Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Ontological Argument (Summary)
- Anselm of Canterbury
- Starting point: Psalm 14:1, 'Fools say
in their hearts, "there is no god"
- Anselm's first ontological argument
- Something which exists in reality and in mind is
greater than something which exists as an idea in the
mind alone. Therefore God must exist in reality and
in the mind
- Claims existence is a predicate of God
- Anselm's second version of the argument
- God's existence is necessary
- The greatest possible being is what
Christians mean by God
- Some suggestions that Anselm was reflecting
on, not proving, God existed necessarily
- Gaunilo's response to Anselm's argument
- Necessary existence is 'unintelligible'
- You cannot define the idea into
existence
- Guanilo's perfect island
- Whilst the perfect island can be
conceived of, that doesn't mean it
exists; the same reasoning applies
to Anselm's onto arg
- Anselm's possible reply to Guanilo:
- G's argument is different, because the
island, whilst being the greatest possible
island, doesn't have to exist; its
existence is contingent
- Plantinga argued that God is maximally
great in A's thought; therefore the greatest
possible being and the greatest possible
island are not comparable
- Thomas Aquina
- Rejected Anselm's argument as God's existence is not self-evident, human beings are not in a postition to understand God's nature
- Descartes
- Claimed there's idea of God in everyone; like a stamp/trademark
- Some things can't be doubted, e.g. maths or God's existence
- Demonstrating God's existence is about
showing there's no reason to doubt that God
exists
- Triangles & Descartes' ontological argument
- God and triangles have 'immutable' nature/essence
- Part of God's essence is existence
- Further Objections to the ontological argument
- Kant argues that existence is not a 'predicate'
- The part of a sentence/ cause containing a verb & stating something about the subject
- Replies to Kant:
- Charles Hartshorne- there's a big
difference between an idea of God
and God existing in reality as well
- Norman Malcolm suggested that
necessary existence could be a predicate
of God
- Pierre Gassendi argued that it's only relevant to
discuss the perfection of something if it exists