Is anyone familiar with Kurt Godel’s ontological proof for the existence of God? I read about it a few years back, but I can’t quite remember the particular thrust of his argument. Any sources for the argument itself and additional critiques/analyses (by anyone) would be appreciated.
Hmmm, I’d never heard of Godel’s ontological argument before, even though I’ve studied this topic. I found this web site discussing it. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but it looks like it might be interesting. (I ran a search on Google with “kurt godel god” and got bunches of hits.)
I find it interesting that Godel would attempt such a proof. He is best known as a mathematician and author of Godel’s proof, which basically states that any mathematical system contains unprovable propositions. I’d argue that the same holds for any religious system, with “God” being one of those unprovable propositions.
You might have better luck searching if you spell his name the way it’s meant to be spelled: Gödel. Or maybe not, since it is very often spelled Godel, or Goedel.
“Godel” seems to work find – it picks up “Gödel” pages. I couldn’t remember how to get the ö and was too lazy look it up. In this post, I just copied and pasted from bibliophage’s post. 
IIRC, it’s something like:
- Existance is good
- God is good
- Therefore, God exists
I’ve probably messed up the order a bit.
Hmmm, let me try Tim’s Ontological Proof…
- Cheese is good
- God is good
- Therefore God exists … or he’s cheese (I’m not sure which)
The ontological proof (or argument) for the existence of God goes back at least to St. Anselm (1033-1109).
The Catholic Encyclopedia sums it up thusly:
I suppose if I told everyone what I think of all this it would be getting into Great Debates territory (or maybe even the Pit), so I shall refrain.
I did some research on this last year some time, and if you’re really interested, I could eventually dig up the sources. Basically, Godel took Anslem’s argument, gussied it up in Modal Logic (a verison of symbolic logic that, among other things, lets you talk about necessity and possibility). To flesh it out a little more, you define God as having all the properties that are “good”, and then prove the necessity of the existance of such a being.
The math is pretty sound, but the philosophy needs a bit of work–starting with his definition of “good”–it’s decidedly sketchy and imprecise. But it’s interesting reading, if nothing else.
I just checked JeffB’s link, and that’s the site I ended up relying on pretty heavily. There were others, but that one’s definitely a good start.
Everyone, especially, JeffB and Erika, thanks…
I was aware of Anselm’s ontological proof - I just couldn’t remember how Godel approached the problem.
originally posted by MEBuckner
Hmm…I’d be interested in hearing what you think. I have some problems with it as well. Want to start a new thread in GD?
Ah, why not?