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Question: Does a premise based on subjectivity compromise a logical argument seeking to conclude with an objective conclusion/claim?

I've been thinking about Anselm's Ontological Argument for the Existence of God (Anselm: Ontological Argument for God’s Existence). The logical argument can be presented as follows:

P1: It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (that is, the greatest possible being that can be imagined).

P2: God exists as an idea in the mind.

P3: A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.

P4: Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist).

P5: But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.)

C1: Therefore, God exists.

I can't help but think that this argument makes God's existence dependent on human subjective thoughts. If this argument was applied before humans walked the Earth and there was no one to conceptualize the "greatest possible being," then, under this argument, did God not exist before humans were able to conceptualize him, and then later spring into existence when human's did conceptualize him? What if humans never existed at all? In that hypothetical world would this argument suggest that even if God created the Universe, he does not exist because rational beings have not conceptualized him? This seems to be a contradiction.

Regarding further subjectivity, I assume and would predict that most people have a different complete conception of the Greatest Being. Anselm fixed the definition (in my opinion to define his way to a conclusion), but if everyone has a different subjective belief as to what the Greatest Being is, could that imply that every different conception of the Greatest Being also exists, all at the same time?

Does this make the conclusion (the existence of God) subjective rather than objective? I am assuming (and believe) that most arguments on God's existence are aimed to be objective.

I will note that I do believe in God, but I believe the Ontological Argument is not a firm or logical foundation for one's belief in the objective existence of God.

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    Subjective/objective are both the correct terms. A valid argument "transfer" truth: if the premises are true the conclusion will be true.
    – Mauro ALLEGRANZA
    Commented Nov 22 at 18:12
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    There is a tension regarding "ideas": are they subjective (a product of the mind)? Or they have an objective content... Descartes tried the second way: we cannot produce by our own limited mind alone the idea of God
    – Mauro ALLEGRANZA
    Commented Nov 22 at 18:20
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    If humans were not around then we would not have the premise, so this argument for God's existence depends on humans existing. But it does not mean that its conclusion depends on that. It is quite common in mathematics, for example, to have proofs that depend on existence of some auxiliary objects or on making some arbitrary choices, while what is being proved is independent of them.
    – Conifold
    Commented Nov 22 at 19:31
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    The standard proof of Menelaus's theorem about a line crossing a triangle uses perpendiculars and lengths of segments, i.e. depends on existence of angles and distances, but the claim itself is purely projective, i.e. holds in projective geometry where there are no angles or distances.
    – Conifold
    Commented Nov 22 at 19:49
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    @DHershberger04 IDK what's illogical about it. You can't write a critique about Anselm's argument without accidentally paraphrasing a 12th or 13th century monk, and if you manage to do it without accidentally paraphrasing a saint, it's quite a surprise.
    – g s
    Commented Nov 22 at 21:15

4 Answers 4

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All arguments are subjective, based on our interpretation of our experiences and our reasoning capability.

We don't have access to objective means of coming to conclusions.

But certainly "subjective" doesn't mean everything is just opinion. We have developed very robust and reliable means of evaluating evidence and coming to conclusions (e.g. the scientific method, statistics and principles of logic). The overwhelming majority of people following these methods reach the same conclusions on a great many things (and we also know e.g. that logical arguments with more abstract premises are not particularly reliable - there is huge amounts of disagreement about the soundness of such abstract arguments, making them a fairly useless method of coming to conclusions).

The more important considerations are:

  • Whether we have good reason to accept any given premise.

  • Whether the argument is free from flaws in reasoning, as best we can tell.

  • Whether you can convince others of the above 2 points.

    If you can convince someone that your argument is sound, that should be sufficient to convince them of your conclusion, regardless of whether the premises are objectively true.

Anselm's argument is just defining God into existence. Replace "God" by "Roland, the all-powerful goblin that lives in my closet", and the argument would be equally valid (but also, Roland lives in a closet, which God doesn't, so Roland has a property which God doesn't, which means Roland is greater than God? /s).

If you want to get more technical:

  • It's defining greatness to include existence.
  • It's defining God to have the property of (maximal) greatness.
  • This boils down to just defining God to exist in the 1st premise (paired with the 3rd premise).

It's just a roundabout begging the question fallacy, i.e. assuming the conclusion in the premises.

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    +1 "But certainly "subjective" doesn't mean everything is just opinion." The OP should understand how important the distinction between opinion and subjectivity is.
    – J D
    Commented Nov 22 at 19:47
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If this argument was applied before humans walked the Earth and there was no one to conceptualize the "greatest possible being," then, under this argument, did God not exist before humans were able to conceptualize him, and then later spring into existence when human's did conceptualize him? What if humans never existed at all?

There are lines of attack against Anselm's argument (you can find a zillion of them by clicking on the Ontological Argument tag under your question), but this isn't one.

  • God has mind, so "could God exist before mind?" can be answered "no" without concluding that God could not exist. Could furry bears exist before fur? No. Could they exist before furry lions? Sure.

  • "A implies B" does not imply "not-A implies not-B". See: denying the antecedent. Anselm's argument is of the form "God in mind implies God in reality." "God in reality implies God in mind" does not follow.

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  • Thinking while at work. Maybe I'm attacking the definition more so than the conclusion. This needs more thought and work from me: P1: If a time exists when human's did not think of the greatest being, then this Anslem's Arg fails to show God existed at that time. P2: At some point in time, Humans did not/could not think of God (either by humans not existing, or not having the mental capacity). P3: Another characteristic of God is that he outside of time or has always existed. He's not dependent on humans. C1: Therefore humans thinking of God is not necessary for God's existence.
    – DHershberger04
    Commented Nov 22 at 20:32
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    @DHershberger04 No argument about a God concept can exist unless a God concept exists simultaneously. An argument that doesn't exist neither shows anything nor fails to show anything.
    – g s
    Commented Nov 22 at 20:49
  • I like your phrasing there. Is it akin to "we don't know what we don't know"? So is there a question about whether or not humans actually conceptualized God or the greatest being? Or if they held an idea in their minds of God that was taken from another sentient being? In Genesis (which I subscribe to), God revealed himself to Adam and Eve in the Garden. Adam and Eve held the idea but did not conceptualize (depending on definition) or invent the idea of God. This knowledge was taught and passed down. God revealed himself to Paul in the New Testament.
    – DHershberger04
    Commented Nov 22 at 21:14
  • If formulated properly, does this mean Anselm's argument uses circulatory reasoning or bootstrapping to reach it's conclusion (maybe in a fuzzy way). God revealed himself to humans (God conceptualized the idea of God), humans held the belief of God from the revelation, because humans hold the idea of God, he exists. Shortening using "if A then B..." God conceptualized the idea of God, the greatest possible being, therefore God, the greatest possible being, exists.
    – DHershberger04
    Commented Nov 22 at 21:16
  • @DHershberger04 try SEP
    – g s
    Commented Nov 22 at 21:36
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The answer to your title question is "yes". But the answer to the body of your question is "no". If there were no humans, then this argument for God would not work, but the fact that a particular argument fails to prove a being existence does nothing to disprove the existence of that being. For instance, we now have very strong evidence for the existence of Pluto. A thousand years ago, humans had access to virtually no evidence for Pluto. But Pluto existed a thousand years ago just as much as it does now.

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Arguments based on what humans can imagine do not necessarily require that there be humans around to do the imagining. They just depend on being able to enumerate the capacity of human understanding once they do exist, and compare the attributes of the concept under discussion with this capacity.

By analogy, a plant on an uninhabited island may be poisonous to humans, even though there are no humans there to consume it and be poisoned. In both cases, we can posit "If there were humans...."

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  • Your answer is very insightful, and I clearly did not apply my propositions and thoughts out to other logical arguments like you provided here.
    – DHershberger04
    Commented Nov 22 at 20:55
  • Your answer also led me to ask another question... What is the definition of "conceptualization"? In Anselm's argument, does this mean just to have the thought regardless of origin? Or does it mean for every human to have started from scratch, nothing, and "invented" their conception of God completely on their own without external factors?
    – DHershberger04
    Commented Nov 22 at 20:55
  • In my work, I often see "concepts" not being original to a person, but rather an idea based on someone else's conception. What if humans never conceptualized the greatest being, but received the idea from some other being's conceptualization. I was raised in the Church by Christian parents, my first idea of God was not my own invention, but copying my parents stated ideas. My parents' idea has a similar origin, and so on.
    – DHershberger04
    Commented Nov 22 at 20:55
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    It doesn't matter if humans ever conceptualize it. The argument is about what we can possibly conceptualize, regardless of whether we actually do so.
    – Barmar
    Commented Nov 22 at 20:57
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    The story of Adam and Eve does add a wrinkle to this, since the nature of humans and what they can imagine may have changed when they ate the apple. So which kind of humans does the argument refer to? I guess Anselm only considered post-Eden humans.
    – Barmar
    Commented Nov 22 at 21:01

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