Anselm - ontology and sophistry

A critique of Anselm’s ontological argument for God's existence.

St. Anselm, details his ontological argument in his 1078 treatise Proslogion where what is often referred to as his first proposition on God, I interpret to be a value statement:

...we believe that you are something that nothing greater can be thought of. (Anselm, 1078)

By prefacing at the outset: ‘we believe’ Anselm leaves nothing to be challenged and the reader can do little more than simply acknowledge the value statement ‘we believe’. The intellectual sleight of hand occurs when Anselm attempts to make the leap from value statement to proposition of fact:

And surely that which cannot be thought greater cannot be in the understanding alone. (Anselm, 1078)

Restated, Anselm claims: ‘surely that which cannot be thought greater’ must exist in reality. Anselm makes no attempt to explain how the value statement: ‘we believe that you are something that nothing greater can be thought of’ self-qualifies as a factual proposition. Instead, Anselm leverages the thought-terminating cliché: ‘surely’ to render his proposition as if a fait accompli: ‘an accomplished fact’ that needs no qualification—sophistry.

Had Anselm wished to avoid qualifying his proposition he should have instead written it again as a value statement:

And ‘surely [we believe] that which cannot be thought greater cannot be in the understanding alone.’

The reader again would be left to acknowledge the value statement ‘we believe’ and Anselm’s claim could avoid the burden of proof of qualification. I wonder if Descartes was of the same opinion as his own ontology references Anselm’s (albeit not by name) but acknowledges its potential sophistry. I’m beginning to think Descartes was a great deal smarter than we give him credit for aided no doubt by his proficiency in mathematics.

If you too share an interest in maths, as did Descartes, you might enjoy reading my article Towards a Mathematical Proof of God which sets out the equation of existence and more importantly, how it functions as Creator: lit. ‘that which creates’.

Towards a Mathematical Proof of God

by John Mackay

There is no greater equation to be solved than that of existence itself. This book solves it.

Discover the book