Gödel’s ontological proof for the existence of God
In: Mathematics
TLDR: God is by definition the greatest/best being possible. Being real is better than being fake, therefore god is real.
If it doesn’t make sense thats because the logic is circular and flawed. There is no ontological proof or disproof that does not have flaws.
The ontological argument is an attempt at a logical argument for the existence of God.
The argument is:
1 – God is defined as a being whom no greater being could be conceived
2 – A God who actually exists would be greater than one that does not exist
3 – If God did not exist, one could conceive of a greater being (violating #1)
4 – God must therefore exist
Gödel formalized this argument with mathematics, starting from a set of Axioms. The trouble is in the starting definition #1 and the related Axioms. With bad inputs, mathematics provides bad outputs.
The history is somewhat interesting here. In ages past, religious scholars spent a lot of time trying to use mathematics, logic, and science to prove the existence of God. These efforts generally are failures and modern religious movements now prioritize ‘faith’ the believing in absence of proof
Working backwards from your conclusions to pick your premises, and then trying to hide it with mathematics.
Gödel’s theory attempts to prove the existence of God based on a logical formulation. The problem is that this formulation is only correct if you assume that the premises are true. Simplifying it greatly, you could compare it to this logical reasoning:
1. What the Bible says is true.
2. The Bible speaks of the existence of God.
3. Therefore, God exists.
While it makes sense as a logical formulation, it is only correct if you also assume that the premises are true.
In the history of Western thought there have been various attempts to prove the existence of a Supreme Being. Mr. Godel’s proof is a version of a very old argument, called the ontological argument, and it is usually traced to the writings of St. Anselm (1033-1109 AD). A sophisticated version of it has been promoted in the 20th century by an American philosopher named Alvin Plantinga. Most philosophers dismiss this argument because they believe, following Kant, that existence is not a predicate. The crux of the ontological argument is that a truly Supreme Being would, by definition, exist, since existence is a feature of many billions of lesser beings – this is common knowledge. Thus a Supreme Being would have many different traits, but existence would surely be one of them.
*Note: The young Bertrand Russell was thinking about the ontological proof while biking back to Cambridge from his tobacconist and he concluded that this proof was irrefutable (he tossed his tobacco can into the air in his excitement). He later changed his mind.*
These sort of unsound logical arguments are what theists resort to when they realise they can’t fool anyone into thinking they have any real evidence. You can’t define real things into existence just because you want to.
I’ve always been a fan of the counter proof:
1: God is the most omnipotent being
2: what’s more omnipotent than creating everything while not existing?
3: God doesn’t exist.
The ELI5 is the same as for all ontological arguments (Aquinus, Anselm, Craig, etc):
* God is the best thing possible.
* A real God is better than an imaginary God.
* Therefore, God is real.
God has the ‘maximum’ of all properties – he is maximally powerful, maximally knowledgable, maximally good, etc. This also means he is maximally existant: he exists. Therefore, he exists.
It’s quite a semantic argument, but it has its advocates.
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Godel’s argument, specifically, uses symbolic logic to make the same argument. It’s a lot ‘tighter’ for its rigour, but still flawed.
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