The Ontological Argument Flashcards
What does the ontological argument claim?
- God’s existence is a priori and deductive, so can be known and stated without the use of our senses;
- God’s existence is a necessary truth and not a contingent one.
What argument does Anselm have in favour of the Ontological argument?
He says that ‘God is a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.’
- He argues the idea that it is better for something to exist in both your mind and in reality rather than just existing in your mind.
How does Gaunilo criticise Anselm’s idea?
- He used the example of the perfect lost Island within his criticism, which stated that everything was perfect but just because you say it exists yourself, doesn’t mean it actually exists, as nobody can physically sense it.
How is Kant critical of the Ontological argument?
1) Existence is not a predicate: He is critical of Descartes who defined God as the ‘supremely perfect being’, meaning that God must have all of the perfect predicates such as omnipotence, omniscience, omni-benevolence and many more.
2) We can accept the proposition that ‘existing necessarily’ is party of what we mean by ‘God’, but it does not follow from this that God exists in reality: The ontological argument fails because it omits the word If; With God: If there is a God, then God will exist necessarily.
What does Karl Barth say about Anselm’s argument?
- He says it is about faith and not logic.
- He says that the argument is more of a religious experience given by God to Anselm from which Anselm understood that God exists necessarily.
What are some of the strengths of Anselm’s argument?
- It is deductive, so if it work, it is then a proof;
- According to Karl Barth and others, the argument succeeds precisely because it is not to be a logical proof: it is a confession of faith.
What are some of the weaknesses of Anselm’s argument?
- Most people agree with Kant’s two objections and say that they defeat all Ontological arguments in any form.
- Some reject Anselm’s definition of God as ‘the greatest conceivable being’, but Christians such as Aquinas would reject any attempt to define God that would limit him. Against that, some would say that Anselm’s definition is a good place to start and we know what it means.
What is the value of Anselm’s argument in terms of religious faith?
In Proslogian 4, he argues that the fool (the atheist) does not have an adequate concept of God. Someone who truly understands the definition of God, as ‘that than which a greater cannot be conceived’ must then understand that this being exists.
