St Anselm and the Cheeseburger

St. Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033 – 1109)

I warned you this would happen! I did! See! So don't blame me if you didn't read the first post!
 

Ladies and Gentlemen I would like to introduce you to a fella named Anselm.  Anselm was a Catholic Archbishop who thought a lot about God.  One day Anselm decided that pure blind faith was not enough for the masses, so he went about the task of proving God's existence.  This is what he came up with.

1. God is the greatest imaginable being.
2. God exists in the imagination (because we can imagine God)
3. Existing in reality is greater than existing only in the imagination.
4. If God only exists in the imagination then we can imagine a being greater than God (ie. a being with all of God's attributes but one who exists in reality)
5. If we can imagine a being greater than God this is a contradiction (there can't be a being greater than the greatest imaginable being)
∴
6. God exists in reality.

Convinced? I hope not!  This argument can be used to prove the existence of ANYTHING! No matter how impossible it is for that thing to exist.  So long as you preface the thing you want to reason into existence with the quality of being the "greatest imaginable"of its kind, hey presto it exists! 

I could argue that there is a cheeseburger that is so delicious it is the greatest imaginable cheeseburger.  This cheeseburger will actually make you lose weight, and make you more sexually attractive in all respects!  Hell this cheeseburger can even make you fly. Why not? It's the greatest imaginable cheeseburger for Jeebus sake!

The great thing is, according to Anselm's logic the cheeseburger HAS to exist! It obviously exists in the imagination 'cause you were all just imagining it! (I heard your stomachs growling!) And if it doesn't exist in reality then it's not the greatest imaginable cheeseburger.

Now let's move away from cheeseburgers because this is starting to make my stomach growl!


Since you can seemingly talk anything into existence with this argument it must be flawed!

Bertrand Russell felt that the flaw was in Anselm's assumption that existence in reality is better than existence in the imagination alone.  Who am I to argue with Bertrand Russell? Well for the sake of argument I'm going to give Anselm his first three premises (including the one that Russell had an issue with).

1. God is the greatest imaginable being.
2. God exists in the imagination.
3. Existing in reality is better than existing only in the imagination.

 This is where Anselm runs into some trouble.  His next premises are as follows:


4. If God only exists in the imagination then we can imagine a being greater than God (ie. a being with all of God's attributes but one who exists in reality)
5. If we can imagine a being greater than God this is a contradiction (there can't be a being greater than the greatest imaginable being)

Stop.  Is this really a contradiciton?

What is necessary for this "being greater than God" (BGG) to be... well, greater than God?  The BGG must actually exist! The only way for the BGG to be greater than God is for the BGG to exist in reality when God only exists in the imagination.  If the BGG doesn't exist in reality then it has all the same attributes as God.  So the BGG is actually a contradiction.  Lost? Well let's use Anselm's reasoning.

1.  The being greater than God, must by definition be greater than God.
2.  The being greater than God is not greater than God.
3. This is a contradiciton.
∴
4. The being greater than God does not exist.  

To put it simpler (in one way, and probably more complex in another) if the BGG has all the same attributes as God, then in what way do they remain distinct?

If the being greater than God does not exist then what is Anselm's argument?
So now we can all be happy again! God still doesn't exist and the Christians still have their imaginary God!

Now to find that Cheeseburger!