Comments on: Anselm’s Ontological Proof for God

By: Clark

Clark — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:09:38 +0000

Isn’t that self refuting?

Also isn’t it problematic for Christians where the incarnation is supposed to be a revelation about God?

It seems to me that a pure negative theology is inherently problematic.

By: alfonso g. noynay

alfonso g. noynay — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 03:34:58 +0000

God is inconceivable, and is beyond of human comprehension. The only way to understand and conceive God is to believe that He is inconceivable.

By: Clark

Clark — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:20:46 +0000

But you have to imagine the “that” which is. And that simply isn’t the case in physics. We might talk about certain properties. Unless you are saying conceivability is sufficient to simply say “x” exists without having any conception about what “x” is. This to me seems a problem with ones conception of being as I see it.

By: Dennis Augustine

Dennis Augustine — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 05:01:24 +0000

Um… yes. For a thing to be conceivable we need not understand everything about HOW it works but rather to simply imagine that it IS. There are things much more mundane than exotic particles and such that we don’t fully understand the workings of (gravity?) but they are conceivable because they exist at least in our conception. “Conceivable” and “comprehendible” are NOT the same thing. One may conceive of that which is incomprehensible.

By: Clark

Clark — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:14:02 +0000

You honestly don’t think it is conceivable that there are real entities that aren’t conceivable? Allow me to suggest you take some advanced theoretic physics. There’s tons of stuff that aren’t really conceivable but which are real.

By: Dennis Augustine

Dennis Augustine — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 05:25:16 +0000

There are no instances of entities that do not exist in the conceptual realm. That is, there is a type that is defined by being that which is related to the conceptual realm by the relationship “[Type] does not exist in [Conceptual Realm]” and this type has no derivative instances that are differentiable. Any attempt at instantiation by assigning any attribute to the type, such as existance, forces the instance into the conceptual realm and out of the set (i.e. asserting that some entity does not exist in concept but does have some other attribute is absurd).

By: Clark

Clark — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 17:34:23 +0000

Just to clarify, in case it wasn’t obvious, I don’t buy Anselm’s argument. I think there are a number of hidden premises that are needed for it to work and those are pretty controversial. I think though, to the degree I dare say I get Marion’s argument, that “greater” = “more inconceivable.” In that reading then I think it works, albeit still in a controversial fashion obviously.

As I mentioned to be completely inconceivable (Other) then you have to be outside of mind. So to me the controversial step is how to characterize (3) rather than necessarily (3) itself. Read the way you do, Michael, I agree it is ridiculous. In the argument as typically presented “greater” just seems like a hopelessly muddled term.

Worse yet even if we adopt “greater” as “more inconceivable” it’s hard to fathom why we ought call this otherness God in any sense of the Christian tradition. I think it unreconcilable to both the traditional Trinitarian doctrine let alone an interventionist God. It leads more to atheism or at best deism. If you read Marion’s paper he acknowledges this although I don’t think he has adequate responses beyond “it’s tradition.”

By: Michael Dorfman

Michael Dorfman — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 07:55:04 +0000

Clark: Whether the argument is convincing really ends up depending upon that final step

I disagree. Step 3 is unsupported, and most likely false, so I don’t think the final step even gets into play.

There’s no inherent reason why existing should be considered “greater” than non-existing. In fact, I think that most evidence would point to the contrary.

In the absence of serious evidence to support step #3, I’d view Anselms’s argument as nothing more than wishful thinking.