Let's separate it up, with this argument, people often do follow the logic, but do not accept the premises.
Premise 1: God is defined as the greatest thing that we can possibly concieve ("that for which no greater can be conceived")
Premise 2: real things are better than imaginary things
We can imagine God (he exists in understanding). A real God is better than an imaginary God (2).
Then, if God does not exist, we can concieve a greater thing (a real God) this leads to a contradiction with respect to (1). Therefore by proof of contradiction, God must exist
Premise 1: Pennywise The Dancing Clown is defined as the scariest clown that could possibly exist ("that for which no greater horror can be conceived" EDIT: "that clown for which no more horrifying clown could be conceived").
("Pennywise the Dancing Clown" is usually defined as "the clown from It". I'm repurposing the name for the sake of this argument. We need a name for "scariest possible clown"; I'm choosing "Pennywise".)
Premise 2: real things are scarier than imaginary things.
We can imagine Pennywise The Dancing Clown (he exists in understanding---you're welcome). A real Pennywise is scarier than an imaginary Pennywise (2).
Then, if Pennywise The Dancing Clown does not exist, we can conceive a scarier clown (a real Pennywise). This leads to a contradiction with respect to (1). Therefore by proof of contradiction, Pennywise the Dancing Clown must exist.
Where's the flaw in this argument? Does the same flaw apply in the theological argument?
Some variety of this is in fact the classical reply to Anselm's version of the ontological argument. A contemporary of Anselm's, Gaunilo, published a satirical proof that a maximally excellent lost island must exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaunilo_of_Marmoutiers#The_%22...
This is the same as Anselm's argument. If the Lord of Hosts is not scarier to you than Pennywise, you have not thought very hard about the implications of an omnipotent, omniscient being. He isn't going to spook you like a movie clown; no, He is far more existentially terrifying, as befits Someone beyond Whom no greater horror can be conceived. And, after all, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
The more common formulation of your counterargument is something like imagining the most perfect possible ice cream sandwich, to which I would also say, is God not better than any ice cream sandwich? Are the splendors of heaven not far beyond any earthly dessert?
> If the Lord of Hosts is not scarier to you than Pennywise, [...]
I don't mean to define Pennywise as the scariest possible being. I mean to define Pennywise as the scariest possible clown. The Lord is, I imagine you will agree, not literally a clown.
Doesn't the fact that He's not a clown make it particularly unnerving that He's in fact the scariest possible clown?
Or, in what sense is God not a clown when He created not only every clown but the entire concept of clowning?
Or, being a little more serious, that constraint isn't compatible with the problem Anselm stated. There's no reason for the scariest possible clown to exist: there's no reason that, of the clowns both real and imaginary, the scariest real one should be scarier than the scariest imaginary one. (I think we could argue quite convincingly that, say, Pennywise has scared more people than any real clown.) So the argument "A clown is scarier if it exists" isn't obviously true.
Or put yet another way, the greatest possible mortal (existent or not) is obviously not immortal, but you could plausibly argue that the greatest possible being is.
If you want to maximize on one axis the most superlative being, though, you can probably get to God. I suspect Anselm's conception of God is the ultimate realization of any axis of comparison we can think of: the supreme delight, the supreme fear, the most resplendent, the most hidden, etc. And in particular I think Anselm's axis of greatness is much more defensible, that is, "A being is greater if it exists" sounds much more like a reasonable assumption (even if I'm not sure I accept it) than "A being is scarier if it exists."
>the implications of an omnipotent, omniscient being
There is nothing in the premise or conclusion about omnipotent or omniscient. Just "most powerful". If there is nothing which is omnipotent then the most powerful being is not omnipotent.
said another way: while I can (sort of) imagine omnipotentence, it does not follow that there is an omnipotent being in the same way. That is to say, there is necessarily a most powerful object in existence but there is not necessarily an omnipotent object in existence.
Indeed we can infer no attributes of this most powerful object except its power: we may just be talking about the largest black hole or something.
Anselm's argument was about "greater," not "more powerful." Specifically, was about the existence of "a being than which nothing greater can be conceived." Since you just conceived of a potential being with omnipotence, it follows that Anselm's being must have omnipotence, at least if we assume having omnipotence is greater than not having it.
More practically, Anselm was thinking within the Christian tradition, which also attributes omniscience, omnipotence, and fearworthiness to God. Had Anselm understood his argument to refer to a "greater" entity that potentially lacked these characteristics, he would not have called that being "God." I do generally agree that the argument is not particularly useful because it doesn't describe interesting properties of God and God's relationship with / desires for humanity, but at least for understanding the argument as Anselm understood it, we can fairly easily conclude that Anselm saw nothing in the being of the argument that was inconsistent with the God of his religion.
Very true, Anselm refers to greater, not more powerful. And is describing God entirely in the Christian tradition. But another problem is, the conclusion does not follow from the premises.
1) Imagine/conceive of the greatest possible thing. (This premise is more than true, it's a directive.)
2) Real things are greater than imaginary things. (This premise is un-controversially true.)
So we can imagine an extraordinary being omnipotent and great. And we must imagine him existing because if we imagine he does not exist, we're imagining something less great.
The problem is, in his own premise, _any_ existing being is greater than _any_ imagined being.
So it's very true that a real God is greater than an imagined God. But, from premise 2, so is any physical real thing including the most humble being.
At the risk of wandering outside of my expertise, I would think this would not bother the faithful either way since I understand faith is central to the religion. I'm guessing that Anselm's argument is a "nice to have" but if it fails it does not disturb anyone. And incidentally, I hope I have not said anything offensive.
> But, from premise 2, so is any physical real thing including the most humble being.
This doesn't invalidate the argument. A real person is certainly better than his imaginations of what God might be. But the real God is still greater than even that.
> Where's the flaw in this argument? Does the same flaw apply in the theological argument?
You've matched the argument pretty well and I think it does serve as a useful analogy
> Therefore by proof of contradiction, Pennywise the Dancing Clown must exist.
I see no problem with this: We know that Pennywise exists. We don't know much else about Pennywise, but we do know that if we are postulating a candidate for Pennywise it must be a clown that is postulated as existing.
To see this, examine this rephrasing that more closely matches the original:
> A Pennywise understood as real is scarier than a Pennywise understood as imaginary (2).
Thus, if you grant the truth of "Pennywise The Dancing Clown is that clown for which no more horrifying clown could be conceived", you cannot be a Pennywise atheist. If you use the term "Pennywise" to refer to something that you believe doesn't exist, you are deliberately misusing the term.
Note, that even this definition does not preclude the existence of a "Super Pennywise is the scariest clown that could ever exist" which has as potential candidates all the potentially real clowns whose true horror cannot be conceived.
Premise 1 is false. A clown is not "that for which no greater horror can be conceived". In order to be so, he would have to be omnipotent (less powerful = less scary), eternal (able to induce constant horror), necessarily self-existing (can't be killed), etc -- in short, God.
This is actually proof for God and the doctrine of Hell.
> A clown is not "that for which no greater horror can be conceived"
I don't know, some people are really scared of clowns.
Also as a reminder, your "proof" is something made up throughout history along with thousands of other denominations of thousands of other religions of thousands of other gods people have conceived through thousands of years. I can imagine many great things and it doesn't mean it exists, that's where this "proof" fails. Calling this "proof" is, if not a lie, but a big detriment to the notion of proofs already tested and held dear.
As an addendum, if you follow your logic then you're still left with the old 'who created God' argument because although you might imagine some great entity, any entity that god can imagine should surely be greater than the god you imagine so their god must be true. You still have the infinite egress problem diluting your "proof".
The argument leaves unspecified where "Pennywise the Dancing Clown" must exist, or in what form, or in what places. Even though we say that it is real, it may not exist in any form that we recognize.
This is as much an argument for a Lovecraftian reality as the original argument is for God.
The problem is that anything which would make this scary clown scarier would necessarily be true. So if having claws and being able to fly would make this scary clown scarier, then a flying clown with claws would necessarily exist. At least if you follow the logic of the ontological argument.
How does defining God a certain way lead to the idea that God must exist? That doesn't work for any other definitions. A lot is being packed into the words "greatest" and "better".
Premise 1: I define "Foo" to refer to the "blorgest" possible thing: a real situation where I'm the richest person alive.
Premise 2: A real "Foo" would be even "blorger" than a hypothetical "Foo".
We can imagine a hypothetical Foo, but a real Foo is blorger than an imaginary Foo, so if you accept the existence of hypothetical Foos, you also accept the even blorger real Foo. QED I'm the richest person alive.
The ability to conceive of something more extreme in some quality than what exists in reality can't obligate reality to change at all.
Yes, those are valid arguments! Maybe I should have reformulated it to "a real god is better than an imaginary god" directy, then that does not work anymore. But I am no expert either ;)
The real way to break it down is by attacking (1). One common answer is that this does not prove the existence of the "biblical god" at all. Nothing about an omniscient creator God in heaven. It just proves there is a "best" thing. For all we know it could be a potato.
Another way is to say that by accepting (1), we basically already assume a God exists. So, nothing new was concluded by proving he does. This logical flaw is called "begging the question". Although not everyone agrees if that is the case here.
This is where you have to get into the nuts and bolts of Godel's proof. Godel axiomized "positive properties" into the proof. A positive property is such that either it or its negation is positive, never both. So a catastrophe is a negative property, it's absence is the positive.
He then goes on to define God as the most positive thing imaginable. So a real catastrophe is not more positive than an imagined one.
1. "in order to imagine the most powerful thing possible then you must imagine it exists"
and 2. "anything which exist is more powerful than anything which is just imagined"
In the case of number 1, there is nothing requiring it to exist just how you are allowed to imagine it.
For number 2, even very simple objects will be stronger than the most powerful thing you can imagine.
To rescue the argument a third interpretation is often given: god is the most powerful thing in existence. But this provides no details and could be a very uninteresting but powerful natural phenomenon.
> Premise 1: God is defined as the greatest thing that we can possibly concieve ("that for which no greater can be conceived")
The problem starts here though. Aristotle/Aquinas showed by God could not be a thing, even the largest thing. God is not a being but rather Being Itself (ipsum esse subsistens).
Premise 1: God is defined as the greatest thing that we can possibly concieve ("that for which no greater can be conceived")
Premise 2: real things are better than imaginary things
We can imagine God (he exists in understanding). A real God is better than an imaginary God (2).
Then, if God does not exist, we can concieve a greater thing (a real God) this leads to a contradiction with respect to (1). Therefore by proof of contradiction, God must exist