Aquinas

Aquinas promoted the use of reason in an Aristotelian manner, namely that of

inference from effects to causes. He criticized the claim made by Anselm of
Canterbury in the 11th century that we know that God exists simply by
understanding the concept of God. God is that greater than which nothing can
be conceived, and it is evident that such a being must exist.

The following is a transcript from an Australian TV mini-series, "Brides of

Christ," which is to my knowledge the only dramatization of the ontological
argument in the mass media. The characters are a teaching nun and her pupils,
the novitiates at her convent.

Teacher: St. Anselm proved the existence of God in the following way: God, he
argued, is that than which no greater can be thought. Does anyone not follow
that?

[Several novices raise their hands.]

Teacher: Any concept, no matter how great, allows us to infer an identical one
that does not exist, and the second one is ipso facto the greater. Since God
must be the greatest thing anyone can think of, He must exist or He wouldn't
be God.

Novice 1: He wouldn't be anything if He didn't exist, would He, Sister?

Teacher: Are you trying to be funny?

Novice 1: No, Sister. I just didn't understand the argument.

Teacher: Imagine two apples, equally juicy, crisp to the bite, round and firm,
and of a brilliant green. Identical in every respect except, one exists, and
the other one doesn't. Which is the greater?

Novice 2: The one that exists.

Teacher: Same goes for God.

Novice 1: That doesn't follow.

Teacher: St. Anselm's thoughts have been good enough for the greatest minds in
the Church for nearly 900 years.

Novice 1: Well, it's just a game with words. God isn't a Granny Smith.

Teacher: Is that so?

Novice 2: And you're automatically assuming that existence is better than

non-existence.

Teacher: Would you rather not exist?

Novice 2: You mean right now, or normally?

Teacher: If you want to stay in the Church, you'll have to accept its
teachings without question, as I do.

Novice 2: But what if the Church is wrong?

Teacher: What sort of fool would that make me?

Novice 2: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to question you.

Anselm's argument for the existence of God is known as the "ontological"

argument, where 'ontological' means 'of or pertaining to being.' The basic
idea of the argument is that the very being, nature, or essence of God implies
that God exists. In Anselm's original version, it is the having of the concept
of God that yields knowledge of God's existence. To understand what God is, is
to acknowledge that God exists. Kant later commented that this argument is not
at all persuasive, but is invoked only by those who already believe that God
exists.

According to Anselm, the concept of God is the concept of the being than which
none greater can be conceived. To understand this concept, we need to be able
to compare the greatness of concepts. One way to do so (call it greatness of
scope), is to compare concepts in terms of their inclusiveness. A concept
which includes more is greater. Thus my concept of a wonderful beach with an
adjacent golf course is greater than my concept of just the beach.

But Anselm was working with a less straightforward comparison of concepts. We

may compare two concepts which are absolutely alike, except that the object of
one of the two exists, while that of the other does not. In the example from
the TV script quoted last time, there are two concepts of an apple, equally
firm, ripe, juicy, green, etc. But one of the two exists, while the other does
not. That concept whose object exists is the greater.

If this makes sense, then we can compare the concept of a God which exists
with an identical one, according to which God does not exist. The former is
greater than the latter. Then the concept of a non-existence of God is not of
something greater than which none can be conceived. Thus, the concept of God
includes God's existence.

But Aquinas pointed out that it does not follow from this that God exists.
Even if the concept of God does include God's existence, all that follows is
that concept of God is of a certain sort. We cannot think of God without
thinking of God existing. But this is just a fact about how we can think. It
does not mean that God must exist.

Aquinas nonetheless believed that God's existence can be demonstrated through

reason. He endorsed Aristotle's argument for the unmoved mover. To avoid an
infinite regress of moved movers, there must be a mover which is not itself
moved. (There are two ways to understand the regress. One is that without the
unmoved mover, there is no explanation of the fact that something moves now.
The second is to say that without the unmoved mover, no movement would ever
begin.)

More generally, Aquinas held that we can infer from features of the world to
the existence of God. Such arguments are called a posteriori, because they
come "after the fact" that the world exists in a certain way. Anselm's
argument, on the other hand, is a priori, depending as it does on our merely
possessing the conception of God.

A generalization of the unmoved mover argument is that inferring the existence

of an uncaused cause. What is the cause of the existence of the world as a
whole? If its cause has a cause, the same question can be asked, to infinity.
So there is an uncaused cause.
A related argument is from the contingency of the world. The world might or
might not have existed. Why does it exist rather than not? If it depends on
something that itself might or might not exist, the same question can be
asked, to infinity. So there is a necessary being, one for whom it is false
that it might not have existed.

A final argument (we omit one other one) is from the order in the world. There
must be, it claims, something ordering the world to account for the adaptation
of things. This argument has the advantage of introducing intelligence into
the ultimate being. The conclusion of the other arguments yield nothing which
suggests that the being it requires is a thinking being.

Nonetheless, Aquinas did not wish to push the conclusions of reason too far.
Even if we attribute intelligence to God, it bears only a remote resemblance
to human intelligence. In fact, the attributes of God are only barely known to
us. We must have faith to supplement reason in these matters.

Aquinas is perhaps the best known, but certainly not the only major
philosopher of the medieval period. Among the many notable philosophers were
John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, who debated the nature of universals,
carrying on the discussion initiated by Plato (whose works were then lost) and
continued by Aristotle.