The Ontological Argument VERSUS the Nicene Creed

Theological Letters — Part 1 of 3

This letter-turned-essay was originally occasioned by a discussion with a colleague, “Richie.” I expressed to him my belief that the ontological argument has metaphysical commitments that are incompatible with the commitments of the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople — and thus of the Nicene Creed. While intrigued by the case, he pressed whether such commitments are essential to the argument, a point that led me to distinguish the classical formulation by Anselm from the contemporary formulation of Plantinga. After fleshing out my conclusions to Richie in a letter, I took the extra step of revamping the piece into a formal essay, which I plan to publish in the coming year.

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Is the God of the Ontological Argument the God of Nicea and Constantinople?

In his Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas explores five proofs for the existence of God, each of which concludes with a variation on, And this all call “God.”¹ Each argument presumes that proving the existence of a being of a certain kind — immutable or modally necessary — proves the existence of God. In the case of the ontological argument, not included in Aquinas’ five ways,² the case is the same. By demonstrating that a maximally great being necessarily exists, the argument claims to prove the existence of God. To quote Anselm, “There is, then, so truly a being than which nothing greater can be conceived to exist, that it cannot even be conceived not to exist; and this being thou art, O Lord, our God.”³

Why these proofs are thought to support Christianity is evident in Aquinas’ phrase, “this all call God” (quod omnes dicunt Deum) (emphasis added). The statement is not a rhetorical flourish but a premise. Put in more analytically plain terms, All people, including Christians, use the word God — and only the word God — to indicate a being of kind p. Therefore, a proof for the existence of a being of kind p is a proof for the existence of that which everyone, including Christians, mean by the term God.

In this essay, I look at whether the ontological argument is in fact a step toward proving the existence of the Christian God. To echo the title of this piece, Is the God of the ontological argument the God of Nicea and Constantinople? I will show there is good reason to think that Anselm’s version of the argument bears commitments that are incompatible with the commitments of Nicene-Constantinopolitan (“N-C”) Trinitarianism. Thus, if one takes N-C Trinitarianism to be normative for Christian doctrine, then the answer is No, the God of Anselm’s ontological argument is not the God of Nicea and Constantinople, and by extension, No, the God of Anselm’s argument is not the God of Christianity.

Having said this, Anselm’s formulation is not the only formulation of the ontological argument. So, we must ask whether this incompatibility applies to the argument as such or simply to Anselm’s version? As we will see, recent formulations of the argument, such as Alvin Plantinga’s,⁴ take an approach different from Anselm, and these differences are metaphysically significant.⁵ I will show that these differences avoid the confessional pitfalls of Anselm’s case, making Plantinga’s argument compatible with N-C Trinitarianism. Therefore, advocates of N-C Trinitarianism should be careful to differentiate these versions of the argument, since only one is compatible with the N-C confession of faith.

Before delving into this topic, two qualifications are in order. The first is this. Throughout this essay, I presume the N-C view of the Trinity is the view laid bare and defended by the Cappadocian fathers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. That is to say, my position is that the Cappadocians provide the proper historical backdrop for a right interpretation of the council of Constantinople. I realize that some oppose this view. This essay is not about this historical question, however. Hence, for those who deny that the council, and thus N-C Trinitarianism, should be read in light of the Cappadocians, the question of this essay narrows to a more modest question, Is the God of the Ontological Argument the God of the Cappadocians? My choice to frame this essay the way I have reflects my understanding of N-C commitments. If one disagrees, the question of this essay narrows, but this narrowing does not invalidate the incompatibility here expounded.

The second qualification is this. My concern in this essay is not whether Anselm’s argument or Plantinga’s arguments work, and thus I will give little attention to the soundness of their respective cases. My concern is simply to demonstrate that the commitments of Anselm’s case are incompatible with the commitments of N-C Trinitarianism, while Plantinga’s argument need not be.⁶

The God of Anselm and the Locus of Existence

Anselm’s argument appears in the second and third chapters of his Proslogion seu alloquium de Dei existentia. In chapter 2, Anselm defines God as “a being than which nothing greater can be conceived,”⁷ a premise he takes to be self-evident, since even “the fool,” who says there is no God (Ps 14:1) grants this in his denial of God.⁸ Anselm then suggests that the concept of God must exist either in the mind only or in the mind and reality.⁹ This premise may strike the modern reader as odd, but it is firmly rooted in medieval modal logic.¹⁰ Within medieval modal thinking, the categories of impossible, possible but not necessary, and possible and necessary presume a form of realism that determines modalities based on the relationship between logical possibility (the thing in the mind) and existence (the thing in reality).

To illustrate, the modal assessment of a “thing” begins with an assessment of the terms posited. Specifically, do the predicates ascribed to the subject produce a formal contradiction? Human, for example, places before the mind a rational (specific difference) animal (genus), to use Aristotle’s method of defining a term.¹¹ No formal contradiction appears in this subject-predicate combination. Nor does any arise when adding bipedal, two-armed, ten-fingered, etc. We thus have before us a logical possibility. The next question is whether this possible thing exists in the mind only or in the mind and reality. A look in the mirror demonstrates one instance of human conjoined with existence. Hence, this possible being exists in both mind and reality. As for whether human is contingent or necessary, the answer concerns yet another subject-predicate relationship: Does the negation of the predicate “exists” in reference to “human” yield a formal contradiction? Nothing in the definition of human seems to entail existence, and if we grant that there was a time when humanity did not exist, then this confirms that existence can be negated of human without contradiction. At that time, human existed in the mind only as a logical possibility, nothing more. From all of this it follows that human is a possible but not necessary (i.e., contingent) being.¹²