Difference between revisions of "Essay: One person's view of the Ontological Argument"

Revision as of 17:45, November 25, 2011

Imagine that a prehistoric caveman, in trying to invent the wheel, uses a 'square wheel' as the conceptual precedent. He shapes a stone into a square, puts a hole in the center, fixes a ‘feet axle’ into the hole, and tests it out. The 'wheel' 'rolls' very poorly, and makes a horrible bumping action each time it 'rolls' over one of its corners. Soon, he gets an inspiration: he pulls out the ‘feet axle’ and saws straight through from one corner of this ‘wheel’ to the opposite corner, puts a hole in the middle of one of the resultant triangles, puts the ‘foot axle’ through the hole, and really thinks this new ‘wheel’ might be an improvement on the original square one since the new ‘wheel’ has one less bump. But, when he tests it out, it just makes one of every three ‘rolling’ bumps that much worse, and is harder to roll beyond that ‘bump’. So, he ends up concluding that a perfect wheel is logically impossible, and goes back to running.

In the Thomist view, the nature of God is the being the existence of which is the same as its essence: there are no bumps. The contrary to the Thomist view, namely that omnipotence includes the power to cause itself to cease to exist, implicitly allows that the idea of 'existence' is a thing in itself. I call the idea that ‘existence is a thing in itself’ ‘meta-existence’. So, for anyone who thinks that existence is a thing in itself, I say that ‘they think that meta-existence exists.’

They say that existence is not a 'property' and, thus, that it cannot add anything to the greatness of something. I think this is why they find the Ontological argument an empty attempt at defining greatness. What I just said about 'meta-existence' is my attempt to communicate what I see as the error of abstracting 'existence' in such a way as to hold that it is a non-thing. I think that only if there is no thing which 'exists necessarily' can 'existence' add nothing to greatness. In other words, if nothing, including 'existence', is inherently mutual to anything, then I see no way for anything to be deduced from anything.

I would say that the way in which existence is deduced as a property of perfection is different from the way in which a future (pending) puddle on pavement is deduced from present rain, in that, unless something exists as a property of itself, then nothing exists. I would say that non-existence is not, I repeat, not a property either of anything that does exist or of anything that does not exist; while existence is a property of anything that does exist; and, only some things may exist necessarily; and, perfection of the ultimate concept (God) includes necessary existence. How the concept of 'necessity' can be divorced from the concept of 'existence' is beyond me, but there it is.

Imagine if the catch-all abstraction called ‘logic’ did not exist: would existence add nothing to it? In other words, if logic did not exist, then how could you so much as begin to identify it? But, since logic is merely an abstraction of those things that can be identified by their actually existing, the question is as to the connection between the ‘existence’ of logic and the ‘existence’ of those actual things.

Of course, in taking for granted that something at all exists, as opposed to there being nothing, it is self-evident that the fact that something at all exists does not mean that the ‘properties’ called ‘existence’ and ‘non-existence’ exist independently of actual entities. These ‘properties’ are not independent even of the controversial notions of omnipotence, for it is by that which exists that we have any notion at all of omnipotence.

I say, that, for something which currently does not exist, but, which may exist, existence is a condition. I say, also, that, for something which necessarily exists, existence is a condition, in that it both exists and its existence cannot not exist. But, I say, that, for something which cannot exist, existence is not a condition, in that it ‘simply’ does not exist.

Now, the statement that, ‘for something which cannot exist, existence is not a condition’ is justified by the fact that the concept of ‘condition’ is derived necessarily and only from that which exists. The concept of ‘condition’ cannot be ‘truly derived’ (i.e., derived in the first place) from that which does not exist, much less from that which cannot exist. In short, the abstraction called ‘existence’ cannot be derived (abstracted) from that which ‘simply’ does not exist.

Similar to the concept of ‘condition’, the concept of non-existence is derived from that which necessarily exists, and additionally confirmed by the redundant overlap, or ‘similarity’, which that which may exist has with that which necessarily exists. That which necessarily exists is that from which is derived the concept of ‘necessary non-existence’.

Now, consider statement N: Nothing necessarily exists.

Is N analytic or synthetic? If N is true, then N is a condition (C) of all things that exist: (NC). Therefore, a condition exists: C. Does C necessarily hold true? According to N, NC necessary holds true. If NC necessary holds true, then NC necessarily exists. In short, if NC is true, then the condition of ‘No Condition’ necessarily exists. If N is true, then ‘absolute’ omnipotence is true, and, ‘either way’, the Ontological Argument is unsound. But, N is false on all counts, including being self-contradictory.

Further Reading

Essay: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?