Charles Hartshorne’s Cumulative Argument for the Existence of God
Likening the argument to a cable
Made strong by many strands,
Hartshorne adduces six arguments:
(That will be his logical bands)
Ontological, cosmological, and design,
Epistemic, moral, and aesthetic,
That undergird his cumulative stand.
Saint Anselm famously said:
“God cannot be conceived not to exist” which some applaud,
And, “That which can be conceived not to exist is not God.”
Hartshorne, ancient mariner of the metaphysical realm,
Shows how this is key to an original discovery by Anselm,
And that, to any possible theistic argument, is the clue,
And helps to correctly reformulate the original six, anew.
Anselm’s argument is not empirical or what one can see;
It is conceptual, or modal, as any such argument must be.
He presents each argument as a set of choices, to wit,
And, for example — the Ontological, as he voices it:
1. Deity cannot be consistently conceived.
2. Deity can be consistently conceived, whether as existent or as non-existent.
3. Deity can be consistently conceived, but only as nonexistent.
4. Deity can be consistently conceived, but only as existent.
And when these are analyzed in a logical view,
He concludes that only number four can be true.
Hartshorne presents the ontological argument, in toto,
In a simple three-step form, as shown, briefly, below:
p for “deity,” defined in the following way, he insists,
as unsurpassable by any other conceivable being, exists.
1. ◇ p*
2. ◇ p* → ~ ◇ ~ p*
3. ~ ◇ ~ p*
And there you have it. as anyone can logically see,
How p leads to p and p, as easy as pi, or — 1, 2, 3.
Q.E.D