Knowledge Organiser Unit 1.3 The Ontological Argument -P

Key Words  - 

Deductive Reasoning

A Priori

Rationalism

Existing in Re

Existing in Intellecu

Reductio Ad Absurdum

Predicate

Innate

Perfection

Key Scholars

St. Anselm (1034CE – 31109CE) 

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225CE – 1274CE) 

Rene Descartes (1596CE – 1650BCE) 

David Hume (1711CE – 1776CE) 

Immanuel Kant (1724CE – 1804CE) 

Bertrand Russell (1872CE – 1970CE) 

Key Texts

Proslogian by St. Anselm

On Behalf of the Fool By Gaunilo

A Critique of Pure Reason By Immanual Kant

Context

• The Ontological Argument is a deductive and a priori argument for the existence of god (unlike the Cosmological & Teleological Arguments which are both inductive and a posterior arguments) 

• It argues that the concept of God proves that God’s existence is necessary and it is impossible for him not to exist 

St. Anselm’s Ontological Argument

The original and most famous Ontological Argument is St. Anselm’s of Canterbury in his works Proslogian 

▪ Anselm defined God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”

▪ He goes onto argue that it is greater to exist in re (in reality) than just in intellectu (in the mind)

▪ Therefore, he concludes that God exists by definition as if he did not exist then we could conceive of something greater

Rene Descartes’ Ontological Argument

▪ 500 years after St. Anselm, French philosopher Rene Descartes formulated another version of it in his Fifth Meditations 

▪ Descartes argued that we have the innate idea of a supremely perfect being in our minds. However, as imperfect beings we don’t have the ability to conceive of this ourselves. 

▪ Therefore, this innate idea must have originated from the supremely perfect being itself 

▪ Furthermore, necessary existence is a perfection and therefore for the supremely perfect being to be perfect, they must exist 

Key arguments/debates Mill

• Some philosophers

Key Quotes

•  Psalms 14:1 'In his heart, the fool knows there is no God'  ‘'[God is] .’

• St. Anselm of Canterbury (Proslogion)  “Now we believe that You are are something than which nothing greater can be thought.”   "'if a mind could conceive of a greater being than (God) the creature would rise above the Creator; and this is most absurd.''.

• Gaunilo of Marmoutiers “, the idea that the perfect island has to exist just by virtue of being the perfect island is absurd; "

• St Thomas Aquinas"...Now because we don't know the essence of God, the proposition is not self-evident to us; but needs to be demonstrated by things that are more known to us."  in his Summa Theologica I.II question 1 (1264) 

• Descartes (Triangle) 'Existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than the fact its three angles equal to two right angles can be separated from the essence of a triangle.'    

• Kant concluded that the argument was “so much labour and effort lost” as "Existence is not a predicate"   - '

• Bertrand Russell "Existence is not a predicate and does not describe the properties of an object, it just informs me whether there is such an object in the real world ... Existence cannot be a predicate otherwise we could argue santa's existence"  

• David Hume 'We cannot define something into existence - even if it has all the perfections we can imagine.'  

•  Malcolm (Necessary or Impossible) 'Thus God's existence is either impossible or necessary. It can be the former only if the concept of such a being is self-contradictory or in some way logically absurd.'  

• Alvin Plantinga "Guanilo's island "contains no intrinsic maximum"   "The quantities that make for the greatness of an island...most of these qualities have no intrinsic maximum...for the idea of a greatest possible island is an inconsistent or incoherent idea; it's not even possible that there be such a thing."  "The greatest possible being must have maximal excellence in every possible world"

• Hick - 'Even if the concept of an eternal being is entirely free from contradiction, it in no way follows that there must be such a thing.'  He argues If heaven is real when we die that that is what proves God exists. 

• Swinburne "Somethings do exist or necessity e.g. A. Number greater than 10"

• Richard Dawkins  "'(The fact that the) grand conclusion (that God exists) could follow from such a logo-machist trickery offends me aesthetically.'  "lacks a single piece of data from the real world"   "infantile"

Possible Exam Questions

Section A

1. Examine key ideas of the ontological argument for the existence of God.

2. Assess the strengths of the modal ontological argument from for the existence of God.

Section B

3a Clarify the ideas illustrated in this passage about the nature of necessity.

3b Analyse the implications for the ontological argument.

Section C

4. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the ontological argument for the existence of God.

Key Quotes

•  Psalms 14:1 'In his heart, the fool knows there is no God'  ‘'[God is] .’

• St. Anselm of Canterbury (Proslogion)  “Now we believe that You are are something than which nothing greater can be thought.”   "'if a mind could conceive of a greater being than (God) the creature would rise above the Creator; and this is most absurd.''.

• Gaunilo of Marmoutiers “, the idea that the perfect island has to exist just by virtue of being the perfect island is absurd; nobody is going to book a ticket to go there on the basis of an argument like that.   'If a man should try to prove to me by such reasoning that this island truly exists ... either I should believe that he was jesting, or I know not which I ought to regard as the greater fool.'  “You cannot doubt that this island that is more excellent than any other lands truly exists...” "Of God or a being greater than all others, I could not conceive at all, except merely according to the word. An object can hardly or never be conceived according to the word alone."

• St Thomas Aquinas "'God exists' of itself is self-evident, for the predicate is the same of the subject, because God is His own existence as will hereafter shown...Now because we don't know the essence of God, the proposition is not self-evident to us; but needs to be demonstrated by things that are more known to us."  in his Summa Theologica I.II question 1 (1264) he  dismissed the Ontological Argument because it is to suggest that any human being can have an idea “of God, to use Descartes phrase from the Meditations, sufficient to analyse that idea and find necessary existence – a unique property of God."  i.e. Humans cannot understand god's nature therefore God exists cannot be analytical   

• Descartes (Triangle) 'Existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than the fact its three angles equal to two right angles can be separated from the essence of a triangle.'    'It would be self-contradictory to posit a triangle and yet reject its three angles, but there is no contradiction in rejecting the triangle with its three angles.'    "the relation between existence and essence is manifestly quite different in the case of God and in the case of the triangle." 

• Descartes (Shape) 'the idea of God ... is one which I find within me as surely as the idea of any shape of number.'

• Kant concluded that the argument was “so much labour and effort lost” as "Existence is not a predicate"   - 'If we take the subject with all its predicates and say 'God is' or 'There is a God', we attach no new predicate to the concept of God'     “To posit a triangle, and yet to reject its three angles, is self-contradictory; but there is no contradiction in rejecting the triangle together with its three angles.”   ...a determining predicate is a predicate which is added to the concept of the subject and enlarges it.”    “…’being’ is obviously not a real predicate.”   

• Bertrand Russell "Existence is not a predicate and does not describe the properties of an object, it just informs me whether there is such an object in the real world" developing this point, he uses the example of the claim “the present King of France is bald”.   "Anselm uses word exist incorrectly. Existence cannot be a predicate otherwise we could argue santa's existence"  

• David Hume 'We cannot define something into existence - even if it has all the perfections we can imagine.'   "All our ideas, derived from the senses, are confessedly false and illusive; and cannot, therefore, be supposed to have a place in supreme intelligence."

•  Malcolm (Necessary or Impossible) 'Thus God's existence is either impossible or necessary. It can be the former only if the concept of such a being is self-contradictory or in some way logically absurd.'  i.e Necessary existence cannot be brought about or taken away, so for God not to exist is logically absurd. His existence is not impossible nor can it be brought about or ceased to exist.

• Alvin Plantinga "Guanilo's island "contains no intrinsic maximum"   "The quantities that make for the greatness of an island...most of these qualities have no intrinsic maximum...for the idea of a greatest possible island is an inconsistent or incoherent idea; it's not even possible that there be such a thing."  "The greatest possible being must have maximal excellence in every possible world"

• Hick - 'Even if the concept of an eternal being is entirely free from contradiction, it in no way follows that there must be such a thing.'  He argues If heaven is real when we die that that is what proves God exists. 

• Swinburne "Somethings do exist or necessity e.g. A. Number greater than 10"

• Richard Dawkins  "'(The fact that the) grand conclusion (that God exists) could follow from such a logo-machist trickery offends me aesthetically.'  "lacks a single piece of data from the real world"   "infantile"

• Bian Davies 'A non-existent book is not different from a real book. Nor is it similar. It is just not there to be similar or different to anything.'

• Cole 'Whatever one believes about God, it seems reasonable to say that nothing can be thought of to be greater than God.'   “According to Gaunilo, if Anselm is correct then it is not only God’s existence that can be established by reasoning akin to Anselm’s.” 

• Gareth Moore-   No one claims the equator does not exist, gods reality is as real for the believers as the equator

• Tyler and Reid - 'Despite strong attacks over the years, the ontological argument has continued to be popular for proving the existence of God.'   'How can we make claims about the infinite eternal ... God of classical theism in the basis of limited human reasoning and logic?'

• Vardy 'If God is by definition something supremely perfect and if existence is a perfection, it follows God, by definition exists and that to deny that this is so is to contradict oneself.'

• Michael Palmer used another example to explain this; that of two candidates applying for a job. If a panel is faced with two CVs listing the “perfections” of the candidate A and candidate B, it would be ridiculous to list “exists” as one of them – existence is neither a perfection nor properly used as a predicate, rather it is what makes the analysis of the CV and the contest between the candidates meaningful.

• John Mackie ' "The Characterisations of God are meaningless"

• Charles Hartshone  "the conceptual description of a kind of thing may at most account for so much of its quality or value as is expressible in merely abstract terms. But the full quality is not thus expressible."