Anselm's Modal Argument

hi again today we're going to talk about and some of Canterbury's other argument for God's existence that is to say the one that appears just after the famous ontological argument in the prose logia it's also an ontological argument it's one that is very similar to the first one and in fact so similar that some scholars think it's really just the same argument but others think it's very different and much more powerful so I want to consider that argument independently and see whether it has a different structure see what kind of power it has see whether the same objection can be raised or whether it does a better job of actually establishing God's existence in reality so let's take a look at the argument in pro slogan 3 and certainly this being that then which a greater cannot be thought so truly exists that it can't even be thought not to exist for something can be thought to exist that cannot be thought not to exist and this is greater than that which can be thought of as non-existent hence if that then which a greater cannot be thought can be thought not to exist then that then which a greater cannot be thought is not the same as that then which a greater cannot be thought which is absurd something then which a greater can't be thought exist so truly then that can't even be thought not to exist now this is an argument often neglected I think partly because it's very confusing that is to say you read this even reading it into a camera here I feel as if good grief this is gobbledygook but it's not gobbledygook actually he's saying something I think quite interesting god is defined remember as the being the greater than which cannot be thought greater than which cannot be conceived the greatest conceivable being well he's saying can I even think of that being as not existing answer no suppose I could think of that being as existing but contingently so that its existence was not necessary well then I could think of something greater namely something just like it that existed who's he distance was necessary so I have to conceive of that being as existing and is existing necessarily now the difference between this and the pro slogan to argument is that there he's arguing that I have to think of this being as existing here he's thinking I can't even think of it as existing contingently I have to think of it as existing necessarily well once again we can worry that there's a difference between thinking of something as existing necessarily and that beings really existing necessarily but in this case you might think it'll come back to this question but you might think well maybe it's easier to bridge that after all if something really exists with metaphysical necessity that's something that seems maybe potentially more accessible to us epistemically than something that exists but contingently and depending on factors that we may or may know not know about the world so for example consider numbers most people think of numbers as existing and is existing necessarily and that seems something that we can access just through mental effort a priori you don't have to find out something about the world to find out that there are numbers or that those numbers have a kind of independent and necessary existence now of course you don't have to think of numbers as existing in the sense that you could adopt a different philosophy of mathematics maybe so in that sense some people can think of numbers is not existing at all but if they exist it seems they exists necessarily it's not like you can find out something or ask the National Science Foundation for a grant to find out whether the number three exists it's not a contingent matter it's not an empirical question if the number three exists it exists of necessity and with a metaphysical necessity so you might think the same thing is true about God that if God exists at all God must exist necessarily and we're gonna look at that in the context of modern versions of this prose alone again three modal argument but for now let's take that argument of Anselm which seems to be entirely about what can be conceived and so perhaps tough all into the trap of thinking that there is this move we can make between idea a reality and again as I was saying it may be easier here because the nature of the connection feels metaphysical in this kind of case where we're talking about necessary existence but in any case put that aside for the moment and just put the argument in material mode as karna might have said taking it in a way that doesn't talk about conceivability at all but instead talks about possibility and necessity that is as a straightforwardly modal argument so we can interpret his talk about something being conceivable something as possibly existing we could think about something that it's possible to think of or conceived as possibility we can think of something that can't be thought not to exist as existing necessarily so let's do that little interpretation where we construe all of this not really as about what's in the understanding what can be conceived but instead is about what could exist what must exist well then we could define to define God or maybe more neutrally just a divine being as something the greater than which cannot be thought so in other words we could say this is something that is sort of maximally perfect in every possible respect so we could define in fact a divine being as something that has all perfections something that is maximally perfect can't think of anything greater is the way he would put it we might say can't be anything greater okay is the greatest possible being now necessary existence well that seems like one of those perfections suppose this being that nothing could be greater than didn't exist well then it would be greater to exist but suppose it existed but existed contingently it'd be greater to exist necessarily so if a being has all perfections and really there could be nothing greater it must have necess existence that divine being is conceivable possibly exists so it's possible that a divine being exists but if it exists it exists necessarily so now we get this startling modal move so it must exist necessarily well that's a little dramatic but what's going on here we're making a move we're saying look if a divine being exists it exists necessarily in fact look if it is even possible if I can have this in my mind you might say but translating into the material mode if it is possible for there to be a being with all perfections of this kind it must be one that actually exists necessarily and in that existing necessarily exists in this world well why because if that being really is perfect nothing could be greater than it something existed merely contingently would be such that you can have something greater something just like it but that existed necessarily so God if God is even possible must exist necessarily but God's existence is at least possible it's not obvious but say it's not clear that it that God's non-existence is some kind of necessary truth so if you think God's existence is even possible then you're committed to thinking that God exists and exists necessarily well that move from possibly this perfect being exists to necessarily that perfect being exists does seem rather startling how does it come about well it's actually a valid argument in the most popular modal logic a logic called s5c I Lewis developed five different systems of modal logic and the one that is most common the one that's really assumed all the way up to the 20th century by every philosopher who thinks about these questions is s5 even today people tend to accept s5 for metaphysical possibility and necessity it's a conception where all the possible worlds are really available to one another you think of all the possibilities as together in a collection and they're all as it were accessible from one another they're all in the same plane classically people thought of them as existing as something like ideas in the mind of God and so think of God as thinking of all the possibilities all the possibilities really are possibilities and we can think of them all as being in the same collection of possibilities well if that's right this works Norman Malcolm developed a version in a modern context of the ontological argument and it's strikingly simple it simply says God's existence is at least possible but if God exists God exists necessarily in fact that seems like a necessary truth about God it's part of the concept of God the concept of any divine being that it can't just exists contingently if it exists it exists necessarily but it follows that God exists necessarily so we have a very simple argument premise 1 God's existence is possible premise 2 it's a necessary truth that if God exists at all then God exists necessarily conclusion God exists necessarily that argument is valid in s5 here's one way to think about suppose God's existence is possible then there is some possible world in that collection of possible worlds where God exists now if God exists anywhere it's a necessary truth that if God exists for example in that world then God exists necessarily in that world but what does it mean for something to exist necessarily it means there's not even a possibility that it doesn't exist so that means in other words it has to exist in every possible world so it exists in our world it is moreover necessary in our world because that being exists in every possible world so we go from the existence of God in one world to the existence of God in every world simply because God's existence anywhere entails that God exists everywhere in that space of possibilities well that's a pretty remarkable conclusion now there is a difference between the Anselmi an argument that talks about conceivability and that argument that talks about possibility instead one of those arguments concludes that we can't even think of God as not existing the other concludes that God exists necessarily and there is a big difference that gap we were worried about between conceiving of something as existing or as existing necessarily and the thing really existing or really existing necessarily is the gap between those two arguments so we've got to be able to support the premise that it's possible for God to exist in order to make that jump now one way of doing that a traditional way is disable I can conceive of God as existing and if I can conceive of something then it must be possible but we've got to be careful about that it could turn out for example that there's a problem there that we can conceive of things that couldn't possibly be could you conceive of water is having a chemical composition other than h2o suppose you could but you might say it's a necessary truth that water is h2o so actually there you're having a concept of something that is impossible could you conceive of a certain mathematical question the answer to which is unknown coming out one way or the other way yeah maybe you can conceive of that you think but surely either it's one thing or another thing that is to say if it's something that can be proved true or false at all it's going to be necessarily true or necessarily false and so we might begin to doubt whether conceivability is a good guide to possibility something that really intensifies that is an objection raised by JN Findlay back in the 1940s he said can't we turn this argument on its head turn it around and use it as an argument that God can't even possibly exist he said look I think I can conceive of God's non-existence so if it's possible to make this move it's possible that God doesn't exist but if God exists at all then God exists necessarily it follows that God doesn't exist in fact that God's existence turns out to be impossible to put it in that modal context we were talking about he's basically saying I can conceive of a world where God doesn't exist so let's assume there is such a world well then there's a world where there is no god but wait a minute we said if God exists in a world God exists necessarily until God exists in all the worlds so if there's even one world where God doesn't exist God can't exist in any world so God's existence becomes impossible it makes us question whether conceivability is actually a very good guide to possibility at all actually if an Psalm is right in the first place or if our reconstructed modal argument is right it isn't possible for God not to exist but if you think I could conceive of God is not existing I mean there's something not entirely conceptually incoherent about the Atheist position then you would say mmm well it turns out that these arguments are just on a par now some people have tried to respond that actually it's easier to conceive of God's existence then God's non-existence but others have replied no I find it easier to conceive of God's non-existence than to conceive of God's existence so how should we think about that one way to think about it is to say it's a toss-up but another is to go back to the prose Logie and to argument and to say can you really conceive of God is not existing that's exactly what that argument meant to challenge so suppose we think that Ann's home is making this argument in two stages in pro slogan - he's saying not so much what he appears to be saying that I prove that God exists in reality but actually I've shown that you can't have a concept of God as not existing or merely as maybe existing instead your concept of God has to be off that be is existing you have to conceive of God as existing if you conceive of God at all then this idea that I can conceive of God not existing that Findlay puts forward has to be wrong and subs replies no you can't you can't conceive of God as not existing you can fail to conceive of God that's certainly possible people do that all the time but you can't conceive of God as not existing and so I think an subs Pro slooghi and to argument might be conceived of not as making the bridge between ideas in reality all by itself but instead saying I am giving you this claim that actually does break the tie between thinking some people say they can conceive of God as existing some think they can see if can conceive of God is not existing if they're both right then God's existence is both possible and therefore necessary but also possibly not happening therefore impossible what do I do and some says wait a minute you can't conceive of God is not existing you have to make that mental leap from God to God is existent in your mind just as the concept of God itself and so actually there is not a parallel you can't conceive of God as not existing so it's not a parallel bridge that gets you to God's possibility and therefore necessity and gods possibly not existing and therefore impossibility actually the one concept that you would think you had to start on your journey across the bridge you can't have now that by itself does not establish a link between conceived ability and possibility but what it does is imply that the person who thinks that actually you can if you accept any link at all can push it in both directions has to be wrong in any case that's one way of thinking how prose looking into and prose Logie and three fit together the modal argument is still something people take seriously it's something people still raise objections to is a deep Challenge I think in a way that goes beyond perhaps the argument in pro slogan too simply because it says there is perhaps a way of getting from conceivability to possibility but whatever you think about that God's possibility entails God's necessity and so really the person who is to defend the claim that God doesn't exist has to claim God's existence is not only not real that God's existence is impossible and that's a hard task to perform you might argue there's something about the concept that is just incoherent you might try to argue that there's something about the nature of reality that precludes God's existence but in any case the metaphysical burden should clearly be if Anselm is right on the person who tries to deny God's existence

Channel: Daniel Bonevac

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Id: CHZpCy-CIj8

Length: 18min 47sec (1127 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 22 2020