The Ontological Argument

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• This Powerpoint presentation is prepared by Dr. Peter Vardy, Vice-Principal of Heythrop College, University of London for

• DIALOGUE EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS.

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The Ontological Argument• The Ontological Argument is the only A PRIORI

argument – it does not start from some feature of the world (such as motion, design, etc.) but rather from a definition of God.

• It therefore seeks to move from a definition of God to the reality of God.

• It was put forward in two forms by St. Anselm. Kant was considered to have demolished it but the argument has recently generated new interest.

ANALYTIC AND SYNTHETIC STATEMENTS

• In order to understand the Ontological argument the difference between the above must be understood:

• An ANALYTIC statement is one where the predicate is included within the subject. Thus ‘All bears have bones’ is an analytic statement (provided we are referring to real live bears and not to teddy bears)

• A SYNTHETIC statement is one where the predicate is NOT included within the subject. Thus ‘All bears are black’ is a synthetic statement. It could only be known to be true by enquiry – by using experience.

A TEST!Are these statements analytic or synthetic?• 1) ‘Triangles have three angles’

• 2) ‘Cars have four wheels’

• 3) ‘Cats have four legs’

• 4) ‘A bull has horns’

• 5) ‘Water is wet’

• 6) ‘Priests are male’

• 7) ‘Gay men are happy’

• 8) ‘Roman Catholic priests are male’

• 9) ‘God exists’

‘Roman Catholic priests are male’• Some will hold that this is analytic, and some synthetic.• If you consider that Roman Catholic priests, by definition,

cannot be other than male and that this is part of the essence of what it is to be a Roman Catholic priest then you will consider this to be analytic.

• If, by contrast, you consider that Roman Catholic priests are today all male but that in principle it is perfectly possible in the future that there could be female Catholic priests, then the statement will be synthetic.

• So what is analytic at one time (e.g. ‘gay men are happy said 100 years ago) may be synthetic at another (e.g. today)

‘God exists’If you consider that the very essence

of God includes existence, then you will hold that this statement is analytic.

If you maintain that God may or may not exist, and that it is possible for God not to exist, then you will consider this statement to be synthetic.

Anselm WAS a monk – and believed in God

• In the preface to the ‘Proslogion’ (which is an address to God, it is effectively a prayer), Anselm says:

• "I have written the following treatise in the person of one who... seeks to understand what he believes...“

• This context of faithful belief from within which Anselm is writing will become important later…..

Anselm’s First Argument

• God is by definition that than which nothing greater can be conceived. This definition is understood by believers and non-believers.

• It is one thing to exist in the mind alone and another to exist both in the mind and in reality.

• It is greater to exist in the mind and in reality than to exist in the mind alone.

• Therefore God must exist both in reality as well as in the mind. If God is just an idea in the mind, then the definition points to something greater – a God who exists both in the mind and in reality.

GAUNILO’s REPLY• Gaunilo rejected Anselm’s argument by drawing a parallel

with a lost island. If we imagine the greatest possible island, then this island must exist… He is effectively saying that we cannot define something into existence.

• Anselm’s reply is to say that his argument and the sequence of his reasoning only applies to God – as only God has all perfections.

• Gaunilo is saying that God is merely the greatest ACTUAL being just as the island is the greatest ACTUAL island - but this is NOT what Anselm is saying. Anselm is claiming that God is the greatest POSSIBLE being and his argument only applies to God.

Aquinas rejects Anselm’s argument….• Aquinas claims we do NOT have an agreed definition of

God. Many people have different ideas of God - some people even hold that God has a body (which Aquinas considers to be absurd).

• We can reason to God from the effects of God’s action in the world. Any argument has to start from experience.

• Aquinas does not consider that we know God’s nature, so a real understanding of God’s nature is impossible to us.

• However Aquinas holds that IF we understood God’s nature (as God does) then we would know that God’s nature DOES have to include existence (i.e. ‘God exists’ would be analytic) but as we do NOT know God’s nature, we have to treat it as synthetic.

• BE CAREFUL HERE THEREFORE. Aquinas is saying that, in fact, ‘God exists’ is analytically true but we cannot know this to be the case and we can only treat it as synthetically true. We can, therefore, only argue to God using experience as a starting point.

St.Thomas Aquinas and St.Anselm

• Anselm was effectively a Platonist and Aquinas was an Aristotelian.

• Anselm starts with an idea and attempts to move to the reality of the God that this idea represents.

• Aquinas, however, always argues from experience – from ‘the facts of the world’. All his arguments are, therefore, ‘A POSTERIORI’ – i.e. they are based on experience.

Rene Descartes

• Descartes’ argument is precise. His second restatement (in response to criticism) is as follows:

• 1) Whatever is of the essence of something must be affirmed of it

• 2) It is of the essence of God that he exists for by definition his essence is to exist, therefore

• 3) Existence must be affirmed of God.

Descartes Contd.

• Descartes guarded against the sort of attack that Gaunilo developed against Anselm by saying that:

• A) The argument applies only to an absolutely perfect and necessary being (it cannot, therefore, be applied to something like a lost island).

• B) Not everyone does think of God, but if they do then God cannot be thought not to exist.

• C) God alone is the being whose essence entails God’s existence. There cannot be two or more such beings.

• Aquinas rejects the point that Descartes wants to affirm. Descartes says we can know God's essence and therefore we can say that God must exist.

Descartes is right!• Once you have thought of a triangle, it must exist.• The properties of a triangle are necessary to it –

three angles, three sides, etc.• Triangles exist because we understand what

triangles are……• BUT, all Descartes is really establishing is IF there

is a triangle it MUST have three angles. This does not actually mean there are any triangles.

• Similarly, IF there is God, God must exist – but the problem is the ’if’!

IMMANUEL KANT

• Kant first called this the ‘ontological argument’ - he thought that the argument made an illegitimate jump from ideas to reality (‘ontos’). He raised the following objections to the argument:

• 1) We have no clear idea of a necessary being - God is defined largely in negative rather than in positive terms.

• 2) The only sort of necessity is where statements are necessary because of the way words and language are used. It applies to propositions, not to reality. There are NO necessary propositions about existence.

• 3) What is logically possible may not be ontologically possible. It is true that a triangle must have three sides or a unicorn must have a horn but this does not mean there are any triangles or any unicorns.

• 4) Existence is not a predicate or a perfection.

‘Existence is not a predicate’

•THIS IS A KEY POINT.• Kant says that Whatever adds nothing

to the concept of an essence is not part of that essence.

• Existence adds nothing to the concept of an essence - to say a hundred dollars is real rather than imaginary does not add any characteristics to a dollar. Existence is not part of the essence of a thing, it is not a perfection.

Kant considered that Anselm’s argument can be summed up as

follows:1) An absolutely perfect being must have all possible perfections,

2) Existence is a possible perfection

3) Therefore an absolutely perfect being must have existence as one of its perfections.Kant rejects (2). One can have an idea of something, but however much you develop the idea, you have to go outside it by getting evidence from experience as to whether or not it exists.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

• Bertrand Russell argues that when we say 'Cows exist' what we are really saying is that the concept of 'cow' is instantiated whereas the concept of unicorn is not. In this, Russell

follows Frege who argues that 'exists’ tells us that a particular thing is instantiated or exists rather than being a predicate. Frege’s famous example is:

• ‘Tame tigers exist’• ‘Exists’ here is not a predicate, it adds nothing to

our knowledge of tigers. All it is saying is that the concept of ‘tame tigers’ is instantiated - i.e. there are tame tigers. By contrast:

• ‘Tame tigers eat a lot’• does tell us something about tame tigers - ‘eat a

lot’ does, therefore, function as a predicate.

What does it mean to say ‘God exists’

Is God's existence more like a bear or a triangle? Is God an object of some sort? If God is an object,

then he is rather like a bear - there may be a bear in the road outside or there may not (cf Martin Lee's article - either God is something or nothing. To say he is like a bear is to say God is a 'something', however ineffable) similarly there may be a God or there may not be.

Hume and Kant both thought that God's existence was like this. God is in some sense an object, a being of some sort - albeit a highly exalted being.

If this is so, then both Hume and Kant held we cannot move from the IDEA of God to the reality of God. I may have a perfectly clear idea of a bear but this does not mean that one exists.

HARTSHORNE• There are three major figures who

have contributed to the debate in the 20th century – Hartshorne, Plantinga and Malcolm. Hartshorne’s argument was the first but it is almost identical to that put forward by Plantinga whose version is better known although practically identical to Hartshorne’s.

ALVIN PLANTINGA• Plantinga re-states the Ontological argument for

today using the idea of there being many possible worlds.

• In some worlds you and I exist, in some only one of us exists and in some neither of us exists. We are all possible beings who may or may not exist and may be different from what we are (you may have differently coloured hair or be missing a finger).

• Plantinga’s claim is that God is a being who MUST exist in every possible world…..

Plantinga’s argument• This distinction between Excellence and

Greatness is confusing and needs to be unpacked. Plantinga says:

• " A being’s excellence in a given world W... depends only upon the properties it has in W; its greatness in W depends upon these properties but also upon what it is like in other worlds.......it is plausible to suppose that the maximal degree of greatness entails maximum excellence in every world. A being, then, has the maximal degree of greatness in a given world W only if it has maximal excellence in every possible world."

• Effectively, then MAXIMAL GREATNESS means MAXIMAL EXCELLENCE in every possible world…

Plantinga’s argument1) It is possible that there be a being that

has maximal greatness.2) So there is a possible being that in one

world W had maximal greatness.3) A being has maximal greatness in a

given world only if it has maximal excellence in every world.

4) A being has maximal excellence in a given world only if it has omniscience, omnipotence and moral perfection in that world.

An Obvious problem Plantinga does recognise an obvious

challenge- namely that there could be possible beings that do not exist in any possible world.

He says: "I am inclined to think the supposition that there are such things - things that are possible but don’t in fact exist - is either unintelligible or necessarily false.“

– BUT WHY?? THIS LOOKS VERY DEBATABLE

Weaknesses of Plantinga1] Plantinga’s argument depends on the very idea of

there being many possible worlds and this is far from clear.

2] There is a jump from saying a maximally great being is possible to saying that it exists.

3] The whole argument still depends on definitions and Hume and Kant’s challenges that we cannot move from definitions to reality still apply.

4] If the very idea of a being with Maximal Greatness makes sense (which Peter Vardy challenges) then so would the idea of a being with Maximal non-greatness.

Nevertheless, Plantinga is modest in what he claims his argument shows: "What I claim for this argument, therefore, is that it establishes, not THE TRUTH of theism, but its rational acceptability. And hence it accomplishes at least one of the aims of the tradition of Natural Theology.”

JOHN FRYE

Claims that Plantinga makes two invalid assumptions: (1) That whatever is possible must be instantiated (John

Frye says: “It is possible that somewhere in the universe is a one ton purple dragon called Horace, wearing a pink bow tie and natty long johns, balancing upside down on his tongue with a water pistol in one hand and a trumpet in the other, shooting passing gnats with the one and with the other playing ‘God save the Queen’, but somehow I doubt it.”)

(2)That whatever is not incoherent must be true. Plantinga maintains his equations are not incoherent so must be true. But a non-incoherent statement could be made about Frye’s Dragon which was nevertheless false.

Anselm’s second argument• Anselm has two arguments: The first is

in Proslogion 2, the second in Proslogion 3.

• Norman Malcolm accepts that the first fails.

• Malcolm focuses on the second argument. He begins by stating that if God does not already exist, God cannot come into existence since this would require a cause and would make God a limited being which, by definition, God is not. Similarly, if God already exists, God cannot cease to exist.

Norman Malcolm Contd.• He says that in the case of the statement

‘God necessarily exists’ there are three possibilities:

• EITHER This is impossible (and he argues this is not the case as there is no contradiction in the statement)

• OR it is probable (and since God is necessary Malcolm maintains that this cannot be the case)

• OR it is true (This is the only alternative left and must therefore be the case)

• The statement 'God necessarily exists', therefore, can be held to be true.

But what is Malcolm doing…?• Many people misunderstand what

Malcolm is doing. They assume that he is trying to establish the de re necessary God of Aquinas, etc. - but this may not be the case.

• Perhaps God is not like this at all. Perhaps it means something entirely different to say that God exists,

• Perhaps God should not be considered to be a being or ‘thing’ in any way at all.

God’s existence• Some people say there is a God and others

say there is not. This seems to involve a dispute about a kind of object, a 'something'. However this may be an error. Anselm wrote in the ‘Proslogion’ which is a prayer, an address to God:

• "...the fool hath said in his heart 'There is no God', but at any rate this very fool, when he hears of this Being of which I speak - a being than which no greater can be conceived - understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding; although he does not understand it to exist."

‘God necessarily exists’• Malcolm argues that ‘God necessarily exists’ is true.• But what does it MEAN for this to be true??• Perhaps this statement IS true within the form of life of

the believing community. To religious believers, God DOES necessarily exist.

• God’s reality is unquestioned, God is the centre of the believer’s life, God is that within which the believer lives and moves and has his being.

• On this basis, the 'fool who has said in his heart there is no God', may be the person who has no use for praise, for worship or for ritual. To him or her, God-talk has no reality.

Does the Ontological argument succeed?

• It depends what you mean by ‘succeed’! Aquinas, Kant and Hume have shown that one cannot move from a definition of God to the de re reality of God –in this sense the argument fails.

• However if the argument attempts to show the inescapable reality of God to those within the form of life of the believing community, then perhaps, as as Malcolm seems to maintain, the argument does succeed.

• To such a believer, God does indeed NECESSARILY EXIST – but on an anti-realist view this existence need not be the de re existence of traditional theism.