Ontological

Question 1

anselm possibility ontological argument

Answer 1

• ‘Proslogion’ Chapter 2: A priori deductive argument based on reason – moves from premise (God’s existing nature) to explanation, working off Aristotelian logic which claims a contradiction is impossible.
• “The fool says in his heart ‘There is no God’” (Psalms 14): The fool contradicts himself, as God, by very definition, is “something which nothing greater can be thought” –

Question 2

gaunilo criticism of anselm

and hick response with plantinga

Answer 2

GAUNILO ISLAND

• Yet Gaunilo’s criticism seems flawed, as John Hick highlighted, perfect islands are no definable in the way God is. Platinga explained that a perfect island would have no intrinsic maxim, God is different and not contingent – unlike an island, God is simple and necessary.

Question 3

defence against HICK and plantinga - god subjective

Answer 3

• The GCB is not the only definition of God – the ancient Greeks considered God to be the world

Question 4

descartes existente ontological

Answer 4

• Descartes, pioneer of rationalism, explains existence is a predicate of perfection much like three sides is a predicate of a triangle – God, a “supremely perfect being” must exist, as existence is fundamental to his essence

Question 5

kant criticism of descartes

Answer 5

• ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ Kant – merely circular logic which cannot be falsified “I could say that if I accepted God existed, then he would necessarily exist, but I do not believe in him or his necessary existence” Existence is not a defining predicate – example of 100 thalers, 100 thalers that exists in reality is exactly the same as 100 thalers that exists in the mind!

Question 6

necessary being and boethius response against kant

Answer 6

• Necessary beings are greater than contingent beings thus God must be necessary (as if he were contingent he would not be the greatest conceivable being); if he is necessary then he cannot not exist. The character of God’s existence has a special truth which is not available to any other being, “anything else does not exist so truly and therefore has less being”
• Boethius categorises everything into four categories; God is part of the category ‘cannot not be’, he is different to anything in the universe and cannot be thought of in the same way as other things, of which existence wouldn’t be a predicate.

Question 7

russell necessary criticism

Answer 7

• Puzzling to argue God is a necessary being when 1) we know of nothing that is necessary thus using the words seems meaningless (Russell) 2) we do not know of God’s nature.
• Augustine argued, “if you claim you have grasped him, what you have grasped is not God”. Although the argument is clear and complete, it perhaps forces us to make the immediate leap of faith of belief in God, whereas an a posteriori argument moves from the known to the unknown

Question 8

3rd point, existing faith

Answer 8

• A priori arguments provide certainty in the way a mathematical formula does, much like defining a triangle, but we can only define a triangle because we know what it entails to be a triangle
• Anselm wrote as a believer – constructs an argument to justify belief, as a prior factor. John Cottingham, believers may find proofs “reassuring as formal confirmations of the intellectual respectability of their religious outlook”

• Arguably to seek a rational explanation was a failed enterprise, as to ask whether or not God exists is not a logical or theoretical question, but one of faith – “letting go of oneself into the incomprehensible mystery” (Karl Rahner)

Question 9

dawkins fideism

Answer 9

• Richard Dawkins The God Delusion’ – “faith is… the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, or perhaps because of, the lack of evidence”

Question 10

language games defence against fideism

Answer 10

• Wittgenstein’s Language Games: Ultimately the existence or non-existence of God cannot be disproved, and the validity of the ontological argument will be determined by one’s religious position – if one is playing the game of religion, the rules of this argument make sense, yet if one is playing the game of science, one will not be able to understand this argument meaning conditioned by language/ the game

Question 11

aquinas a posteriori argument

Answer 11

• In part I of his famous ‘Summa Theologica’ Aquinas gives his famous Five Ways for the existence of God, claiming we can only reach God through observation of this world (an Aristotelian notion of empiricism) stronger than a priori perhaps, as the argument is inductive, and one can arrive at a conclusion from experience and evaluation, as opposed to an uncertain premise teleological argument: fifth of his five ways, arguing everything in the world seems to have purpose, but cannot move from potentiality to actuality without a guiding force – arrow archer God must exist