When I was five and my brother was three, we engaged in what was my first serious discussion about the existence of Santa Claus. I remember that I was the one who brought it up: I was troubled by the lyrics to the song, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. My point of contention was that just because Rudolph's nose was red, and even if one were to go along with the proposition that it glowed, this would hardly provide enough illumination to navigate Santa's journey around the world on a cloudy Christmas Eve. My brother, who was more precocious than I, suggested that the chief use of Rudolph's nose was not so much to guide Santa's sleigh, but to prevent other sleighs from running into it. This sounded reasonable, but it was not what the song said. In the song Santa explicitly asked Rudolph to 'guide [his] sleigh.' The song was obviously a myth. So my faith eroded, and I soon became rebellious--even denying the existence of Santa during my childhood and teenage years.
Alas, such a story is all too familiar. Probably each one of us has gone through what amounts to at least a similar ordeal. And for those who perhaps were too sheltered to be exposed to the arguments of the skeptic, this last paragraph must have been quite a rude awakening. At any rate, all of us must agree that there's a real need for an apology for Santa that does not compromise intellectual integrity. We must know why we believe--in Santa Claus. Emotions and naive fideism can only take a person so far. Hence, though I may not be fit for such a task, I here present the rational epistemological philosophy of Santa Claus.
The first and perhaps deepest reason for believing in Santa is the ontological argument. This is it in its simplified form:
1. Santa is a person whose generosity is so great, that one can conceive of none greater.
2. This greatest possible generosity must not only exist in theory, but must also exist in reality.
Conclusion: Therefore, Santa Claus exists.
Premise one is true by definition. Premise two is true because if such generosity only existed in theory, then we could also conceive of a being who met said condition and existed. And existing generosity is surely greater than a non-existing one. So to have premise two false with premise one true would be a violation of Aristotle's law of contradiction, or reductio ad absurdum. The above syllogism is valid, and the premises are true, so the conclusion must also be true. Santa's existence is thus seen as logically following from the very nature of his being; hence, this is called the ontological argument.
Secondly, we have the cosmological argument. Presents don't just happen. The most logical conclusion one can draw from the known existence of presents is that there must have been a giver (the probability of anything else is infinitesimal). We all know this giver as Santa (it is even thus indicated on the presents!) Hence, Santa exists.
Third and finally, there's the moral argument. If Santa didn't exist, what difference would it make if children were naughty or nice? It's usually more fun to be naughty. It would be an egregious injustice for a child to engage in niceties and not receive any reward for so doing. In a scenario such as this the naughty and nice children would both wind up in the same state. Such a condition is diametrically opposed to the innate feeling that we ought to be good. Thus, Santa must exist for our feelings of morality and justice to have any meaning at all.
The strongest objection to what we now know as a rational belief in Santa Claus is the so-called santnicdicy, or problem of evil. The objection goes like this: If Santa really existed, why would some good children (such as the poor and most outside of the U.S.) not receive presents from Him on Christmas. But this can readily be seen for the sophistry that it is. The key word he is good. No child is good enough to earn presents. All who receive them do so because of Santa's grace. Thus, it is because of sheer grace that any receive presents at all. The real mystery, then, is not why some do not receive presents, but that some, thank Santa, do receive presents. So, naturally, the justice of Santa is vindicated.
My reasoning here was by no means exhaustive; it was not meant to be. My goal was to get past emotion and rhetoric, and to put the Santa-debate back into the intellectual arena. It does take faith to believe in Santa Claus, but, as one can readily see, this need not be a blind leap of faith. Acknowledging certainty as impossible, fair-minded people should conclude that Santa (at least) probably exists. I also have some nifty proofs for the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and trickle-down economics, but I haven't time to share them right now.
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