International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 52: 123128, 2002. 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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St. Anselms ontological argument succumbs to Russells paradox

CHRISTOPHER VIGER
Departments of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6 (E-mail: cviger@ccs.carleton.ca)

I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts William Wordsworth

1. Introduction By simply dening God as that-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought, St. Anselm claimed to be able to prove that God has real existence, as opposed to merely existing in the understanding, and that Gods real existence is necessary.1 Now famously known as the Ontological Argument, Anselms reasoning has sparked debate from the rst and continues to puzzle and aggravate thinkers today,2 for despite its simplicity and elegance, there is something deeply disturbing about arriving at such a powerful conclusion from what seems to be such a modest premise. To my mind, a successful criticism of the argument is offered by Immanuel Kant.3 In short, Kant denies that any inference can be made about the existence of something from nothing more than a conception of that thing. All that can be concluded from Anselms argument is that if God exists then God does so necessarily.4 What isnt clear from Kants refutation, however, is just what the fallacy is underlying Anselms reasoning? In this paper, I offer a different refutation of the Ontological Argument by arguing that the denition of God that Anselm uses leads to a contradiction. The advantage of my argument is that it makes clear the source of the contradiction, thereby revealing the fallacy Anselm commits. My argument is a reductio ad absurdum starting from the assumption that there is a greater than relation as Anselm conceives it in his denition of God. I argue that if there is such a relation then it is possible to generate Russells Paradox;5 Anselms denition of God is self-contradictory. Of course, as a result any conclusion follows validly from Anselms premise, but the argument is unsound; Anselms argument is over before it begins because it starts with an incoherent notion.

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It is important to stress that I am not arguing that our ordinary notion of greater than is somehow confused. Rather, my point is that Anselm extends its ordinary use beyond its consistent application. When we speak of one things being greater than another, we understand this to be greatness in some particular respect. For example, when we speak of a number being greater than another this is in respect to magnitude according to the ordering of numbers on a number line. When we speak of a leader being greater than another this is in respect to her leadership qualities and achievements as leader. As Anselm uses the notion of greater than, no particular respect is xed, and indeed, the relation must apply to God in all respects simultaneously, which is the source of the problem. What goodness, then, could be wanting to the supreme good, through which every good exists? Thus You are just, truthful, happy, and whatever it is better to be than not to be for it is better to be just rather than unjust, and happy rather than unhappy.6 The aw in Anselms reasoning is that the notion of greater than he uses licenses unrestricted predication, as I will now argue.

2. The paradox Suppose that there is a greater than relation of the kind Anselm imagines. Minimally, Anselms greater than relation must obtain between God and all things that are not God; that is, given any X that is not God, God can always be compared to X for greatness. This follows because if such a comparison were not always possible, then there would be some X different from God that could not be compared to God for greatness; it could not be said that God was greater than X. But then God would not be that-than-which-a-greater-cannotbe-thought, since we could think of something greater, for example something just like God except that it was also greater than X. Moreover, in every comparison of greatness between God and something that is not God, God must be the greater. If not there would be something as great as God or greater. In the latter case, clearly God would not be that-than-which-a-greater-cannotbe-thought, since something would be greater than God. In the former, again God would not be that-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought, since we can imagine something greater, namely something that has no equal.7 Thus, from Anselms denition, God uniquely must be at least greater than all things that are not God. For one cannot in any way understand that-than-which-agreater-cannot-be-thought without [understanding that it is] that which alone is greater than everything.8 Let be the set of things that God is greater than (more on this below). From what we just saw above, contains everything, real or imaginable, that is not God. Let U be the set consisting of everything in together with God.

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Finally, consider a set R, which contains anything in U that does not contain itself. Either R is God or R is not God. If R is God,9 then R is in U. If R is not God, then God is greater than R, because anything that is not God can be compared to God for greatness and God is always the greater, as we saw above. In this case R is in , since contains everything that God is greater than. And since everything in is also in U, R is in U. Thus whatever the case, R is contained in U. And from this result Russells Paradox10 follows; any answer to the question of whether R contains itself leads to a contradiction. If R contains itself, then by denition it must be a member of U that does not contain itself. If R does not contain itself, then it is something in U that does not contain itself and so is in R by denition. So what does the contradiction show? If A is a set, then it is possible to form subsets satisfying any predicate; that is {x A: P(x)} is also a set. Note that P can be a nonsense or contradictory predicate, since in that case nothing satises P, yielding the empty subset. It is irrelevant to the formation of sub-sets that the medieval philosophers considered predicates to express perfections. Now since R = {x U: x x}, a subset of U, the contradiction tells us that U is not a set. But U is just with a single element, God, added. Since we are assuming throughout that the notion of God is not problematic, U would be a set if were. So is not a set. Thus, the dening property of must be self-contradictory, otherwise its extension, and hence set membership, would be well-dened.11 But the dening property of , is Anselms greater than relation as it applies to God. Now all this is nonsensical verbiage.12 From the above analysis, we can see why Anselms notion of greater than leads to a contradiction. As Anselm conceives the greater than relation, God must be greater than everything, real or imaginable, that is not God. This puts everything that is not God on an equal footing with respect to God. This levelling of the playing eld, the lack of type differentiation, between things that God is greater than ensures that R is one of the things that God is greater than, which makes the paradoxical self-reference possible. As Russells Paradox originally showed of Freges logic,13 this trick can be turned in a system where unrestricted predication is possible; that is, in a system that allows {x: P(x)}, for arbitrary P. By making all things equal in being inferior to God, Anselm removes any restrictions on subsets of things that God is greater than, thus unwittingly licencing unrestricted predication. The reason is that restricting sets to subsets of U is no restriction at all, since {x U: P(x)} {x: P(x)}. And since unrestricted predication is the very notion that Russells Paradox shows to be inconsistent, it is clear why a version of the paradox can be generated from Anselms denition of God, also making clear a subtle

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logical aw underlying Anselms clever reasoning. Anselms foundation, like Freges, is inconsistent. 3. Nominalist worry14 There is a nominalist response to my argument that challenges my use of sets. The worry is that rather than the fallacy being a feature of Anselms reasoning, I am introducing the fallacy by introducing sets, without which the problem would not arise. My view on this is that regardless of a general view about sets, Anselm is implicitly committed to the problematic set , for the following reason. If there is a greater than relation as Anselm conceives it, then God completely understands the relation, including knowing what this relation obtains between, since something that cannot completely understand an unproblematic notion is not that-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought. Note here the importance of supposing that there is a greater than relation as Anselm conceives it. Medieval philosophers recognized that God could not understand what is logically impossible, such as the notion of a round square, but to suppose that the greater than relation is logically impossible is to accept that Anselm has given a bogus denition of God. Now since the relation obtains between God and everything that is not God, as we saw above, Gods completely understanding Anselms greater than relation entails that God can think of whatever God is greater than. To completely understand the relation, God must be able to think about how it applies to himself. I turn now to consider what is involved in thinking about how things are related. In general, when we think about things standing in certain relations we think about them in a certain way. For example, when we think about the numbers that zero is greater than we think about the negative numbers in a particular way, namely as those numbers, which taken together determine the extension of the predicate is less than zero. That is, we dont just think of the numbers 1, 2, etc., we think of them as the negative numbers, the members of the set determined by the predicate is less than zero. Mutatis mutandis, in thinking about the greater than relation as it applies to God, God cannot just think of things he is greater than, for then he is not thinking of them as the things he is greater than, and so not thinking about the greater than relation. Thus, if there is a greater than relation as Anselm conceives it, in thinking of this relation, God will also think of , the set of things that God is greater than, which would require that there is a set . Notice that independently of what Anselm is implicitly committed to, the nominalist worry wont help Anselm. In its strongest form, nominalism denies relations along with sets, and so would reject Anselms denition of God from the outset. If on the other hand, sets are accepted just insofar as

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we have names for things we wish to consider together, then there is a set if Anselms notion of greater than is coherent.15 Then, showing that there cannot be a set shows that the greater than relation as Anselm conceives of it in his denition of God is inconsistent. In either case, Anselm has no proof.

4. Historical note Russells own response to the Ontological Argument is Kantian. He accepts, along with Kant, that existence is not a predicate but eshes out Kants account by analysing existence in terms of quantication: The most perfect Being has all perfections; existence is a perfection; therefore the most Perfect Being exists becomes: There is one and only one entity x which is most perfect; that one has all perfections; existence is a perfection; therefore that one exists. As a proof this fails for want of a proof of the premise there is one and only one entity x which is most perfect.16 Like Kant, Russell sees the argument as being conditional on Gods existence, hence vacuous. Curiously, Russell adds a footnote to this passage which is suggestive: The argument can be made to prove validly that all members of the class of most perfect Beings exist; it can also be proved formally that this class cannot have more than one member; but, taking the denition of perfection as possession of all positive predicates, it can be proved almost equally formally that the class does not have even one member.17 Unfortunately, Russell doesnt give this almost formal proof. Perhaps he had something like what I have presented in mind.18

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for nancial support. Also, my thanks to Diane Dubrule, Stephen Talmage, Terry Gannon, Jody Azzouni, Andrew Brook, and Robert Stainton for helpful discussions of this material.

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1. St. Anselm, Proslogion, 10778, (hereafter Proslogion) translated by M.J. Charlesworth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). 2. Alvin Plantinga (ed.), The Ontological Argument (New York: Anchor Books, 1965). 3. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787), translated by P.Guyer and A. W. Wood (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 4. In Anselms Ontological Argument, Philosophical Review 69 (1960), pp. 4162, Norman Malcolm argues that Kants refutation works only against the argument for Gods real existence but not against the argument that Gods real existence is necessary. I will not engage that debate in this paper; however, since both of Anselms arguments depend on the denition of God as that-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought, my argument cuts equally against Anselms two alleged proofs. 5. Bertrand Russell, Letter to Frege (1902), in Jean van Heijenoort (ed.), From Frege to Gdel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 18791931 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 124125. 6. Proslogion, p. 121. 7. Alternatively, we could argue that anything equally great with God would have all of Gods properties and hence be God: it can also be proved formally that this class [the class of most perfect Beings] cannot have more than one member as Bertrand Russell says in On Denoting, Mind 14 (1905), p. 491, note 2, emphasis in original. 8. Proslogion, p. 183, editors addition. 9. This may seem an odd possibility to consider, and indeed, it seems self-evident to me that R is not God. However, arguing that R is not God results in unnecessary complications and allowing the possibility does not introduce any worries that do not arise independently (see note 15). Thus for ease and clarity of exposition, I allow the possibility. 10. In Letter to Frege. See note 5 above for full reference. 11. Notice that issues of vagueness are not relevant here, for God is greater than everything that is not God. 12. C.D. Broad, A Critique of the Ontological Argument, reprinted in William Rowe and William Wainwright (eds.), Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1973), p. 114. 13. Gottlob Frege, Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (Jena: H. Pohle, Band I 1893). Gottlob Frege, Begriffsschrift (1879) in van Heijenoort, pp. 182. See note 5 above for full reference. Russell refers to both texts in his 1902 letter, but the formulation of his contradiction presented therein is derived explicitly from Freges Begriffsschrift. 14. My thanks to Stephen Talmage for presenting the nominalist worry in its very strong form. 15. For the same reason we can form U from if Anselms notion of greater than is coherent, though again, the argument does not depend on this since it could be given in terms of by arguing that R is not God. See note 9. 16. Bertrand Russell, On Denoting, Mind 14 (1905), p. 491. 17. Bertrand Russell, On Denoting, Mind 14 (1905), p. 491, note 2, emphasis in original. 18. Also referenced in researching this material was Charles Hartshorne, The Logic of Perfection and other Essays in Neoclassical Metaphysics (Lasalle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company, 1962).

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TITLE: St. Anselms ontological argument succumbs to Russells paradox SOURCE: Int J Philos Religal Pract 52 no3222 D 20020003000 The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1572-8684/