OCR Religious Studies A Level A* Ontological argument Summary notes

The existence of God; arguments based on reason

The ontological argument is a deductive, a priori argument for God’s
existence. The very definition of God logically entails his existence.
However, can we leap from definition (de dicto) to reality (de re)?
Just because a pixie ‘is’ a little man with pointed ears doesn’t mean
a pixie ‘is’, or exists.

ST ANSELM OF CANTERBURY’S ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
 Medieval monk
 OA found in his work Proslogian, a prayer addressed to God
rather than a philosophical thesis
 Believed true understanding was only a consequence of faith
 Proslogian Chapter 2 is a proof by contradiction;
 Anselm refers to the ‘fool’ in the Bible Psalms who says that
he knows the definition of God and what he is supposed to be,
‘that than which no greater can be conceived’ (TTWNGCBC),
but doesn’t think anything with that definition actually exists.
 Anselm says that things exist both in the mind and in reality
 The fool is contradicting himself because if God is TTWNGCBC,
and he does not exist in reality, he can’t be the greatest thing
that we can think of because existing in reality is greater than
in the mind (a real life painting is better than one in the
painter’s mind + £1 million is better in reality than in the
mind)
 In Aristotelian logic, a contradiction is impossible
 Therefore; God is TTWNGCBC, it is greater to exist in reality
than in the mind, therefore God exists in reality because a
God in reality is greater than a God only in the mind.
 Proslogian Chapter 3 (second form) argues for his necessary
existence;
 God is TTWNGCBC. It is greater to have necessary existence
than contingent. Therefore God must have necessary
existence. God exists

STRENGTHS OF ANSELM WEAKNESSES OF ANSELM
 If we treat the word God as  Guanilo’s criticism
analytic, the same way as  Is it always greater to exist in
2+6=8 and that a triangle has reality? (a murderous
three sides, then God’s thought, pandemic, war)
existence is self evident as it  Gaskin says moving from
is deductive definition to reality is a
 Logical contradiction to ‘transitional error’
believe he doesn’t exist  Can never be certain that
because if he didn’t exist then God’s exact definition is
anything that does exist is TTWNGCBC (Aquinas) so the
greater than God but God is premise is not 100% accurate,
TTWNGCBC therefore the conclusion is not
 Is it fair to attack Anselm for accurate

, not proving God to the  You can only go so far as to
unbeliever as he stated that say that if God exists then he
his work was ‘faith seeking exists necessarily
understanding’?  If God is ‘wholly other’ we
cannot accept Anselm’s
definition of God or what he is
like. If he is ineffable then
Ayer would argue we are
talking nonsense if we try to
know what he is like
 Russell- statements about
cannot be made unless we
know that God exists. The
‘present king of france is bald’
is not true or false if there is
no King of France’




GUANILO’S CRITICISM
 Guanilo of Marmoutier
 Benedictine monk
 Contemporary of Anselm
 Anselm’s argument is an exercise of wishful thinking, anything
can be though into existence with it
 In his ‘In Behalf of the Fool’ he puts himself into the position of a
rational non-believer and puts forward the idea of the perfect
mythical Lost Island
 If the perfect island doesn’t exist then it is a contradiction to
call it perfect, therefore it must exist
 This applies to anything that we can think of that is ‘perfect’
by definition
 Guanilo asks his readers to look at the empirical evidence of
the world which shows that these perfect things don’t exist
 If parallel arguments from perfection are absurd, so is the
original ontological argument
 THIS IS NOT COHERENT BECAUSE PLANTINGA SAYS THAT
ISLANDS HAVE NO INTRINSIC MAXIMUMS


ST ANSELM’S RESPONSE TO GUANILO
 The OA only applies to God, a supremely necessary being.