Radio Beloved

In the eleventh century, the medieval monk St. Anselm introduced the analogia entis, the analogy of being or ontological argument, as an attempt to prove the existence of God a priori, in a vacuum, with no reference to the outside world, divine revelation, the Holy Ghost, or anything else. He presents it in chapters two through four of his Proslogion. It’s actually two closely related arguments. The core of his first argument runs as follows:

For, it is one thing for an object to be in the understanding, and another to understand that the object exists. When a painter first conceives of what he will afterwards perform, he has it in his understanding, but he does not yet understand it to be, because he has not yet performed it. But after he has made the painting, he both has it in his understanding, and he understands that it exists, because he has made it.

Hence … something exists in the understanding, at least, than which nothing greater can be conceived… . And whatever is understood, exists in the understanding. And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.

Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.

Understandably, the ontological argument has fired centuries of controversy. I once remarked to a friend of mine (Jeff at The Pilgrim) that I found the analogia entis to be neither compelling nor damnable, but rather irrelevant; my current discussion of it shows that the last position, at least, has been revised. In part, my interest in Anselm’s analogia entis stems from a recent re-reading of the writings of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, as I am sure every LDS philosophy major ever coined has noticed. We find there written:

If two things exist, and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them….

Now, if there be two things, one above the other, and the moon be above the earth, then it may be that a planet or a star may exist above it; and there is nothing that the Lord thy God shall take in his heart to do but what he will do it.

Howbeit that he made the greater star; as, also, if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal.

And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.

–Abr. 3:16-19 [gnolaum is a Hebrew transliteration signifying eternal]

It’s almost as if God Himself were using the ontological argument—or something strikingly similar—to explain his existence. I’ll base my brief critique of Anselm on these premises, knowing that others have thought much longer and harder about the analogia entis than I have.

The logic in Anselm’s first argument runs roughly as follows:

1) Anything that really exists is greater than anything that possibly exists.

2) There is a greatest conceivable being.

3) The reality of this greatest conceivable being is greater therefore than the mere possibility; ergo He exists, and is God.

The logic presented by the Lord to Abraham condenses to:

1) “If two things exist, and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them.”

2) “I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.”

Statement 1 is assertive: a schema exists that if one thing is greater than another, there is a third thing greater than both. This becomes a synthetic rule by which to construct an understanding of the universe, at least for the purposes of the Abrahamic account of the Creation which ensues. The nested spheres of being one can imagine are reminiscent of Dante or the medieval astronomers.

Yet in the same breath, almost, as the canon is spoken, the Lord declares a capstone to the endless tower He just built—that He, being God, is the greatest.

Transcendental mathematics offers a way to understand the Lord’s seemingly contradictory statements. It is as if the Lord were ∞, infinity, and other beings the integers. Again, nothing earth-shattering here, but merely a reminder that God is separated from us by a mighty chasm. However, we’ve shifted gears to talking about two paradigms simultaneously: the simple set of counting numbers, where 1 and 2 exist and 3 exists above them, and infinity, where ∞ still equals ∞ + 1, and all other relations fade into insignificance. I suppose it’s only fair to point out that the idea of infinity in mathematics has probably stirred as much controversy as the ontological proof of God. (As an interesting aside, Kurt Gödel, of incompleteness theorem fame, formulated St. Anselm’s proof mathematically.)

It seems to me that the very manner in which the Lord uses his second statement above precludes any resort to the ontological argument by Latter-day Saints. ^* The seeming contradiction, that (∞ + 1) = ∞, stands in direct opposition to Anselm’s last claim that the greatest conceivable being (∞) has a greater, the reality of such a being (∞ + 1, or ∞ × ∞, or whatever one wishes to write; it still equals ∞^†). I interpret Anselm’s claim that such a being “exists both in the understanding and in reality” to mean that the conception of God and the reality are one and the same; after my recent reading of Kant I have to reject this claim as absurd. (We haven’t, of course, even addressed what is meant by “greatness”; there is fertile ground for discussion here.)

In a reading of the Reformed theologian Karl Barth’s work a few months ago, I wrote the following observation, the kernel of my inspiration: “It is a very different thing to know that God is the greatest of all and to suppose that he is God because there must be a greatest.” This seems to me to be kind of a survival of the metaphysically-fittest, cosmological fascism; while it is true that there is a greatest and He is God (as in Abraham), it is not a logical a priori deduction (as in Anselm), but an observation on the hierarchy (literally holy order) of the universe.

I just don’t think the game is simple enough that mere logic will allow us to satisfy ourselves that God exists. It’s never been sufficient, but only a toy, like Pascal’s wager, when unaccompanied by the stringent requirements and revelations of spirituality, mysticism, and communion with the Divine. God requires faith, and there is no substitute for that Angst-ful sacrifice.

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* The Lectures on Faith (2:33), however, seem to follow a line of argument similar to the early portion of Anselm’s other argument, in that Sidney Rigdon claims that the idea of God was present to God’s children by direct testimony–or, in other words, that we contemplate the concept of God by virtue of His existence, a more compelling thought in my mind.

† Although there are provisions in transcendental mathematics for operations on infinity, ∞ or אₒ; those go beyond my discussion here. In any case, I doubt that we as humans are prepared to talk about whether the transition from possibility to reality is equivalent to ∞^∞ or anything else.

In any case, the ontological argument is complex enough that I have to read the whole post three times to pick up the train of my thought (and St. Anselm’s) again. It’s confusing enough, so I welcome criticisms of my deductions herein, as I try to refine my understanding of these complex arguments.

I’ve been reading Don Quijote (en castellano; hyperlinked books are the versions I’ve read) for about two years now. Pretty good, considering that it’s the first book outside the Book of Mormon that I’ve read in Spanish (since I’ve started it I’ve read some others).

A dominant theme of Cervantes’ masterpiece is the disconnect between idealism and realism. Don Quijote believes completely in his fantasy, to the point of facilitating others’ willfull deception of him. The hidalgo is not loyal to reality, he’s only loyal to his notion of it, whether or not they are consistent with his sensuous, phenomenal experience. Because of this, he ends up disillusioned and even somewhat embittered–but whose fault is it? It raises an interesting question, phrased by Roger Waters as the choice between “a walk-on part in the war [and] a lead role in a cage.”

Don Quijote is sincere in his efforts, but he is fundamentally incorrect, both in his approach to the world and his interpretation of it. His will to believe in knight-errantry leads him into situations quite as ridiculous as the metaphysical acrobatics in which those who believe in doubt engage.

The trick is to be both sincere and correct. The basis of approaching Truth is to approach it without preconceptions (impossible) and with complete willingness to accept the ramifications (unlikely).

Do you begin from what you know (risking starting from the conclusion) or do you reduce completely in the Cartesian sense (risking abandonment on the lone rocky outcropping of skepticism)? How do you ensure that your mental framework(s) of belief is (are) both logically self-consistent and externally consistent? Is that possible in a pluralistic world?

Personally, I’m something of a fideist when it comes down to it. I’m not antirational–reason can validate your experience and guide your path, but it is not the basis of it. There are always certain facets of your existence which you know, deep down inside, to be true; experiences you’ve had which have come to define your essence. It is possible to radically reinterpret those experiences, but not to discard them without be inauthentic to yourself.

All this brings me to my next point: David Hume and skepticism. Hume masterfully asserted (among other things) the complete unreliability of eyewitness accounts which narrate fantastic stories and religious miracles. The fatal flaw in his assumptions (and he would have been a good engineer; he always states them) is that he always assumes that you yourself, the rational being to whom Hume appeals, have had the same or substantially similar phenomenal existence that he has had. I’m not talking here about the validity of Biblical or other ancient miracles, I’m not talking about their consistency with holy writ or each other or what we perceive the nature and will of God to be; I’m talking about personal, subjective, experiential perception, yours and mine. Differences in subjective perception aside, have you ever experienced something which you consider quite unlikely to be explained by rational, reductivist means? I know that I certainly have, and although I believe that God works within physical processes and laws (regardless to our empirical understanding thereof), I know that he often effects circumstances we would recognize as frankly preternatural if we weren’t continually trying to apply post-Enlightenment reason to break them down into mechanistic terms (with mixed results). Oftentimes we can succeed in identifying the physical devices God uses, but fail to examine motivations; similarly, we attribute too much to chance and too little to Providential benevolence.

Doubt is a temporary state, not a perpetual one. It is inherently negative, because it creates nothing but only takes. (Read Kierkegaard’s Johannes Climacus for more details). It is a useful tool, but not an end. The will to believe is more powerful, and speaks to our innermost desires. For instance, our brains are pattern-detecting machines. The brain thrives on symbols and patterns, because it is looking for information and truth. In large part, how effective it is at constructing the framework is due to what we put into it. The mind wants to believe, and it will believe in doubt as firmly as it will in faith. In any case, any event, whether dubbed miraculous or not, is subject to continuing reinterpretation over the lifetime ensuing.

I am not convinced that reason can ever constitute the firm foundation of experience and interpretation, but only the exposition and development thereof. Most of our day-to-day lives are constructed on faith, and I’m not talking about the specious example of the sun rising every day or electromagnetics continuing to be true. We have faith in human goodness (or badness), faith in God or fortune or the absolute lack of both, faith that there is something called me which thinks these thoughts, and faith that there are no Cartesian demons invalidating all external sensuous perception.

I’m reading Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, in which he outlines the modes and nature of human thought and perception and judgment. What we generally mean when we refer to reason is the a priori (first principles) analysis he puts forth in that volume. But although the interior worldview we synthesize is a conglomerate constructed by reason (his unity of apperception), it does not mean that every element thereof is strictly rational. It just means that the pencil we used to connect the dots was reason–but the same is true of imagination. (The irony of using reason to understand reason does not escape me.)

So on what can we ultimately build? That’s not a question I’m prepared to fully answer (and may never be, in this mortal sphere), but we can build on the experiential truths we’ve acquired over the years. Many things need to be questioned, but a few do not. For instance, I have absolute faith in the physical and metaphysical reality of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, though I am far from understanding it or even its absolute necessity or mechanism. I have absolute faith in the capacity of the Holy Ghost to communicate itself directly to the heart and mind, without intervening sensuous phenomena. Those are starting points for exploring the universe, and certainly more stable than the fragile point I call ego.

The question is: What can reason do that faith cannot?