Author: Ophelia Benson

Stephen Law discusses the ontological argument.

Anselm’s argument simple and elegant. He begins by characterizing God as a being greater than which cannot be conceived. That God, if he exists, is such a being seems clear. If you conceive of a being, yet can also conceive of a still greater being, then the being you first thought of cannot be God. Armed with this concept of God, we can now argue for God’s existence as follows. We can at least conceive of such a being. That there exists a being greater than which cannot be conceived is at least a hypothesis we can entertain. But, adds Anselm, as it is greater to exist in reality than merely in our imagination, this being must really exist. After all, if he did not exist, then he would not be as great a being as we can conceive.

Stephen notes that few philosophers find the argument cogent or convincing, but also that there is no consensus about what’s wrong with it. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but what I wonder is, why anyone ever found it convincing. It has that grandiosity problem I mentioned (that is, it seems to me to have that problem). It just seems like silly magic – as if merely thinking the words ‘perfect’ and ‘exists’ could make something exist. It doesn’t matter what we can conceive and what we decide must be true – we can’t make anything exist by the power of thought (except thoughts, which don’t count, because I’m a reductionist materialist, and a heathen).

I have a different (though related) problem with Gaunilo’s objection.

Here’s Gaunilo’s argument. Can we not conceive of a perfect island – an island perfect in every conceivable way, from the purity of its streams to the sublime contours of its landscape? It seems we can. But if we can conceive of such an island, and it is greater to exist in reality than in imagination, then the island we are conceiving of must exist. If it didn’t exist, it would not be perfect in every way. On the seemingly safe assumption that there is no such island, it seems we have no choice but to accept that there is something wrong with the argument that appears to establish that there is.

Simon Blackburn’s version of that is Dreamboat – the perfect lover. Anyway, about the island – does it make sense to say that an island can be perfect in every conceivable way, from the purity of its streams to the sublime contours of its landscape? Are pure streams and sublime contours examples of perfection? They don’t seem so to me. They seem more like examples of very very good or extremely nice or ravishingly beautiful if you happen to like that kind of thing – but that’s not the same thing as perfect. What’s a perfect apple? Or a perfect brownie? Or a perfect sweater? Or a perfect book? Depends, doesn’t it; depends what you like. It’s a value judgment; it’s moral or aesthetic or both; it’s relative at least to humans and often to individuals; ‘perfect’ doesn’t come into it. So that’s a further element in the puzzle. It puzzles me anyway.

Right, Plantinga on Dawkins. There is one bit that’s quite funny, but there’s another that I can’t understand. It’s familiar, and I never understand it. It just seems childish, in a literal way: childishly grandiose; and that can’t be right, so I must not understand it. Help me out here.

So why think God must be improbable? According to classical theism, God is a necessary being; it is not so much as possible that there should be no such person as God; he exists in all possible worlds. But if God is a necessary being, if he exists in all possible worlds, then the probability that he exists, of course, is 1, and the probability that he does not exist is 0. Far from its being improbable that he exists, his existence is maximally probable. So if Dawkins proposes that God’s existence is improbable, he owes us an argument for the conclusion that there is no necessary being with the attributes of God—an argument that doesn’t just start from the premise that materialism is true. Neither he nor anyone else has provided even a decent argument along these lines; Dawkins doesn’t even seem to be aware that he needs an argument of that sort.

I just don’t begin to understand that. I don’t understand the ‘So’ that begins the fifth sentence. So? So? Coming after ‘his existence is maximally probable’? When the whole chain started with ‘According to classical theism’? And then said a lot of things that (as far as I can tell) are to do with logic but make nothing happen. Why does the fact that ‘God’ is X according to classical theism mean that anything else follows for people who don’t adhere to classical theism in the first place? I could understand why something would follow if the phrase went ‘according to geology’ or physics or molecular biology and then were followed by a claim about rocks or quarks or DNA that included the word ‘is’ – but classical theism? No. And then there’s that ‘if’. If God is a necessary being, then…then how do we get to So? We start from a claim from a supernaturalist field, we go on to an if, and we end up at a bizarre certainty that Dawkins owes us an explanation. I do not understand that passage. It looks nonsensical to me, and that can’t be right.

Peter Tatchell wants to know.

Why is much of the left and the liberal media ignoring the struggle for democracy and women’s rights in Iran?…Sunday’s demonstration was the latest in a series. It was called in solidarity with five women activists who are on trial after they staged a peaceful rally last June against Islamic laws that discriminate against women – in particular the sexist laws on polygamy and child custody. The five activists in the dock are Nusheen Ahmadi Khorasani, Parvin Ardalan, Sussan Tahmasebi, Shahla Entesari and Fariba Davoodi Mohajer. For holding a peaceful protest, they are charged with endangering national security, propaganda against the state, and taking part in an illegal gathering…The liberal western media – including The Guardian – has mostly failed to report these women’s protests and their bloody suppression. The left, too, ignores the heroic struggle of the women of Iran. Misogyny and police brutality are not okay in Britain, but apparently acceptable in Tehran. Why the double standards?

Why indeed? Absence of mind? Distance? More pressing concerns? Or something more sinister.

There are several interesting comments there too, worth sorting through the usual CisF deluge. This one for instance –

I work in human rights advocacy and have become appalled at the manner in which elements across the entire spectrum of the left have become hostile to universal human rights. Those who condemn homophobia in Saudi Arabia are silenced, those who speak out for Muslims who convert to Christianity and face prison or death are condemned, those who challenge violently misogynistic laws and practices in Pakistan or Afghanistsan are dismissed. The ethical core of the left is being rotted by moral relativism. It is a woeful and tragic spectacle.

I’m not sure it is exactly moral relativism, at least not in a broad sense. It’s more like geographico-politico relativism, or that combined with a mistaken idea of politeness – it’s not good manners to criticize other countries or cultures – even if segments of those countries are busy campaigning against manifest gross injustice and would love our solidarity and support.

There’s also a fair amount of sinister nonsense (or sinister balls, as they used to call it around the NS) about Maryam Namazie, and ‘the mainstream organisations of British Muslims’ meaning the MCB, and all this does is encourage fascists and racists – in short, sinister balls of the kind that demonstrates exactly the kind of stupidity Tatchell is asking about. Know the enemy.