The Ontological Argument as Proof of God

Conduct. . PCP! That said, I'm still fighting for Arguments ;) -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - I agree that I misunderstood and accidentally misrepresented Anselm’s argument. This was due to a hasty review on my part, and, as PopculturePooka has cleared up, Anselm did not say that existence is greater than non-existence, but rather that Existence in Reality is greater than Existence in the Understanding. This difference is in some ways an important one and will in fact require me to re-word one of my objections so as to properly address the argument which Anselm actually made. However my having misrepresented Anselm and having leveled objections upon that misrepresentation does not itself show my objections to “fall flat”. For the objection that I made regarding the possible subjectivity of the label “Most Great” is not in any way reflective of the misunderstanding and stands just as well with the argument properly construed, and, with a little bit of re-wording, so as to use the proper terms, my other objection as to the argument being uselessly tautological will also be shown to stand. If the reader will but review the first round they will see that the following, rewritten, objection is of the same nature as that which I made previously, the terminology is just replaced and accommodated for through further explanation. Anselm suggests that we can conceive of something that is Most Great, but doesn't, within this argument, explain what "Most Great" means, beyond (his conclusion) that it must Exist in Reality, as he says that that which exists in reality is greater than that which exists only in the understanding. So, the only characteristic his "Most Great" has, to this point, been suggested to have is Existence in Reality. "Greatness" has yet to be objectively defined, and why “Existence in Reality” is necessarily a manner of evaluating it has not been explained. Given that only this one characteristic of "Most Great" has been suggested, Anselm’s argument only proves that: That which Exists in Reality must exist in reality. This fundamental version of the ontological “argument” proves nothing, as it doesn’t explain what it’s discussing (that “most great” thing) beyond that it “must exist in reality”. And then it’s conclusion is that : that which must exist in reality must exist in reality. Now that the housecleaning is out of the way, having cleaned up the mess I set up for myself, I will address PCP’s response to my request for a fuller, meaningful, version of the argument. Having shown the fundamental argument to, on it’s own, fail at proving any substantial God figure, relying upon the unexplained, unsupported, assumption that “Greatness” in things entails Existence (“In Reality”, as I corrected this round) in order to show only that some conceptual “Most Great” thing must not only be a conceptual thing, but Exist in Reality too. I argued that even Given this unexplained assumption that this argument fails to prove any substantial “God” figure, remaining a simple, useless and uninteresting, tautology showing that that which must have existence in reality has existence in reality. What “Most Great” supposedly means was left almost entirely unexplained, and what it was claimed to mean was unsupported. Now giving it one aspect, that of necessary existence in reality, I would be willing to grant without argument, and without support, as this is only a matter of definition; a matter of semantics; a matter of assigning the name “Most Great” to the idea of having existence in reality; a way of referring to that idea. If only that one aspect is discussed in reference to the label “Most Great” then there’s really nothing objectionable, or meaningful, being said. This is what I’ve claimed is the case with the fundamental Ontological Argument, as outlined. It is only in assigning more than one aspect to the label “Most Great”; it is in claiming that there is some kind of necessary relation (“greatness”) between different aspects of things (like Existence in Reality, Benevolence, and Ability perhaps) claiming that they are identifiably similar, such that the various aspects can all be shown to fall under one label, such as “Aspects of Greatness”; that the naming of things becomes important, and more than an issue of semantics. It is only through providing a more substantive meaning to “Most Great” that the ontological argument can make claims to being more than mere tautology, or make claims to proving any substantive God figure. Now, I had asked for an argument in support of a more substantive idea of what is “Most Great”, I asked for an argument supplementing the fundamental ontological argument in such a way as to make it meaningful. I hoped for an explanation of what “Greatness” means and an argument attempting to show that the purported attributes of God are all necessarily related to each other in that each exemplifies that objective “Greatness”, such that any conceptual “Most Great” thing would necessarily have those attributes. In response to my request for an argument supporting such a position, PopCulturePooka apparently declined, opting instead to “presuppos(e) medieval metaphysics”, presuppose a manner of ranking the “greatness” of things. He has opted to presuppose a system asserting what attributes are or are not “Great” rather than explain what “Greatness” supposedly means and explain how various things may be judged to necessarily be in keeping with or exemplify that “Greatness”. His dismissal of my request for an explanation of what “Greatness” means, and how various attributes can be judged to necessarily exemplify that characteristic is made most clear in the very first premise of his new formulation of the argument. (1)The definite description "that than which it is not conceivable for something to be greater" is understood. I have made it quite clear that what “Greatness” means has not been explained, and it is not clear that one thing may be judged as objectively, or necessarily, greater than another. For, as I said in my first round if Greatness is dependant upon various subjective valuations then what “Great” means would be dependent on the context, dependant upon the valuations of the one calling it “great”, which may be unique to the individual, perhaps even varying within that individual over time. It has not been explained what “That than which it is not conceivable for something to be greater” is, and it is not understood. So, as my argument was basically ignored I finish this round with the same words I summed up my initial argument with: In order for this argument to be legitimately used in an effort to prove the existence of God, and avoid being taken as either uselessly tautological, or being so vague as to turn to nonsense through purportedly proving multiple different "Most Great" things; the term "Greatness" needs to be shown to be an objective standard, and "Most Great" needs to be shown to be the equivalent of "God", which can only be done by explaining why the characteristics of God are (according to that necessary, objective, standard) "Most Great".