Tak siedzę i powtarzam i pomyślałem, że wrzucę jeden z moich ulubionych esejów. Pokaże on Wam dokładnie jaki jest skok z AS do A2 pod względem trudności, ilości informacji i struktury argumentu. Mam nadzieję, że się Wam spodoba. Otrzymał on ocenę 30/30 :)
Describe the Ontological Argument
The Ontological Argument was introduced by St Anselm in eleventh century
and then modified by Descartes a few centuries later. It is a very different
argument from the others that try to prove God’s existence. The Ontological
Argument tries to arrive at the existence of God by analyzing the idea of God,
namely the definition of the word “God”. Therefore, it is a priory argument,
which means that we can prove this argument just by thinking about the word
“God” and unlike a posteriori argument, there is no need to have any experience
of God to say that he exists. What follows is that the argument is analytically
true, because by thinking about the word “God” it is possible to see that
existence is part of “God”. This idea is
very different from the Teleological Argument, which is a posteriori argument –
it is impossible to say that God exists just by thinking about the word “God”.
The experience and looking at some facts about the world can imply that God
exist, for example by the order of nature suggests that there had to be a
designer of it.
If the Argument succeeds, the existence of God is logically necessary
and, as a matter of logic, it does not make any sense to say that God does not
exist. To be a necessary truth means that it is true in all logically possible
circumstances and cannot be denied without a contradiction. For example “All
husbands are married” - there are no circumstances that the proposition would
not be true, or if we denied it that “All husbands are unmarried”, it would simply
not make any sense, because a husband, from definition, has to be married.
The Ontological Argument holds “God exists” is de dicto necessary, which
means that his necessity is found in propositions and is based on how words are
used (de dicto – ‘of words’. We know what the word “God” means and therefore we
could not fail to see that God exists, as we could not say that a husband is
someone without wife, since we know the definition of the word “husband”. The
necessity is also a contingent truth, because, according to Anselm’s version,
the statement that “God exists” must be true in all logically possible
circumstances or conditions and cannot be denied without contradiction. The
question may arise: How it may be impossible to argue that God exists is a
false statement? Anselm gives a clear answer for that question and it lies in
his definition of the word “God”.
Anselm starts his argument by referring to the Fool from Psalm 14:1 who
says in his heart “there is no God”. He uses a method called reduction ad
absurdum, which is used to demonstrate that the Fool’s statement is false by
showing that a false, untenable, absurd or contradictory result follows from
its acceptance. Anselm’s argument depends completely upon his definition of
God, which follows: “a being than which nothing greater can be conceived”. Thus
God is the greatest conceivable being that can be thought about.
Logically, things can exist in two ways – in mind and in reality. For
example, I can imagine that I am the richest man in the world, but this idea
exists only in my mind and it has nothing to do with reality. However, my pen
exists in both reality and in my mind as an idea, because I can see it exists
as well as I can think that it exists.
According to the Fool, God exists only in the mind, as an idea.
Nevertheless, whatever exists in reality is greater if it only exists in the
mind, For example, it is possible to imagine $1000 in your pocket, but it exists
only as an idea. However, if I can have real $1000 in my pocket then clearly it
is greater than existence only in imagination. Therefore, existence in reality
is greater than existence in mind.
If the Fool is right and God exists only in mind, then it is possible to
conceive something greater that exists in reality. However, according to
Anselm, God is’ a being than which nothing greater can be conceived’ and
therefore if the Fool is right there is something greater than the greatest
possible being, which is a nonsense. Therefore, if we say that the greatest
conceivable being exists only in mind, then we run into a contradiction. Thus,
the Fool is wrong and the greatest conceivable being must exist also in
reality.
Descartes’ version of the Ontological argument is slightly different
than the Anselm’s one. The difference is the definition of the word “God”.
Anselm’s version is: a being than which nothing greater can be conceived, while
Descartes’s version is that: God is a perfect being who possess all perfections.
Apart from that, they are very similar. Both are a priory, analytic and follow
in a deductive way.
According to Descartes, God's existence can be deduced from his nature,
just as geometric ideas can be deduced from the nature of shapes—he used the
deduction of the sizes of angles in a triangle as an example, because it is not
a triangle that does not possess three angles. Descartes believed, that based
on his definition that God is a supremely perfect being, it is possible to
conclude that God exists. It is also a deductive statement, because a
conclusion follows from two logical propositions.
Descartes thought that if God is supremely perfect then he must possess
all “perfections”, for example, omnibenevolence, omniscience and omnipotence.
According to Descartes, existence is also a perfection. Therefore, he concluded
that God is the supremely perfect being, who contains all possible perfections.
He believed that existence is a perfection. Thus, if the notion of God did not
include existence, it would not be supremely perfect, as it would be lacking a
perfection. Because God possesses all possible perfections, then He also
“possesses” existence, which means that God exists, since to exist is far more
perfect than not to exist.
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