AO1: Anselm’s ontological argument
- Anselm’s ontological argument is a purely a priori argument based on the concept of God.
- It is deductive, aiming to prove God exists with necessity.
- Anselm uses the example of a painter who first has an idea in their mind before creating it in reality.
- This shows the difference between existing in the mind and existing in reality.
- He refers to Psalm 14:1, where the atheist denies God.
- Even the atheist has an idea of God in their mind.
- In Proslogion 2, Anselm argues:
- P1. God is the greatest conceivable being.
- P2. It is greater to exist in reality than only in the mind.
- P3. God exists in the mind.
- C1. Therefore, God exists in reality.
- If God existed only in the mind, we could imagine something greater: God existing in reality.
- So, God must exist in reality.
- In Proslogion 3, Anselm argues that a necessary being is greater than a contingent being.
- A necessary being cannot fail to exist.
- So, God, as the greatest being, must exist necessarily.
AO2: Gaunilo’s ‘lost island’ objection
- Gaunilo argues that Anselm’s logic leads to absurd results.
- If we apply it to the greatest possible island, then it must exist.
- This would apply to anything, meaning reality would be ‘overloaded’ with perfect versions of everything.
- So, Gaunilo claims the conclusion does not follow from the premises.
- He is rejecting the argument’s deductive validity.
Counter
- However, Anselm replies that the argument only works for God.
- Descartes supports this by saying God’s essence includes necessary existence.
- An island is contingent, as it depends on water to exist.
- So, it can fail to exist.
- No matter how perfect an island is, it is still contingent.
- The argument therefore does not apply to it.
Evaluation
- This reply succeeds because a priori reasoning only works for necessary beings.
- It analyses definitions rather than checking reality.
- Contingent things depend on external conditions, so their existence cannot be known a priori.
- For example, I can know a perfect island needs water, but not whether that water exists.
- So I cannot prove a contingent thing exists through reason alone.
- But a necessary being has no external conditions.
- So, if its concept is coherent, it must exist.
- There is a clear difference between God and islands.
- Gaunilo’s objection fails because it applies the argument where it does not belong.
AO2: Gaunilo’s critique that God is beyond our understanding
- Gaunilo objects to P3, the claim that God is in our understanding.
- He argues that God is beyond human understanding.
- If so, we cannot have the idea of God needed for Anselm’s argument.
- So, Anselm cannot move from God being in the mind to God existing in reality.
Counter
- Anselm replies with the example of the sun.
- We cannot look at it directly, but we can still see by its light.
- In the same way, we may not understand God fully, but we can still grasp that God is the greatest conceivable being.
- We can understand the idea of a highest point in a scale of greatness.
- That is enough for the argument to work.
Evaluation
- This objection fails because Gaunilo misrepresents Anselm’s claim.
- Anselm does not mean we fully understand God, only that we can think about the idea of God.
- So, Gaunilo attacks a stronger claim than Anselm makes.
- The argument only needs a basic concept of maximal greatness, not full knowledge of God’s nature.
- There is a clear difference between knowing what God is and knowing that God is the greatest being.
- Anselm relies only on the second.
- Also, this objection does not affect Anselm’s second version of the argument.
- So it does not defeat the overall argument.
AO2: Kant’s 2nd critique: existence is not a predicate
- The ontological argument claims that denying God’s existence is incoherent, since God is defined as a maximally great being.
- Kant argues this misunderstands existence by treating it as a predicate, a property of a thing.
- He uses the example of 100 coins: there is no conceptual difference between 100 coins in reality and 100 coins in the mind.
- If existence were a predicate, real coins would have an extra quality and be conceptually different.
- But they are not.
- So, existence is not a predicate.
- This challenges the idea that existence makes something greater.
Counter:
- However, Descartes does not rely on treating existence as a predicate, but on intuition.
- We grasp that God is inseparable from existence, like a triangle is inseparable from three sides.
- So Kant’s criticism misses Descartes’ argument.
- Malcolm also defends Anselm.
- Kant is right about contingent existence, since contingent things depend on something else.
- But a necessary being contains the reason for its existence within itself.
- So, necessary existence can be a defining quality in a way contingent existence is not.
Evaluation:
- So, both Anselm and Descartes’ approaches succeed against Kant’s criticism.
- Kant makes the same mistake as Gaunilo, thinking an argument for a necessary being could be undermined by showing it fails when applied to contingent things like coins.
AO2: Kant’s 1st critique: necessity doesn’t imply existence
- Gaunilo argued that necessity in thought does not give necessity in reality.
- Kant develops this by focusing on necessity itself.
- A triangle must have three sides, but only if it exists.
- In the same way, saying God necessarily exists only shows that if God exists, then God exists necessarily.
- So, necessity can be part of the concept without proving real existence.
- If God exists, denying necessity is contradictory.
- But if God does not exist, then necessity does not apply.
Counter:
- Malcolm responds that Kant’s criticism is incoherent because a necessary being must exist.
- If God is a necessary being, then God must exist.
Evaluation
- Hick argues that Malcolm confuses different types of necessity.
- Calling God non-contingent only means God would be self-explaining and non-dependent (aseity).
- This is not logical necessity.
- It does not mean God must exist, only how God would exist if real.
- The argument fails to show that God’s non-existence is contradictory.
- It only shows that if God exists, God exists in a special way.
- So, Kant’s development of Gaunilo’s point is correct: necessity in a concept does not prove actual existence.