

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

@wayfriend, bingo.

@Wosbald, bingo 2 (IIRC the Platonism that underlies what Anselm says). Except for the "inductive" part (it doesn't seem like the ontological argument is deductive or inductive, on a certain level; see Lawrence Nolan's article in the SEP on Descartes' ontological argument).

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

@Wosbald, bingo 2 (IIRC the Platonism that underlies what Anselm says). Except for the "inductive" part (it doesn't seem like the ontological argument is deductive or inductive, on a certain level; see Lawrence Nolan's article in the SEP on Descartes' ontological argument).

True, inasmuch as there's always a hiatus in the induction — one can never fully "get" where one is going. IOW, there's no "silver bullet" argument. But that is intrinsic to any such argument, considering the Nature of the Object (i.e. the Absolute).

Unsurprisingly, there is a similar hiatus (an incomplete "deductivity") in Aquinas' classical deductive arguments. This gives rise to a similarity of misapprehension regarding the "pith" of his argumentation. To wit and contrary to this misunderstanding, God is not the First Cause inasmuch as he is the first "cause amongst causes" — he is not the boot which kicks the ball-bearing which falls on the seesaw which launches the diver … all in a giant Rube Goldberg machine.

Rather, he is the First Cause inasmuch as he is the Cause of Causality. As such, there is no "getting there" in Aquinas' argument, either. One can extend the causal chain indefinitely forward or backward and never "get to" God.

Both the inductive and the deductive arguments can only induce or deduce one to to the edge of an abyss — a hiatus — that points toward an unreachable horizon.

[Vraith]

All good fun.
But what if ought=can is false?
What if possibility and identity [in particular, but lots of things related] are not fungible?
Or don't even exist?
What if ought questions/axioms/conditions/expectations/necessities are
nothing more than the way thinking critters come to deep knowledge, and that knowledge yields the result
ought=couldn't?
What if any and all maxim blah blah committed suicide almost instantly upon awareness, because in all meaningful/valuable senses, it ought not exist because it would be tyrannical and terrible even if no one knew it existed?

And Wos==[this one I really think applies in the real world for sure]==what if there ARE no lines of convergence at a vanishing point in any horizon?
The only thing like an absolute vanishing point is far in the past, at the beginning. There are relative/temporal vanishing points embodied in every thing [though only thinking ones can see it]...the rest isn't converging/vanishing...it is multiplying, widening, heightening, diverging.
It's not that God ever is/was/will be "that greater than which"...
It is that we, in every moment, have been and will be conceiving of things that are greater than any god COULD be.

At every instant, we are leaving the vanishED point, and our gaze, reach, being, is increasing the range and space of the horizon.
We aren't chasing what god is...god is always already a day late and dollar short in trying to keep up with our conceptions.

What if the idea of god being greater-than is nothing more [or less] than our uncertainty...god isn't greater than we can conceive, but smaller than we dare to imagine?

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

And Wos==[this one I really think applies in the real world for sure]==what if there ARE no lines of convergence at a vanishing point in any horizon?
The only thing like an absolute vanishing point is far in the past, at the beginning. There are relative/temporal vanishing points embodied in every thing [though only thinking ones can see it]...the rest isn't converging/vanishing...it is multiplying, widening, heightening, diverging.
It's not that God ever is/was/will be "that greater than which"...
It is that we, in every moment, have been and will be conceiving of things that are greater than any god COULD be.

At every instant, we are leaving the vanishED point, and our gaze, reach, being, is increasing the range and space of the horizon.
We aren't chasing what god is...god is always already a day late and dollar short in trying to keep up with our conceptions.

What if the idea of god being greater-than is nothing more [or less] than our uncertainty...god isn't greater than we can conceive, but smaller than we dare to imagine?

That speaks to my point about there being no "silver bullet" argument. Every proof can always be questioned because God is neither a "thing amongst things" nor is he self-evidently (axiomatically) true to our intellect.

But that being said, part and parcel of taking God seriously is taking ourselves seriously.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

@Vraith, what would be the point of telling someone (even ourselves) what to do, if what was prescribed could not be done? Now we might decide to jettison the use of imperative sentences. But for me, that would be like jettisoning the use of my eyes. Unless I trust my eyes, I don't have reason to think that I can see anything, including things like the sentences in which I express doubt about the trustworthiness of sight. In a similar vein, if I tell myself, "Stop using imperative sentences," well, I'm telling myself this by using an imperative sentence (even if it is an intangible/ subconscious one). Moreover, our desires/instincts would still present to us, and a desire/instinct is like a part of our body using an imperative sentence to direct our actions. E.g. hunger is like, "Find food and put it in your mouth," sexuality is like, "Find a [willing!] person and put [you know what goes next]," pain is like, "Move [afflicted body part] away from [cause of pain]," and so on.

It's possible to doubt everything. But this only means that it is possible to turn any declarative sentence into an interrogative one. And at that point, when we realize the answer to Descartes' kind of doubt, we realize that at least declarative sentences like, "I exist, I am having visual/audial impressions, etc." are true, and proven so, or else we reply to the person who says, "Prove it," with the question, "What do you mean by 'prove'?" And at that point, our interlocutor will either stop talking, or will use a declarative sentence defining their use of the word "prove," which will mean that they have been maneuvered into the position of having to present some declarative sentence as basic/axiomatic/the like.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

@Wosbald, you bring something up that brings out the devil's advocate (almost literally!) in me, so forgive me, but...

Part of me wonders whether, "It is not self-evident that God exists," can be used as a premise in an argument that concludes, "Therefore, God does not exist." To wit,

• If God existed, Its existence would be self-evident.
  God's existence is not self-evident.
  Therefore, God does not exist.

For part of me thinks that the most important, powerful, all-consuming, etc. Person conceivably possible, had better make sure Its existence is known, especially if It intends to be worshiped and served or whatever. (In other words, if God exists, why doesn't It prove this to us?)

Now of course ultimately I would more say, "I hope that it is possible that God exists," rather than, "I believe that God actually exists." And I would further refine my hope to be stated as, "I hope that it is possible that the world was created by Someone Who is infinitely powerful, knowledgeable, and valiant." Such a hope would not require the self-evident existence of a being satisfying it. However, this being would also be incapable of imposing an obligation on us, to worship It, and altogether a servile form of religion could not be based on such a faith.

[Avatar]

It's possible. It's just pretty unlikely.

--A

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

I don't know how to assign probabilities to the existence of God. But then, I'm not very well-versed in the theory of probability (probably(!) because I don't enjoy inductive reasoning, and the modern theory of induction is heavily entwined with the topic; also, there's this idea of a "Bayesian" probability calculus, which seems to make, "X is probable," into a subjective choice, so that we could, with reason, assign a probability of 1 to, "This sentence rules the universe," and somehow that might be reasonable, on the relevant idea--and the idea is a major one in the field!).

[Vraith]

@Vraith, what would be the point of telling someone (even ourselves) what to do, if what was prescribed could not be done?

Yes. What is the point?
Nevertheless, the world is overflowing with prescriptions...even self-targeted ones...of [I/you/they] Ought X, but [I/you/they] can't.
Perhaps we ought not prescribe [although we can't not...so we should prescribe as little as possible].
The nature of the universe [as far as we know it] proscribes us from pointing "ought" in the direction of the future.
We can only say "possibly X ought," and "probably X should/shouldn't have."

The point, then, is imperatives are nothing more [or less] than our best guesses. We can't help using them---but we ought to limit our prescriptions and our judgments. Prescribe to ourselves first, and most strongly, with rapidly decreasing insistence with distance.
Perhaps some god-being ought to exist, and yet we ought not care very much...he/she/it is just too distant [in space and nature] for us to make any rational/justifiable decisions based on the fact of that existence.
[[[there is a strong political/social/power-focused reason that most variations of Christianity developed and insist upon the fact that each Christian has a PERSONAL relationship with Christ.]]]
And recognize that any system of oughts is going to have mutually exclusive demands, create inherent conflicts. Including purely material/physical oughts.
The bonus of that, though, is that such conflicts can open entirely new terrain/options/possibilities. Not always---but sometimes.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

"We ought not prescribe things," would mean, "Don't prescribe things," which would be a prescription. I don't use language in such a self-defeating way, and I don't see how it would be rational (sensitive to facts, evidence, whatever) to do so.

EDIT: I don't know how to get on the same page as you in this convo, Vraith. :/ I feel like I'm missing the points you're making, because I'm talking about something else--not something irrelevant, and not that what you're saying is irrelevant either, but the wording is vague.

EDIT 2: Though I agree (seem to agree?) that an absolutely inaccessibly transcendent God, even if It "ought to exist" somehow, is pretty much irrelevant to the question of what I myself, on this lonely planet in this lonely age, ought to do.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

This was interesting to stumble upon, today: Axiogenesis: An Essay in Metaphysical Optimalism on Google Books.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Is the concept of God compatible with the concept of existence? I'd argue no, from the standpoint that God (omniscient, omnipresent, Jueo-Christian personal God) can only be a transcendent being. Existence to me implies being rooted experientially within the space time continuum, what we think of as the material plane.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

If "exists" meant "exists in space-time," of course such would be so, but the fact that we can at least sort of coherently construct the phrase "exists in or out of space-time" indicates that existence as normally referred to is not absolutely dependent on spatiotemporal reality.

[Vraith]

the fact that we can at least sort of coherently construct the phrase "exists in or out of space-time" indicates that existence as normally referred to is not absolutely dependent on spatiotemporal reality.

I'm not sure coherent construction of phrases shows anything about existential possibility.

Existence as normally referred to does, I think, depend on that reality.
All the other kinds of existence we talk about are not the normal reference.
Though we've gone a long way with those kinds of things, so they've been "normalized" in our thoughts in some sense.
The difference with most God-like things is that unlike other "outside" things, those other ones have some rough correspondences with the "inside" things.
Not identity with...but a family resemblance.
[[I suspect some might say that us, with our intelligence and creative capacity and impulses might be an example of such a family resemblance]]