TITLE: Why is Gödel's Second Incompleteness Theorem important?
QUESTION [21 upvotes]: Given that the consistency of a system can be proven outside of the given formal system, Gödel says,

It must be noted that proposition XI... represents no contradiction to the formalities viewpoint of Hilbert....

Why do others disagree?
Who cares whether a system cannot prove its own consistency? Why would we expect such a thing?
Is it possible that a theory without multiplication, but with some other axiom or axioms (i.e., weaker in one sense but stronger in another) could prove P consistent and itself consistent?

REPLY [33 votes]: You asked in a comment:

Who cares if a theory can prove itself consistent, if it can be proven using some other method?

Let us first observe that inconsistent theories are entirely worthless.  You want to know if $X$ is true, and then you prove that it is a consequence of theory $T$, so you now go around  believing $X$.  If you later  find that $T$ is inconsistent, then $T$ cannot lend any support whatever to $X$.  You might as well be flipping coins to decide what theorems are true.  $T$ is worthless; you will have to find some other reason to believe $X$.
So you would like to find some theory $T$ for which you have good reason to believe $T$ is consistent.  One plausible-seeming method is to choose axioms that are as simple as possible and which seem intuitively true.  But the crisis of set theory around 1905 shows that this method does not always work.  The comprehension axiom of naïve set theory is as simple and intuitively plausible as anything, and it is false.  The discovery that it was false precipitated the formalist programs of Hilbert and Whitehead & Russell, and was the direct motivation for Gödel's work.
So you might like a proof that theory $T$ is consistent.  Unfortunately, Gödel's theorem shows that $T$ cannot do it and neither can any theory strictly weaker than $T$.  So if you want to show that $T$ is not completely worthless, you need a theory, say $T'$, that is stronger in at least one aspect.  So suppose you show that $T$ is consistent, using $T'$.
If $T'$ is chosen to be strictly stronger than $T$, so that $T'$ shows as much as $T$ does and also shows that $T$ is consistent, then now you are in a very stupid position. If you weren't sure that $T$ was consistent, $T'$ cannot help you, because if $T$ is inconsistent, then so is $T'$.  So you didn't trust $T$, but you have even less reason to trust $T'$.  Suppose Shady Joe offers to sell you the Empire State Building for $5.  You are not sure, and suspect that Joe is trying to scam you.  Joe insists that he is honest, and suggests his Uncle Louie as a character witness.  So you go up to the state prison where Uncle Louie is serving a fifteen-year sentence for fraud, and, from his prison cell, Louie assures you that Shady Joe is offering you a fair deal.
But this is exactly the position we are in.  We would like to prove things about numbers, say the twin prime conjecture.  We have the Peano axioms, which we believe capture how numbers work.  But how do we know that from these axioms there is not some  proof, perhaps a very long one, that  $4923 = 4925$?  This would not show that $4923$ actually equals $4925$; it would only show that PA was broken.  We would have to throw away PA and use something else instead, as we did with naïve set theory.  If we knew that PA was consistent, we would know that there was no such proof.  And there is a proof of the consistency of PA using ZF set theory!  But this is like asking Uncle Louie if Shady Joe is telling the truth, because if PA is inconsistent, then so is ZFC; if PA was inconsistent, then ZFC would prove that PA was consistent anyway.