Ontological Argument
The argument ontological tries to show that God exists necessarily, under the definition of God. Made many times in history, it nevertheless Descartes that the most often reported in the Meditations.
He had previously been advanced to the sixth century by Boethius , and the eleventh century by Anselm of Canterbury. After Descartes , variants of this evidence will include proposed by Spinoza ( Ethics ), Leibniz and Allan Kardec.
In religion, the Summa Theologica is one of the most comprehensive demonstration of the ontological argument. However, the revelation is the preferred partner of reason in the religious world. For example, the oak of Mamre is a revelation of God as Trinity. It would be impossible to prove the existence of three hypostasis by reason alone.
Summary |
Although there are differences according to the authors, the structure of the ontological argument remains essentially invariant.
- God is perfect.
- Existence is a perfection.
- God has the property of existence.
Presentation Anselmo
Anselm of Canterbury , Proslogion, Chapters II and following.
Anselm's argument can be summarized as follows:
- God is what is such that nothing greater can be conceived;
- or even the "fool" who denies the existence of God in his mind a representation of God;
- therefore God exists at least one place, and as it is such that nothing greater can be conceived, it is also beyond the understanding of the insane.
Presentation Descartes
" Statement by Spinoza
It's in the proposal 11 of the first part of the Ethics that Spinoza proves the existence of God. The wording of this proposal is: "God, ie a substance consisting of infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists. "
Spinoza gives three different proofs.
First demonstration
The first demonstration is a reductio ad absurdum.
- Trying to conceive that God does not exist.
- This means that its essence does not involve its existence, according to the axiom 7: "Anything that can be conceived as not existing, its essence does not involve existence. "
- But this is absurd, by virtue of Proposition 7: "By the nature of a substance belongs to exist. "
(For completeness, we should show here how Spinoza proves the proposition 7.)
Second proof
- Which has no reason or cause preventing its existence exists necessarily;
- however, no reason or because God does exist;
- Therefore God necessarily exists.
Third Demonstration
- Power does not exist is impotence, a power to exist;
- gold we exist and are finite beings;
- So if God (being infinite) did not exist, finite beings are more powerful than the infinite being, which is absurd. Therefore, God exists.
Criticism of the argument
Confusion orders
The ontological argument confuses two levels: that of thinking and of being, that is to say, the conceptual object and physical object. There is a difference between the order of things and the design of their existence. Knowing God as perfect does not establish his actual existence, especially since we might as well say that perfection is an expression of infinite qualities, and therefore inaccessible. Perfection, even in thought, would not exist. The ontological argument uses the definition of the essence to prove the existence, while existence can be proved that from the observation of the essence, not its definition.
Rebuttal by Kant
See also the refutation of the ontological argument in the Critique of Pure Reason.
This evidence does not date from yesterday and can not be swept away with the back of the hand. Kant oppose him not one, but a series of rebuttals. It begins by tracing the origins to the ontological proof, questioning the way our mind has come to the idea of an absolutely necessary. Kant's remark in fact that nobody has ever asked this question, taking it for granted:
" Rebuttal contemporary
This argument is nowadays very popular in its original form (to modern thinkers such as Alvin Plantinga and Kurt Gdel have developed a revised version). A similar argument developed by Descartes in the third of his Meditations is called the "Signature of the Creator" or "Trace of God." Ontological dimension, this argument says that God has left its mark in us so that we can return to him. The artifice of this thesis is a naturalistic fallacy combined with a carefully hidden bias ethnocentric.
Indeed, if I say that man by nature has in him the idea of God, is not only the finding that 95% of humans believe in some sort of deity? But this deity, one can not know with our mind who she is and what she expects of us, if it wants to interact with his creation. Now assert that this "idea of God present in us" is the God of the Hebrews, Jesus, or Allah is to say that everyone should think like us because God (as we conceive it) is an innate idea, this who is wacky and ethnocentric.
In On God's existence and the nonexistence of unicorns Bibliography See also
References
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