By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
Faith—both as trust and as loyalty—necessarily implies the surpassability of its object.
But unsurpassability (so the ontological argument shows) necessarily implies existence, since even possible nonexistence is incompatible with unsurpassability.
Therefore, either faith is eo ipso inauthentic because its object is necessarily nonexistent or else God, in the sense of the unsurpassable One that faith necessarily implies, necessarily exists. In other words, faith can be inauthentic if, and only if, the concept of unsurpassability is incoherent; for if this concept is coherent, God as the unsurpassable One necessarily exists, and faith is authentic.
Fall 1991; rev. 24 November 1993
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