How We Believe_ Science and the Search for God - Michael Shermer [65]
Reversing the argument, Anselm says it is equally impossible to think of God as nonexistent:
For something can be thought of as existing, which cannot be thought of as not existing, and this is greater than that which can be thought of as not existing. Thus, if that than which a greater cannot be thought can be thought of as not existing, this very thing than which a greater cannot be thought is not that than which a greater cannot be thought. But this is contradictory. So, then, there truly is a being than that which a greater cannot be thought—so truly that it cannot even be thought of as not existing.
Counterargument. Anselm’s somewhat confusing logical twists and turns are examples of the word play often found in these arguments. What does it mean to be perfect? Obviously no human can know, yet we are the creators of the concept itself. We can envision some maximal level of perfection and then argue that God must be above this, but what does that mean? No human can possibly know. And why couldn’t an argument antithetical to Anselm’s be made?: There is then, something which is falsest, something worst, something ignoblest. Therefore there must also be something that is to all beings the cause of falsity, badness, and ignobility. And this we call God.
Further, continuing the Flatland analogy from Chapter 1, why couldn’t God, who is said to be omniscient, conceive of something even greater than perfection? The square thought the sphere the highest state of being, until he became a cube and realized there could be still higher states. The upper boundary of perfection is simply defined as such by our admittedly limited human mind. Does it not seem reasonable to argue that whatever state of “perfection” we might imagine, there could conceivably be a higher state? As with the concept of infinity, whatever number the mind can create as the seemingly largest, you can always add one to it. Why stop at God?
As for it being impossible to think of God as nonexistent, it seems equally impossible to think of nonexistence at all. Is it really possible to conceive of absolutely nothing—no galaxies, no stars, no planets, no life, no molecules, no atoms, no space, no time, no energy—no anything? The concept is epistemologically void. It neither proves nor disproves anything.
5.
The Design/Teleological Argument. Aquinas’s fifth way deals with “the governance of things.” Since “natural bodies act for an end,” and yet lack knowledge, they must have been designed. “Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are ordered to their end; and this being we call God.” Modern design arguments are more sophisticated and involve the intricacies of design in nature, such as symbiotic relationships between organisms like insects and flowers, or the apparent “anthropic” design of the cosmos—that is, it is precisely suited for the evolution of life.
Counterargument. Design arguments from nature are untenable by the simple fact that nature is not as beautifully designed nor as “perfect” as believers would have us think. The python’s hind legs—unarticulated bones buried in flesh and totally useless—are indications of quirky and contingent evolution, not divine creation. Similarly, the whale’s flipper—complete with useless humanlike upper arm, forearm, hand and finger bones—is obviously the evolutionary by-product of mammalian evolution, not the handiwork of a divine Geppetto. The anthropic cosmological principle will be dealt with below in the section on scientific arguments for God, but suffice it to say that any universe with the configuration that gives rise to pattern-seeking animals will appear designed, and those universes with laws that do not lead to life will not appear designed.