THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

REALITY AND UNDERSTANDING ESSENTIAL IDEAS A PRIORI Proven by reason DEDUCTIVE Draws its conclusions from the premises within the argument itself. Only successful the first premise must be analytically true or universally accepted. Anselm’s is neither. OWN UNDERSTANDING Further his own understanding of God. The argument was meant for believers – Anselm could therefore use certain assumptions. PREMISES Premise 1: God is that which nothing greater can be conceived. Premise 2: It is better to exist in reality and in understanding than just reality. Premise 3: For God to be the greatest thing he must exist in reality and in understanding. Conclusion: God exists in reality. REALITY AND UNDERSTANDING God must exist in reality, otherwise an improvement could be made, ie bringing him into existence and this is impossible as God is perfect and therefore does not require any improvement. THE FOOL Atheists understand that God is that which nothing greater can be conceived, they just don’t believe he actually exists. The fool is half way to believing in God. NECESSARY EXISTENCE Necessary existence – does not rely on anything else to exist, because of this it is impossible to stop a necessary being from existing, therefore a necessary being cannot not exist (Malcolm). Contingent existence – relies on something else to exist. DESCARTES Premise 1: In my head I have the idea of a perfect being Premise 2: As an imperfect being, I can not have conjured up the concept of a perfect being myself Premise 3: The concept of the perfect being must have come from the perfect being itself Premise 4: A perfect being must exist in order to be perfect. Conclusion: A perfect being exists. Problems – does not explain why an imperfect being could not have conjured up an image of a perfect one. ANTI REALISM Statements are not meant to be understood as being factually true. Non-believers find this worthless. Believers do think the statements are factually true. LANGUAGE GAMES True within the context of the particular language game. STRENGTHS Deductive - not reliant upon correct interpretation of evidence Common starting point. Logical (Liebniz). WEAKNESSES Not coherent. Mutually inconsistent. Cannot define something into existence (Kant, Gaunilo, Aquinas, Russell, Dawkins and Hume). Existence is not a real predicate (Kant and Moore). Not everyone agrees with Anselm and Descartes’ definition of God as perfect.

ESSENTIAL IDEAS – QUICK QUESTIONS A PRIORI Proven by reason DEDUCTIVE Draws its conclusions from the premises within the argument itself. Only successful the first premise must be analytically true or universally accepted. Anselm’s is neither. OWN UNDERSTANDING Further his own understanding of God. The argument was meant for believers – Anselm could therefore use certain assumptions. What is the difference between a priori and a posteriori? A priori is based on logic and reason whereas a posteriori is based on evidence What is the difference between a deductive and an inductive argument? A deductive argument is based on logical premises. An inductive argument looks at the evidence and draws conclusions What is wrong with Anselm’s first premise? Not everyone agreed with his definition of God as the greatest, some people describe God as the fellow sufferer who understands What assumptions did Anselm base his argument on? That everyone thought of God as the greatest thing conceivable

REALITY AND UNDERSTANDING ESSENTIAL IDEAS – QUICK QUESTIONS PREMISES Premise 1: God is that which nothing greater can be conceived. Premise 2: It is better to exist in reality and in understanding than just reality. Premise 3: For God to be the greatest thing he must exist in reality and in understanding. Conclusion: God exists in reality. REALITY AND UNDERSTANDING God must exist in reality, otherwise an improvement could be made, ie bringing him into existence and this is impossible as God is perfect and therefore does not require any improvement. THE FOOL Understands that God is that which nothing greater can be conceived, they just don’ believe he actually exists. The fool is half way to believing in God. What does Anselm mean by the statement ‘God is that which nothing greater can be conceived’? God is perfect Give your own example to illustrate the point that existing in reality is better than in understanding. Why does Anselm believe that the atheist is half way to believing in God? Because they understand what is meant by the idea of God, ie that which nothing greater can be conceived, they just don’t believe that there exists such a being. Anselm therefore argues that God exists at least in the understanding of the atheist.

ESSENTIAL IDEAS – QUICK QUESTIONS NECESSARY EXISTENCE Necessary existence – does not rely on anything else to exist, because of this it is impossible to stop a necessary being from existing, therefore a necessary being cannot not exist (Malcolm). Contingent existence – relies on something else to exist. DESCARTES Premise 1: In my head I have the idea of a perfect being Premise 2: As an imperfect being, I can not have conjured up the concept of a perfect being myself Premise 3: The concept of the perfect being must have come from the perfect being itself Premise 4: A perfect being must exist in order to be perfect. Conclusion: A perfect being exists. Problems – does not explain why an imperfect being could not have conjured up an image of a perfect one. ANTI REALISM Statements are meant to be understood as being factually true. Non-believers find this worthless. Believers do think the statements are factually true. LANGUAGE GAMES True within the context of the particular language game. Explain Malcolm’s point Because God is necessary, there is nothing that can happen to stop him existing because he does not rely on anything to exist, therefore he must always exist. Explain, in your own words why neither side of the debate likes the anti-realist approach to the ontological argument. It is patronising to believers as they really do think that there exists a being whom nothing greater can be conceived. It is meaningless to atheists as if it is just a language game, then what is the point?

ESSENTIAL IDEAS – QUICK QUESTIONS STRENGTHS Deductive - not reliant upon correct interpretation of evidence Common starting point. Logical (Liebniz). How does a deductive argument prove something if it doesn’t use evidence? Logic What is the common starting point? God is that which nothing greater can be conceived, according to Anselm, believers and atheists were agreed on this as a definition of God Why do some people believe it is logical? God and humans are different, if humans are imperfect then it could be argued that it is logical to assume then that God must be perfect Explain Liebniz’s point. A perfect God must exist as otherwise it would be pointless to be perfect and not exist

ESSENTIAL IDEAS – QUICK QUESTIONS WEAKNESSES Not coherent. Mutually inconsistent. Cannot define something into existence (Kant, Gaunilo, Aquinas, Russell, Dawkins and Hume). Existence is not a real predicate (Kant and Moore). Not everyone agrees with Anselm and Descartes’ definition of God as perfect. What is not coherent about the ontological argument and how do some people believe this can be overcome? Some say the qualities of God are not coherent, eg omniscience – how can God know our future choices if we have free will? Some say this can be overcome as God does know our future choices but does not compel us to do a certain thing – just because He knows what is going to happen, we still make the decision ourselves. What is mutually inconsistent about the argument and how do some people believe this can be overcome? Some say that the qualities of God are mutually inconsistent, eg how can something be omnipotent and omniscient? An omnipotent being could create a creature who had a secret unknown to anyone else, yet an omniscient being must know every secret. Some say this can be overcome by understanding omnipotent as anything possible, as the above paradox is impossible it is not a challenge to God’s omnipotence. Explain the criticism of not being able to define something into existence. Include Kant’s and Gaunilo’s examples. Gaunilo said that just because you can define a perfect island, you would still need proof that it existed. Putting the word perfect in a definition is not enough to demonstrate that it actually exists. Kant said that the inseparable predicate of necessary existence does not prove that God exists, it just tells us that if he did, he would exist necessarily.

ESSENTIAL IDEAS – QUICK QUESTIONS WEAKNESSES Not coherent. Mutually inconsistent. Cannot define something into existence (Kant, Gaunilo, Aquinas, Russell, Dawkins and Hume). Existence is not a real predicate (Kant and Moore). Not everyone agrees with Anselm and Descartes’ definition of God as perfect. Explain the function of a predicate and give an example. A predicate is supposed to add to our understanding, eg red is a predicate of a post box because it helps us to understand what the post box looks like Why did Kant think that existence was not a real predicate and what example did Moore give to support this idea? Existence does not tell you anything about the subject. Moore used the example : A – Some tame tigers do not growl B – Some tame tigers exist The first statement tells us something about the nature of the tigers, the second tells us nothing about them. What other ideas are there about the nature of God? (if he is not perfect then what is he?) The fellow sufferer who understands