Ontological Argument Flashcards
How many arguments did ANSLEM present?
2⃣ proslogions
2⃣and
prologion 3⃣
Why did Anslem create the 2 prologions?
To act as rational justifications for religious believers.
What was Anslems definition of God?
God is the greatest human being to have ever been conceived.
What did Anslem suggest within his first prologion?
He shared two things, in intellectu meaning in the mind and in re in reality.
p1- God is the greatest being to ever been conceived
p2- there is a difference in existing in re and in intellectu.
P3- it is best to exist in re
C- God is best therefore he exists in re.
What Anslems suggest in his 3 prologion?
Proslogion three can be explained within the same for of Premisis.
Anslems believed that there was two types of existence, necessary and contingent.
Necessary- existence on its own.
Contingent- meaning it relies on something to exist.
P1-God is the greatest being to have ever been conceived.
P2-there is a difference between necessary and contingent existence
P3- it is better to have necessary existence.
C- God is best therefore he is of necessary existence.
Who objected to Anslem (not modern)?
Guanilo
What did guanilo suggest?
Guanilo believed that an argument should be either valid or sound.
Valid meaning the structure works and sound meaning the argument makes sense.
He believed that Anslems argument was valid as it presented a good structure however not sound. He thought this due to the reason that when he changed the topic of God, to the topic of a lost island the argument,net fell apart, the structure still worked there for it was valid however the outcome was nonsense. This therefore means that the definition could not have worked in the first place to prove gods existence.
What did anslem reply to the objection of guanilo?
He replied to this by saying that he did no compare things of a like kind however compared islands. Island have no intrinsic maxim by definition, which means they can carry on getting better and are contingent. HOWEVER God was of an intrinsic maxim as he is the greatest of the great and nothing can be better than him, he is also necessary therefore Anslems argument works.
Name a modern philosopher that discusses the ontological argument ?
Malcomb
Is malcombs argument against or for the existence of God?
FOR
Who was Malcomb and when was he writing?
He was a philosopher writing in the 20th century.
What was Malcombs argument?
He stated that existence is either necessary, contingent or impossible.
He uses a process of illumination to work out which one God is.
God cannot be contingent by definition and states that for something to be impossible there needs to be some sort of logical contradiction to its definition, which there isn’t, therefore, God is of necessary existence.
What does the Introduction include?
The ontological argument is based on the word ontos meaning being or existence. It is a priori argument which means it is based on definitions therefore it is also an analytic argument meaning it’s worked out by definitions to reach conclusions. Finally it is deductive which means that if the definitions work then the conclusions are certain. It is this priori nature of the argument that scholars have a debate about.