Arguments for The Existence of God - Is The Ontological Argument For The Existence Of God Successful

Leibniz

 Is the Ontological Argument

for the existence of God successful?

   I

Introduction

Religion as a phenomenon of human consciousness is perhaps one of the most fascinating subjects for all historians. Right from the time when human beings began to think reflectively, there seems to have arisen a concept or belief in some kind of an invisible reality, a reality greater than a human being and even greater than our universe. It has been expressed in various ways in different parts of the world and in different cultures of the world. But there seems to be little doubt that the quest of man for God is a perennial quest, and even in periods of scepticism, people have been obliged to be preoccupied with the examination of the notion of God and with the affirmation or denial of the existence of God. Religions have been largely formulated around some conception of 'God', although it is true that religions like Buddhism and Jainism are atheistic in character. But even these atheistic religions affirm the reality of supra-physical entities and supra-physical states of consciousness far above the states of the body, life, and mind. In other words, these atheistic religions, too, have been guided by the discovery of what may be called divine states of consciousness, even though they might have rejected what is normally called 'God' in many other religions.

 Philosophy of religion is concerned not only with the determination of the meaning and significance of history of religions, but its primary concern has been that of a critical examination of the religious belief in God, in soul of man and in the concept of beliefs of immortality. In fact, even though many religious people may be inclined to accept the beliefs in God, soul and immortality on the basis of faith or on the basis of dogmas or on the basis of authority of revelations, there have been attempts throughout history to evaluate these concepts from the point of view of reason and to enquire whether what is normally held by many religious people on the basis of faith can also be grounded in rational thought. Many thinkers have rejected the claims of faith, or dogma, or the truth of revelations, but there have also been profound thinkers who have endeavoured to reflect critically on these important religious beliefs and have advanced rational arguments in defence of these beliefs.

      Thus the arguments for the existence of God have come to constitute a very important subject in philosophy of religion. The Ontological Argument for the existence of God is perhaps the most important among all the arguments, such as the Cosmological, Teleological, Moral, or Historical, since it is supposed to be implicitly assumed by all the other arguments.¹ This reinforces the importance of the Ontological Argument, and in this paper I have, impartially (as much as is possible), first of all, expounded it as formulated by various philosophers. Next, I have tried to evaluate it in the light of the criticisms which have been advanced against this argument.

      II

      The Ontological Argument has been a subject of intense philosophical interest. In its refined form, it was presented by Anselm (1033-1109 C. E.). But this formulation contains Platonism² and as it is known, Platonism has a close connection with Parmenides. It is interesting to observe that Parmenides attempted to prove that thought and reality are intimately related,

and that reality in its essential nature is eternal and self-existent. His formulation on this subject is as follows:

"Thou canst not know what is not — that is impossible — nor utter it. For it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be. How, then, can what is be going to be in the future? Or how could it come into being? If it came into being, it is not; not is it if it is going to be in the future. Thus is becomingextinguished and passing away not to be heard of. The thing that can be thought and that for the sake of which the thought exists is the same; for you cannot find thought without something that is, as to which it is uttered".³

          This statement of Parmenides appears to be present in various formulations of the Ontological Argument.

         Anselm's argument was criticised by some of his contemporaries, and most of the great modern philosophers like Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant have also put forward theistic arguments. Spinoza formulated the Ontological Argument within the system of his own metaphysics. After Kant had apparently refuted the ontological argument, Hegel (1770-1831 C. E.) reestablished it within the framework of his own metaphysical system. However, Kant's criticism of the Ontological Argument came to be reformulated in a new way by Bertrand Russell in the context of his theory of descriptions. Most of the contemporary philosophers have come to think that the ontological argument is not successful, although thinkers like Norman Malcolm (1911-1990 C. E.) and Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000 C. E.) have tried to resurrect the ontological argument. John Hick (1904-1989 C. E.) in his book, The Arguments for the Existence of God, has presented a critical statement of the Ontological Argument, which is quite instructive. Despite the fact that the ontological argument does not seem to have satisfied contemporary philosophers I feel that there is something valuable in the Ontological Argument along with other arguments, and that

they deserve to be revisited and even reformulated in the light of their intrinsic merits and in the light of the criticisms which have been levelled against them.

The Ontological Argument

      It is a psychological fact that in the human mind there is a concept called the concept of God.

      Now, the argument is that this concept of God is a unique concept. It is such a concept that that concept carries with it the assertion that God must be existing in actual objective reality. It is different from a statement such as: there is a golden mountain. In this statement there is nothing peculiar such that a golden mountain must exist objectively. That there is a concept of a golden mountain is granted. And there is no doubt that there can be an idea of the golden mountain but it does not follow that the golden mountain must exist outside the idea.

      The question thus arises as to what then is different about the concept of God. The Ontological Argument claims that the concept of God is a unique concept. It maintains that the idea of God is somewhat different from all other ideas in the world in that it carries with it the necessity of thinking that God must be existing in objective reality.

      III

      Classical Elucidations

      1. Anselm (1033-1109 C.E.)

      Anselm presents his proof in its scholastic form. He says that the concept of God is of a Being whom he describes as something than which nothing greater can be thought. And it follows, that an idea which exists only in the intellect(in intellectu) would not be as great as one which existed in real (in re) as well as in the intellect, therefore God must necessarily

exist.

      Anselm was satisfied with the idea of greatness as a description of God. But this argument left some questions unanswered such as the nature of this great Being. And thereafter the Ontological Argument was taken up by successive rationalist philosophers who attempted to make modifications in an attempt to make the argument more conclusive.

      2. Descartes (1596-1650 C.E.)

      Descartes is usually considered the founder of modern philosophy and might be called one of the most prominent rationalist philosophers. He described God as a Perfect being. And, if we are to state his argument in a simple form, it would run as follows:

      Perfection means that which lacks no attribute of perfection.

      Existence is one of the perfections.

      Therefore perfection cannot lack existence.

      Therefore perfection must have existence.

      Therefore Perfection must exist.

      In other words, Descartes asserts explicitly that "'existence is a perfection', i.e. a desirable attribute, which is more excellent to have than to lack; and he summarises his argument as that 'it is in truth necessary for me to assert that God exists after having presupposed that He possesses every sort of perfection, since existence is one of these'".⁴ In short, the argument maintains that the very notion of God involves His existence.

      He also offered a second form of the same argument according to which the idea of God, who is infinite and perfect, cannot be formed in man by any finite object, and must therefore be caused by God himself. He is the reason of the idea of Himself in man.

      But here again, the sceptic might raise the objection that much of the force of these proofs depends upon what is meant

by God. However, these two are essentially what are considered the best elucidations of the classical form of the ontological argument but the essence of the argument, we must remember, is that the psychological fact from which it starts is that there is in the human mind a concept of God and then the argument is that the reality of God is involved in the idea of God.

      3. Spinoza (1632-77 C.E.)

      The great rationalist movement that started off with Descartes was followed by two other famous philosophers who succeeded him: Spinoza and Leibniz. Descartes had already established that apart from the idea of God, and existence of God there is another realm where doubt is not possible and that is the field of mathematics. So by the time that Spinoza came into the field, mathematical methods, particularly those of geometry, had come to be regarded as a subject that could examine statements to such an extent that conclusions were bound to be correct. Therefore he wrote his famous book, Ethics in which the entire method of exposition was geometrical. And as in geometry one starts with definitions and axioms, curiously enough, Spinoza's book began with a definition, a definition of substance. He described substance to be that which exists by itself and which can be conceived through itself. And having thus given this definition he proceeds to say that God is a substance. And not only is He a substance but He is the only substance which can be conceived through itself and which exists in itself. So since God is substance and since according to his definition substance is that which exists in itself and can be conceived through itself, God exists.

      To sum up then, "for Spinoza, God or Substance is the all-inclusive Whole within which fall the parallel differentiations of thought and extensions as its corresponding aspect,"⁵ says Galloway in his book titled, The Philosophy of Religion. His philosophy is described as 'logical monism', and essentially the world as a whole is a single substance which is God. Thus the totality of the world is nothing but God; God was the only

reality that the mind can conceive of and in that respect he has been known as the God-intoxicated philosopher.

      The critic might say to this proof, as has Galloway, "that as far as Spinoza is concerned, the important point is not his proof of existence of God, for this is purely verbal, but the validity of philosophical conceptions on which his system is based".⁵

      4. Leibniz (1646-1716 C.E.)

      The same dependence on the philosophical system is true even for Leibniz, as we shall see in the extract of his argument from Russell's book on the History of Western Philosophy. He wrote out a proof in which he defines God as the most perfect Being, i.e. as the subject of all perfections, and a perfection is defined as a "simple quality which is positive and absolute, and expresses without any limits whatever it does express".⁷ Leibniz easily proves that no two perfections, as above defined, can be incompatible. He concludes: "There is, therefore, or there can be conceived, a subject of all perfections, or most perfect being. Whence it follows also that He exists, for existence is among the number of the perfections".⁸

      IV

Criticisms

      Now I would like to proceed to the criticisms of the classical elucidations of the ontological argument. They were subjected to criticism by Kant and other empiricist philosophers, and for long it has been believed that he had successfully completed the task of demolishing the purely intellectual proofs for the existence of God.

      1. Kant (1724-1804 C.E.)

      Kant declared that all the elucidations of the ontological arguments consider 'existence' as a predicate when actually according to him it is not so.

 For example, if we recall Descartes' argument, he said: Perfection lacks nothing; existence is something; therefore it cannot lack existence; therefore it must exist. Drawing the debate into a new domain, Kant claims that existence firstly is not of the nature of that which can be added to something and demonstrates with several examples that existence is not a 'real predicate'. It will be worth at this point to give an extract from his book, The Critique of Pure Reason, where he explains this point:

"'Being' is obviously not a real predicate; that is, it is not a concept of something which could be added to the concept of a thing. It is merely the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations, as existing in themselves. Logically, it is merely a copula of a judgement. The proposition, 'God is omnipotent', contains two concepts, each of which has its object- God and omnipotent. The small word 'is' adds no new predicate, but only serves to posit the predicate in its relation to the subject. If, now, we take the subject (God) with all its predicates (among which is omnipotence), and say 'God is', or There is a God', we attach no new predicate to the concept of God, but only posit the subject in itself with all its predicates, and indeed posit it as being an object that stands in relation to my concept. The content of both must be one and the same; nothing can have been added to the concept."⁹

      Thus he concludes that though all existential propositions must be synthetic, however, a statement such as 'God exists' can never be of that nature since existence can never be a predicate.

      Finally, he concludes that the people who have argued for the existence of God regard existence as a predicate of God and therefore at the very root of their attempt to argue there is a fallacy.

      But the question that arises and which he has not answered

Bertrand Russell

is: what then is existence?

      Next, I would like to consider Bertrand Russell's objection to the Ontological Argument which is very similar to that of Kant but presented in a new logical form.

      2. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970 C.E.)

      According to Bertrand Russell, there is no such thing as existence apart from the object. He suggests that to point to an object is itself to point to its existence. Thus we need not say to the child at the zoo, "Look, here is a lion and see that it exists." The object and its existence don't need to be stated separately. In a sense, the argument is almost like that of Kant who stated that existence is not a predicate. For Russell, object and existence are not two different things. He further insists that not only are they not two separate things but that truly speaking, there is no such thing as existence. There are only objects. One can describe God, and has thus to provide an instance in which that description is instantiated.

      And here is how he enunciates his argument.

      For him many statements in logic are very puzzling. For example, statements such as 'unicorns do not exist'. Now if a child is to ask, 'who is it that does not exist?' the reply would be 'it is the unicorn'. He grappled for an explanation of such statements, and in that attempt he formulated his theory of descriptions. Even so, he concludes that the word 'existence' or 'is' is logically not admissible. The words 'is' or 'existence' do not refer to anything by themselves. This, then, is basically a sophisticated way of saying that object and existence are not two different things. According to him, our ordinary language leads to some paradoxes such as the sentence, "unicorns are those that do not exist", which can be removed if we admit that wherever the word 'existence' occurs, it ought to be reduced in the terms of the logic of descriptions. According to Russell, the word 'existence' has been misused throughout the history of the world, and, it has created muddle-headedness in the world.

Against this background Russell argues that all statements that are made must be logical. And in his famous theory of descriptions he states that for any statement to be logical (in which the word existence is to occur) it must be descriptive. To indicate existence we have to describe and then we have to give an instance of it. Thus, according to this theory, existence can be asserted only of descriptions.¹⁰ Where there is no description there is no logical statement about the existing object. Thus a statement which merely says, 'God exists' is according to him not a logical statement.

      Here is how he enunciates his theory of descriptions: He takes the statement, 'Scott was the author of Waverly'.Now to express this statement in a logical form, by the logic of description, he says that, '"One, and only one man wrote Waverly, and that man was Scott.' Or, more fully: 'There is an entity c such that the statement "x

      But the question that needs to be raised is: How does one express the self-existent infinite reality? Russell's answer is that when one speaks of infinite self-existent reality, it is nonsense, since it does not fit into the system of logic that he has proposed. But we may further observe that since his logic is applicable only to finite objects, and since the object of which we speak in the context of the concept of God, is infinite and self-existent, there should be a logic appropriate to this situation, so that the kind of reality that we want to express can be properly expressed. This is where we find the weakness of Russell's attempt to refute the ontological argument.

      The thrust of my argument is if one is creating a system of logic one must remember that a system of logic is a system which must provide a framework for all systems of thought, not merely one's own system of thought. In the rationalist system of thought, talking of self-existent entities makes sense. So if one is making a system of logic then one needs to provide room for it.

      Logic is a normative science which examines how people

think when they aim at validity of thought. As a scientist Russell should say that there are many ways in which people think thought is valid. And when they think of self-existent entities, the rationalists think they are making sense. He must then devise a system by which one can express it. One might reject this logic oneself and say that "my logic does not accept this statement". However, one must provide a tool by which it can be expressed.

      Russell however uses the word logic to mean his logic. As if his logic is the only logic in the world.

      V

Reflections

      The Ontological Argument involves such fundamental concepts as perfection, deity, existence and necessity. It is an a priori argument, proceeding from the idea of God as infinite perfection to His existence. The other arguments which are a posteriori attempt to show that there is a divine designer or that there is a prime mover behind all the movements of the universe, but they leave open the question as to what extent such a being possesses the moral attributes of deity. On the other hand, the Ontological Argument attempts to show the existence of a being so perfect that nothing greater can be conceived.

      It is, however, contended by most philosophers such as John Hick that the Ontological Argument fails most definitely. He says in his book, The Arguments for the Existence of God that "whilst the ontological proof is thus the one which, if it succeeded, would succeed most definitively, and the one whose conclusion, if established, would be most worth establishing, it is also the one which in the opinion of most philosophers, most definitely fails".¹² It would then, perhaps be profitable to consider at some depth the precise point or ground on which it fails, if indeed it really fails.

 It has been suggested that the ontological argument, in the formulation of Anselm, has two forms. In the first form, it is found in 'Proslogion II' (address of the soul to God), and in the other form it is found in 'Proslogion III'.

      It is rightly contended that the argument in Proslogion II is vulnerable to the criticisms levelled against it by Kant and Russell. But the situation is different in regard to the argument formulated in Proslogion III.

      The argument, which is contained in Proslogion III, states that it is greater to have necessary existence than not to have it; and that than which no greater can be conceived has necessary existence and therefore necessarily exists. Anselm's formulation in this connection is as follows:

'"that than which a greater cannot be conceived' cannot be conceived to be, except as without a beginning. However, whatever can be conceived to be and actually is not can be conceived to be through a beginning. Therefore, it is not the case that 'that than which a greater cannot be conceived' can be conceived to exist and yet does not exist. Therefore, if it can be conceived to be, it necessarily is."¹³

          The essence of the argument is that there is a distinction between events that may or may not occur and 'That than which nothing greater can be conceived'. The former are contingent and dependent, but the latter is not contingent and dependent but is on the contrary self-existence. And the very concept of the self-existent carries with it the idea that it exists beyond the idea in actuality, ontologically. The concept of self-existence implies existence without beginning or end, since it has to depend on nothing else than itself to be in existence and therefore independent of anything that might or might not occur. Eternal existence is therefore conceptually undeniable and it necessarilycarries with it undeniable ontology beyond the state of concept or conceiving.

 It may however be argued that one can conceive of things existing eternally, which in fact do not. Moreover, it may be urged that a thing can exist eternally without being the cause of its own existence and that it may simply have no cause. However, based on rationalist thought, it appears that if something exists eternally it follows that it was not caused, since eternity cannot be placed in the chain of causal connections.

      When one says that it may simply have no cause, it is another way of saying that it is the cause of its own existence. Hence, what is contended is only verbally different from the idea that philosophers like Spinoza speak of when they define Reality or Substance sui generic, that which is caused by itself.

      The Ontological Argument has been forcefully articulated in the 20th century by Norman Malcolm. He contends that Anselm has proved that the notion of contingent existence or of contingent non-existence cannot have any application to God. That than which nothing greater can be conceived cannot be contingent existence or non-existence; it can be self-existence, infinite and eternal, having no beginning.

      He further elucidates that "God's existence is either impossible or necessary. It can be the former only if the concept of such a being is self-contradictory or in some way logically absurd. Assuming that this is not so, it follows that He necessarily exists".¹⁴

      While examining this argument, John Hick points out that the logical necessity and the logical impossibility of God's existence are both hypothetical necessities, and that it is this aspect that is missed by Malcolm. John Hick argues in effect: it is logically impossible for God, as an eternal being, to cease to exist, if he exists eternally; and it is logically impossible for such a being to come into existence, if He does not exist.

      But we need to ask the question if Hick is fair in his argument, when we consider that the whole burden of the Ontological Argument is that God cannot but be conceived as one without beginning and therefore eternal. His hypothetical phrase: if He exists eternally, is inconsistent with what Reason can conceive

of That than which nothing greater can be conceived.

      My contention is that the hypothetical phrase "if he exists eternally" can be justified only if we take the position of an empiricist, who does not accept that reason can conceive of That than which nothing greater can be conceived, and thereby reason conceives that That objectively exists. But if Hick is criticising the Ontological Argument, he should, in fairness, argue against the Ontological Argument, not from an external point of view but within the framework of the implications of the Ontological Argument.

      Fundamentally, the Ontological Argument purports to be a rational argument, an argument that proceeds from the reason. But, at the very outset, we have to admit and clarify an ambiguity regarding the meaning of Reason. For Reason may mean what rationalists mean it to be, or it may mean what empiricists believe it to be. The controversy regarding the Ontological Argument appears to have its origin in the fact that these two meanings of Reason have not been kept distinct from each other.¹⁵ Both the senses of Reason must have a place in regard to the proof of existence of God, and the resultant argument cannot but be complex, on the condition that this argument admits the validity of the Ontological Argument in terms of the meaning of Reason as understood by rationalists.

      Thus we need to study more clearly the rationalists' position in regard to the meaning of Reason. The rationalist position in regard to the nature of thought is that reason has its own perceptions of Reality and that therefore if its perceptions, particularly of consistency and comprehensiveness, are reflected in any process of ratiocination, the conclusions will hold good of reality. For if thought cannot be followed to a reality beyond the thinker we are plunged into hopeless scepticism. In other words, reason, according to the rationalist, consists of innate ideas, and these innate ideas are perceptions, not of senses, but of the processes of ideation itself. In other words, an activity of conceiving is an activity of explicating the perceptions involved in the process of ideation. And the process of ideation

is the process of the operation of innate ideas which are involved in the acts of conceiving. Among these innate ideas, it is contended, there is one supreme idea, the idea of the Reality than which nothing greater can be conceived.

      In fact, there are three propositions which seem to be involved in the rationalist concept of Reason. It needs to be noted that these propositions emerge from my understanding of rationalism and may not be found in other accounts of rationalism:

      1. There is a Reality, which transcends the act of reasoning or ideation, but which is caught or reflected in the activities of conceiving or reasoning.

      2. That Reality is such than which nothing greater can be conceived; and

      3. That Reality is infinite, eternal and self-existent.

      According to rationalism, the very definition of Reason implies explication of these three propositions, and it is perceived that to deny these three propositions is to deny reason or rationality. It is obvious that if reason is defined in the way the rationalists have defined, the Ontological Argument follows automatically, and its validity is also involved inherently in the very concept of rationality.

      In the light of the above, the Ontological Argument need not be stated in the form in which existence needs to be stated as a predicate. For indeed, existence is not a predicate. Existence, or rather self-existence is the same as Reality or God, and to perceive self-existence as an undeniable self-existence is to affirm the undeniable reality of Reality that lies beyond thought and, that which subsists ontologically. In that sense, the Ontological Argument is not an argument; it is simply an undeniable statement of the ontological perception of the Reason. Existence that is the greatest, existence that is superior to phenomena of qualities and forms which fluctuate and which are contingent, is the one thing that can be conceived. As Sri Aurobindo points out in the Life Divine, "existence without quantity, without quality,

without form is not only conceivable, but it is the one thing we can conceive behind these phenomena".¹⁶ This simple statement, we may say, is the crux and essence of the Ontological Argument and this is undeniable, as far as reason understood in the rationalist tradition is concerned.

      But this account of the Reason does not appeal to a part of our nature. It has been rightly said by Sri Aurobindo that "our nature sees things with two eyes always",¹⁷ through the eye of idea and through the eye of fact. And what is seen through the eye of idea seems to be so abstract and unreal to the other eye that it does not regard its imperativeness as binding on its own imperativeness to see and experience facts. The empiricist's view of reason, therefore, has a different approach to the understanding of reason. It is the approach of experience and the approach of demonstrating truths, not through conceivability but through experience, through correspondence of the idea with the fact, through verifiability, through direct demonstration or acquaintance.

      It is the demand of the empirical reason that obliges us to look for means by which the proof of God's existence can be demonstrated in experience. But it must be made clear that even though this demand ought to be satisfied, it would be wrong to insist that there is no such thing as reason in us which corresponds to the rationalist idea of it. Empiricists may not accept the imperativeness of the rationalists' idea, but at the same time, they cannot insist that their (empiricists') idea of reason is so imperative that it is solely imperative.

      Impartially speaking, we should grant both these accounts for arriving at a satisfying proof of God's existence, not only the affirmation of the truth that lies behind the Ontological Argument but also the truth that lies behind the empirical demand for demonstration in experience. But how shall we prove the existence of God in the narrow terms in which empiricism normally conducts its own processes of experience? Normally, empiricists refuse to go beyond the narrow groove of sense-experience. But if we define God as infinite, as an eternal

self-existence, whose presence is supra-sensuous, he can be proved only through an experience that transcends the realm of knowledge which is governed by the senses. Usually, empiricists refuse to accept that there is any realm of knowledge beyond the realm of the senses. How, then, shall we convince them that their contention is untenable?

      This can be done, in my view, in two ways. Firstly, it can be pointed out that this statement that the senses are the only means of knowledge can be entertained only if one has entered into the other means of knowledge, into supra-sensuous fields of knowledge¹⁸ and proved that those realms of knowledge are hallucinatory. We can be confident, based upon the experience of many, that once we begin to investigate into the supra-sensuous experiences, it will be impossible to declare all of them to be hallucinatory. The second method is to show that the empiricists' demand to prove the existence of God, who is by definition supra-sensuous,¹⁹ through sense experience is illogical. For if God issupra-physical, would it be logical to demand a physical proof of His existence?

      If, therefore, we are now free to take into account the supra-physical experiences of many mystics, we shall have a good ground to conclude that God exists experientially, as a matter of ontological fact. Thus a satisfying proof of God's existence is to combine both the Ontological Argument and the argument from the direct experience of God. Such a complex argument has been developed by Sri Aurobindo in The Life Divine and needs to be studied in depth.

      To conclude, therefore, I believe that the Ontological Argument as developed by the rationalists is an undeniable statement of the ontological perception of Pure Reason. And, if we are impartially to accept the truth behind the reason as described by the rationalists then we must accept that reason cannot deny the existence of God, of a being who is self-existent, beyond all forms, quantity or quality and that which alone reason can truly conceive.

Notes and References

1. For further reference see Galloway, G. (1920) The Philosophy of Religion (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons) p. 382 and Hick, J. (1970) Arguments for the Existence of God

          (London: Macmillan), pp.68-69.

2. And this will be clear with the following quotation by Parmenides.

3. Quoted in Russell, B. (2002), History of Western Philosophy (New York: Routledge) pp. 66-67.

4. Quoted in Hick, J. (1970), op. cit, p. 79.

5. Galloway, G. (1920), op. cit, p. 383.

6. Ibid.

7. Vide Russell, R. (2002), op. cit, p 567.

8. Ibid., pp. 567-578.

9. Vide Kant, I. (1973), Critique of Pure Reason (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd.) Translated by Norman Kemp Smith, pp. 504-505.

10. Vide Russell, B. (2002), op. cit., p. 785.

11. Ibid.

12. Vide Hick, J. (1970), op. cit., p.69.

13. Quoted in Hick, J. (1970), op. cit, pp. 87-88.

14. Quoted in Hick, J. (1970), op. cit., p. 92.

15. It is instructive to note that most of the criticisms of the Ontological Argument presented by rationalists such as Anselm, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz have been largely criticised by empiricists or on

            grounds that support empiricism partially or fully.

16. Vide Sri Aurobindo, (1996), The Life Divine (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust) p. 75.

17. Vide Sri Aurobindo, (1996), op. cit, p. 61.1 am giving an extract from where the quote is taken because it is important to see the context in which it is stated: "The complete use of pure reason brings us

      finally from physical to metaphysical knowledge. But the concepts of metaphysical knowledge do not in themselves fully satisfy the demand of our integral being. They are indeed entirely satisfactory to the

      pure reason itself, because they are

 the very stuff of its own existence. But our nature sees things through two eyes always, for it views them doubly as idea and as fact and therefore every concept is incomplete for us and to a part of our 

      nature almost unreal until it becomes experience."

18. These supra-sensuous fields are the fields or ideas, imaginations, supra-physical visions, mystical voices, and experiences of the categorical imperative, presence of God, presence of invisible God,

          and other experiences of relationship with the divine reality.

19. God is normally conceived to be an invisible reality and he is not normally available to the experience of the senses. It is from this point of view that it can be stated that God is by definition supra-sensuous.

         But if it is found to be not easily acceptable, one can simply say that God is normally, not by definition, but in normal understanding is supposed to be invisible and can be contacted through supra-sensuous experience.

 Addendum — The Two Points of View

      I am attaching here the main details of my discussion with my course tutor for a course on the Philosophy of Religion, for which this paper was originally written, as an addendum. I do recognise that this text is of considerable length but am attaching it for the reader whose interest may have been aroused by the paper on the Ontological Argument. This discussion highlights the stark differences between the two schools of thought: empiricism and rationalism and explains how difficult it is to try and understand one point of view entirely from the foundations of the other.

      My tutor and I have both been engaged in a debate between these two points of view. He read the paper on the Ontological Argument and made the following comment to me: "I enjoyed this essay enormously. You write well and engage very competently with some extremely demanding ideas. Your decision to look only at the Ontological Argument is entirely justified by the rigour with which you examine it." However, he was concerned about some points on which he disagreed and we undertook a discussion of these points, the text of which is included herewith. (Some portion of the debate was finally included as part of the main text of the paper and the reader may thus find some overlap).

      I have placed sections of the paper that were under debate in quotation marks followed by the discussion with numbers to show the chronological order of the debate as it took place via emails and responses were inserted in between prior remarks.

      Finally, I would like to add that I do not believe that this age old debate is going to be resolved here. And readers who come with a strong empiricist background without an open mind to other possibilities might have to agree to disagree eventually with the conclusions of the paper on the Ontological Argument.

The Defence of Rationalism

Tutor (1):

I do, however, have some concerns about your central argument. Your defence of the Ontological Argument is that its validity is a presupposition of rationalism. This defence seems to me to be doubly problematic. First, I don't think it is a presupposition of rationalism — you would have to show this with reference to the work of rationalist philosophers. The fact that some rationalist philosophers defend the Ontological Argument does not make it a presupposition of their method of inquiry. Second, and more importantly, it isn't much of a defence, since the great majority of philosophers now reject rationalism.

Chitwan (2):

I don't think that the second point is more important at all. Because most philosophers reject rationalism doesn't mean that they do so rightly.

Tutor (3):

No, it doesn't. But it does mean that defending the Ontological Argument with reference to the principles of rationalism will not be persuasive to your readers. For your defence of the Ontological Argument to work, you must also provide a defence of rationalism.

Chitwan (4):

Please tell me which philosopher has given a defence of rationalism... I shall like to read it. I have presented the views of most of the prominent rationalists including Spinoza, Leibniz, and Descartes. I have expounded them and analysed them. I don't know what more I can say about it, except pure reason is pure reason. Ultimately the reader may accept if he likes or not.

Chitwan (2):

Just because a large number of them are empiricists and do not give too much value to reason, it does not hold true, according to me, that they are right.

Tutor (3):

Empiricists accord extremely high value to reason. Their position is that knowledge requires both reason and experience; reason alone is not enough.

Chitwan (4):

What is the meaning of reason you are speaking of here? Empiricists have a view of reason, but a reason that is grounded in experience. The reason I talk of and which the rationalists speak of is of a different nature as I have noted in footnote 16.

      For empiricists knowledge and reason are based on experience and reason is rooted in experience and does not go beyond experience. However, for rationalists experience alone is not the judge. Experiences are often deceptive. And for them Reason is final judge. For rationalism, reason goes beyond experience. 'Reason' may be the same word used in both rationalism and empiricism but it does not mean the same thing to both.

Tutor (3):

It is a presupposition of rationalism that knowledge of the world can be established by the exercise of pure reason. But it does not follow from this that the world includes God, or that the Ontological Argument is successful.

Chitwan (4):

Please see my note below our debate on the three propositions.

Regarding the assumption of the ontological argument in other arguments

"The Ontological Argument for the existence of God is perhaps the most important among all the arguments, such as the cosmological, teleological, moral, or historical, since it is supposed to be implicitly assumed by all the other arguments."

      (Quotation from my paper on

the Ontological Argument for the existence of God)

Tutor (1):

The Ontological Argument is not presupposed or assumed by all the other arguments. Kant thought (mistakenly, in my view) that the cosmological argument depends on it, but no-one has suggested that any

of the other arguments depend on it. Nor do I see any reason for regarding the Ontological Argument as the most important. It is much less persuasive to most people than, say, the design argument.

Chitwan (2):

I am quite certain that the other arguments take the Ontological Argument as their basis, since it is the Ontological Argument that states that there is in the human mind a concept of God. The other arguments

seem to reach back to this very concept.

Tutor (3):

No. The concept of God assumed by the Ontological Argument is not the same as the concepts of God assumed by the other arguments.

Chitwan (4):

That is true to some extent. I will just state the following: According to the Cosmological Argument, God is the first cause. According to the Teleological Argument, God is the designer and a good

designer, according to the Ontological Argument,

He is a perfect being. A perfect being includes the idea of first cause and that of the good designer. So you might say that the concept of God in the Ontological argument is larger and it includes the concept of God in other arguments. God who is perfect is also the first cause and He is also a designer. But He is more because the other two don't assume that he is absolutely perfect.

Chitwan (2):

Galloway states about the Ontological Argument, "it is the one which raises the deepest philosophical issues, and as we shall see, the other proofs implicitly assume its validity".¹

      And Hick states similarly, and I shall give his quotation in full here:

"Indeed this was the ground of Kant's contention that the cosmological and teleological arguments both presuppose the ontological and cannot succeed if it fails: only the latter professes to link the idea of necessary and unconditional reality with that of perfection. For given that the cosmological argument has shown that there is a necessary being, we can still ask what sort of a being this is. What reason have we for thinking it to be God, the infinite sum of perfections? Kant supplies a reason: The necessary being can be determined in one way only, that is, by one way out of each possible pair of opposed predicates. It must therefore be completely determined through its own concept. Now there is only one possible concept which determines a thing completely a priori, namely, the concept of ens realissimum. The concept of the ens realissimum is therefore the only concept through which a necessary being can be thought'. But this reason uses the conclusion of the ontological argument: that the idea of a supreme being, or ens realissimum necessarily entails the existence of such a being. Only if this conclusion is true can the cosmological argument amount to a

   

proof of God's existence; but if that conclusion is true God's existence is already proved and the cosmological argument is entirely unnecessary. Thus the cosmological argument presupposes the ontological argument, and is rendered otiose by it".²

John Hick

 I will happy to know what you think of this.

Tutor (3):

I have already acknowledged that Kant thinks the Cosmological Argument is dependent on the Ontological. Whether or not he is right depends on which version of the Cosmological Argument you have in mind. Moreover, Kant clearly doesn't think that his own axiological argument depends on the Ontological Argument, since he believes the former is successful and the latter unsuccessful. There are many Christian apologists today who reject the Ontological Argument outright but find the other arguments persuasive.

Chitwan (4):

There are many people who differ from it. The question is whether it is right or wrong. Kant when he said that the Ontological Argument is assumed by Cosmological and Teleological had not formulated his Axiological Argument yet. My contention was only this that it is assumed by Cosmological and the Teleological arguments. I did not argue that the Ontological Argument is assumed even by the Axiological Argument.

The Quibbling on Words

      "It is a psychological fact that in the human mind there is a concept called the concept of God."

      (Quotation from my paper on

the Ontological Argument for the existence of God)

Tutor (1):

Arguably, concepts are linguistic entities, not psychological ones. It would be more correct to say that it is a linguistic fact that in the English language there is a concept marked by the word 'God'.

Chitwan (2):

I disagree. It is not merely a linguistic fact since even linguistics has a certain basis in psychology. Without thought there would be no language, not the other way round.

Tutor (3):    

Perhaps, but our disagreement is about the nature of concepts. A concept, as I understand it, is the meaning of a word, or the rules governing the use of a word.

Chitwan (4):

This I understand is the empirical point of view but rationalism goes beyond concepts and beyond words. There are many concepts for which we have not yet found words... what happens to them??

      This is the difference between rationalism and nominalism. According to rationalism, a concept is prior to the word whereas other people give primacy to word. According to these, there cannot be meaning without words. However, according to rationalism, a word is simply a coin to fit in into a concept that already exists. You are taking the position of an empiricist, according to which experience is the starting point.

      As I understand it, the concept is innate; it is already there in our mind. Innate ideas are the stuff of the reason; they are not derived from experience. They might become the explicit stuff of the experience, like the experience of essence for example. What is meant by essence is never experienced. The universal is never experienced. One can never see all the cows. It is never experienced. This is a popular debate and it cannot be resolved here merely by taking one stand or the other.

The Argument of Kant

      "Thus he concludes that though all existential propositions must be synthetic, however, a statement such as 'God exists' can never be of that nature since existence can never be a predicate."

(Quotation from my paper on

the Ontological Argument for the existence of God)

Tutor (1):

I think there is a misunderstanding here. Kant certainly maintained that the proposition 'God exists' is synthetic. What it asserts is that there is an object which stands in relation to the concept of God.

Chitwan (2):

Yes you are right and I may have not written quite clearly. It is synthetic but the point that I would like to make is that in order to make the statement 'God exists' intelligible or true, existence must be a predicate. Since, however, according to Kant, existence is not a predicate, the statement 'God exists' cannot in its meaning be defended as a synthetic statement.

Tutor (3):

Those who accept Kant's argument do not think that the statement 'God exists' is meaningless. They think it means 'Something possesses the attributes of God', which is clearly a synthetic proposition.

Chitwan (4):

Yes, but the statement omits the reference to the word 'exists'.

The Argument against Russell

"But the question that needs to be raised is: How does one express the self-existent infinite reality? Russell's answer is that when one speaks of infinite self-existent reality, it is nonsense, since it does not fit into the system of logic that he has proposed. But we may further observe that since his logic is applicable only to finite objects, and since the object of which we speak in the context of the concept of God, is infinite and self-existent, there should be a logic appropriate to this situation, so that the kind of reality that we want to express can be properly expressed. This is where we find the weakness of Russell's attempt to refute the ontological argument."

      (Quotation from my paper on

the Ontological Argument for the existence of God)

Tutor (1):

Your argument is circular here. Russell says that it makes no sense to talk of self-existent entities; your reply that he must be wrong because, if he was right, it wouldn't make sense to talk of self-existent entities!

Chitwan (2):

No I do not think that my argument is circular. I do not think that Russell may necessarily reject self-existence entities. The logical apparatus that he provides is quite appropriate for talking sensibly of self-existing entities. My argument is that his logical apparatus is not appropriate for talking sensibly of infinite and eternal self-existent. My plea to Russell would be that logically at least there should be a way of expressing an infinite self-existent reality. Since he has not furnished that required logical apparatus, his logical theory can be regarded to some extent defective.

Tutor (3):

Two points here. First, Russell certainly does hold that the phrase 'self-existent entity' is unintelligible. Second, he provides a strong argument for this view. It does not constitute a counter-argument for you to say 'Oh, but surely it must make sense to talk about self-existent entities'!

Chitwan (4):

As per my understanding, according to Russell self-existent entities are intelligible. His whole philosophy is based on simples. He might not have used the word self-existent entities. Could you tell me where he says that self-existent entities are unintelligible? I would like to read it.

      My only point in this argument is that if one is creating a system of logic one must remember that a system of logic is a system which must provide a framework for all systems of thought, not merely one's own system of thought. In the rationalist system of thought, talking of self-existent entities makes sense. So if one is making a system of logic then one needs to provide room for it.

      Logic is a science of expressing how people think. As a scientist Russell should say that there are many ways in which people think thought is valid. When they think of self-existent entities the rationalists think they are making sense. He must then devise a system by which one can express it. One might reject this logic themselves and say that "my logic does not accept this statement". However, one must provide a tool by which it can be expressed.

      Russell however uses the word logic to mean his logic. As if his logic is the only logic in the world.

The Concept of Self-Existent and Eternal Entities

      "Eternal existence is therefore conceptually undeniable and it necessarily carries with it undeniable ontology beyond the state of concept or conceiving,"

      (Quotation from my paper on

the Ontological Argument for the existence of God)

Tutor (1):

The idea of eternal existence doesn't seem to help here. I can certainly conceive of things existing eternally which do not, in fact, exist eternally. Moreover, a thing can exist eternally without being the cause of its own existence. It may simply have no cause.

Chitwan (2):

I can certainly understand the confusion that can exist in regard to the idea of eternal existence. But, frankly, if something exists eternally, it follows that it was not caused, since eternity cannot be placed in the chain of causal connections. I do not understand how a thing can exist eternally without being the cause of its own existence. When you say that it may simply have no cause, it is another way of saying that it is the cause of its own existence. Hence, the idea that you are presenting is only verbally different from the idea that the philosophers like Spinoza speak of when they define Reality or Substance as sui generic, that which is caused by itself.

Tutor (3):

On the contrary, the difference is a crucial one. Saying something has no cause is not equivalent to saying that it caused itself. Persons can be the cause of their own movements, though rocks cannot. Neither persons nor rocks can be the cause of their own existence. But there is nothing conceptually difficult

about the thought of a person or a rock that has always existed.

Chitwan (4):

Are the movements the causes of their own existence? Are persons causes of themselves?

      I cannot conceive this. You can imagine certainly but you cannot conceive.

Chitwan (2):

The conception of things existing eternally implies the concept of things which do not depend for their existence on something else. That which does not need to depend upon something else for its existence should therefore be conceived to be, in fact, existing eternally.

Tutor (3):

Again, the two ideas are quite separate. I can imagine eternal things which depend for their existence on other eternal things, and temporary things which do not depend for their existence on anything.

Chitwan (4):

Can you give me some example? Again, one can of course imagine but one cannot conceive.

The Criticism of Hick

      "His hypothetical phrase: if He exists eternally, is inconsistent with what Reason can conceive of That than which nothing greater can be conceived."

      (Quotation from my paper on

the Ontological Argument for the existence of God)

Tutor (1):

I don't see the inconsistency. This criticism of Hick needs to be elaborated.

Chitwan (2):

My contention is that the hypothetical phrase "if he exists eternally" can be justified only if we take the position of an empiricist, who does not accept that reason can conceive of That than which nothing greater can be conceived, and thereby reason conceives that That objectively exists. But if Hick is criticising the Ontological Argument, he should, in fairness, argue against the Ontological Argument, not from an external point of view but within the framework of the implications of the ontological argument.

      The Presuppositions of Rationalism

      1. "There is a Reality, which transcends the act of reasoning or ideation, but which is caught or reflected in the activities of conceiving or reasoning.

      2. That Reality is such than which nothing greater can be conceived; and

      3. That Reality is infinite, eternal and self-existent."

      (Quotation from my paper on

the Ontological Argument for the existence of God)

Tutor (1):

I don't recognise this as an account of rationalism. Where does it come from? Do all rationalists share these premises?

Chitwan (2):

I do agree that I should have written this paragraph in a different manner. I do not think that one can get an account of rationalism in the form in which I have attempted to formulate.

I should have clarified that the way in which I understand rationalism. I find that these three propositions emerge from my understanding of rationalism. I am quite sure that most of the rationalists might dispute the way in which I have explicated what I think is the truth in rationalism, and that account that I have given may not be shared by rationalists.

      To my understanding, rationalism maintains that there are in human consciousness innate ideas, that these innate ideas are the very stuff of reason, and these ideas are at the source of the affirmation of the objectivity of the truth, of the validity of universality, of a distinction between appearance and reality, and of the distinction between essence and manifestation.

Tutor (3):     

This sounds OK, as does proposition (1) above. But I can't see how you move from this to propositions (2) and (3).

Chitwan (4):

After proposition one, the Ontological Argument takes over to explicate 2 and 3. Even the Ontological Argument presupposes the rationalistic position that reason consists of innate ideas and that one of these innate ideas is the starting point of the Ontological Argument, namely, that God is a being than which no greater can be conceived.

Notes and References

1. Galloway, G. (1920) The Philosophy of Religion, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons), p. 382.

2. Hick, J. (1970) The Arguments for the Existence of God, (London: Macmillan), pp.68-69.

A Synoptic Note

on the Arguments for the Existence of God

      (Indian and Western)

Both in the East and in the West, philosophers have attempted to formulate rationalistic proofs of existence of God. These proofs are manly three: (a) Ontological; (b) Cosmological; and (c) Teleological. Hajime Nakamura (1911-1999 C. E.) has, in his book, Comparative History of Ideas (1992, Motilal Banarsidas Publishers Pvt. Ltd.) pointed out that the earliest teleological argument or what Kant has called "physico-theological proof" was formulated by Plato (427-347 B. C. E.), who, in his Laws stated the proof of existence of gods as follows:

      "In the first place, the earth and the sun, and the stars and the universe, and the fair order of the seasons, and the division of them into years and months, furnish proof of their (gods') existence."¹

      The Indian teleological argument formulated by Åšankara (788-820 C. E.?) has been highlighted by Nakamura by citing the following from Sahkara's Brahma-sutrabhasya:

      "When the matter is considered with the help of examples only, it is seen that in the world of non-intelligent objects without being guided by an intelligence brings forth from it-

self the products which serve to further given aims of man. For example, houses, palaces, beds, seats, pleasure-gardens and the like are (only) contrived in life by intelligent artists in due time for the purpose of obtaining pleasure and averting pain. Exactly the same it is with this whole world. For when one sees, how, for example, the earth serves the end of the enjoyment of the fruit of the manifold works, and how, again, the body within and without by possessing a given arrangement of parts suitable to the different species and determined in detail that it may form the place of the enjoyment of the fruit of the manifold works, — so that even highly skilled artists full of insight are unable to comprehend it through their understanding, — how should this arrangement proceed from the non-intelligent original-matter (or the Samkhyas)? For lumps of earth, stones and the like are in no wise capable of this? Clay also, for example, is formed as experience teaches, to different shapes (only) so long as it is guided by the potter, and exactly in the same way must matter be guided by another intelligent power. He, therefore, who relies on the material cause only as clay, etc., cannot rightly maintain, that he possess the primordial cause; but no objection meets him who, besides it (the clay), relies on the potter, etc., as well. For when this is assumed there is no contradiction, and at the same time the scripture, which teaches an intelligent power as cause, is thereby respected. So that, as the arrangement (of the Kosmos) would become impossible, we may not have recourse to a non-intelligent power as the cause of the world."²

          Śarikara's Cosmological Argument has also similarly been highlighted by Nakamura by citing the following from Brahmasūtra: "But (there is) no origin of 'the Existent,' on account of the impossibility."³ Śarikara continues:

          "After anyone has been taught from the scripture, that also ether (or space) and air have originated, although we cannot

conceive their coming into being, he might come to think that the Brahman also originated from something, for when he perceives how from the ether and the like, which are still only modifications, yet other modifications arise, he might conclude that the ether also sprang into being from the Brahman, as if from a mere modification. The present sūtra 'But (there is) no origin" etc., serves to remove this doubt; its meaning is: but one must not think that the Brahman, whose essence is Being (sad-ātmaka), could have originated from anything else; why? 'owing to impossibility!.' For Brahman is pure Being. As such it can(firstly) not have sprung from pure Being, because (between the two) there is no superiority, so that they cannot be related (to each other) as original and modified;— but also (secondly) not from differentiated Being, because experience contradicts this; for we see that from homogeneity differences arise, for example, vessels from clay, but not that homogeneity arises from differences;—further (thirdly) also not from non-Being, for this is essenceless (nirātmaka); and because the scripture overthrows it, when it says:⁴ 'How should the Existent come from the non-Existent?' and because it does not admit a producer of the Brahman, when it is said: 'Cause is He, Master of the Sense's Lord, He has no Lord, and no Progenitor.'⁵ For ether and wind on the contrary an origin is shown, but there is none such for the Brahman, that is the difference. And because it is seen how, from modifications, other modifications, arise, there is no necessity for the Brahman also to be a modification. For were this so, then we should come to no primordial nature (mūlaprakrti) but should have a regressus in infinitum (anavasthā). What is assumed as the primordial nature, — just that is our Brahman; there is thus perfect agreement."⁶

         The Cosmological Argument was rooted in Aristotle's (384-322 B. C. E.) famous book, Metaphysics. Aristotle made a distinction between an imperfect and a more perfect, and he argued that both of them tend to support a position of a reality of most perfect. The

world is imperfect, and it tends towards the most perfect, who makes movement possible in the world. Aristotle also spoke of four kinds of causes, material cause, efficient cause, formal cause and final cause. The final cause, he argued, must exist in order to have a causal series in the world, and it is the final cause which explains all causations in the world. In the middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas inferred prime movement from motion and towards efficient or secondary causes to a first cause and towards contingent existence to a necessary Being.

      Saint Anselm (1033-1109 C. E.) formulated the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. This argument was further refined by Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 C. E.), and it was reformulated by Descartes (1596-1650 C. E.), Spinoza (1632-77 C. E.) and Leibniz (1646-1716 C. E.), — the three greatest rationalists philosophers of the commencement of the modern period. The essence of the Ontological Argument was that reason is a pure conception and conception necessarily refers to existence which has no defect. In other words, the only thing that can be conceived is existence without quantity, quality or form. The Absolute is the only conceivable Reality. According to the Ontological Argument, to think is to think of God. The highest thought or the purest thought conceives the purest Existence, and purest and the perfect existence is undesirable to rational thought.

      In India, the ontological proof was, it is suggested, implied in the thought of Bhartrhari in his famous Vākyapadīya.Bhartrhari asserted that we cannot deny the existence of bhāva, being, or ens, summum genus of all concepts and that being is the Absolute.

      It has also been suggested that Śankara set forth the psychological or introspective proof of the existence of the Absolute. The existence of the Brahman is demonstrated by the fact that it is the Self of all. Everyone assumes the existence of himself, and Sankara took the next step: And the self is Brahman.

      It must be pointed out that Indian philosophy accepts śruti or verbal testimony as a pramān or authority for a valid conclusion. This position is often misunderstood, and it needs to be clarified that sruti should be regarded as a demonstrative proof resulting

from experience. But the word experience is not to be confined to sensuous experience or experience that is available at the normal ordinary level of human existence. According to Indian philosophers, experiences have many levels, and the highest experience has been attained recorded in the Vedas and the Upanishads, which are regarded as śruti or records of highest experience. In other words, śruti may be regarded not as a rational process of inference, but as evidence, the authenticity of which is contained within the experience itself, just as evidence of light is contained in the light itself. We find in the writings of Śankara and others a tacit acceptance of śruti, because śruti is the record of self-luminous experience. In India, therefore, we find double proof of existence of God,—the proof by inference and proof contained in evidence of self-luminous experience. It is this double proof, which is missed by many who try to see in the so-called argument for the existence of God only inferential steps by implication. According to Indian philosophers, God can be proved inferentially as also by self-luminous experience.

      (This essay is expository; it is not critical. A deeper question is not whether God's existence can be proved, but what God is, and whether God in His fullness and integrality can be rationally and experientially established. This is the question of what the Upanishads describe, as that of the "Brahmavidyā", and the highest concept of God that was arrived at by the Upanishads is that the Sachchidananda (God as Pure Existent, God as Conscious Force and God as Delight). The best and perfect intellectual statement of Sachchidananda is to be found in four chapters of Sri Aurobindo's magnum opus "The Life Divine". These four chapters have been appended to this monograph. The epistemological validity of the contentions in these chapters can be better appreciated, if the readers study two more chapters of "The Life Divine", namely, "Methods of Vedantic Knowledge" and "Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge".)

Notes and references

      1. Laws, X. 886, Jowett's translation, The Dialogues of Plato (New York: Random House, 1937), vol. II, p. 628.

      2. Sarikara defines the Brahman as follows: "Brahman is the omniscient and omnipotent cause of the origin, persistence and passing away of the world."Brahma-sūtra-bhāsya of Śrī Śaṅkarācārya, Bibliotheca

          Indica, p. 90, 1. 3. Cf. Deussen, System of the Vedânta, p. 123.

      3. Brahmasutra II, 3, 9.

      4. Chand. Up. II, 2, 2.

      5. Åšvet. Up. II, 9.

      6. Brahma-sūtra-bhāsya, Bibliotheca Indica, pp. 627-628.