The Ontological Argument - Quotes

Question 1

Anselm’s definition of God

Answer 1

‘a being than which nothing greater can be conceived’

• Proslogium

Question 2

God quotes

Answer 2

• ‘God cannot be conceived not to exist’
• ‘That which can be conceived not to exist is not God’

Proslogium

Question 3

Descartes quotes

Answer 3

• to think of God not existing is the same as thinking of ‘a mountain without a valley’

Question 4

Anselm’s Ontological Argument part 1

Answer 4

‘that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone’
God ‘exists both in the understanding and in reality’

Question 5

Anselm’s Ontological Argument part 2

Answer 5

‘whatever else there is, except you alone, can be conceived not to exist’
‘exist more truly than all other beings’
God exists ‘in a higher degree than all others’

Question 6

Gaunilo’s reply to Anselm

Answer 6

‘the lost island’
‘an inestimable wealth of all manner of riches and delicacies’
‘I should believe that he was jesting’

• On Behalf of the Fool

Question 7

Descartes’s Ontological Argument

Answer 7

‘a supremely perfect being’
‘it belongs to God’s nature that he always exists’
‘as vivid and clear as what is involved in mathematical proofs’
‘existence can’t be separated from the essence of God’
it is ‘self-contradictory’ to think of God lacking ‘the perfection of existence’

• Meditations, Meditation V

Question 8

Kant’s Criticism

Answer 8

‘Existence is evidently not a real predicate’
‘the real contains no more than the possible’
‘a hundred real dollars contain no more than a hundred possible dollars’
‘to suppose the non-existence of both triangle and angles is perfectly admissible’