Ontological argument

Question 1

What is the philosophical categorization of the argument?

Answer 1

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

Question 2

What are some characteristics of the god of classical theism?

Answer 2

Omnipotent, omnipresent, transcendent, immanent, everlasting, all loving and the creator of all things.

Question 3

How does Anselm define god?

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

Question 6

How did Gaunilo criticize the argument?

Answer 6

Monk Gaunilo used reductio ad absurdum to show the flaw in anselm’s logic; I can think of the greatest possible island with all perfections, ergo, according to anselm’s logic, it must exist or it would not be the greatest possible island. Yet the island does not exist, 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 like god.

Question 8

How does Descartes see god?

Answer 8

Supremely perfect, a clear and distinct idea all can understand. Existence is simply a predicate of god, in the same way it would be illogical to posit a triangle without three sides, it is illogical to posit god without existance.

Question 9

What is Descartes’ first proof?

Answer 9

1. God is a 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 Descartes’ second proof?

Answer 10

Cognitio ergo sum- he as an imperfect, contingent being can conceive of the supremely perfect being of god, but he, as a limited being, could never have made up such a concept. The concept must have come from an external source, the fact that the being actually exists.

Question 11

Give four ways aquinas criticized Anselm

Answer 11

1. He uses a definition of god not shared by all believers, if the definition 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 agreed on god’s essence, we would have no way of knowing if we were correct. 4. He makes an inductive leap from an in re understanding of god to a de dicto definition of god, this is a fallacy.

Question 12

How does Hume criticize Anselm?

Answer 12

It’s impossible to take a concept, use logic a priori to come to a conclusion about it and then apply that conclusion in the external world 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 like beauty and love which we generate through logic as opposed to observation, we see things as beautiful, but don’t see beauty itself.

Question 14

What did Hume say about existence as a predicate?

Answer 14

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

Question 15

What did Kant say about necessary existence?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

How does Kant see existence as a predicate?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

What is a syllogism?

Answer 17

Deductive reasoning arguing from the general to the specific, 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. Ergo, eeyore must exist. The conclusion is wrong, he does not exist 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 prove an intention about it by describing it ‘donkeys are four legged animals.’ 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 the unicorn as unicorns don’t 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 within the world ‘cows exist’ means there are things in the world that correspond to out idea of a cow, we run into an issue with ‘god exists’ as it is much more difficult to find instances in the world that correspond to our idea of god.

Question 21

What is gasking’s critique?

Answer 21

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 a 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 Malcom’s form of the argument?

Answer 22

1. Either god exists or does not exist, he can’t go out of, or come into existence. 2. If god exists, he can’t cease to exist. 3. Ergo, if god exists, his existence is necessary. 4. Ergo, if god doesn’t exist, his existence is impossible. His 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’s existence is necessary.

Question 23

What is plantinga’s form of the argument?

Answer 23

1. God is both maximally good and maximally excellent, he can and doesn’t exist in all possible worlds and has the same features of omnipotence, omniscience etc in all of them because he is maximally excellent. 2. Our world is a possible world, ergo, god exists in our world and has 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 all of god’s essence for the argument to work. 2. We can have an adequate idea of an all powerful being without having to work out every attribute it 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 within it the idea of being unmarried.