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Forsaken by philosophers, the proof was brought up to date last year by James E. Horigan, a Denver lawyer intrigued by scientific theory. In Chance or Design? (Philosophical Library; $13.95) he contends that narrowly antireligious Darwinism ignores the way in which inanimate nature is in harmony with organic evolution. Nor, he asserts, can evolutionary theory possibly explain the rapid emergence of the large brain in the developing human species.
The Ontological Proof. This, the most controversial approach, moves from a mental concept of God to his actual existence. It was originated by Anselm, the 11th century Archbishop of Canterbury who defined God as "a being than which nothing greater can be thought." The Archbishop reasoned that since existence would have to be part of any such perfect and necessary being, this being must actually exist. This is "too good to be true," says one skeptic, and even one of its current defenders admits that it "looks too much like word magic."
The method lay in disrepute
after Kant supposedly demolished it, until Norman Malcolm, then at Cornell, suddenly "claimed in a 1960 article that it
was partly defensible. Since then it has been the most debated proof among philosophers.
Three current advocates renovate it by applying a technique known as modal logic: Plantinga; Unitarian Charles Hartshorne, a follower of Alfred North Whitehead's "process" philosophy, now retired from the University of Texas; and Roman Catholic Layman James F. Ross of the University of Pennsylvania.
In The Nature of Necessity (Oxford; $8.50), Plantinga, who had long opposed ontological theories, explains that his mind was changed through the curious logical process of speculating about "possible worlds" in which things could be different. For example, he says, Raquel Welch has "impressive assets" in our world. But there are possible worlds in which she is "mousy and 50 lbs. overweight," and others in which she is totally nonexistent, adding: "What Anselm means to suggest is that Raquel Welch enjoys very little greatness in those worlds in which she does not exist."
Ross, a leader in modernizing the thought of medieval scholars, favors the revision of Anselm done by John Duns Scotus (1265-1308) but does some renovation himself. In the forthcoming new edition of his Philosophical Theology (Hackett; $17.50), Ross is bold enough to claim that he has an airtight proof that "remains unscathed" after a decade of scrutiny. Ross does this with his "Principle E" (for explicability), which is virtually inexplicable to the uninitiated. Roughly, it means that it is possible for everything, including God's existence, to be explained, but that God's nonexistence does not admit an explanation. Even atheistic philosophers grant that by the latest rules of logic, the updaters of Anselm are right: if it is even possible that a highest conceivable being exists, then he must exist in actuality. The trouble is, the atheists do not accept that he is even possible.