A-level philosophy: ontological argument

what are the two arguments based on reason?

Anselm’s ontological argument and Descartes ontological argument

who was St Anselm?

an Italian medieval philosopher, theologian, and church official who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109.

what was Anselm’s aim?

• In Proslogion, a prayer, he aims to demonstrate God exists and then explores God’s qualities to show it is rational to believe in them.

• wanted to prove the existence of God beyond any doubt by showing it is a logical certainty and that it is self-contradictory to deny it.

what are analytic statements?

Statements that are true by definition

They do not need to be proven using evidence or experience.

• meaning of words has within it the conclusion

what arguments are analytic statements based on?

a priori

why are analytic statements based on a priori arguments?

•A priori arguments are based on definition but not experience.

•It highlights something that, because of the definition, is necessarily true.

what is a deductive argument?

•If the premises (statements of evidence building the case) are true (or sound, i.e.: based on accurate facts),

•then the conclusion must also be true (because it flows logically from the premises; it is valid).

what is the link deductive arguments have to Anselm’s argument?

•St. Anselm believed that through the concept of God, he could deductively demonstrate God’s existence using a priori reasoning.

•For St. Anselm, ‘God exists’ is an analytic statement.

what is Anselm’s first argument?

1.God is ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived’.

2.Even a fool (someone who doesn’t believe in God) can understand the idea that God is the greatest conceivable being.

3.The fool is convinced that God, the greatest conceivable being, exists only in his understanding and not in reality.

4. It is greater to exist both in the mind and in reality, than merely in the mind (to be a real, existent being than an imaginary being).

5. The greatest conceivable being, God, if it is genuinely the greatest, must exist both in the mind and in reality.

what is Anselm’s second argument?

1. God is that being nothing greater than which can be thought of.

2. A being with necessary existence (which has to be that way and cannot be different; which cannot be thought not to exist) is greater than contingent beings (which depend on other things for their existence; which can be thought not to exist).

3. Therefore, God who is the greatest being must exist necessarily.

why did Gaunilo write his criticism?

This sought to question whether you could logically move from the existence of an idea to the existence of an actual object that corresponds to the idea.

what is Gaunilo’s ‘on behalf of the fool criticism’?

• It is possible for a person to conceive of a lost island “greater-than-which-cannot-be-conceived”.

• This island therefore exists in my mind.

• Existence in reality is greater than existence in the mind.

• Therefore, it would be reasonable to conclude that this island does not simply exist in my mind alone but also in reality.

• This is of course absurd, argues Gaunilo, and so is the ontological argument.

How does Anselm respond to Gaunilo?

• Anselm replies (in Apologetic) that islands and God are not comparable.

• Islands and everything else is contingent.

• But God is unique; only he has necessary existence and the argument only applies to God.

what is Anselm’s response (change to the second argument)?

• God is a being “greater-than-which-cannot-be-conceived”.

• A being which can be thought of as never not existing (necessary) is greater than one, which can be thought of as not existing (contingent).

• If God is the greatest possible being it would be self-contradictory for God not to exist.

• Therefore God necessarily exists.

How does Plantinga defend Anselm?

Plantinga argues that unlike God, islands have no “intrinsic maximum” because you could always add another beach etc –

i.e. you can’t imagine a ‘greatest possible island’ because you could always make it better – so Gaunilo’s island is not comparable with God

What is a strength of the ontological argument (its definition of God)?

• Anselm uses a theologically and philosophically convincing definition of God, carefully designed to avoid the problem of defining something that is beyond our understanding. Anselm presents an analogy.

• we can’t fully know God, but can at least understand that he is the greatest conceivable being.

“If you say that what is not entirely understood is not understood and is not in the understanding” – Anselm

What is a weakness of the ontological argument (God is not ‘in’ the mind)?

Aquinas - that God’s nature is beyond our understanding and that people have different understandings of God so he can’t exist by definition + not self evident to us as we don’t know God’s essence

‘all my words are straw’

• Gaunilo doubts that we can understand this idea of the greatest conceivable being: 

“of God, or a being greater than all others, I could not conceive at all” – Gaunilo.

what is Peter van Inwagen’s defence of Anslem’s argument?

Our limited understanding of God is enough to justify attributing the name “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” to God.

Anselm doesn’t rely on conceiving the being itself. We can grasp the concept of a being greater than which none may be conceived. We can then follow Anselm’s reasoning that since it is greater to exist, that being must exist.

what is the issue with Anselm’s 2nd formulation of the argument?

Even if Anselm is right that we cannot conceive of God without existence, that only proves that God is a necessary being, such that if God existed it would be in a special way where God could not cease to exist.

This is not the same as proving that this necessary being actually does exist.

what is a predicate?

A grammatical term which refers to the part of a sentence which gives information about or describes the subject of the sentence; what it is like or what it is doing.

what is Descartes’ 1st argument?

God must exist because he is perfect:

• God is by definition a supremely perfect being

• Existence is a perfection - a thing is less perfect if it doesn’t exist

• God must, by definition, contain all perfections.

• Therefore, God exists.

what is Descartes’ 2nd argument?

• A defining predicate is a description that is necessary to the concept.

• e.g. a triangle must have 3 sides and 3 internal angles which add up to 180 degrees.

• one of the defining predicates of God is existence.

• A God who did not exist would not be God.

• Therefore God, by definition, must exist.

what is Kant’s 1st criticism?

• Kant objects that existence being a predicate of God does not establish God’s existence in reality.

• Kant’s objection is that this only shows that if God exists, then God exists necessarily. It doesn’t show that God-the-necessary-being does exist.

what is the response to Kant’s 1st criticism defending the ontological argument?

Kant’s critique is self-contradictory:

Kant’s 1st objection seems to accept that the ontological argument shows that God is necessary.

Kant must then accept that God is a being which contains its own reason for existence and is thus defined by the impossibility of non-existence.

how does Plantinga agree with Kant?

at most the ontological argument can make religious belief rational – it cannot prove that God actually does exist, however.

“reformulated versions of St. Anselm’s argument … cannot, perhaps, be said to prove or establish their conclusion. But since it is rational to accept their central premise, they do show that it is rational to accept that conclusion” – Plantinga.

what is Kant’s 2nd criticism?

existence is not a predicate:

Kant objects that existence is not a quality or attribute that defines a thing.

Kant’s illustration is 100 thalers - you have 100 thalers in your mind as a mere concept. Then imagine you also have 100 thalers in existence, not only in the mind. You have two cases of 100 thalers, one which exists in reality and the other which only exists in your mind.

if Anselm’s argument - the thalers which exist should be conceptually different to the thalers that do not.

Being only in the mind doesn’t make the concept somehow less of a complete description of what 100 thalers is. So, existence is not part of the definition of a thing.

It is not a predicate or property of the definition of a thing.

how is the ontological argument defended from Kant’s critique?

something is contingent if it is dependent on something else for its existence and a necessary being doesn’t depend on anything else for its existence, so it contains the reason for its existence within itself.

Since the reason for its existence is contained within itself, necessary existence must be a defining part of a thing in a way that contingent existence is not. So, necessary existence is a predicate.

The ontological argument, which relies on necessary existence, is therefore defended from Kant’s critique.

why does Frege agree with Kant?

‘Exists’ means there are some things in the world that this concept refers to.

e.g. to say lions exist = to say there are things in the world to which the concept of ‘lion’ responds

It is not to say that lions have a very special property known as existence.

why does Russel agree with Kant?

‘All cows eat grass’ (‘eat grass’ is a predicate because it adds meaning to the concept of a cow.)

‘Some cows exist’ (‘exist’ is NOT a predicate as it doesn’t add a description)

In fact it suggests there are cows, some of which have the property of existence, others which don’t

To say that something exists isn’t to describe it or to ascribe a special kind of property to it, but rather simply to say that there is such a thing in the world.

• existence is not a predicate.

what are some strengths of Anselm’s argument?

• if it is valid then offers absolute proof for God’s existence

• everyone has some sort of understanding of God so argument can work for all people

• supported by the Cosmological argument as Aquinas argued that something must be necessary

what are some issues with Anselm’s ontological argument?

• can you move from a word to the idea it exists

• removes all faith and scripture

why did Gaunilo dispute the Ontological argument’s reliability?

not rooted in evidence

what is Gaunilo’s second criticism (language)?

we have an intricate knowledge of words and no all have a real world ‘copy’ → God cannot exist by definition as language does not have this power

language is a human intervention - does not perfectly encapsulate meaning → would need to be free from criticism and have universal agreement but does not e.g. other scholars have their own versions

what else does Gaunilo argue in his second criticism?

idea of the word ‘greatest’ makes no sense

• a broad claim, so using this to describe God is limited to human understanding of what to compare God to

no limit = can’t be measured

what is Gaunlio’s 3rd criticism?

if God truly is God when he should be indefinable

a belief in God is just a belief - anything that aims to ground this into fact is faulty → neither theological or cosmological arguments attempt to say what God is

Anselm making a bigger claim then he can defend

what does Flew say in response to Anselm’s second argument?

‘death by a thousand qualifications’ - Anselm is just changing his definition every time

how does Russel criticise Anselm’s second argument?

drew a distinction between existence and essence arguing that the essence of a person can be described and their existence can still remain in question, therefore showing that a person can be described and their existence can still be questioned

what are some issues with Descartes argument?

• moving from definition of God to reality with no empirical testing

how does Hartshorne criticise Kant?

argued there is a big difference between describing the features of a cold and having one - existence adds something new to our understanding