Q&A: The Ontological Proof
The Ontological Proof
Question
Hello Rabbi, I recently started listening to your lectures on faith / belief (I’m very grateful they exist—they’re very reassuring).
And I have a question about the ontological proof. The proof, as I understand it, basically defines something as perfect; something perfect also exists, and therefore a perfect being exists. So in a certain sense I defined the entity as existing—so isn’t that a problem?
Answer
That’s too simplistic a formulation. In any case, every valid logical argument assumes what is to be proved. First, one defines the entity as perfect. That is just a definition, and you’re allowed to define anything. Now there is a claim that if it does not exist, then it is not perfect, and that contradicts its definition. Therefore it exists. In this way, Anselm proved that existence follows from the definition of this entity. That is how every logical and mathematical proof works. In geometry too, after you prove that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180, you have essentially found that this is included in its definition. I explained this in more detail in the first discussion in my book The First Existent. There too I pointed out the problems with Anselm’s argument.
Discussion on Answer
Correct. That is exactly the point: this is a definition, not an assumption. If it were an assumption, then it would not be an ontological argument.
I didn’t say that the definition is incorrect. I said that if this is the definition, then necessarily the entity defined that way exists.
Thank you, but seemingly a definition is not an assumption. I can’t say that the definition of something “imaginary” is incorrect, since that’s how I defined it.