Maverick Philosopher

S. K.’s thought in this entry is fundamentally confused. Anselm’s prayer and thanksgiving prove that he believes that God exists; they do not prove that God exists. The ontological proof, however, if successful proves that God exists and would exist even if no one were led by it to a living faith in God. S.K. is confusing the belief that God exists with the existence of God. Anselm’s actions prove his belief, but they do not prove the object of the belief.

One might reply that, existentially, all that matters is the belief. But existentially it should also matter whether one’s beliefs are true, whether one is living in the truth or in illusion. This too is a matter of one’s authenticity.

S. K. sees a contradiction in Anselm where there is none, and it all comes about because of his inability to draw a simple distinction between belief and the object of belief. Or is S. K. willfully refusing to draw that distinction?

But even S. K.’s use of ‘contradiction’ is out of place. His point is that the ontological proof is superfluous given Anselm’s belief as expressed in his prayer and thanksgiving. To give a superfluous proof, however, is not to contradict oneself. S. K. cannot seem to understand the notion of fides quarens intellectum, faith seeking understanding. His position teeters on the brink of an intolerable subjectivism in which all questions of objective truth go by the board.

1. The first sentence’s literary effect depends on an equivocation on ‘God.’ In its first occurrence, it denotes God, in its second, our conception of God.

2. The equivocation on ‘God’ is logically harmless, and the thought is coherent: God creates man, and man creates a concept of God that reflects human limitations. S. K. does not confuse God with the concept of God in the way Feuerbach does.

3. The discursive intellect’s only access to God is via the God-concept. Feuerbach confuses this concept with God and then traces the origin of the concept to an unconscious anthropomorphic projection/idealization. The Feuerbachian thesis that God is an anthropomorphic projection unconsciously made thus begs the question against the existence of God. Indeed, the thesis is equivalent to the thesis that God does not exist. For it is clear from the very concept of God as causa sui that God cannot be a human projection. The very concept of God analytically entails that God cannot be a human concept. For the concept of God is the concept of something that exists whether or not we exist. Of course, the existence of God does not follow from the mere concept of God. The ontological proof aus lauter Begriffen (as Kant puts it) is invalid. But from the concept of God we can legitimately infer that God cannot be a human concept or any sort of human projection. Therefore, Feuerbach does not by a long shot prove the nonexistence of God via his explication of the concept of God as resting on idealization of human attributes and their projection into reality; Feuerbach begs the question by presupposing the nonexistence of God.

4. Kierkegaard, by contrast, rightly stands firm on the distinction between God and any concept of God. God is not a mere concept projected into reality; God is a reality inadequately reflected (re-created) in our concepts. We don’t create God; we re-create God in our concepts of God. Indeed, we re-create God in our own image and likeness.

5. At the end of the day, after all the dialectical maneuvers have been executed, one must simply decide what one is going to believe and how one is going to live. There is an inexpungeable element of decisionism here. Kierkegaard’s decisionism is extreme and untenable; but he sees the truth albeit through the distorting lense of his being, as he says, a “corrective.”

6. But can one decide what one is going to believe? Does belief come under the control of the will? Surely not all beliefs do. A limited doxastic voluntarism does, however, strike me as tenable. But this is a large topic best left for later.