Ontological argument essay

Ontological argument essay

Essay on Anselm’s Ontological Argument,Anselm 's Ontological Argument On The Existence Of God

WebHowever just like any other argument, Kant has many people that are against his argument as well. The battle to prove the existence of God has gone on practically since the WebIn conclusion, Anselm’s logical a priori ontological argument is adequate for establishing the necessary existence of the Greatest Conceivable Being. The premises of WebHowever just like any other argument, Kant has many people that are against his argument as well. The battle to prove the existence of God has gone on practically since the birth WebIn the Proslogion written by Anselm of Canterbury, Anselm gives his ontological argument of how God exists. This essay explains that Anselm’s argument of God’s existence works. WebAccording to Joel Friedman (), for an argument to qualify as an ontological argument then it “must start with some definition of God, as a premise, and together with additional ... read more

Philosophers have for long debated on the existence of a Supreme all powerful and all perfect God, Kant, and Anselm being among them. Where Anselm has supported the presence of God and all the attributes that regard to the Him, Kant has risen up with a counter argument. The interaction between the two, the philosophical objection raised by Kant, and what this means to the rest of mankind will be analyzed in this paper. I have grown up catholic because that is the way my family preaches. Although, as I got older I began the true meaning of God being the greatest being and I started to have my very own religious experiences which raised a lot of questions in me. In the book, The Proslogion, written by Saint Anselm, we find the Ontological Argument.

This argument made by Saint Anselm gives us proofs that he believes helps prove the existence of God. Anselm gives many reasons as to why the simple understanding of God can help prove that God himself exists, as well as mentioning how the idea of God cannot be thought not to exist. Though this argument has been looked at by people such as Guanilo, a monk, whose response to Anselm 's proofs was trying to say that there were flaws, there are more reasons as to why Anselm 's proofs work well with his argument. From the understanding of God existing, and the idea behind greatness Anselm 's argument is one that is strong and can work as a proof when trying. The next point Anselm makes is that God existing in reality as well as understanding is greater than just understanding alone.

Anselm then follows that with his next point: that it can be thought that God can exist in reality. And surely that then which a greater cannot be thought cannot exist only in the understanding. The first point is self-explanatory. Proving God exists would be much easier if God existed in reality and understanding compared to understanding alone. Similarly, proving a cyclops existed would be much easier if you saw, captured, and defined it as a cyclops than just being able to define a cyclops. It is a reasonable assertion. The debate of the existence of God had been active since before the first philosopher has pondered the question.

Then there are the arguments to aim disprove God, such as the Argument from Evil. Anselm believes that existence is broken into two categories, existence in reality and existence in the understanding. Now the only thing that does not exist, is something that you cannot conceive to exist, or understand. Ontological arguments tend to be a priori, which is an argument that utilizes thoughts as opposed to empirical evidence to prove validity. It is greater to exist in reality than just simply the understanding. The fool understands the concept of God.

Therefore the fool has God in his understanding. Suppose God exists only in the understanding of the fool and not in reality. We could then think of something exactly as it existed in the fools understanding but it can also exist in reality, and the being we conceived of would be greater than the being that exists in the fools understanding. Therefore God exists not only in the understanding of the fool but also in reality. By showing that God exists in reality as well as in the understanding, we see that it is imperative that we should believe in God and that it is indeed reasonable. Without this premises his argument would fail. It must be agreed to, because it is a true statement.

You do not have to believe in God in order to agree to these Premises. In agreeing to these first premises, St Anselm forces you to admit that God does exist in reality because his premises support his conclusion. Anselm's Theory is that if God is that which nothing greater can be conceived, the idea of God must exist, if only in the mind. To exist in reality is greater than existing in the mind idea. Therefore God, being that which nothing greater can be conceived must exist in reality. All his premises support his conclusion, creating a valid and sound argument proving that God must exist. Essay Topics Writing. Open Document. An ontological argument for the existence of God is one that attempts the method of a priori proof, which utilizes intuition and reason alone.

The term a priori refers to deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is the type of reasoning that proceeds from general principles or premises to derive particular information. The argument works by examining the concept of God , and arguing that it implies the actual existence of God; that is, if we can conceive of God then God exists. However, this type of argument is often criticized as committing a bare assertion fallacy. The bare assertion fallacy is fallacy in formal logic where a premise …show more content… Anselm goes on to justify his assumption by using the analogy of a painter. In short, when a painter first conceives of what it is he wants to accomplish, he has it in his understanding but does not yet understand it to exist. His point in general is that there is a difference between saying that something exists in my mind and saying that I believe that something exists.

Anselm goes on to introduce another assumption that could be considered a new version of the argument. He tries to show that God cannot possibly exist in the understanding alone by contrasting existing in the understand with existing in reality. One of the earliest recorded objections to Anselm's argument was raised by one of Anselm's contemporaries, Gaunilo of Marmoutiers. If the argument were valid, it could be applied to things that are clearly imaginary. Here is where the example of the lost island is introduced.

Gaunilo invited his readers to think of the greatest, or most perfect, conceivable island. As a matter of fact, it is likely that no such island actually exists. However, his argument would then say that we aren't thinking of the greatest conceivable island, because the greatest. Get Access. That is, an ontological argument seeks to prove to the existence of God from its definition, and without any reference to material being. By starting from the definition of God as a being that is absolutely perfect; that is that possesses all possible predicates to the highest level of intensity and efficacy, the argument then seeks to prove that a contradiction ensues if this being does not exist, and it can therefore be argued to provide a variation on the ontological argument concerning Fido.

It takes the supreme idea of a supreme being, and, by defining such a being as perfect, seeks to prove that it must exist in reality. its conclusion is contained within its definition and, therefore, it does not concern the actual positive existence of God, but rather the logical structure of the idea of him. Necessity understood as emerging from an analytic truth can only be understood to form a precondition for the possible existence of something, it cannot prove its actual existence. Why not get a unique paper done for you? Use code: CUSTOM As Putin continues killing civilians, bombing kindergartens, and threatening WWIII, Ukraine fights for the world's peaceful future. Skip to content Forget the all-nighters and find some writing inspiration with our free essay samples on any topic.

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Ontological arguments are arguments, for the conclusion that God exists, from premises which are supposed to derive from some source other than observation of the world—e. In other words, ontological arguments are arguments from what are typically alleged to be none but analytic, a priori and necessary premises to the conclusion that God exists. The first, and best-known, ontological argument was proposed by St. Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century C. In his Proslogion , St. Anselm claims to derive the existence of God from the concept of a being than which no greater can be conceived.

Anselm reasoned that, if such a being fails to exist, then a greater being—namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists —can be conceived. But this would be absurd: nothing can be greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived. So a being than which no greater can be conceived—i. In the seventeenth century, René Descartes defended a family of similar arguments. For instance, in the Fifth Meditation , Descartes claims to provide a proof demonstrating the existence of God from the idea of a supremely perfect being.

Descartes argues that there is no less contradiction in conceiving a supremely perfect being who lacks existence than there is in conceiving a triangle whose interior angles do not sum to degrees. Hence, he supposes, since we do conceive a supremely perfect being—we do have the idea of a supremely perfect being—we must conclude that a supremely perfect being exists. Leibniz argued that, since perfections are unanalysable, it is impossible to demonstrate that perfections are incompatible—and he concluded from this that all perfections can co-exist together in a single entity. In more recent times, Kurt Gödel, Charles Hartshorne, Norman Malcolm and Alvin Plantinga have all presented much-discussed ontological arguments which bear interesting connections to the earlier arguments of St.

Anselm, Descartes and Leibniz. Of these, the most interesting are those of Gödel and Plantinga; in these cases, however, it is unclear whether we should really say that these authors claim that the arguments are proofs of the existence of God. Critiques of ontological arguments begin with Gaunilo, a contemporary of St. Perhaps the best known criticisms of ontological arguments are due to Immanuel Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason. However, as Bertrand Russell observed, it is much easier to be persuaded that ontological arguments are no good than it is to say exactly what is wrong with them.

This helps to explain why ontological arguments have fascinated philosophers for almost a thousand years. In various ways, the account provided to this point is rough, and susceptible of improvement. Sections 1—6 in what follows provide some of the requisite embellishments, though—as is usually the case in philosophy—there are many issues taken up here which could be pursued at much greater length. Sections 7—9 take up some of the central questions at a slightly more sophisticated level of discussion. Section 10 is a quick overview of very recent work on ontological arguments:. For a useful discussion of the history of ontological arguments in the modern period, see Harrelson According to a modification of the taxonomy of Oppy , there are eight major kinds of ontological arguments, viz:.

Examples of all but the last follow. These are mostly toy examples. But they serve to highlight the deficiencies which more complex examples also share. See Redding and Bubbio for recent discussion of this point. God is a being which has every perfection. This is true as a matter of definition. Existence is a perfection. Hence God exists. I conceive of a being than which no greater can be conceived. If a being than which no greater can be conceived does not exist, then I can conceive of a being greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived—namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived that exists.

I cannot conceive of a being greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived. Hence, a being than which no greater can be conceived exists. It is possible that that God exists. God is not a contingent being, i. Hence, it is necessary that God exists. Hence, God exists. See Malcolm , Hartshorne , and Plantinga for closely related arguments. Hence, the existent perfect being is existent. Hence, God is existent, i. God exists. The last step is justified by the observation that, as a matter of definition, if there is exactly one existent perfect being, then that being is God. See Rescher for a live version of this argument.

I exist. Therefore something exists. Whenever a bunch of things exist, their mereological sum also exists. Therefore the sum of all things exists. Therefore God—the sum of all things—exists. Say that a God-property is a property that is possessed by God in all and only those worlds in which God exists. Not all properties are God properties. Any property entailed by a collection of God-properties is itself a God-property. The God-properties include necessary existence, necessary omnipotence, necessary omniscience, and necessary perfect goodness. Hence, there is a necessarily existent, necessarily omnipotent, necessarily omniscient, and necessarily perfectly good being namely, God. Of course, this taxonomy is not exclusive: an argument can belong to several categories at once.

Moreover, an argument can be ambiguous between a range of readings, each of which belongs to different categories. This latter fact may help to explain part of the curious fascination of ontological arguments. Finally, the taxonomy can be further specialised: there are, for example, at least four importantly different kinds of modal ontological arguments which should be distinguished. See, e. It is not easy to give a good characterisation of ontological arguments. Consider, for example, the claim that I conceive of a being than which no greater can be conceived. However, it is unclear how that traditional characterisation should be improved upon.

This procedure would make good sense if one thought that there is a natural kind—ontological arguments—which our practice carves out, but for which is hard to specify defining conditions. Moreover, this procedure can be adapted as a pro tem stop gap: when there is a better definition to hand, that definition will be adopted instead. On the other hand, it seems worthwhile to attempt a more informative definition. Focus on the case of ontological arguments for the conclusion that God exists. Theists and non-theists alike can agree that there is spatio-temporal, or causal, or nomic, or modal structure to the world the basis for cosmological arguments ; and that there are certain kinds of complexity of organisation, structure and function in the world the basis for teleological arguments ; and so on.

But theists and non-theists are in dispute about whether there are perfect beings, or beings than which no greater can be conceived, or … ; thus, theists and non-theists are in dispute about the indirect subject matter of the premises of ontological arguments. Of course, the premises of ontological arguments often do not deal directly with perfect beings, beings than which no greater can be conceived, etc. However, the basic point remains: ontological arguments require the use of vocabulary which non-theists should certainly find problematic when it is used in ontologically committing contexts i. Note that this characterisation does not beg the question against the possibility of the construction of a successful ontological argument—i.

For it may be that the vocabulary in question only gets used in premises under the protection of prophylactic operators which ward off the unwanted commitments. Of course, there will then be questions about whether the resulting arguments can possibly be valid—how could the commitments turn up in the conclusion if they are not there in the premises? Before we turn to assessment of ontological arguments, we need to get clear about what the proper intended goals of ontological arguments can be. Suppose we think of arguments as having advocates and targets: when an advocate presents an argument to a target, the goal of the advocate is to bring about some change in the target.

What might be the targets of ontological arguments, and what might be the changes that advocates of these arguments aim to bring about in those targets? In the coming discussion, it will be supposed that the targets are atheists and agnostics, and that the goal is to turn them into theists. Suppose that an advocate presents an ontological argument to a target. What conditions must that arguments satisfy if it is fit for its intended purpose? A plausible suggestion is that, minimally, it should make the targets recognise that they have good reason to accept the conclusion of the argument that they did not recognise that they have prior to the presentation of the argument.

Adopting this plausible suggestion provides the following criterion: a successful ontological argument is one that should make atheists and agnostics recognise that they have good reason to believe that God exists that they did not recognise that they have prior to the presentation of the argument. Note that this criterion has a normative dimension: it adverts to what atheists and agnostics should do when presented with the argument. There is an important discussion to be had about whether we should suppose that the targets of ontological arguments are atheists and agnostics, and that the goal is to turn them into theists.

However, it is simply beyond the scope of this entry to pursue that discussion here. Objections to ontological arguments take many forms. Some objections are intended to apply only to particular ontological arguments, or particular forms of ontological arguments; other objections are intended to apply to all ontological arguments. It is a controversial question whether there are any successful general objections to ontological arguments. One general criticism of ontological arguments which have appeared hitherto is this: none of them is persuasive , i. Any reading of any ontological argument which has been produced so far which is sufficiently clearly stated to admit of evaluation yields a result which is invalid, or possesses a set of premises which it is clear in advance that no reasonable, reflective, well-informed, etc.

non-theists will accept, or has a benign conclusion which has no religious significance, or else falls prey to more than one of the above failings. For each of the families of arguments introduced in the earlier taxonomy, we can give general reasons why arguments of that family fall under the general criticism. In what follows, we shall apply these general considerations to the exemplar arguments introduced in section 2. An obvious problem is that claims involving that vocabulary cannot then be non-question-beggingly detached from the scope of that definition. In the example given earlier, the premises license the claim that, as a matter of definition, God possesses the perfection of existence.

The Ontological Argument,Essay – Ontological Argument

WebIn the Proslogion written by Anselm of Canterbury, Anselm gives his ontological argument of how God exists. This essay explains that Anselm’s argument of God’s existence works. WebAccording to Joel Friedman (), for an argument to qualify as an ontological argument then it “must start with some definition of God, as a premise, and together with additional WebJan 12,  · In Westerntheology, three theories have emerged to demonstrate theexistence of God. These theories are the ontologicalargument, the cosmological WebThe structure of the Ontological Argument can be outlined as follows (The argument is based on Anselm's Proslogion 2): 1. We conceive of God as a being than which no WebHowever just like any other argument, Kant has many people that are against his argument as well. The battle to prove the existence of God has gone on practically since the birth WebIn conclusion, Anselm’s logical a priori ontological argument is adequate for establishing the necessary existence of the Greatest Conceivable Being. The premises of ... read more

Prior to reconstructing the argument, I will inspect the 'a priori' ontological argument, an argument that is solely justified through reasoning alone and based upon concepts and logical relations. Browse Table of Contents What's New Random Entry Chronological Archives. All of the following have been alleged to be the key to the explanation of the failure of at least some ontological arguments: 1 existence is not a predicate see, e. selm's Ontological Argument For The Existence Of An All-Perfect God? Trinitarian Atonement Analysis Words 3 Pages. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to entertain the idea of a being than which no greater can be conceived—and to recognise that this idea encodes the property of real existence—without attributing real existence to a being than which no greater can be conceived, i. Diamond, C.

In what follows, ontological argument essay, we ignore this aspect of the controversy about the Proslogion. Religious Studies Guides — So, for example, the round square is round; the bald current King of France is bald; and so on. Verified writer. I cannot conceive of a being greater than a being than which no greater can be ontological argument essay. He adds thatany person who hears this statement describing Godunderstands what is meant.