Ontological argument

Question 1

What is the philosophical categorization of the argument?

Answer 1

Deductive and a priori, it seeks to prove the existence of god purely through reason, not using evidence from the outside world.

Question 2

What are some of the characteristics of the god of classical theism?

Answer 2

Omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, transcendent, immanent, everlasting and the creator of all things.

Question 3

How is god defined within anselm’s argument?

Answer 3

That then which nothing greater can be conceived.

Question 4

What is anselm’s first proof?

Answer 4

1. God is TTWNGCBC, even the atheist can understand this definition and have an idea of god in his mind. 2. It is greater to exist in reality then in the mind. 3. Ergo, in order to be TTWNGCBC, god would have to exist in reality or he would not be the greatest possible being. 4. Ergo, god must exist in reality.

Question 5

What is anselm’s second proof?

Answer 5

1. God is TTWNGCBC. 2. Things can either exist continently or can exist necessarily. 3. It is greater to exist necessarily then to exist contingently. 4. If god is TTWNGCBC, he must exist and must exist necessarily.

Question 6

How did Gaunilo criticize anselm’s argument?

Answer 6

The monk Gaunilo used a reductio ad absurdum argument to show the flaw in anselm’s logic: I can think of the greatest possible island, this island has all perfections, ergo, by anselm’s logic, this island must exist or it would not be the greatest possible island. However, the island does not, showing the flaw in the argument.

Question 7

How did anselm respond to Gaunilo?

Answer 7

Islands are contingent, god is necessary, the argument can only be applied to necessary things things, god is not like an island.

Question 8

How does Descartes see god?

Answer 8

God is supremely perfect, he is a clear and distinct idea whom all can understand. Existence is simply a predicate of god, in the same way that it would be illogical to posit a triangle without three sides, it is illogical to posit god without existence.

Question 9

What is the first of Descartes’ ontological arguments?

Answer 9

1. God is the supremely perfect being. 2. A supremely perfect being has all perfections. 3. Existence is a perfection. 4 . Ergo, god, as a supremely perfect being, must exist.

Question 10

What is the second of Descartes’ ontological arguments?

Answer 10

The idea of cognito ergo sum. He says that he, as an imperfect, contingent being, can conceive of the idea of the supremely perfect being that is god. But he, as a limited being, could never have made up such a concept, it must have come from an external source, the fact that such a being actually exists.

Question 11

How does aquinas criticize anselm’s argument?

Answer 11

1. He uses a definition of god not shared by all believers, if the definition of god fails, the whole argument fails. 2. Any discussion on god must be based on synthetic propositions and experience, not analytic propositions. 3. Even if we all came to an agreement on the nature of god’s essence, we would have no way of knowing that this was correct. 4. Anselm makes an inductive leap from an in re understanding of god to a de dicto definition of god, this is a fallacy.

Question 12

What is Hume’s criticism of anselm’s argument?

Answer 12

1. It is impossible to take a concept, use logic a priori to reach a conclusion about it and then apply that conclusion in the external universe a posteriori. As humans, we base our knowledge on the world around us and what we can rationally prove.

Question 13

How can Hume be criticized?

Answer 13

There are concepts such as beauty, love and justice which we generate through logic as opposed to observation, we see thing as beautiful but do not observe beauty itself.

Question 14

What did Hume say about existence as a predicate?

Answer 14

Existence is not a predicate as it does not add anything to our understanding of the thing to which it is applied. ‘God exists’ is not an analytic proposition as it is not a contradiction to deny it, ergo, it is synthetic, not analytic.

Question 15

What did Kant say about necessary existence?

Answer 15

Even if existence is a necessary property of god, it doesn’t mean he exists. You can have propositions (unicorns are horned horses), that are true by definition, bit this does not mean that the subject actually exists- it would be illogical to reject the idea that the triangle has three sides, but there is nothing wrong with rejecting the whole triangle.

Question 16

What are Kant’s views on existence as a predicate?

Answer 16

It is not a predicate of god, nor of anything else as it adds nothing to our understanding of the thing ‘100 real thalers are worth no more then 100 potential thalers.’

Question 17

What is a syllogism?

Answer 17

Deductive reasoning wherein you argue from the general to the specific, it is used by Russell to show the fallacy of the ontological argument.

Question 18

What is Russell’s syllogism?

Answer 18

1. Donkeys exist. 2. Eeyore is a donkey. 3. Therefor, eeyore exists. The conclusion is wrong, he does not exists and using existence as a predicate does not mean that the subject exists.

Question 19

What does Russell say about intentions and extensions?

Answer 19

1. Defining something is to provide an intension about it “donkeys are four legged animals” provides an intension as it is describing something about them. 2. Adding “donkeys exist” is merely adding an extension to my intension as it tells us nothing about donkeys. 3. I cannot add the extension of existence to my unicorn as unicorns do not exist.

Question 20

What does Russell think ‘existence’ is?

Answer 20

A false predicate, it appears to describe something, but doesn’t. Existence is an existential quantifier, there are instances of it in the world “cows exist” means there are things in the world that correspond to our idea of a cow, we run into an issue with “god exists” as it is much more difficult to find instances in the world which correspond to our idea of god.

Question 21

What is gasking’s critique of the ontological argument?

Answer 21

He devised an argument to disprove the existence of god. 1. The universe was the most Supreme achievement. 2. The greater the limitation of the creator, the greater the achievement. 3. The greatest limitation of the creator would be non existence. Ergo, for god to be the greatest possible being, he must not exist as it would be a more supreme achievement for a non existent creator to make the world then for an existent creator to make the world.

Question 22

What is Malcolm’s form of the ontological argument?

Answer 22

An updated form or anselm’s argument: 1. Either God exists or does not exist, god can’t come into existence or go out of existence. 2. If god exists, he can’t cease to exist. 3. Therefore, if god exists, his existence is necessary. 4. Therefore, if god does not exist, god’s existence is impossible, so god’s existence is either necessary or impossible. 5. God’s existence is only impossible if the concept of god is self contradictory, the concept of god is not self contradictory, so god’s existence is not impossible, ergo, god exists necessarily.

Question 23

How does Plantinga lay out his ontological argument?

Answer 23

1. God is both maximally good and maximally excellent, he can and does exist in all possible worlds and has the same features of omnipotence, omnibenevolence etc in all of them, this is because he is maximally excellent. 2. Our world is a possible world, therefore, it logically follows that god exists in our world and has all the qualities of the god of classical theism as it would be a contradiction to say that a maximally good and maximally excellent being does not exist, if he did not exist, he would not be maximally good.

Question 24

How could we defend Anselm against aquinas?

Answer 24

1. It isn’t necessary to know god’s essence completely for the argument to work. 2. We can have an adequate idea of an all powerful being without having to work out every attribute such a being has.

Question 25

Give an example of an analytic proposition

Answer 25

‘All bachelors are unmarried’. It would be a contradiction to deny this as the idea of a bachelor contains the idea of being unmarried.