h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

St. Anselm defined God as "that than which no greater thing can be conceived," which places a lot of pressure on God. He said that the idea of such a being was in his mind, yet if God is to be so great that nothing better can be thought of, surely one that existed in the real world would be better than one that was purely a thought. Therefore by definition, because God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived, he must exist, otherwise something that did exist could be greater. Hmmm...
He also said that God cannot be thought of as not existing. He said it was impossible for someone to deny God's existence, because to say "that thing which cannot not exist, does not exist" would be a spoken contradiction, a an absurd, synthetic statement.
So there you go.

Why would that be a contradiction? This saint, like many theologists, seems to simply (and veinly) try to use logic to prove God.
Saying that something that cannot exist does not exist is not absurd.
According to Newtonian Physics, perpetual energy cannot exist. Therefore it is fine to say "perpetual energy does not exist".
If something cannot exist, it is perfectly correct to say that it does not exist!

you missed a "not"

He said that you cannot say "that thing which cannot NOT exist, does not exist". IE, "that things which must exist, does not exist."

The same also holds for the question "does an existing unicorn exist?". St. Anselm would clearly have to answer yes...

But, for that entire statement to work, we must accept that God is a thing that connot not exist. And seeing how a lot of arguements in the world are along the lines that God does not exist this cannot be true for many people. Therefore, God only exists if people think that God is the thing that than which no greater thing can be conceived.

Or, to put it another way, God only exists if people belive that Him/Her/It exists.

Something to think about:

Now, if anyone here has taken even a high school biology course, its obvious animals are a complex structure of cells, cells a complex structure of organelles, and it goes further. to think that reactions can occur in spaces not even cubic micrometers in volume implies that humans are a very complicated structure, something that doesnt just appear (and i stress that it is very lofty to believe that humans could just appear without an outside force), and we can now follow 2 roads. One would be darwin's evolution. the other is theology. i will go into the latter as it applies here. Logic: humans are concieved, God is concieved, therefore God must be a much more complex creation then humans. but if nothing higher than god can be concieved, then how could such a complex entity exist?

Seems a rather arid line of argument to this modern(ish) mind.

St Anselm appears to me to be saying no more than he has this notion in his head of a summation of all things and he is going to label the notion by the three-letter word g-o-d.

Fair enough, but where does it get you? It doesn't say anything about the properties of g-o-d. And doesn't it end up with one of those nasty recursive tail-chasing problems beloved by Bertrand Russell and Godel? Is the recently concocted idea of g-o-d as defined above a part of g-o-d? If so you need an instant re-definition to include the prior state which lacked the original definition but adding to it the recently acquired definition. And so on ad nauseam.

i couldn't get my head round the second paragraph stuff at all.

Here's the argument...

Goal: prove that a unicorn exists.

To prove this goal, it suffices to prove the (possibly stronger) statement that an existing unicorn exists.
Now, either an existing unicorn exists, or an existing unicorn does not exist.
But, an existing unicorn has to exist - otherwise it wouldn't be existing.
Therefore an existing unicorn exists.
Therefore a unicorn exists.

s/unicorn/God

I do apologise for misreading the about of contradictions.
The case seems even more illogical now. It takes God's existance as true. Which atheist ever said that God cannot not exist?!? That's just saying that God must exist. If you then stuff on the other bit, of course it makes no sense. If you think the idea of God is ridiculous, you would not say "God must exist"!!
Am I misunderstanding the statement again? Or is this saint just bafflingly silly?

Firstly, God is not a unicorn (or at least not according to any major faith). I think a unicorn would make a great god but that's another debate .
Now, the reason why you have ended with a statement proving God/unicorns is because you've started with a flawed statement - that their are existing unicorns. Now, unless you start your argument with known facts, you will not get an accurate results. Here's a famous example:
1) There are three statements here
2) Two of them are false
3) God exists (any statement may go here)

Now, (1) is absolutely true (don't be nitpicky! ).
Let's take (3) as false. For (2) to be true, (2) must be false, else there only (3) is false. If (2) is false, then two statements cannot be false. Therefore the only way the statements can all be without conflict is if (3) is true. Therefore God must exist.
So, have I proved God? No. I've proved that if I take a false statement (2) to be true (as in correct), then I can "logically" prove anything.

It's a case often used, and I'm sure it worked for this saint. But it isn't a credible justification of God. Phew...

I haven't started with the statement that existing unicorns exist at all. Existing unicorns *must* exist. Otherwise they'd be non-existing unicorns.

All existing things exist. I'm typing this on an existing computer, and it exists. I'm typing with existing fingers, and they too exist. The very definition of existing is "a thing which exists".

There is a flaw in the logic - but you haven't spotted it yet...

With regard to your own 'proof', are you saying that (2) is neither true nor false?

You say "all existing things exist". Unicorns do NOT exist, and therefore they are not an existing thing. So saying "existing unicorns must exist" is irrelevent as their are no existing unicorns. I see your point, but it is still a flawed statement as that statement does not depend on the fact that a unicorn exists, which is the only case in which such an argument would be commendable .

Now, I did not say that (2) is neither true or false. I was showing that for it to be true or false, (3) needed to be true, or there would be a contradiction. I was just showing a silly way to "prove" something, without actually proving anything .

Seem to recall using St Anselm's argument once to prove that God was actually a digestive buscuit - not sure if I was being very clever or being very drunk at the time. Probably very drunk given that someone else there insisted that they'd managed to prove that he was actually a jaffa cake. Holy war and buscuit tasting ensued.

Generally, most logicians like to have all logical statements as being either true or false. Hence the problem with your 'proof' is not what you think it is - it is that the first and second statements are self-referential, and hence disallowed as logical statements.

One thing that seems to me to be a problem in understanding here, is that people keep saying, "But a Unicorn does no exist" and "If you don't believe that to be the definition of God [that than which nothing greater can be conceived] then he doesn't exist." BUT Anselm's point was that if you explained the idea of God to an atheist, the atheist would agree that he does NOT believe in that thing than which no greater thing can be conceived. Therefore even atheists, despite acknowledging the theory in a negative sense (I do NOT believe in etc etc), they still acknowledge and understand the idea itself, they just don't accept it.
I know it may seem an arrogant opinion of his to believe that all people would agree with him on his defintion, nevertheless, I think it is a good definition. I think most people would say, "If there were a god, I agree he would be amazing." If he was just some naff bloke on a mountain making farting noises, then he wouldn't be God in our terms because that is not what we define him to be. Again, not everyone agrees with Anselm's definition, but his argument was based around the assumption that most people would agree that the term "God" refers to the most amazing thing that can be thought of. Therefore the atheist negatively accepts the idea, therefore the idea of God exists in his mind. If it exists in his mind as Anselm's definition, then it would be possible for a God who exists both in reality and in the mind to be superior to a God that exists only as an idea; therefore, if God is that than which no greater being can be conceived, he MUST exist in reality, otherwise another being would be superior; but then THAT being would be called God and would fit in with the definition anyway.
Some food for thought.

we are all just simple reactions to stimuli

if this is so
everything exists as much as nothing does

reactions
nothing more
nothing less

*s*

Sorry to say, but I don't think "If there were a god, I agree he would be amazing". The idea that their is a deity, obsessed with people praising him, pedantic about how people hit rocks, forgiving one moment then punishing the next, to psychopathic not even Freud could treat it, would not be amazing. If God exists, I would rather go to hell than sit their praising it. A universe with a God seems even less purposeful than this one.
And that's what irritates me so much - this theist idea that God is so lovely that everyone secretly loves it. And that people don't dismiss the notion of God, then "deny" God.
I know my logic statements are self-referential, but that is my point about St. Anselm's statement. Even though it looks like it has no unreliant element, it relies on the fact that a God exists. Let me explain myself. The statement "an existing unicorn has to exist" (which emerges from the cannot not argument) is invalid. I will look into proving this mathematically, because I think it is possible. But anyway... it is very true that an existing unicorn has to exist. But it is equally true that a non-existing unicorn does not exist. What has to be determined is whether their are any existing unicorns. The statement is abusing reason - as you know that existing things exist, you start thinking that everything that is existing exists, and then you suddenly make the leap saying 'existing Gods exist'. However, if there are no existing Gods this argument shows nothing. Even though it doesn't truely rely on the existance of God, it does rely on it indirectly .
I feel like this is a very pointless argument...

My immediate inclination is to say "I'll get my coat".

But before exeunt stage left, is there some confusion between the object and the idea of the object underpinning St Anselm's argument? We can have all sorts of crazy ideas (like unicorns); the fact that they are ideas give them some sort of reality I suppose. But that doesn't make the corresponding object any the less crazy. I think Plato, or one of those Greeks, considered this distinction under the heading of ideals.

Problem is that all those negatives make my head hurt so I'm not at all confident I've got the right end of the stick and had better leave the debate to those equipped to disentangle them.

I wish people would stop yelling at me. I only outlined St Anselm, I'm not proffessing to be secretly in love with him and think he is right about everything; even his theories that mice actually have invisible ten-foot phalli.
I mean I agree, you can't define something into existence, and God could only "have" to exist, IF he existed, but in any other case he would NOT exist. It's mind boggling to say "He would necessarily exist, but only IF he existed." It sounds strange but I agree it isn't. Now if you'll excuse me, there are some rodents with long phallic members scraping around my carpet.

A wonderful conclusion to the argument!

I think that you are missing a consequence of his argument. If you allowfor the moment that god might exist, then what sort of creature would it be?
Well, if you believe the writings of the religious in the old testement, he must be a complete b*****d, because be knowingly sets son against son, and against father, puts a father in the position of having to be prepared to sacrifice his son to him, and in the new testement, what do you get as the reward for all of the cap doffing that you have to do while worshiping your master, you get to carry on being totally subserviant and worshiping him for eternity,and if you don't you get cast out, and sent to hell for eternal torture. On the whole, not a very nice being.
Also, you find that science has now advanced to the point where it can start to limit what god can actually do, thus destroying themyth that he is all knowing, and can interfere on a moment to moment basis, everywhere at once.
That's two against without realy trying, and you can come up with many more.