poem 1658 Anselm’s Ontological Argument, in Verse. The skeptic seeks a proof but has always had it In the very concept, understood aright. What Can mortals know of God, save the He is what we Are not? What can mortals know of God, except that God is limitless? Verily unbounded in Power, knowledge, or the good – but limited in Existence? How so? What is by definition Limitless cannot be limited, and cannot Therefore be limited in existence. To think God’s nonexistence is to contradict oneself; What cannot be thought without inconsistency Or absurdity is necessarily false – Its negation, therefore, must be true. The skeptic’s Doubt negates itself in its very expression. But what of a limitless island? If it were Truly unlimited, must it not, according To this logic, exist? If an island could be Unlimited, perhaps, but could it? An island Is defined by its boundaries, encirclement By water, as are all things, save one. Why should we Accept that reduction in limit yields increase Of being, which seems not a thing predicated In inverse proportion to limit. It seems, but Do we know? We know only that the limitless Does not exist in any neighborhood of the Universe that we can see from here. Perhaps in Some place we cannot see limitless existence Occurs. Is that not, after all, the very point? If nonexistence is some sort of limit on Existence, then a limitless deity must Be; if limitation is a precondition Of existence without which no thing may be, then A limitless deity is impossible. But which is it? To answer, we would have to know The nature of existence and its relation To limitation – but this we do not know, and Likely never will. Anselm proves a disjunction: Either existence increases with a decrease In limit and God necessarily exists, Or existence without limit is a thing that Cannot be, nor therefore the possibility Of a worthy deity. Either/or, but which?
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 17:18:44 +0000
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