By Anantaram das ( Hector Rosario )
Dear friends and colleagues,
I am attaching a paper I presented on Sep 29th at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. The conference was co-sponsored by the Bhaktivedanta Institute.
I am interested in getting your comments. Please, be kind enough to send them. Also, if you know of an appropriate publishing venue, please let me know.
Thank you.
Hector
P.S. Here’s the abstract, the first paragraph of the introduction, and the conclusion. This may motivate you to read the paper.
Abstract: I (de)construct an ontological argument based on Gödel’s proof and Oppy’s parody. This approach addresses (1) omnipotence as a defining characteristic of God; (2) the existence of the soul; and (3) God’s existence and individuality.
0. Introduction
It is generally accepted that God’s existence can neither be proved nor disproved scientifically. However, Tarski argued that every mathematical science is deductive, and every deductive science is mathematical. Therefore, I propose that the existence of God can be proved scientifically – using mathematical logic or some other deductive method – provided we agree on a definition of God, a set of axioms, and some rules of inference. *
* A reader may invoke Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems as a counterargument. For such a potential misunderstanding, I recommend T. FranzĂ©n’s Gödel’s Theorem: An Incomplete Guide to Its Use and Abuse, 2005.
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9. Conclusion
I have purposely used the term existence rather loosely trusting that the reader may have a better sense than I about what that is. With that concession, I have given a sketch for a scientific proof of God’s (Platonic) existence. That is, for a God that is consistent with some essential aspects of Vaishnavism, like omnipotence. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing, for ascribing reality to such a god would imply ascribing reality to all logical truths – to this I object. (In this age of religious intolerance, I should guard against Pythagorean fundamentalists.) But why would anyone create an ontological argument and then whack it like a 5 de Mayo piñata? Well, deductive thought is seductive. Yet, the mystery of spiritual life often escapes our purview.
http://www.dandavats.com/wp-content/uploads/vaishnavaontologicalargument-rosario.pdf
Prabhu,
I still need to read the paper through, but also working on a dissertation in the history of science so this topic comes up all the time from that perspective.
One general thought I’ve been having concerning “proof” of God’s existence – isn’t the material nature designed such that one can see anything, everything, or nothing concerning the existence of a Supreme Deity? That’s the whole point of it – to allow the jiva to indulge in a wide variety of misconstrued fantasies that appear to limit or remove Krsna’s presence.
When the heart is a little pious then one might begin to look for evidence of God’s existence, but even then, its not that we will be able to capture Krsna with our intelligence. Human intelligence can only guide us in a certain direction, and then at some point one has to begin to approach Krsna with a sense of friendship and devotion, or bhakti, like that. Ultimately Krsna (and the self) is only fully revealed through devotional service, as we say.
So that’s just some general idea, but nonetheless, these things have been discussed by philosophers since time beyond memory, so best to turn the tempo of the debate towards something of lasting value, no doubt about it.
Sthita-dhi-muni dasa
Dear Prabhuji,
Dandavats. Please, kindly read the entire document to understand the mood and content. It was Srila Prabhupada who requested a “scientific proof” of the existence and personality of Godhead. I simply tried to please him. If you read thoroughly, you will notice a frontal attack to the very basis of scientific knowledge: faith in logical truth.
Humbly in service,
Anantaram das
Anantaram Prabhu:
Dandavats! I just skimmed through your article, but it will take me time to actually go through it line by line and page by page.
I am not familiar with Godel’s argument or Oppy’s parody, and I have really only undergraduate level training in Philosophy and symbolic logic, so it will take me some time to read it with the care it deserves and fully appreciate it.
Even just quickly going over it for 15 or 20 minutes, though, I can see how beautiful it is. I am very happy that there are devotees with your professional qualifications making contributions to professional Philosophy.
Your final paragraph expresses a kind of fatalistic, beautiful despair. Please do not lose heart. Remember the sparrow who began to peck away the ocean with her tiny beak, and how Garuda, being pleased with her determination, took her side and made the ocean give back her eggs.
The mundane scientists and philosophers are just paper tigers, really. If you and others like you keep up the good work of applying your philosophical prowess to spreading Krishna consciousness, at some point there will undoubtedly be marvellous results.
Srila Prabhupada sometimes said that the Bhaktivedanta Institute was the most important project. Intellectuals may be sometimes a little harder to reach because of their pride, but at the present time they are basically leading the world straight to hell, so if Krishna consciousness can capture the intellectual leaders it will be a great victory.
Lord Caitanya took sannyasa so that the intellectual leaders of Hi time (mayavadi sannyasis) could be saved. It is worth a great effort and sacrifice to effectively preach to the academic and intellectual leaders of our time.
Please keep up the good work!
There definitely is something appealing about pure logic and mathematics, a sense that it is unsullied by faulty sense perception and the murkiness of matter. (Most devotees tend to be Platonists at heart, and it sure seems Plato himself must have had at least some indirect contact with Bhagavat philosophy)
I can see how one could be enthusiastic about a purely logical proof of God’s existence, and crestfallen in concluding that logic has its limits. I do not really know enough about Godel and Tarski to fully appreciate the ideas here, though.
There were ontological arguments for the existence of God even in the pre-Christian classical world. I attended a lecture years ago about one such argument, but I do not remember who the (probably Roman) author was. I know everyone says Anselm’s was first, but there were predecessors.
In the middle ages in Europe ontological arguments were considered more high class in a way than other arguments such as “design” arguments and the need for a prime mover.
I do not know why ontological arguments fell out of favor by the 19th century. Maybe Kant’s critique had something to do with it, but it seems more like there was just a change in fashion. I am curious, I have not directly researched that history.
Anantarama, I have tried to read your article but it is still over my head. I have to spend a long time with it and that is time I do not have right now, even to just go through the proof. I do look forward to some day grappling with the modern ontological arguments of Godel et al, and also to get a better picture of the overall life and work of Kurt Godel. I am glad there are devotees with your level of proficiency in modern Philosophy.
Pamho,
Nice to see such an argument. But it should be possible to express it with words that everyone can easily understand. Why not do so? Just the argument itself. Then more devotees can give feed back. Personally I like the moral argument and the argument from absolute values better. Also I find the design argument appealing. I never saw an ontological argument which I found convincing. Its funny how some devotees doesn’t like logic. Prabhupada used the design argument over and over and said that it was evidence of a God. So I can’t understand why some devotees do not accept this argument and argue against it – as for example when they reject Intelligent Design. Anyway, that’s maybe a little off topic.
Dandavats Akrutanatha and Ajit Prabhujis,
Thank you for your kind words and appreciation. The language of the argument itself is technical and one must learn the language to fully grasp it. There is no need for that, though. Prabhupada wanted a scientific proof of the existence and personality of Godhead. Here it is. For someone who has faith in Krishna, this argument is irrelevant. It is meant to attract scientifically inclined disbelievers. However, I have been thinking of a general argument against ontological arguments that the conclusion motivates the proof. In a way, it’s true because the conclusion does motivate the axioms. However, the problem is much more fundamental: it resides in our belief that axioms must be “self-evident” or “inherently true” to tell us something about truth. In actuality, I argue that our faith in logical truth is misplaced. It is nothing but an invention, just like mathematics. This, of course, is a high philosophical price to pay for it essentially renders useless the deductive process. Well, the deductive process has its value: it helps us to make life a little more comfortable or a little less, but there is another epistemological process which is much more important. It is the impulse behind creativity and invention and has often been misconstrued as revelation. I may write an article about this process later. Ironically, I will have to defend my position using deductive reasoning! But avaroha pantha (the descending process or parampara) must be explained and defended, and aroha pantha (the deductive process) should be used to assist in this task.
Hari bol,
Anantaram das
One time I was playing the “devil’s advocate” role of a Mayavadi and Acyutananda (a brilliant, gifted debater) was defeating me.
I said, “the Absolute Truth is beyond logic”, and he replied, “but *you* want it to be *illogical*” (or words to that effect).
The point is that we do not abandon logic and reason altogether. We understand God is superior to logic and reason. (Who was that Irish writer who challenged Srila Prabhupada in an airplane, “If God can do anything, can He create a rock so big that even He cannot lift it?” And Prabhupada replied, without missing a beat, “Yes. And *then* He’ll lift it!”)
So, we cannot encompass God within our puny logic. He is greater than logic. But at the same time we can apply our logic to understanding God. It is a tool He has given us, to distinguish true arguments from “nonsense”.
I read something about logic once from Bhaktivinode Thakur. It might be part of the “Bhagavat” lecture. He basically says logic can take us only so far, but it should not be permitted to hinder love. (My memory of it is very dim). He used a metaphor about a bird and its wings being clipped (by logic), but I cannot remember it.
Ajita Krishna,
My own very oversimplified and perhaps poorly remembered explanation of Anselm’s ontonlogical proof of God’s existence is that it went something like this (I think Anantarama explains it much better in his paper):
We can conceive of a Supreme Being.
Such a Supreme Being either really exists (outside of our concept of Him) or does not exist.
A Supreme Being who exists in reality is more “Supreme” that a Supreme Being who merely exists in our mental conception.
Therefore, the Supreme Being exists in reality.
To the question of whether the same argument could apply to prove the existence of, for example, an “island more perfect than any known island”, St. Anselm replied that the concept of God as a Supreme Being is different from the concept of a perfect island.
The idea is that there is something in our very ideas about the nature of God and about existence that logically compels the conclusion that God exists.
A lot of very intelligent people have considered that this approach to proving the existence of God works, and provides valuable insights into the existence of God. Others have said that the argument is false, and have tried to show that similar arguments could be made to prove absurd results.
It seems that in order to make the ontological argument work for you, you have to refine your concept of God.
Srila Prabhupada’s Introduction to Srimad Bhagavatam begins, “The conception of God and the conception of the Absolute Truth are not on the same level. The Srimad Bhagavatam hits on the target of the Absolute Truth. The conception of God indicates the controller, whereas the conception of Absolute Truth indicates the summum bonum or the ultimate source of all energies.”
[“Summum bonum” is Latin for “highest good”, but also resembles the Sanskrt “param satyam” which Srila Prabhupada defines in the Introduction as “Absolute Truth”.]
[In Sanskrt truth and goodness are both conveyed by the word “satyam”, whereas in Latin truth (“veritas”) and goodness may be more easily separated, linguistically and conceptually. That is not to say, necessarily, that good Latins were less truthful than good Aryans. :-) ]
It seems that Anselm’s ontological argument may have imported some of the conception of Absolute Truth as “highest good” or most perfect existence (if not ultimate source of all energies) into Christian theology.
Srila Prabhupada’s Intro. to S.B. goes on to say that there is no controversy over whether “God as controller” is a person, but implies there might be some controversy over whether the “param satyam” (Absolute Truth) is a person. The Srimad Bhagavatam establishes that the Absolute Truth is the supreme controller from whom other, smaller gods or controllers derive their power, and the supreme conscious personality, i.e. the Supreme Person.
Absolute is sentient, Thou has proved
Impersonal calamity, Thou has removed
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>its funny how some devotees doesn’t like logic. Prabhupada used the design argument over and over and said that it was evidence of a God. So I can’t understand why some devotees do not accept this argument and argue against it – as for example when they reject Intelligent Design.
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the issue there is that you can’t conclusively test the proposition – at least not with any known science, which is an empirical discipline employing naturalistic methods.
thus scientifically proving (and there is no scientific proof of anything – every conclusion is tentative based on available evidence and a hypothesis that offers an apparently ‘most’ reasonable fit) God is impossible. What are you going to do – put an alleged God in a test tube with a dye, and if it turns blue, viola, Krsna!!
But more seriously, I think part of this issue with “proving” God with Science it the idea somehow Science can actually prove something. It can’t, via its own philosophical parameters. There is always more evidence, and always more hypotheses. And Prabhupada even said so!!
Nonetheless. the design argument is a powerful philosophical argument. But as with every logical argument, it can always be counter argued. Such is the bliss of punditry.
But I wish I could follow the technical philosophy involved better – its a whole language! But it is most important as it helps set a tone for the conversation among high end philosophers, and then subsequently the culture at large.
Argument from design is good. Many arguments are good. Whether they will fit within what atheistic scientists are willing to accept as “science” is another story.
The theories that life arose by “chance” from an organic soup, and then all the variety of species developed through mutation and natural selection, just through the known laws of Physics and Chemistry, are not easy to support. Drutakarma and Sadaputa have done great work in this field, as have many others.
Regarding specifically Anantarama’s paper on Godel’s ontological argument, I admire Anantarama’s idea that reworking the idea of “God” to “God-like”, in order to account for innumerable jiva souls and thus handle Oppy’s criticism that the proof would yield the neceesary existence of multiple Gods.
I would like to suggest another idea to Anantarama (I do not know if he considered this). Unlike the Abrahamic traditions, the Bhaktivedanta tradition also admits that God Himself has an infinite number of forms, personalities, pastimes, and sva-amsa expansions.
Ramadi murtisa kala niyamena tisthan. . .
It seems the Christians have a very poor conception of God, that he has only one son. According to Vedic tradition, a woman who has only one son is considered barren.
Of course, the idea I suppose is that a man with one son will love that son very dearly, but God does not have these human attributes. He can have 16,108 wives, each wife in her own palace, and each one seeing He spends every night with her alone.
That is God’s fullness. Not only does He have innumerable sons, but He divides Himself into innumeral Fathers as well, each one effortlessly able to give full attention to each son. Yet He remains indivisible. (There, He does defy logic, but He is not *illogical*, He is greater than logic can comprehend, and the contours of that greatness can be described)
He is only One, because there can only be One complete Absolute without a second. Yet at the same time, just as one candle can light innumerable candles that glow with the same power, God can expand Himself into an infinite number of “plenary” (i.e., fully complete) expansions, all of which are that same infinite God.
So, rather than modify Godel’s formulation of the proof to show he is only proving the existence of unlimited God-like jivas, why not have it show that there are unlimited plenary (Vishnu-tattva) expansion of got. The Abrahamic theologians should get their intellects around that important concept.
The Jews and Muslims (moreso than the Christians perhaps), fear that if God is personal that makes Him limited. He does not even have a single actual son, just some very human prophets and a bunch of angels, and so on. They cannot conceive how He can be omnipresent without being some kind of formless spirit.
Of course, they are right that He has no material form. He is sac-cid-ananada vigraha. But they should understand that He necessarily has *unlimited* transcendental forms. Otherwise He is limited. Their conception of a formless, indivisible, single entity — to the exclusion of the bhagavan conception — actually limits Him.
For those struggling with the symbolic logic in this paper, the symbol “iff” can be translated as “if and only if”.
It is quite different to say “if x, then y”, as opposed to saying “y, if and only if x”.
For example, the statement “all cars have wheels” is like saying “if x is a car, then it has wheels”. The reverse is not true. Something can have wheels and not be a car. Having wheels is a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition for being a car.
To say “x has wheels if and only if it is a car” is a different proposition. That statement could be represented “x has wheels iff x is a car”. It would mean not only that any car has wheels, but also that anything with wheels is a car.
In the field of symbolic logic, different operations are represented by various symbols, and very long, complex statements can be operated on, just like mathematical equations.
People have gotten very good at logic, especially now when so much of our economy is based on computer programs which are fundamentally huge logical operations. But even in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a lot of work was being done to refine logic and rework the foundations of logic and mathematics.
Of course, logic was also an important part of classical philosophical literature and was known in ancient civilizations. An interesting historical note is that one of the leading early 20th century logicians, Gottlob Frege, recognized that the logic of ancient India (ancient Buddhist and Nyaya philosophers like Nagarjuna wrote texts on logic) was superior to that of ancient Greeks like Aristotle.
[Exactly what Frege said about Indian logic being superior and why is something I don’t know, but I could easily look it up if anyone is interested.]
I have been thinking about St. Anselm’s ontological argument lately from another direction, not from logic, but from a more literary angle.
I was thinking about how many writers used the Greco-Roman gods as literary devices, self-consciously allegorical, metaphorical, the apotheoses of abstract ideas or forces in nature.
This was true not only of medieval and renaissance Christian poets, but even of Greeks and Romans themselves, who sometimes seemed to relate to their own gods on two different levels, not just as faithful worshipers and supplicants, but also as creative writers who used the gods much in the way modern fiction writers may relate to the qualities and habits of their own characters and also to greater ideas they represent.
Anselm may have had the insight that there is something about the “character” of God, the supreme being, that makes His reality something more than the creation of our imagination, not an “artificial imposition on the mind.”
This is certainly true of Krishna. When nondevotees read Krishna Book, or even a good translation of Ramayana, they may initially think that they are reading some traditional mythology akin to fantasy literature. However, if they read with an open mind, they soon find that the characters come alive for them and have deep meaning for them.
On might argue the same could be said for geeks that get overly involved in Star Trek or Lord of the Rings, or role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons (I remember back in the ’80s young people were committing suicide when their D&D characters came to grief in the game). But that is just a perverted reflection of real devotion to God.
The insight of the ontological argument is that there is something different when the “character” you are dealing with is actually God. To think of the God character as an imaginary creation contradicts the very qualities of God, and interferes with the devotee’s ability to truly relate to God.
When one hears bona fide descriptions of the qualities and pastimes of God and His pure devotees from an impeccable source, the reality of the things described is immediately and ineluctably perceived.
To “distance” ourselves from this direct perception by considering these descriptions as mere literary creations would be an offensive attempt to subordinate God’s reality to our own limited intellects.
Our ability to conceive of God as real, as the source of even our own tiny brains, proves His reality.