--- Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote: We cannot do the same about 'god' without running into blatant absurdities. An anthropomorphic creature running the entire universe? This is absurd on its face. Some nebulous "force" or "spirit"?
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How about "a being greater than which no other can be conceived"? :)
I always think of Mr. T when I read this. St. Anselm: "I pity da Fool!"
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CHAPTER II.
Truly there is a God, although the fool has said in his heart, There is no God.
AND so, Lord, do you, who do give understanding to faith, give me, so far as you knowest it to be profitable, to understand that you are as we believe; and that you are that which we believe. And indeed, we believe that you are a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. Or is there no such nature, since the fool has said in his heart, there is no God? (Psalms xiv. 1). But, at any rate, this very fool, when he hears of this being of which I speak --a being than which nothing greater can be conceived --understands what be hears, and what he understands is in his understanding; although he does not understand it to exist.
For, it is one thing for an object to be in the understanding, and another to understand that the object exists. When a painter first conceives of what he will afterwards perform, he has it in his understanding, but be does not yet understand it to be, because he has not yet performed it. But after he has made the painting, be both has it in his understanding, and he understands that it exists, because he has made it.
Hence, even the fool is convinced that something exists in the understanding, at least, than which nothing greater can be conceived. For, when he hears of this, he understands it. And whatever is understood, exists in the understanding. And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.
Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/anselm-proslogium.html#CHAPTER%20II
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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