1. WEEK 3: Metaphysics Natural Theology – Anselm’s Ontological Argument

2. Arguments For God’s Existence Based On Logic-i Of the arguments FOR God’s existence. –Some are based on logic. –Others claim that we cannot prove God’s existence logically, but that it still is better to believe than not to believe. These “arguments” are based on will or faith.

3. Arguments For God’s Existence Based On Logic -ii This module examines arguments based on logic. There are two sorts: –A Priori arguments claim that we can prove God’s existence through reason alone prior to any sort of sense experience. –A Posteriori arguments claim that we can prove God’s existence, but based only on experience.

4. Arguments For God’s Existence Based On Logic -iii We shall look at One form of an a priori argument: –The Ontological Argument holds that the very being (in Greek,”ontos”) of God proves God.

5. Arguments For God’s Existence Based On Logic -iv We shall look at Two forms of a posteriori argument: –The Cosmological Argument, or Argument from First Cause – That God must be the first cause of everything –The Teleological Argument, or Argument from Design – The universe is too well designed to have happened by accident; God must gave designed it.

6. The Ontological Argument-i We shall look at two versions of the Ontological Argument –St. Anselm’s (1033-1109) –St. Thomas Aquinas’s We shall also look at Immanuel Kant’s (1724-1804)

7. The Ontological Argument -ii Anselm’s argument begins with a working definition of God: NOT “The Greatest Being that can be conceived” but “That than which nothing (no greater being) can be thought” (TiTWaNGCaBiT)

8. The Ontological Argument -iii –First: there are two types of being in the world Being in imagination, the being of an idea Being in imagination and in reality (an idea of an actually existing thing) –Second: it is greater to exist both in imagination and in reality than to exist in imagination alone –Third: By “God” we mean “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”

9. The Ontological Argument - iv –Putting this together he argues: (i) If I can conceive of God, God exists at least in my imagination. (ii) It is greater to exist in both reality and in imagination (iii) Therefore, if God is “that than which nothing greater can be thought”, and if God exists in my imagination, then God must exist in both imagination and in reality (because that is greater) (iv) Therefore, God exists in reality.