The Ontological argument?

Hey! I'm studying A2 religious studies and i was just wondering if anyone else finds the Ontological argument quite confusing? I am having trouble getting my head around it and wondered what anyone else thinks of this argument and if they could offer a simple explaination to help my understanding. Thanks. x

Reply 1

brown

Hi, I am also studying A2 RS and from what I have been taught, the ontological argument goes something like this:

- Based on the idea that God is 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived' (TTWNGCBC)

Anselm's version:

- TTWNGCBC must possess all perfections in order to be so described
- If such a being does indeed possess all perfections, then it must exist
- Existence may be in re (in reality) or merely in intellectu (in the mind)
- That which exists in reality is undeniably greater than that which exists in the mind
- As God is TTWNGCBC, God must possess the perfection of both existence in reality and in the mind
- If this was not the case, then something other than God that did exist in reality would be greater than God, and this is impossible

Descartes' version:

- God is a supremely perfect being
- A supremely perfect being has all perfections
- Existence is a perfection
- A supremely perfect being must exist
- God exists

Hope that has helped. The arguments are initially quite difficult to get your head round, but they do eventually sink in! :smile:

Reply 2

cinderella4

That helped thankyou it broke it down and i understand it better now. Thanks again :smile:

Reply 3

brown

You are welcome. If you want help again, feel free to PM me! I am always happy to help. :smile:

Reply 4

acrazy4u

please can you hepl me
what are the main criticsms of the ontological argument?
do the weaknesses outweight the strenghts?

Reply 5

zzzzzoe

to gain A02 marks ive been told to mention realism and non realism. if anselm is a non realist the argument works but otherwise, it fails.
the OA will never convince atheists, only works for those who believe.
because ...existence isnt a predicate (kant)
and all existential statements are synthetic (hume).
its only a proof of the definition! not of Gods existence.
however.. raises one of the most profound questions.... what do we mean by God?

Reply 6

Galatea

another criticism; Gaunilo's analogy of the island; we can conceive of the perfect island; this does not of course necessarily mean the island exists.

Reply 7

AlphaWulf

Alvin Plantinga (modern philosopher) - Scientists tell us the world has an infinite number of dimensions. Therefore a perfect being must exist in one of them. However, if he is perfect then he cannot be confined to one dimension. Therefore he must "spill out" into all the other dimensions, and thus we have God in ours.
Criticism to this - Following this logic, there must be a world with an infinitely evil being, which cannot be confined to his world. Thus he must be in our world too, which is not true. Therefore the logic fails.

Reply 8

zzzzzoe

i left this in a response to another thread, some people mgiht find it useful.
the key thing to mention for the OA is that it only works for religious communities who follow a coherence theory of truth!

the correspondence theory of truth is realism. this states that there are absolute standards of things, for God, and even for abstract concepts such as beauty. God either exists or does not. and a person either meets a specific, universal criteria of beauty, or does not. (peter vardy uses that example). if God exists, he exists outside our minds. and, many would argue that his/her existence can be "proved".

you could argue plato is a realist because of his ideas of forms that exist outside the universe, for example. and on the surface, descarte appears to be a realist, for instance, his "pure ideas" within the ontological argument, which relate to the ideas of an "absolute" reality. furthermore, in ethics, absolutists believe that moral actions are intrinsically right or wrong (which might be a good synoptic link to make).
within this theory of truth, things are very real; reality exists outside the mind and on a larger scale, not just within a community.

the coherence theory of truth is anti realism. this theory of truth states that there is no absolute reality; things are real and meaningful to people inside different communities. everything in anti realism is relative, such as beauty and God. for example, in western societies thinness is seen as beautiful, whereas in some eastern cultures, bigger women are preferred. there is no absolute standard of beauty, it is very subjective. similarly, we all have very different understandings of what God is, and it often isnt clear what is meant by it.

within communities, things are real and meaningful. for example, in christianity, God exists to christians. and within hinduism, a different type of God exists to hindus. (outside these communities though, they do not exist, arguably). you can also parallel this idea to concepts such as the equator or prime numbers. we cannot phyically KNOW the equator or prime numbers, we cant find it, or observe it, or touch it. we only have an a priori understanding of them, since they are concepts that exist in the mind. to someone who does not understand prime numbers, they are not real or meaningful. (GARETH MOORE), it is only once we understand these things that any real meaning can be established; and the same goes for God.
anti realists would argue the concept of God can only ever exist in the mind, as we cannot "prove" his existence in the empirical universe, just like prime numbers and equators and beauty.
(n.b. maybe nothing exists outside our minds? thats a tangent though)

examples of anti realists are people like wittgenstein - you might want to look at his "language games" to get a better idea of what its all about! it also relates to relativism within ethics (i.e. that there is nothing that is intrinsically right or wrong morally)

ive rambled on a bit here but the main point you need to know for this theory is that God is real within the community of faith - and there alone.

ive been told that mentioning this is the way to get high marks. you just have to raise the point that maybe anselm wasnt trying to prove Gods existence. maybe anselm anticipated all of the criticisms and wasnt that stupid. maybe he was an anti realist? or maybe he wasnt. either way, it would seem that the ontological argument only works within the faith community, based on the assumption that the de re God necassarily exists. if it IS the case that anselm was proposing the argument on a coherence theory of truth, then yes, it works. otherwise, he is trying to "prove" the existence of something that may or may not be true. and so, the argument fails.