 | An even more Leibnizian version of Gödel’s ontological argument
To be published in Special Issue on Formal Approaches to the Ontological Argument
Kordula Świętorzecka and Marcin Łyczak
We propose a modification of Gödel’s ontological argument for God’s existence
from his ‘Ontologischer Beweis’ manuscript (1970).We follow a Leibnizian
onto-theology, especially two of Leibniz’s letters from 1676 and 1677, to which
Gödel could relate. We consider two differences between Gödel and Leibniz. We
argue for the superiority of Leibniz’s ideas, while preserving the main structure
of the Gödelian argument. Our first aim is to bring Gödel’s concept of
positiveness closer to the idea of a Leibnizian perfectio which should not be
understood via negations. Our second goal is to analyze the concept of being
necessary in terms of a Leibnizian demonstrability. To this end, we formulate
an S4 version of Gödel’s argument without using negative predicate terms. We
sketch a model for our theory that allows us to express a few specific properties
of the Leibnizian God.
Keywords: ontological argument,
30 July 2018
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