36 Arguments for the Existence of God # 2

[Pastor Jennifer v2]

2 THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
(all credit to Rebecca G)
1. Nothing is greater than God can be conceived (this is stipulated as
part of the definition of 'God').
2. It is greater to exist than not to exist.
3. If we conceive of God as not existing, then we can conceive of
something greater than God (from 2).
4. To conceive of God as not existing is not to conceive of God (from
1 and 3).
5. It is inconceivable that God dies not exist (from 4).
6. God exists.

This argument, first articulated by Saint Anslem (1033-1109), the
Archbishop of Canterbury, is unlikel any other, proceeding purely on
the conceptual level. Everyone agrees that the mere existence of a
concept does not entail the that there are examples of ther concept;
after all, we can know what a unicorn is and at the same time say
"Unicorns don't exist". The claim if The Ontological Argument is that
the concept of God is the one exception to this generalization. The
very concept of God, when defined correctly, entails that there is
something that satisfies the concept. Although most people suspect
that there is something wrong with this argument, it's not easy to
figure out what it is.

FLAW:
It was Immanuel Kant who pinpointed the fallacy in The Ontological
Argument- it is to treat "existence" as a property, like "being fat"
or "having ten fingers". The Ontological Argument relies on a bit of
word-play, assuming that "existence" is just another property, but
logically it is completely different. If you really could treat
"existence" as just part of the definition of the concept of God, then
you could just as easily build it into the definition of any other
concept. We could, with a wave ofmournvervpbal magic wand, define a
trunicorn, as a "horse that (a) has a single horn on its head, and (b)
exists". So, if you think about trunicorn, you're thinking about
something that must, by definition, exist; therefore, tunicorns exist.
This is clearly absurd: we could use this line of reasoning to prove
that any figment of our imagination exists.

COMMENT
One again, Sidney Morgenbesser offered a pertinent remark, in the form
of the The Ontological Argument for God's Non-Existence: Existence is
such a lousy thing, how could God go and do it?

[Brock]

On Feb 23, 9:00 am, Pastor Jennifer v2

<jennifer.s.jo...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> 2 THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
> (all credit to Rebecca G)

Again, the problem with this statement is the fact that there is NO
ONE single ontological argument!

"An ontological argument for the existence of God (or simply
ontological argument) is any one of a category of arguments for the
existence of God. The exact criteria for the classification of
ontological arguments are not widely agreed, but the arguments
typically start with the definition of God and conclude with his
necessary existence, using mostly or only a priori reasoning and
little reference to empirical observation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument

Regards,

Brock

[Pastor Jennifer v2]

So what? There are multiple variations of every one of these
argument types.That doesn't seem like much of an impressive criticism
to say that there are more like this one!. The theists have had a
couple thousand years to beat them all to death...

[Brock Organ]

On Feb 23, 2012, at 9:18 PM, Pastor Jennifer v2 wrote:

So what? 

That dismisses the overly simplistic form of your presentation:

2 THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT

There is no "THE" ontological argument.  There is  a category of arguments with many members.  To dismiss one (possibly inadequate, whether accidental or by intent) does not dismiss the others, or the category itself.

Regards,

Brock

[Brock Organ]

On Feb 23, 2012, at 9:18 PM, Pastor Jennifer v2 wrote:

types.That doesn't seem like much of an impressive criticism
to say that there are more like this one!. 

Well, axiom schemas are not a new mode of inquiry, nor are they limited to philosophical or theological topics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_schema

Regards,

Brock