The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

First, let us start with the Ontological Argument, which is generally considered the biggest challenge to the atheist. Basically this is a Scholastic argument that has come up in several forms over the centuries. It began in the following form: God is the greatest being that could possibly be conceived. Now, we can conceive of a God that is a fiction—that God has all the perfections we assign to him, except existence, God existing only in our imaginations. Or God can have all the perfections including existence. Obviously this is greater. And thus since we can conceive of this existing God, and by definition God is the most perfect conceivable, existence must be among his perfections.

Leibniz saw a problem with this, and he was too honest a thinker to merely defend the argument without reservation, should he have one. We know what squaring the circle is—that is, creating a square with the same area as a given circle—but it is impossible. We can conceive of the concept, even though it contains a contradiction—is absurd. Likewise with the highest number: we know what it is to be highest, and can have some understanding of what "highest number" means; but such a thing is impossible. That is, what if God is conceivable, but is impossible?—that the very concept of God contains a contradiction.

Thus we get to this idea of Leibniz: that if it is possible for God to exist, he must exist, given the Ontological Argument's reasoning. But don't read "possible" in the vernacular. It is not meant in the way in which anything that is unknown "may be possible". It means if it is not logically impossible—that is, contradictory—that God should exist, God exists. Another way of saying it is that if God exists, it is logically impossible for God to not exist; and if God doesn't exist, it is logically impossible for God to exist. Put this way it seems plausible. This much at least can be demonstrated with rigor, using modal logic, the logic that deals with possibility and necessity.

Symbolically it can be shown in the following manner. Basically with this sort of logic anywhere that it says "Necessarily" you may replace this with "Not possibly not" and where it says "Possibly" you may replace it with "Not necessarily not" anywhere you please. The reasons for this should be clear.

So we begin with our axiom:

Axiom: If possibly not P then not possibly necessarily P. Think about this. It should seem true. And as long as you grant the axiom the next simple steps follow:

1) If not not possibly necessarily P then not possibly not P.
2) If possibly necessarily P then not possibly not P.

Conclusion: If possibly necessarily P then necessarily P.

What does this all mean? It does not mean anything possible is true. But it does mean that if anything is possibly necessary, it is true, and necessarily so. It is possible that I shall go out today, but not possibly necessary, as, should I go out today, my going out will not be necessary (it will not have been impossible for me to not go out). But if God exists, it is impossible for him not to exist, by his definition. Thus, if God possibly exists, God possibly necessarily exists; and so if possibly God exists he does in fact exist. Again, this is not meant in the vernacular way of "Well, I don't know if God exists, but I suppose it's possible." In fact, it may be that it is impossible for God to exist, while we never know whether he is possible or not.

So if God is possible, that is, if his concept is not self-contradictory, he exists. This much Leibniz was right about. Now the only thing required is to show that the idea of God does not contain a contradiction, something altogether difficult for the best minds.

Leibniz's argument that there is no contradiction in the concept of God—that is, that God is possible—comes in the following way. God is defined as a being with all perfections. A perfection is a given positive (i.e., good) quality that is absolute. Such a quality might be compassion. Thus, God contains absolute compassion. Leibniz here puts the ball in the other court and supposes what it would be like to prove there is a contradiction in the concept of God. Such an inconsistency would be something like absolute compassion contradicting absolute justice. Since in God both compassion and justice are infinite, they are indefinable and unanalyzable. Leibniz does not mean by absolute compassion the sum total of all compassionate things. Rather he means a type of Platonic Form of compassion—the absolute, eternal thing godly compassion itself. One can never fix its limits, and so one can never get a hold on its particular properties. Beings are not logically inconsistent; predicates of beings are. We have no way to analyze and define the predicates of absolute justice, which is not completely identical to any instance of justice. Thus we can never show an inconsistency between absolute compassion and absolute justice existing in the same being, since we can never analyze these Forms, reduce them to individual instances, say what particular P contradicts the particular Q.

Leibniz has appealed to Plato, who could not say what Justice itself was, except through a very roundabout way that didn't give us any particular properties of Justice. Leibniz has argued that these perfections are absolute, simple, eternal, and unlimited; the particular, limited things of our world are capable of contradicting others, but not so these eternal perfections of God of which we cannot deduce a single absolutely true property. And where we cannot deduce specifics, we can find no logical contradiction. If God's compassion were, say, to let a drunk driver escape prison after killing a man in an accident, this could possibly contradict God's justice. But we can define neither in such a way, since these particulars are caught up in things that are not predicable of God's compassion; they may be similar, but certainly not identical. God's justice and compassion are simple, i.e., stripped of all particulars, absolute, and eternal; we can as little say what they are not as we can say what they are in specific terms. Thus, there is nothing in God's compassion that can contradict God's justice.

To depart from Leibniz a bit, we might express the argument in the following way. Take the man put on trial for drunk driving. If compassion is positive (good), insofar as it is positive it will demand a certain act by the compassionate judge. But if justice is positive, insofar as it is positive the judge's act will be in accord with justice. The same act and its contrary cannot both be positive in the absolute sense—otherwise the absolute universal "the positive" will contradict itself. Since all God's perfections fall under the abstraction "the positive", the same act cannot both be positive and not positive, nor can an act and its contrary both be positive. And God's justice and compassion only admit of truly, absolutely positive justice and compassion. Thus, if the absolute Positive (good) is consistent with itself, all the things under it, such as Compassion and Justice—all being positive—must be consistent with one another. There can never be a truly compassionate act that is positive, that yet contradicts a just act that is also positive, any more than a single act can be both positive and not positive at the same time. Since everything in God falls under the absolute form "the Positive", everything must be consistent with everything else.

Thus, God's properties may fall under several categories, such as Compassion and Justice; but each property of these categories can only be Positive or not Positive; only the Positive ones belong to God. God can only contain positive predicates, and all positive predicates are contained by him. If a given predicate of God contradicts another, they cannot both be positive, and yet still contradict each other. For if they do in fact contradict each other, such as "God is merciful to the sinner" and "God is not merciful to the sinner" these two predicates cannot both be positive, for they are of contrary nature. Just as a given proposition is either true or false, a given predicate is either positive or not positive, from the ethical standpoint. If a predicate of God is positive, its contrary is not positive; thus if God only contains the positive, there are no mutually contradictory predicates in God, and God becomes logically possible.

"The positive" is not quite strictly a class of things like "dog" is a class of things. "Dog" is a class of objects, while "the positive" is a class of attributes, much in the way that truth and falsity are classes of propositions. Thus, all attributes are positive or not positive; each attribute or its denial is positive, so that all that are positive must be consistent, much in the way that all true propositions must be consistent. And so there is no logical inconsistency in God. This argument is not quite found in Leibniz, but it resulted from meditations based upon his ideas of the attributes of God being positive "simple forms" that cannot be analyzed, and thus cannot be shown to contradict one another.

Leibniz has given himself a very tough challenge—to prove a negative, that there is no contradiction in God's concept. It would perhaps be asking too much for a rigorous demonstration that proved it beyond any doubt. The most he can hope for—indeed the most he can do—is show some principle why a demonstration of a contradiction in God's concept will fail. But not knowing all possible demonstrations that there may be, this is difficult to say the least. At the minimum he has given the atheist a challenge: Prove him wrong. Show that you can demonstrate an internal contradiction in the concept of God. If the atheist cannot, God must exist, and Leibniz has shown this much. As to Leibniz's demonstration of the impossibility of finding such a contradiction, well, I suppose we'll have to wait to see what creative ways there are of arguing. Certainly Leibniz of all people should know how creative philosophers can be.

[The Cosmological Argument]

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