A God that Cannot Not Exist? The Ontological Argument

Depending on who you ask, the ontological argument for God’s existence is either the most powerful or the most insanely absurd argument ever conceived as discussed recently in a Premier Unbelievable debate. Before we can explore this misunderstood and frequently difficult to understand concept, we must first understand the very philosophical jargon included in its title: what does the word “ontological” mean?

“Ontology” or the “ontological” refers to the world as it actually is, independent of whatever we happen to believe about it. Any honest person will have to admit that he or she has limitations – frequently severe limitations to what he or she is able to understand, remember, or perceive. This makes it difficult to trust that our understanding of the Universe approximates how the Universe actually is.

An extremely pessimistic view, such as that of philosophers René Descartes or William James, would say that our mental and perceptual limitations are so severe that the only thing of which we can be certain is that something exists which is responsible for the thoughts we have, and that our perceptions are real, even if they don’t accurately tell us anything about what we are perceiving. These ideas can be confusing and heady, but the bottom line is, whatever is really out there, whether or not we can know anything about it, is ontological.

Great-Making Properties

How does this apply to God? First it is important to define what is meant by “God” under this argument. The ontological argument takes “God” to mean the greatest possible being. A being so great, that nothing greater could possibly be conceived or exist.

To understand this, it is important to understand what properties make something “great.” In the case of God, we would be speaking of such things as wisdom, power, beauty, love, justice, perfection, truth, and all of the other non-material attributes we look for in people which would make them praiseworthy. If you take all of these great-making qualities, ball them together into a single being, and then ramp them up to the greatest possible level, you now have the greatest possible being.

The Argument

While the ontological argument has been stated in a number of different forms, at its most fundamental level, it goes something like this: 

Imagine a being so great that absolutely nothing greater could exist. After imagining such a thing, you have a problem: there is at least one being that could be greater than what you just imagined: a being that was not part of your imagination, but actually existed in the real world. If it is possible or even conceivable that a greatest possible being could exist, then that greatest possible being must exist by necessity (because existing is greater than not existing). Since it is possible that such a being exists, then it follows that this being exists.

Or, as Anselm of Canterbury, who first wrote this argument down, puts it:

“[Even a] fool, when he hears of … a being than which nothing greater can be conceived … understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding.… And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.… Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.” (From his Proslogium)

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Objections

At face value, such an argument seems like some kind of hat-trick: conjuring a God out of thin air by way of some dodgy rhetoric – and this is the way it has been viewed by most people who are not already convinced of God’s existence.

One common rebuttal to the ontological argument is that one could conjure just about anything using the same logic: if a greatest possible pizza could exist, then a greatest possible pizza must exist; if a greatest possible dragon could exist, it must exist, and so on.

This kind of rebuttal actually serves to highlight an important aspect of the argument which distinguishes God from any other kind of conceivable thing – including pizzas, dragons, or any other non-God object.

Pizzas – and by extension all other physical things – are defined by their limitations. Pizzas occupy space and have distinct proportions which give them limitations in size and mass. Their quality is judged by things like flavour, texture, temperature, nutritional value, and the ability to satisfy the consumer. Once consumed, the pizza ceases to be a pizza as such and undergoes a state change in the person’s stomach. Perhaps we could envision a pizza which is magical, conforms to the culinary desires of each consumer, and never runs out – but at some point one must expand the definition of the word “pizza” in order to overcome the various problems of this pizza. More to the point, perhaps, is that a pizza contains no universal properties such as love, reason, or morality, such that its definition or value do not occupy the metaphysical realm, and it remains a physical object subject to physical limitations.

A dragon, being a mythical and magical creature who is, under most definitions, able to think and make decisions, could possibly transcend the difficulties faced by our greatest possible pizza. Since dragons are generally thought to be physical in nature, this greatest possible dragon would occupy space, and therefore be limited in its movements and subject to laws of nature such as being trapped within the linear arrow of time, having to transverse distances in order to travel, having to contend with the limitations of gravity and other objects occupying space and made of matter.

But perhaps we can do a bit better with our dragon than we did with our pizza. Perhaps we can overcome these limitations by making it a magical dragon which can step outside of time and become incorporeal. But we would need to continue to ramp up the dragon’s capabilities before it becomes “greatest possible.” We would need to give it absolute knowledge of everything, and have the dragon be able to be present in all places at all times so as to not be limited in its ability to experience things. Still, our dragon is limited by the fact that it began to exist at some point and has certain desires and needs upon which it is dependent. But we can strip our dragon of those limitations by making it immutable, and eternal.

However, as we add features to our dragon in order to make it transcend any limitations, it begins to look more and more like God – our greatest possible being – until the two are indistinguishable.

In other words, if we can conceive a thing to be “greatest possible” that thing necessarily becomes identical to God.

This single rebuttal fails on those accounts, but does this mean that the argument holds any weight? Why does the possibility of an absolute being entail the necessity of a greatest possible being?

Firstly, as alluded to above, the being is not absolutely great until it is real – given that real-ness is a great-making property. So it is definitionally real if it is the greatest possible being.

Well then, perhaps it is not possible for such a being to exist if we take it for granted that there is no God, or very probably is no God? The difficulty with this response is that to deny that there is a God means that you have some idea of what it is you are denying. Like any other lexical word, “God” refers to something. And the moment one is able to conceive of God, one admits that such a concept can be conceived. And since God can be conceived, this renders him possible. And, again, if he is possible, then he is inevitable.

If the argument is rendered as a series of propositions, it looks something like this:

1.       If it is possible that a maximally [to the greatest degree possible] great being exists, then he exists.

2.       It is possible that a maximally great being exists.

3.       A maximally great being exists.

Number one can be defended by the fact that “existence” is a property of greatness. Number two can be demonstrated by the fact that we can conceive of God, and to conceive of God is to admit that such a thing is possible. And hence, the conclusion.

One objection is to question if “existence” is actually a great-making property. What makes an imaginary being any less great than a real one?

The response to this is that, whereas we can imagine an all-loving being, that being does not actually love anyone or anything, because it isn’t real. Ask any teenager if he would prefer an imaginary girlfriend over an actual girlfriend, and one will very quickly see why existence makes a difference in quality.

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An Unlimited God

So far in discussing great-making properties, we have not brought up one of the most important properties one applies to God: that he is without limits. Not only is God all powerful, all knowing, and present in all places, but there is nothing that possibly could place limits on God. God transcends limitations (according to the “maximally great being” definition). This being the case, there is a much simpler way of arguing for the necessary existence of God that doesn’t depend so much on defining God into existence, but rather focuses on whether a limitless being is possible.

On this argument, perhaps it is impossible that a limitless being exists. However, if it is not impossible, then a limitless being absolutely must exist, because to not exist would be a limitation. And since it is not impossible for a limitless being to exist, God must exist.

This version of the argument is susceptible to the so-called “omnipotence paradox” usually phrased as “Can God create a rock so large that he could not lift it?” If God’s power could be weaponized against itself, God becomes his own limitation.

There are answers to the omnipotence paradox, most of which involve the fact that “creating a rock God cannot lift” is a nonsensical phrase, like saying “Could God create a smadermascootch.” Since it is self-contradictory, it falls out of the realm of the meaningful. But then, this means that God is limited to doing only those things which have some kind of meaning to them.

A weak objection, perhaps, but let’s explore another version of this argument.

Possible Worlds

In this version, the theologian asks us to imagine a possible version of the world in which this maximally great being could exist. Assuming that such a world is possible, then the maximally great being exists within the world imagined. However, if a maximally great being is compatible with any possible world, then this being is compatible with all possible worlds, including the actual world.

The Final Take

In sceptical circles the ontological argument tends to be dismissed out of hand, given that it seems to say that God exists by definition, and therefore appears to be conjuring a God by way of rhetorical sorcery. As a consequence, only a few sceptics have taken the time to raise any serious objections to it. One such objection states that certain great-making properties may not be able to co-exist within the same person. For instance, could a greatest possible being manage to be both perfectly just – giving people the exact punishment they deserve for their crimes – and also merciful, giving less punishment than deserved for a crime? Certainly, justice and mercy are both great properties, but they don’t seem to co-exist well. This is something like the omnipotence paradox in which God seems to become his own obstacle.

Whereas Christian doctrine tends to nicely tackle the problem of how God could engineer a way in which perfect justice and perfect mercy could co-exist by way of substitutionary atonement through Christ, there are other potential examples beyond those two.

Possibly, the way in which the ontological argument serves us best is that it highlights the fact that great-making properties such as justice, morality, love, and reason, if they exist ontologically, are best justified by being grounded in a universal mind. In fact, a maximally great being may be a convenient grounding for all metaphysics. If one allows that metaphysics is ontologically true, a maximally great being is the most parsimonious explanation. 

Go deeper in understanding with the ontological argument by watching our recent debate between Joe Schmid, a Philosophy PhD student at Princeton University, and Dr. Gavin Ortlund – President of Truth Unites, theologian, author, and YouTuber. 

Joel Furches is an apologist, journalist and researcher on conversion and deconversion, based in the USA.