An Inversion of Anselm's Proof

Saint Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, created in either the 11th or 12th century an ontological proof for God's existence. The proof is simple, elegant, and plagued philosophical minds for centuries. It consists of the following simple formula: God is that than which nothing greater can be thought. Because nothing greater than God can be thought, God exists. Any successful attempt to conceive of something greater merely indicates that your previous conception really wasn't all that great to begin with. Simply put, you should try harder.

Well, actually, let me try putting it another way. Anselm defines God, for this argument, as the greatest possible concept available to the mind. If a greater concept, or being, could be imagined, that would take the place of the original. Because the first concept exists exclusively in the mind, it stands to reason that if God existed outside of the mind as well as within it, this God would be greater than a God that existed exclusively in the mind. Starts to get a bit tricky, no? The whole point of the argument is to start getting you to believe in that God-out-there, and as soon as you accept the first term, namely, that God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived, then, logically speaking, you're screwed.

Well, part of the problem with the argument consists in the inherent limitations of the mind, and moreover the mind being something with no constitutive power over the universe. The idea is that the thinker's thought will resolve into a reductio ad absurdum, whereby he will continually cycle back and forth between his mind and the world, and eventually accept the initial premise of the argument as one demanded by logical necessity. All that's really proven here is the susceptibility of some to logical circularity. The simple act of believing that God exists by necessity does not create God. It is no proof, because the argument relies on its own circularity, without reference to the world or anything materially verifiable.

After a while the whole thing starts to sound like a cute, albeit pointless, thought experiment. Of course, you could say something like, "only a God could create an image of perfection in the minds of Men", but anyone who argues that seriously probably also believes that perfection is white, male, about 5'9", bearded, and looks an awful lot like Willem Dafoe (for those of you who miss this reference, you evidently haven't seen the brilliant film "The Last Temptation of Christ").

(Kant also has a nice little critique of the argument, that goes something like this: The argument amounts to an analytic statement, namely that the phrase "God exists" is a tautology, and moreover redundant. God implies existence. This, however, states absolutely nothing about what 'God' actually is, and exists entirely within the boundaries of the rational subject's mind. In other words, it's just a big empty logical paradox with nothing at all to say about the world.)

But, not being the sort satisfied with irreverent declamations of ancient theological proofs (and I mean, who is?), I felt something of a philosophical obligation to refute the ontological proof using my own terms.

The proof takes as a starting premise that God's being, the existence of which we presumably have yet to establish (or else why would we be attempting some ridiculous proof anyway?), is such that it is by its very nature something greater than everything else. Very presumptuous of the old Archbishop, to assume a priori that God is something that possesses the quality of being superior. As well, it's rather peculiar that the thought of God existing in both the mind and the world (as if the two were in fact ultimately separate), should combine (a bit like the power rangers) to form a Greater God than one existing exclusively in either the mind or the world. It suggests, in the case of God existing alone in the world, but not the mind, that His existence would be increased by someone having a mental conception of Him. This whole line of thinking presupposes that God is a quantifiable entity whose greatness can be augmented by some kind of numerical increase, or by the accumulation of divine representations. In other words, God is that which cannot be increased. Any conception of God that CAN be increased by some means is clearly a bit short of the real deal.

So, if God is that which cannot be increased, which sounds like a perfectly devout theological thing to say, doesn't the inverted premise sound equally compelling? That is, "God is that which cannot be decreased." If God is supposed to be this omnipresent, perfect being (again, presumptuous ontological attributes, but let's run with them), then any conception of God that was less than absolutely perfect (in other words, somehow commensurate with the entire quantitative fabric of the universe, as if the universe were in some way quantifiable), wouldn't really be God at all, would it?

But who's to say we should accept this whole business of God being commensurate with the cosmos? We don't even know God exists, and yet we're already describing His nature! If we're going to be presumptuous about what God is, before even proving THAT He is, why not start with a premise that sounds theologically sound, but is in a subtle way totally perverse? What I propose is to start by assuming that God is that than which nothing lesser can be thought. God is the least of all things. I mean, interpret that however you will, but I think it's pretty profound. God is the most immanent, transparent, diffuse, and ineffable of all possible things. Sounds pretty good to me!

So, let's slightly reformulate Anselm's argument, in accordance with our new understanding of God's nature, to read as follows: God is that than which nothing lesser can be thought. If we can conceive of something lesser than God, then that conception must in turn be God. Since a God that exists in both the world and in the mind would be greater than a God that exists in merely one or the other, God cannot logically exist in both. Therefore, God exists in either the mind or the world, but not both.

Since Anselm got to assert than a being existing in both mind and world was something greater than a being existing in only one of the two (whether this presupposes a quantitative or qualitative increase in greatness is utterly beyond me, since the whole thing sounds suspect to begin with), I'm going to take the privilege as well and assert than God's being in the world alone is quantitatively or qualitatively greater than His being in any or even all minds alone. Since being in the world is greater than being in the mind, God must exist only in the mind for Him to be lesser than any other conception. Furthermore, God must exist only in one mind; for Him to exist in more than one mind, he would be ontologically greater than if he existed in one mind alone. Therefore God exists in only one mind.

But God is that than which nothing lesser can be thought, and I can conceive of a God that exists in no mind and no world as being lesser than one that exists in a single mind alone. Therefore, God exists in no mind and no world. I can think of no lesser God; therefore, God exists, and his essence is nil.