Why Anselm's Ontological Argument Is Better Than You Think

Anselm’s ontological argument basically goes like this:

1) God is defined as the absolute greatest conceivable being.

2) Something that must exist is inherently greater than something that might not exist.

3) If we entertain the idea that the greatest conceivable being (God) might not exist, we open the door to imagining something even greater.

4) However, it becomes illogical to think that there could be something greater than the greatest conceivable being.

5) Therefore, the conclusion is that the greatest conceivable being, God, cannot be thought not to exist and, consequently, must exist.

It’s an argument that’s been widely dismissed by those who don’t know what it’s like to know God, and perhaps even widely misunderstood by those who do. Let me assure you that if you think Anselm’s argument simply means thinking about certain concepts in a way that argues them into existence, then you’re not giving this kind of thinking its due gravitas.

It’s not that the “absolute greatest conceivable being” is conceived, and therefore, because it’s conceived it must exist in the form of God. It’s that the absolute greatest conceivable being, if such a thing exists, has to be something that we mean when we talk about God, because God is the absolute greatest conceivable thing, and His absolute greatness is a property of His being, rather like how oxygen is a property of combustion. If you begin to think what good, better and great mean in relation to an objective standard, we can make progress. In a maths exam, good might be getting all your arithmetic right; better might be getting your algebra right too; and great might mean solving a complex problem that no one else has solved. A plugged-in microwave is better for cooking than one that is unplugged. A chair with four legs is steadier than a chair with one leg missing. A better maths paper, microwave or chair is one that is close to the optimal properties and functions of the object than one that is defective. Good, better and great are part of the thought process that leads us all the way to greatest.

God is not only what we mean when we talk about the absolute greatest conceivable being, we also mean that the absolute greatest conceivable being is a fundamental property of God. The difference is subtle, but essential in examining our morality, our philosophy and our psychology, where there is a hierarchical value structure of better or worse, until we hypothetically conceive of the highest. To conceive of the highest means acknowledging the reality of God at the top, it doesn’t mean we understand it – just as we can conceive of the size of our universe in terms of light years, without being able to comprehend it on such a scale. The “absolute greatest conceivable being” is where we arrive conceptually when we keep trying to climb up higher on our hierarchical value structure, and the three person God is who we meet when we understand that He is at the top of it as the “absolute greatest conceivable being”.

Anselm is more correct than even perhaps he himself realised (although that might be doing him a disservice) – in that, in the hierarchical value structure, there does exist a higher and higher standard that, if we keep going upwards, leads eventually to the notion of perfection – the very quality we understand about God Himself. You may be tempted to say that perfection is an idea we can conceive, but that it doesn’t actually exist in real terms. But this presents a problem of limited vision rather than limited ontological scope – because we know the hierarchical value structure exists in an objective sense, so we are on shaky grounds if we deny that the thing at the very top of it exists.

We can now apply this to existence itself. In the hierarchy of ontological reality, the highest form of existence is something that has a necessary existence, not a contingent existence. A thing that has a necessary existence is also something that we speak of in terms of one of the fundamental properties of God (called Aseity), in that God cannot ‘not’ exist. In our own conceived hierarchical structure, being perfect has a higher objective standing than the set of all imperfect things, and having a necessary existence has a higher objective standing than the set of all contingent things. Both of those attributes are properties of the God who has made Himself known in Christ (as per Psalm 18:30, Psalm 90:2 and Colossians 1:17). To know God is to know He exists; but if we knew Him fully, we’d know why He cannot possibly not exist. 

Further Reading: Exploring The Ontological Argument For God's Existence

                                 

The Self's Internal Litmus Test Of Credibility

 

A combination of psychological literature and an honest appraisal of our inner self make it pretty clear that we don’t easily think things through with careful consideration, using rigorous logical and empirical analysis as tools to arrive at our views and then respond with the appropriate behaviour. We actually become driven by our emotional needs and utilitarian enticements in establishing what we want to believe, and then we employ the confirmation bias in looking to justify those beliefs. That is, we put the cart of incentives before the horse of truthseeking and the reins of reason, when it should be the other way around.

That doesn’t mean this method is always wrong; emotions and will are great signposts towards many profound discovered truths and artistic expressions, and should not be gainsaid or trivialised complacently. But with matters involving complex considerations, dynamical reasoning and important facts, then this cart-before-the-horse tendency is a malady on the human condition.  

In a world which seems to have gone a bit mad, and is overrun with climate loonies, the triggered wokerati, snowflakes, extreme political ideologues (both left and right), religious crackpots, conspiracy theorists and journalistic snake oil salespeople, here’s what you should do to check if you’re on the right side of the empirical propositions in question. Make a list of the political, religious, socio-cultural, economic and scientific beliefs that are important to you, and rank them regarding how certain you feel about your position on them. Then take all the ones you feel less certain about, and even have inner doubts about (don’t worry, you’ll know which ones they are – your gut will tell you and it won’t lie to you).

And then take each one and search yourself inwardly, with as much honesty as you can summon, to distil how these beliefs make you feel. What do those views do to you when no one is looking; do they make you feel strong or weak, proud or ashamed, comfortable or uncomfortable, confident or doubtful? This authenticity is what you need to be measuring. You’ll ask yourself; am I really giving this my best shot? Have I really got a good grasp of the situation? Am I being overly-simplistic? Have I given this the proper investigation or just been too easily convinced by someone else? And if the latter, what do I think of those people – do I really trust them, and do I think their motives are good?

There’s not a person who can fail to benefit from this examination, and it’s just about certain that if you do this with a passion for knowing the truth, and are prepared for the full consequences of the adventure and journey on which you’ll find yourself, you will be greatly enriched.

TV Drama: The Dreaded Second Season

I saw an article in The Spectator by a contributor called Sam Leith, and this excerpt very well echoes my own general issues with TV dramas in the contemporary age:

“Hooray, I thought. There’s a new season of The Tourist. I remember liking that, I thought. It was that thing with the bloke in Australia, wasn’t it? And I was all set to settle down for a good binge, when I realised that I had almost literally no idea what had happened in the first season. One thing I knew is, it was confusing. There was a bloke in, yes, Australia, who had had a bump on the head and didn’t know who he was, except he was Jamie Dornan. I remember there was a bit with some LSD, and recalling the plot was quite like that too. Someone was trying to blow him up (or maybe he was trying to blow someone else up). He made friends with a sensible but troubled policewoman and a sexy waitress who seems to have known him in a past life. There was a vicious gangster who had a brother who didn’t exist but then did, or something. And a suitcase. Was that important? There was someone called Lena Pascal, who was very important but I had no idea why. And at the end: did Jamie Dornan…turn out to be a baddie? Or was he dead? Nope, it’s gone. All I have is a selection of random images and half-connections.”

Yes, I think Mr. Leith has hit on a very pertinent issue with modern television – with so much choice available, and so much money floating around with which to make second, third and fourth seasons – it is proving practically difficult to keep picking up the thread with every new season of the shows we enjoyed in season 1. As I said on social media last year, “Generally, I don’t want a second series of TV drama shows - I mostly wish they didn’t exist. I know all the financial incentives behind making second and third series, but I usually want the writers and producers to show the skill and creative efficiency to wrap things up in one series.”

I enjoyed The Tourist, but like Sam Leith, so much has happened in life since then, with so many shows, films, books, people, creative projects, etc competing for our time and our short-term memory capacity, I really wish the show could have been wrapped up neatly in one season. Naturally, it’s a difficult balance to strike. Some shows (This is England, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Line of Duty, Black Mirror) are so good that I never mind a new series coming out. But the majority of shows – even the good ones – become burdensome if the producers don’t know when to stop, especially given the plethora of other competing shows, and the commitment costs to viewers of an overcrowded market.

There are other downsides too, like diminishing marginal utility derived from an overabundance of episodes or seasons. And alongside the decline of these incremental gains, there are opportunity costs, both in terms of what the audience could be watching/doing instead, and what the writers, producers and actors could be creating instead. Great screenwriters adhere to the mantra “Enter Late, Exit Early”, which means entering a scene at the latest possible moment, and exiting at the earliest possible moment. This rids the script of extraneous dialogue, and keeps the pace of the story relentless.

The art of good storytelling is knowing when to start and when to stop, and ensuring a balance between creative integrity and economic profitability. Sadly, too many producers of TV dramas and movie franchises know when to start but not when to stop – where what could have been a neat, nicely wrapped up single TV series (like Broadchurch, Westworld, Yellowjackets, Killing Eve, Big Little Lies, The Handmaid’s Tale, etc) goes on for one or more seasons too many.