What is your response to this argument for proof of God?

Question

I just read this and found it interesting:

"We define "God" as the greatest possible object of thought. Now if an object of thought does not exist, another, exactly like it, which does exist, is greater. Therefore the greatest of all objects of thought must exist, since, otherwise, another, still greater, would be possible. Therefore God exists."

From History of Wester Philosophy, Bertrand Russell

It's known as the ontological argument, created by St. Anselm.

Btw, I'm not a believer or an atheist, or any person with an agenda, I'm just genuinely curious about people's initial response to this idea?

Answer 1

i agree with most of it, but i disagree with the conclusion.

Answer 2

First, you must consider the date of his philosophy. His reasoning just doesn't match up to 21st Century standards, or doesn't match up making sense, however you wish to view it. Thoughts being objects sounds ridiculous. He makes it sound as if it were food, thoughts being ingested into our bodies and being absorbed by our minds-lol. Though the idea matters a lot to me poetically, but not literally.

What he says, God exists because I thought of it, plain and simple. But the merry-go-round he rides doesn't make sense to me. You'd be better off reading René Descartes.

Answer 3

Useless obfuscation.

I confuse you hence I are smart.

"There must be a god because there must be a god" is an argument for a two-year-old.

Answer 4

Proving the existence of God logically, using words and reason, is different than demonstrating God's existence in reality.  

Proof on paper is only theory.  Proof in the real world is fact.

Answer 5

your breathing aren't you? What more proofs do you want.

Answer 6

Mr. Russell is just one example of how we, as limited humans, try to categorize/explain things beyond our comprehension. The reason for this is simple: we are not God, the creator. For example: can an ant read, write or understand us? No. Do they even acknowledge our existence? I don't think so. They can't even acknowledge!They probably don't even know that we exist until we accidentally squash them underfoot. That is how we are in comparison to God. We don't truly understand how we got here, and we're not sure what happens after we die,  but in the reality, who are we to say God doesn't exist?

Answer 7

This argument reminds me of a discrete mathematics class I took last semester. It dealt with proving there is no such thing as a "greatest integer." For example, Let x equal the greatest integer. Let y=x+1, where integers are closed for addition. Therefore, y>x. Thus, there is no greatest integer.

You aren't necessarily proving there is a God. You are proving the infinitude of the universe. Similar to the illusion of movement. When traveling from Point A to Point B there is an infinite amount of space between these two points. So, the fact that it 'appears' we have reached Point B is an illusion, when in reality, we are located somewhere in the infinitesimal space that lies between A and B.

If point A does not exist, therefore how could point B exist? To the contrary, I think you have proved God cannot exist and neither can we.

Answer 8

That statement makes absolutely no sense to me.

The idea that something exists simply because the concept of it exists, reminds me of the South Park episode where the boys visited Imagination Land... where everything that anyone had ever thought of existed.  

I'm going to come up with the concept of..... giant bunnies who speak Spanish and play beautiful music on the harp.... do those bunnies now exist?

Answer 9

u feel love but can u see it? you sence peace, happiness, but can u touch them with ur hands. God's presence  is to be felt.  When a person wants to touch physicaly everything found in the universe, he is using his animal like sense. Humans r equipped with a higher element of sensation than animals he should use ie: mind +spirit. Mind and spirit makes the human the most powerful creature, they help to reach higher entities and abstract things from their physical nature. no animal can abstract, but most humans can not abstract or do not want to. they need to touch physicaly, they r egnoring the power of the spiritual mind , they use the animal like nature. Animals can not abstract, they only deel with the physical present matter. no more no less. When the spiritual mind is used, faith follows, u feel the purity of love with out touching it. likewise the Presence of holy GOD.

Answer 10

I understand your questions, but it is all a bunch of psycho babble, like there can be no good if there is no evil.

What your trying to say is, even though there is 1 greatest object of thought, there will always be a greater object of thought that is better than the original one.

If correct, that is all subjective to each individual.

Answer 11

Well I can explain this to you because Im passed a Logic class with an A plus in college, That argument is an example of inductive reasoning, wich consist in possibilities and imposibilities. The argument is divided in 4 prepositions, [3 prepositions pointing or supporting one preposition that is called conclusion] but the conclusion is unproven ,,that's why the argument is inductive because there is no prove that support the prepositions and the conclusion, but the argument still valid because until the one day someone prove that the prepositions are true and solid. remember even when you see a magazine or when you're reading a paper, you will see words in the arguments like ''would'' ''can be'' and many others that indicates possibilities are inductive arguments and are valid until proven the contrary.

Answer 12

It's more B.S.  

If I were to define God as "the largest oat bran muffin in the world", this also would prove the existence of God, at least until you prove that there are no oat bran muffins in the first place.   Syntactically, there's no difference between my definition and yours, both have the flaw of being self-proving and utterly meaningless.

The fact is that most people define God as "the Creator of all existence", whether or not they believe in there being such a God or not.  

Switching the definition to something obvious and self-proving doesn't prove the existence of a Creator.

Answer 13

Because it is conceived, does not make it, more or less real.

He's saying he must necessarily exist because OUR idea of him is as the greatest conceivable being, and things in reality are greater. Thus, henceforth, and all those philosophical words, it would be illogical to conceieve of a being greater than the greatest conceivable being.

My problem is the word 'OUR', since that premise is faulty from the beginning. The silliness of St. Anselm's argument becomes exquisitely clear when you substitute any other concept for "God." For example, suppose a sandwich that is better than any other sandwich you can imagine. An exactly parallel argument proves that this sandwich must exist, and I want it.

I feel that his explanation is a clever manipulation of word usage and can be used to prove the existence of any imaginary being or place.

Answer 14

God isn't an object. It's a label we slap on to the unexplainable.

Answer 15

There can never be proof of God as  long as their is faith. Faith by it's own definition is to believe without proof. The only real way for an agnostic to believe in God is to die and meet him/her/it.

Answer 16

The fault in the argument is in the first premise

who's "we"? in defining god that way

If we define God as "the biggest cat in the world", then God exists because, since there are cats, and cats of various sizes, one must be the biggest; since there is a "biggest cat" there is a God

Currently the biggest cat in the world in a Tiger, therefore God is a Tiger

What if all the Tigers become extinct, does God exist? Yes, because God, by our definition isn't "a tiger", it's  "the biggest cat in the world", which would then be a lion

And if all the lions die out? Does God exist? yes, and he will always exist as long as there are cats of various sizes

To define something in relation to something else (ie. the greatest, the biggest, the smallest, etc.) doesn't in itself prove anything specific about the subject in question

(Does the tallest professional jockey in the world exist? yes, but I bet he's still short)

There are many definitions of the concept we refer to as God, and many names for the concept as well

this argument proves Russell's concept of God exists, it does nothing to prove the concept of "all omnipotent being" which many people use as a definition

If we change the word "God" in Russell's argument to Bloink, then yes, Bloink exists, and no one could refute that, but no one's going to say that there's suddenly an all powerful being named Bloink that created us and controls our fate

My response? faulty initial premise

Answer 17

Kind of aligns itself really well with what I believe.  Gd is not so much a personifiable creature, but more a concept.

After all, for me, just looking out my back door is all the proof I need.

Answer 18

Is this the two-sides-of-the-same-coin thing?

So then I'm not an atheist so you won't be able to prove g-d exists . . .

Answer 19

It seems to me that it leads to pantheism, not to traditional monotheism.

The greatest possible object of thought would be all-in-all, the entire cosmos conceived of as a whole and as divine. It is perfectly possible to conceive of this all-in-all as God, but that leads you into Spinozism, not exactly I think where Anselm thought he was going.

Answer 20

The argument begins with the concept of God, but ends with a real God, which is logically contradictory. If it begins with a "real" god then it assumes what it claims to prove. If it ends with a concept it has proved only that the concept of God includes the concept of existence, not that God really exists.

Secondly the argument assumes the "perfection" of existence. Existence is designated by judgments, not concepts and expressed  in logic by propositions, not terms. "God" is a concept; "God exists" is a proposition

Answer 21

faith is belief without need of proof.

Answer 22

Russell put forward the argument to dispute it, which it has been, effectively.  Modern theology considers it a weak proof, and prefers to avoid it.  After all, an object of thought that is greater than the greatest object of thought IS possible in modern logic.  See Wittgenstein, where the category of supremacy is not absolute and cumulative but approximate and aggregate.