(One) Proof for God's Existence.

Ontological Argument:

According to 12th century thinker archbishop Anselm, "God is that Being than which a greater being cannot be conceived."

Of all the proofs for God's existence, this one probably causes the most difficulty with regards to understanding. A very common misunderstanding of Anselm's quote is conveyed by the freshman philosophy student who arrogantly says, "So what? Just because I can conceive or think of a flying pink elephant doesn't mean one exists! That quote is trash!"


What is essential to understanding Anselm's phrase is the fact that God is a necessary being (if He wasn't, He wouldn't be God). Necessary existence is one fundamental difference between God and his creatures. According to Nash, "Creatures exist contingently...their existence is dependent on something other than themselves. They do not exist in all possible worlds. God's nonexistence, however, is impossible."

Furthermore, God's existence is understood as logically necessary: the proposition "God exists" is logically true. "A logically necessary being is one that exists in every possible world." Two things flow from this:

1. God's existence is like the number two or the concept of a square. To question why a logically necessary being exists in the real world makes no sense.
2. The proposition "God does not exist" is logically false and is self-contradictory (though it may not look like a contradiction--the same way the square root of 60,616 is 244 is conceivable but is logically impossible). The statement "God does not exist" is therefore equivalent to statements such as, "Some triangles are squares."
   

So if I were to write a proof, it would go something like this:

• A logically necessary being would exist in every possible world.
• God is a logically necessary being. In a sense, this is the very definition of the word "God." (Nash: "A being who is less than a necessary being would be unfit to bear the title God.")
  
• Therefore, God exists in every possible world (including the real world).

And so, in my mind, the ontological argument works beautifully!

Bonus: Here's the Descartes quote:
"By the name God I understand a substance that is infinite [eternal, immutable], independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which I myself and everything else, if anything else does exist, have been created. Now all these characteristics are such that the more diligently I attend to them, the less do they appear capable of proceeding from me alone; hence from what has been already said, we must conclude that God necessarily exists."

Summary of his quote? Simply this: The only adequate cause of our idea of God must be God.