Ontilogical Argument Responses

Question 1

Guanilos criticism
The perfect lost island

Answer 1

-Guanilos criticism uses a parody of Anselms argument.

-Gaunilo follows the same structure is
Anselm’s argument but substitutes God for the lost island. This illistrates its flaws

-The lost island is ‘that then which nothing greater can be conceived.

-It is greater to exist in reality than only in the mind.

-If it exists only in the mind, then a greater Island can be conceived.

-So the lost island exists both in the mind and in reality.

Question 2

Anselms response to Gaunilo

Answer 2

In the second version of his Ontological Argument Anselm makes the distinction between necessity and contingency.

-God is ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived

-It is greater to be a necessary being than a contingent one.

-If God existed only as a contingent being, a greater being could be imagined.

-Therefore, God is a necessary being.

-The key difference between an island or any other object in God is that islands are contingent; God is not.

Only in God is necessary existence an integral property. Only God cannot be thought

Question 3

Descartes supports gaunilo

Answer 3

-God is defined as the supremely perfect being
-he must therefore possess all the perfect predicates if omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence
He myst also possess existence

Question 4

Kants criticism

Answer 4

Existence is not a predicate

• A real predicate is something that gives information about a subject. E.G. the cat sat on the mat. Sat on the mat gives information about the cat.

• If we then add ‘the cat exists’ it gives us no further information about the cat.

Kant claimed that statements about
existence are synthetic and must be proved empirically.

• Something cannot be defined into existence

• Kant accepted that necessary existence belongs to the concept of God.

• This does not mean that God actually exists. The fact that something could exist does not mean it actually does.