The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

158 Notes
greatest possible being must be a person. (I myself would say, without the
least immodesty, that I am greater than any possible non-person—simply
because I am a person.) But this presupposition, some might contend, is a
substantive metaphysical thesis, and should not therefore be presupposed
by a definition. And others, I among them, would contend that personality
is—non-negotiably—a component of the concept of God. The scruples
of both these parties may be accommodated by the following statement.
The concept of God should be understood in this way: the concept of God
is the concept of a person who is the greatest possible being. (This is not
the same as saying that the concept of God is the concept of a greatest
possible person; someone might maintain that there is a greatest possible
person and that some non-person is a greater being than that person.)
I should be willing to count anyone who maintained that the greatest
possible being was a non-person as an atheist. I should also be willing to
count the following position as a form (a very unusual one, to be sure) of
atheism: Some (existent) person enjoys—essentially—the highest degree
of greatness that is metaphysically possible, and, in some other possible
world, some other being enjoys that degree of greatness. (It is therefore
conceptually possible—the concept ‘atheist’ does not rule out this bizarre
possibility—that there should be an atheist who believes that the universe
was created ex nihilo by an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good being
who is the unique exemplar of these excellent features in every possible
world in which it exists.) In sum: the concept of God is the concept of
a person whose degree of greatness cannot be excelled or equaled by any
other possible being. Anselm’s Latin phrase (aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari
possit) therefore needs to be revised: God is a person who is aliquid quo nihil
maius aut aequaliter magnum cogitari possit. (I thank Christopher Hughes
for getting me to see the need for the qualifications contained in this note.)
LECTURE 3 PHILOSOPHICAL FAILURE
1. LászlóKalmár, ‘‘An Argument against the Plausibility of Church’s Thesis’’,
in Heyting, ed., Constructivity in Mathematics, 72–80.
2. Philosophers often use the phrase ‘the burden of proof ’ in a way illustrated
by the following sentence: ‘‘The burden of proof falls on the realist, not
the nominalist.’’ This sentence, insofar as I am able to judge, seems to
mean, or to be intended to mean, something like this: ‘‘Nominalism and
realism are inconsistent theses; realism is prima facie much less plausible
than nominalism; therefore, in the absence of a proof of (or at least of a
very cogent argument for) realism, everyone should prefer nominalism to
realism.’’ I will call this (perhaps somewhat tendentiously) the Pointless
and Vulgar Sense of ‘the burden of proof ’. The Correct and Proper Sense
of the phrase is illustrated by this sentence: ‘‘In the criminal courts, the