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Need help with the ontological argument
Posted on: March 29, 2007 - 6:21pm
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Need help with the ontological argument
Hey, could someone help me understand the ontological argument and why its bull. I think I get it, but it's a little hazy. Thanks
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Common sense says it's bull. Even Aquinas didn't buy it. Someone posted on a thread before that they could imagine a god who could have created the universe with one arm behind his back etc..
The argument assumes that god exists and that god is the greatest imaginable being. You could switch the word god with anything and then it must exist too I guess.
Why should you need help? No one uses the ontological argument anymore. Even Aquinas rejected it. No theologian takes it seriously. When St. Aslem created it originally, it was designed in prayer format to God (as if any being capable of listeing would need convincing of their own existence).
Anyway. The argument is this: God must exist because existence is better than non existence. The ontology still contains a logical leap because it is nonsensical to state the God must exist because it is possible to imagine a being which something no greater than can be conceived. Existence is better than nonexistence, but the key word in the first step was imagined. It does not have any bearing on whether such an entity actually exists.
Furthermore, if existence is better than nonexistence, then Aslem's ontology fails because God is defined as supernatural, which is defined as being the opposite of exist.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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Ok, awesome, thanks. Yeah, I'm in a medieval philosophy class and I have to write a paper on it. I think i'm the only atheist in the class so I try to subtly interject reason into whatever we're discussing.
It confuses existence in concept with existence in actuality.
Another rationale is attributed to Melbourne philosopher Douglas Gasking (1911-1994), one component of his proof of the nonexistence of God:
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That one was in the God Delusion!