It is especially in
his rational theology where Baumgarten diverges most from standards
set by Wolff. As we should know by now, for Wolff, it was the
cosmological argument that ruled the field of theology. With
Baumgarten, we find no traces of this argument. Instead, Baumgarten
starts straightaway with the ontological argument, which with Wolff
clearly played a second fiddle.
The two gentlemen
don't just have different taste in arguments, but their very
arguments are different. Indeed, when with Wolff, ontological
argument was essentially dependent on cosmological argument, with
Baumgarten, the ontological argument obviously has to work on its
own.
There's already a
clear difference in the manner, in which Wolff and Baumgarten try to
prove the possibility of God. With Wolff, the proof was based on the
fact that he defined God as a sum of known possibilities that are also
known to be possible in combination – it requires just quick
analysis to see that this proof must work. Baumgarten, on the
contrary, bases his proof on more spurious ideas. He defines God as a
sum of positive characteristics, which have no negations or
limitations in them. He then suggests that contradiction could only
occur, if such a combination of characteristics would have some
negations in them. This leap of thought seems to require a more
careful justification – after all, one might think that
characteristics might restrict one another without being literal
negations of one another. Yet, it seems that with Baumgarten,
development of a thing in one dimension is completely indifferent to
its development in another dimension – basic characteristics are
independent of one another.
Now, with Wolff, it
is then all about knowing whether his combination of perfect possible
characteristics is just a contingent entity or also necessary – in
the former case, we can say nothing about its existence, in the latter
case, we can conclude infallibly that it does exist. The only manner
in which Wolff could decide this was to show that necessary things
existed – this is where the cosmological argument came in.
Baumgarten, on the
other hand, simply assumes that existence is one of the independent
dimensions, of which the sum of all positive characteristics
consists of. As one knows well, Kant was very much against this idea
and denied that being or existence would be even a characteristic in
the same sense as other characteristics of things. Wolff did not go
as far, because he noted that Baumgartenian line of thought could not
lead very far – even if you added existence as a characteristic of
some possible entity, it would still be just possible existence (this
is why he had to prove a stronger notion that he could add necessity
to the required possible combination of perfect characteristics).
With Baumgarten, actual existence is something you can just add to a
possible thing and make it exist – indeed, existence is defined by him as a completeness in
the combination of all characteristics of a thing.
Baumgarten then
thinks that he has shown the necessity of God's existence – God
comes out, when you start to add all sorts of perfections and finally
existence. God cannot then fail to exist, because that would mean
contradiction. Baumgarten's final account of all the properties of
God is rather traditional (he is all-knowing, all-powerful and
perfectly good), but one should not even expect originality in such
carefully observed part of education.
Next time, I shall
wrap up Baumgarten's natural theology, and with it, all of
Baumgarten's metaphysics.
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