end p.91
Gaunilo and Parody
Shortly after Anselm published the Proslogion, Gaunilo of Marmoutiers replied with a
parody of the Proslogion 2 argument:
(An) island more excellent than all other lands truly exists somewhere in reality (if it
exists) in your mind. For it is more excellent to exist not only in the mind but also in
reality. So it must necessarily exist. For if it did not, any other land existing in reality
would be more excellent. And so the island you conceived to be more excellent will not
be more excellent. (Charlesworth 1965, 164)
This parody isn't quite right, but we can construct the right sort on Gaunilo's behalf: let's
take him to have meant that if we replace “a G” with “an island than which no greater can
be thought,” the resulting argument works as well as Anselm's. There is no such island.
So (says Gaunilo) we know the argument isn't sound, even if we can't pinpoint its flaw.
Unfortunately for Gaunilo, some sorts of parody are easily dismissed. There is no greatest
possible island, for there can always be another island better at least for containing more
of what makes any other island good (Plantinga 1974b, 91–92).^7 Oppy suggests that
perhaps “the greatest possible island will have an infinite surface area andsupply of
banana trees (etc.)Given (this) it will not be the case that it could have a greater supply of
these things” (1995, 165). Not so: for every order of infinity, there is a higher order.
Oppy also suggests that traditional theists must concede the possibility of a greatest
island, for their heaven is in effect an island than which no greater is possible, whose
greatness lies inter alia in conferring “eternal life and infinite attributes on its inhabitants”
(165). But on traditional theist belief, not heaven but God confers eternal life, and heaven
is not surrounded by water. A physical heaven might be more like a new universe. But
traditional theists don't hold that heaven is a best possible physical universe, only that
being in heaven is the best possible state for us—and that it is so because heaven affords
each of us our closest contact with God. Further, if greatness is (roughly) worship-
worthiness, it's not true that a greatest possible island would be still greater if it existed.
Nonexistent islands don't deserve worship, but neither do real ones, however lovely.
Here, however, Oppy has a countersuggestion. Perhaps, he wonders, a greatest possible
island would have “Godlike powers of providing for its inhabitants,” in which case,
theists can rule out a greatest possible island only if they can rule out the possibility of
“limited—localized—pantheism” (166). Oppy might have made this particularly pointed
by asking Christians whether God could incarnate Himself in an island. But a divine
island is great qua divine, not qua island. Despite Oppy, it remains the case that islands as
such don't deserve worship. So Oppy has left the realm of Gaunilo's original parody, and
moved into talk of what I call almost-Gods.
end p.92
Deity is a kind. Most kinds can have more than one member: there are many cows. If
deity is a kind, perhaps it can have many members, or could have had a different one. If it