Charles Hartshorne’s “Global Argument”
for the Existence of God
“If I were asked, ‘Why do you believe in God?,’ I would not reply, ‘Because of the ontological argument.’ Rather, I would say that it is because of a group of arguments that mutually support one another so that their combined strength is not, as Kant would have it, like that of a chain which is as weak as its weakest link, but like that of a cable whose strength sums the strengths of its several fibers. (I have developed this theme in the chapter on ‘Six Theistic Proofs’ in my Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method, pp. 275-97. This essay first appeared in The Monist 54 [April 1970], 159-80.) None of these interrelated arguments were properly stated until recently, and one reason for this was the failure to understand the argument of Anselm; for it is this argument that gives us the clue to the logic of any possible theistic argument. As has always been realized, Anselm’s argument is non-empirical, but what it shows, if anything, is that any possible theistic argument must be equally non-empirical, and so must any anti-theistic argument. The distinctiveness of the ontological argument is not that it is conceptual or modal rather than observational, but that it assumes as consistently meaningful the idea of deity, whereas other arguments assume other ideas and seek to show that the idea of God as necessarily existent is implied by these other ideas, which, it is argued, are strictly indispensable and applicable not only to the actual world order but to any conceivable one, any coherently thinkable reality.” Charles Hartshorne, Foreword, The Ontological Argument of Charles Hartshorne by George L. Goodwin
In Hartshorne’s global argument, the six theistic proofs that he mentions above are divided into two groups, theoretical and normative, with the former consisting of the ontological, cosmological, and design arguments, and the latter: the epistemic, moral, and aesthetic arguments for God’s existence.
He presents each argument in the form of a set of options; for example, here is the Ontological Argument:
A1 Deity cannot be consistently conceived.
A2 Deity can be consistently conceived, equally whether as existent or as non-existent.
A3 Deity can be consistently conceived, but only as nonexistent, as an unactualizable or regulative ideal or limiting concept.
T Deity can be consistently conceived, but only as existent.
He comments:
“In this case, as in the others, I find A1, A2, A3 not only unacceptable as true but absurd, not genuinely conceivable. Hence I conclude that T is necessarily true. It is intrinsically the least paradoxical position, so far as my intelligence grasps the options. If I am mistaken—and I am not infallible—the error is logical, not empirical; I have failed to understand my own ideas.”
He comments further:
“The ontological argument is not a convincing proof, all by itself, of the divine existence. Rather there are a number of theistic arguments, none of which, well formulated, is a mere sophistry, nor do they form a mere chain as weak as the weakest link, as Kant seemed to think. Rather, they reinforce one another, since one may be weak just where another is strong. For instance, the ontological argument has to assume the conceivability of divinity, whereas the other arguments try to show that the inconceivability of divinity implies the inconceivability of other ideas so fundamental and useful that one must at least hope that deity is not inconceivable, not implicitly contradictory or hopelessly vague in meaning.”
CH, “John Hick on Logical and Ontological Necessity,” Religious Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jun., 1977), pp. 164-165.
And:
“The only value of a multiplicity of arguments is that it diminishes the probability that we have overlooked fallacies in the reasoning, somewhat as performing a mathematical operation by several methods helps to insure that no blunder has been committed; but the value of varying methods holds to a greater degree in the theological case, since philosophical ideas are less clear than mathematical, and acquire their maximum clearness only when developed into a system. The various proofs are, then, only ways of focusing such a system. In the inductive sciences independent proofs serve not merely to clarify, or. show up blunders in reasoning, but to establish degrees of probability where no necessity could be established by any evidence, however correctly estimated.”
CH, Man’s Vision of God, pp. 251-252
Taken as a whole, the six arguments present Hartshorne’s cumulative case for the existence of God.
In Creative Experiencing, Hartshorne presents the ontological argument in a simple three-step form:
“Consider the following argument.
p* for: deity, defined in such and such a way (for example, as unsurpassable by any other conceivable being), exists.
1. ◇ p* [(logically) possible p*]
2. ◇ p* → ~ ◇ ~ p* [if p* is possible, then (strict implication) it is necessary]
3. ~ ◇ ~ p* [p* is true by logical necessity; a priori theism]
“Suppose the critic rejects number 1, taking p* to be either necessarily false or else an ill-formed statement, incapable of truth or falsity. This is the positivist position (Carneades, Comte, Carnap). Against it the theist is powerless, unless he has arguments other than the ontological.” [my emphasis]
CH, Creative Experiencing, p. 107.
Thus the need of the other five arguments to support what is acknowledged as a weak premise in the ontological argument for the existence of God.
—Hyatt Carter