The existence of an unlimited being is logically impossible only if the concept of an unlimited being is self-contradictory. Since, on Plantinga’s view, the concept of a maximally great being is consistent and hence possibly instantiated, it follows that such a being, i.e., God, exists in every possible world. This article explains and evaluates classic and contemporary versions of the ontological argument. There are a number of plausible arguments for thinking that even this restricted set of properties is logically inconsistent. Since, by definition, a being that is maximally great at W is omnipotent at every possible world and a being that does not exist at some world W’ cannot be omnipotent at W’, it straightforwardly follows, without the help of anything like the controversial S5 axiom, that a maximally great being exists in every logically possible world. We do not need any proof that clear and distinct perceptions are true. For, it is possible to conceive of a being which cannot be conceived not to exist; and this is greater than one which can be conceived not to exist. It is simply unclear how existence in these other worlds that bear no resemblance to this one would make God greater and hence more worthy of worship. Anselm’s Ontological Argument Saint Anselm of Aosta, Bec, and Canterbury, perhaps during a moment of enlightenment or starvation-induced hallucination, succeeded in formulating an argument for God’s existence which has been debated for almost a thousand years. Thus, according to this reasoning, it follows that B exists. He is conceived of as a being who could not be limited, that is, as an absolutely unlimited being.… If God is conceived to be an absolutely unlimited being He must be conceived to be unlimited in regard to His existence as well as His operation. Now suppose, per reductio, an unlimited being exists in some other world W’. Immanuel Kant was the first to point this problem out, although he himself had given his own version of the ontological argument years earlier. to be) as a property like other properties, a property that something can either have or not have. This does, indeed, sound like circular reasoning. Omnipotence entails the power to create free beings, but omniscience rules out the possibility that such beings exist. SparkNotes is brought to you by Barnes & Noble. Thus, if God doesn’t exist at W, then God doesn’t exist in any logically possible world. PL4 is, of course, Plantinga’s Premise 4 slightly reworded, while PL4* is simply a straightforward instance of AxS5. Seattle Pacific University But many philosophers are skeptical about the underlying assumption, as Leibniz describes it, “that this idea of the all-great or all-perfect being is possible and implies no contradiction.” Here is the problem as C.D. Anselm puts forth a second argument, also ontological and a priori, that concerns necessary existence rather than existence. He then argued that something that exists in reality must be greater than something that exists in the mind only; so God must exist outside as well as in the mind, for if he existed in the mind only and not in reality he would not be “something than which nothing greater can be conceived” We can, of course, try to associate the phrase “a being than which none greater can be imagined” with more familiar finite concepts, but these finite concepts are so far from being an adequate description of God, that it is fair to say they don’t help us to get a detailed idea of God. The argument in this difficult passage can accurately be summarized in standard form: Intuitively, one can think of the argument as being powered by two ideas. Green is for the argument and Red is against it. Thus, if moral perfection entails, as seems reasonable, being perfectly just and merciful, then the concept of moral perfection is inconsistent. The problem with this criticism is that the ontological argument can be restated without defining God. Kant’s Criticism: Is Existence a Perfection? He begins in Chapter I by honoring God and acknowledging his greatness in order to lay a foundation of his beliefs. Ontological arguments are common in the history of philosophy. Therefore, a maximally great being (that is, God) exists in every logically possible world. someone who believes that the entire world can be explained in terms of a chain of logical connections and that we have access to this explanation) you have to believe in the possibility of an ontological argument. While Gaunilo was a firm believer in God (and was in fact a monk), he disagreed strongly with Anselm’s method for proving his existence. There is, however, one class of exceptions. To say that x instantiates a property P is hence to presuppose that x exists. It was first clearly formulated by St. Anselm in his Proslogion (1077–78); a later famous version is given by René Descartes. The problem of divine foreknowledge can also be seen as denying that omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection constitute a coherent set. However, in our opinion, much of this literature ignores or misrepresents the elegant simplicity of the original argument. The rationalist's job is done. But if a person p who does A at t has the ability to do other than A at t, then it follows that p has the ability to bring it about that an omniscient God has a false belief – and this is clearly impossible. 2. Now imagine that there is something that is its own explanation: in order to explain a fact, you have to appeal to another fact, and to explain that fact, to another, and on and on, until, ultimately, you hit upon a final fact that explains itself. St Anselm formulated the idea of God as that of “something than with nothing greater can be conceived”. St. Anselm proposes that if God can be thought of and perceived, then he must exist. Thus, the most important contemporary defender of the argument, Alvin Plantinga, complains “[a]t first sight, Anselm’s argument is remarkably unconvincing if not downright irritating; it looks too much like a parlor puzzle or word magic.” As a result, despite its enduring importance, the ontological argument has brought few people to theism. PL4* If “A maximally great being exists” is possible, then it is necessarily true that “A maximally great being exists” is possible. Gaunilo of Marmoutier, a monk and contemporary of Anselm’s, is responsible for one of the most important criticisms of Anselm’s argument. Arguments Against Anselm’s Proof. Is the Concept of a Maximally Great Being Coherent? For example, moral perfection is thought to entail being both perfectly merciful and perfectly just. In this chapter, Anselm (arguably) suggests a modal version of the ontological argument, which we will discuss in tandem with David Lewis’ article “Anselm and Actuality.” In the pages that follow, however, I only concentrate on what I take to be Anselm’s argument in Chapter 2. Or who understands the saying that if God exists He is more perfect than if he does not exist? In particular, Premise 2 is not obviously correct. Anselm's Argument On The Existence Of God The argument for the existence of God will always give rise to infinitive points of view. Here it is important to note that all versions of the ontological argument assume that God is simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect. Here is the second version of the ontological argument as Anselm states it: God is that, than which nothing greater can be conceived.… And [God] assuredly exists so truly, that it cannot be conceived not to exist. Plantinga simply builds necessary existence into the very notion of maximal greatness. One of the hallmarks of Descartes’ version of the ontologicalargument is its simplicity. Since existence isn’t a logical predicate, it doesn’t belong to the concept of God; it rather affirms that the existence of something that satisfies the predicates defining the concept of God. This version of the argument relies on two important claims. Accordingly, what goes wrong with the first version of the ontological argument is that the notion of existence is being treated as the wrong logical type. Anselm of Canterbury,” Philosophy – 100 Great Thinkers, Jeremy Harwood quotes Gaunilo of Marmoutiers, who says that Anselm’s reasoning allows for many supposedly perfect things that could not possibly exist. Description. Anselm’s argument is based on the fact that there is a specific concept of God. To see that this criticism is unfounded, it suffices to make two observations. Summary St. Anselm’s Ontological Argument Saint Anselm, a Christian philosopher and theologian, is most known for his ontological argument over God’s existence. Introduction: The Non-Empirical Nature of the Ontological Arguments, The Classic Version of the Ontological Argument. There is a definite connection between the notions of dependency and inferiority, and independence and superiority. We then offer a detailed preparatory study of the basic concepts involved in Anselm’s argument. But this contradicts the assumption that B is a being that instantiates all the perfections. On Aquinas’s view, even if we assume that everyone shares the same concept of God as a being than which none greater can be imagined, “it does not therefore follow that he understands what the word signifies exists actually, but only that it exists mentally.”. With some magnitudes this condition is fulfilled. Existence is not a property (in, say, the way that being red is a property of an apple). Ontological argument, Argument that proceeds from the idea of God to the reality of God. The second version does not rely on the highly problematic claim that existence is a property and hence avoids many of the objections to the classic version. From our perspective, there is simply nothing to be gained by adding transworld indestructibility to a set of dishes that is actually indestructible. Thus, a being that is omniscient lacks the ability to create free beings and is hence not omnipotent. As is readily evident, each version of the ontological argument rests on the assumption that the concept of God, as it is described in the argument, is self-consistent. On this view, God is unlike any other reality known to us; while we can easily understand concepts of finite things, the concept of an infinitely great being dwarfs finite human understanding. There is, of course, this difference: whereas the concept of a bachelor explicitly contains the proposition that bachelors are unmarried, the concept of God does not explicitly contain any proposition asserting the existence of such a being. Nothing has no qualities whatsoever. Suppose B is a being that instantiates all the perfections and suppose B doesn’t exist (in reality). But this is not true of the concept of God as Anselm conceives it. The arguments of St. Anselm and of Gaunilo, two eleventh-century thinkers, are both ontological in character. This distinguishes the claim that x exists from the claim that x necessarily exists and hence seems to imply that the latter, and only the latter, expresses a property. Since Premise 3 asserts that existence is a perfection, it follows that B lacks a perfection. It establishes the existence of God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" (Roth, 1970, p.270). But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.). A look at theologist Anselm’s ontological argument for God’s existence which has been debated for almost a thousand years. In the Proslogion St. Anselm presents a philosophical argument for the existence of God. The claim that an unlimited being B exists at some world W clearly entails that B always exists at W (that is, that B‘s existence is eternal or everlasting in W), but this doesn’t clearly entail that B necessarily exists (that is, that B exists at every logically possible world). Consider, for example, that, while we don’t have a complete understanding (whatever this means) of the concept of a natural number than which none larger can be imagined, we understand it well enough to see that there does not exist such a number. Concepts, as a logical matter, are defined entirely in terms of logical predicates. We can prove certain negative existential claims merely by reflecting on the content of the concept. And the only way for God to be his own explanation is for some version of the ontological argument to work. Now if I take the subject (God) with all its predicates (omnipotence being one), and say, God is, or There is a God, I add no new predicate to the conception of God, I merely posit or affirm the existence of the subject with all its predicates – I posit the object in relation to my conception. Brown, Paterson. IV. And only a claim that attributes a particular property can entail claims that attribute particular properties. And this seems to entail that x has the reason for its existence in its own nature. Here is his argument for this important claim. The problem here is that the qualities that make an island great are not the sort of qualities that admit of conceptually maximal qualities. Nicolas Malebranche, Baruch Spinoza, and G.W. Then there would be three possible beings, namely, one which combines X and Y, one which combines Y and Z, and one which combines Z and X, each of which would be such that nothing … superior to it is logically possible. Findlay, J.N., “God’s Existence is Necessarily Impossible,” from Flew, Antony and MacIntyre, Alasdair, Malcolm, Norman, “Anselm’s Ontological Argument,”, Pike, Nelson, “Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action,”. If so, then a being cannot be perfectly just and perfectly merciful. Aquinas reasoned that, as only God can completely know His essence, only He could use the argument. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist). The first ontological argument for existence of God was developed by the Benedictine monk of Canterbury Anselm who was born in 1033 and died in 1109. Thus, the argument concludes that omniscience and omnipotence are logically incompatible. Indeed, there are plenty of beings that will probably never exist in this world that exist in other logically possible worlds, like unicorns. Here’s the argument reduced to its basic elements: Notice that Malcolm’s version of the argument does not turn on the claim that necessary existence is a great-making property. In this conception it will not make sense to say that He depends on anything for coming into or continuing in existence. He argues that everyone (theist and atheist alike) should agree to some definitions about what God is like. Anselm himself views as both necessary and paradoxical. It is not even logically coherent to say "God does not have existence." As the objection is sometimes put, Anselm simply defines things into existence-and this cannot be done. Leibniz all have their own versions of the ontological argument. A being that is loving is, other things being equal, better or greater than a being that is not. We intuit such truths directly by inspectingour clear and distinct ideas of the … Further, on Malcolm’s view, the existence of an unlimited being is either logically necessary or logically impossible. On this line of analysis, then, it follows that it is logically impossible for a being to simultaneously instantiate omniscience and omnipotence. For this reason, the very concept of a piland is incoherent. But suppose that he went on to say, as if by a logical inference: “You can no longer doubt that this island which is more excellent than all lands exists somewhere, since you have no doubt that it is in your understanding. But notice that the claim that a maximally great being exists in some world is logically equivalent to the claim that the concept of a maximally great being is not self-contradictory; for the only things that don’t exist in any possible world are things that are conceptually defined in terms of contradictory properties. Archbishop of Canterbury first set forth the Ontological Argument in the eleventh century. Thus, on this line of reasoning, existence isn’t a great-making property because it is not a property at all; it is rather a metaphysically necessary condition for the instantiation of any properties. Anselm’s Ontological Argument for the Existence of God Anselm’s argument is an a priori argument; that is, it is an argument that is independent of experience and based solely on concepts and logical relations, like a mathematical proof. Unfortunately, as appealing as this picture of explanation is, ontological arguments involve a severe logical fallacy. Argument: Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury (1033-1109), is the creator of the ontological argument. Thus, Malcolm’s version of the argument is not vulnerable to the criticisms of Anselm’s claim that necessary existence is a perfection. Descartes underscores the simplicity ofhis demonstration by comparing it to the way we ordinarily establishvery basic truths in arithmetic and geometry, such as that the numbertwo is even or that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to thesum of two right angles. They simply do not work. Rowe, William, “Modal Versions of the Ontological Argument,” in Pojman, Louis (ed. Premise 3 asserts that existence is a perfection or great-making property. Anselm’s Second Version of the Ontological Argument. It is, e.g., logically impossible that any proper fraction should exceed the ratio 1/1; and again, on a certain definition of “angle,” it is logically impossible for any angle to exceed four right angles. There have been several attempts to render the persuasive force of the ontological argument more transparent by recasting it using the logical structures of contemporary modal logic. If so, then it must be some contingent feature f of W’ that explains why that being exists in that world. Likewise, cosmological arguments depend on certain empirical claims about the explanation for the occurrence of empirical events. Aquinas argued, plausibly enough, that “not everyone who hears this word ‘God’ understands it to signify something than which nothing greater can be thought, seeing that some have believed God to be a body.” The idea here is that, since different people have different concepts of God, this argument works, if at all, only to convince those who define the notion of God in the same way. If a maximally great being exists in one logically possible world, it exists in every logically possible world. The objection, often referred to as the "Cartesian Circle," is that Descartes uses God to prove the truth of clear and distinct perceptions and also uses clear and distinct perceptions to prove the existence of God.
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