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perfectExplain a problem with the idea that God is eternal and how his problem might be resolved.
The problem is, if God is eternal, meaning he exists outside of time, God would know what happens in our future. God knows what happens in our future just as he knows what has happened in the past. The argument arising from God’s Omniscience (Human Free Will) claims that if God knows what we will do before we do it then we are not free. In order for God to be omniscient, it would have to be true that he would know what we will do before we do it and the consequence that follows this claim is that we are not free. The situation would be the same reversed, if we were free and he didn’t know what we would do next, he would not be omniscient.
One solution to this problem is compatibilism, just because God knows what we will do and what is most likely that we will do, doesn’t mean that our free will is limited. It is a contingent truth instead. An example of this would be you being able to predict that your friend would help an old person cross the road that day, given the conditions that your
friend is in a happy and generous mood and that they are a kind person. You have this true belief about them, and it doesn’t take their free will away, and just because they did that action does not mean that they had to do that action. It is contingently true that Paris is the capital of France, but it didn’t have to be, it could have been another city.
A further solution to the argument is proposed by Stump and Kretzmann. They state that time is ET simultaneous, meaning that every moment is experienced temporally and simultaneously with god’s eternal present. Our events of the future are present to God. This doesn’t mean to say that God knows what happens in our future, he doesn’t know anything ‘now’ in a temporal sense but instead, his knowledge is eternal, atemporal. So, he cannot foresee future events, there is not a ‘before’ for his knowledge and his knowledge in time is ET simultaneous. God only knows what is happening when it is happening. Seeing as God’s knowledge is not ‘before’ anything, he cannot know what we will do before we do it and we can see that the original argument is flawed. His omniscience consists in the fact that god knows what we do, but he knows this ET simultaneously with us doing it. Our knowledge is T simultaneous and doesn’t stop our actions from being free, the same applies to God’s knowledge.
Is the Ontological argument convincing as proof of God’s existence?
The ontological argument is the only argument that uses a priori reasoning, Versions of the ontological argument aim to deduce God’s existence from the definition of God. Proponents of ontological arguments claim that ‘God exists is an analytic truth. The standard form of Anselm’s ontological argument is as follows, god is greater than what cannot be conceived, we can coherently conceive of such a being, it is greater to exist in reality than to exist only in the mind and therefore, God must exist. A god that is great in every way and one that actually exists is better than one that does not. Since god is a being that we cannot imagine to be greater, this description would be true.
Descartes offers his own version as well, I have the idea of god, the idea is the idea of a supremely perfect being, a supremely perfect being does not lack perfection, existence is a perfection, and therefore god exists. His argument is similar to Anselm’s, except relies more heavily on the concept of perfection rather than greatness. Descartes argues that that would show that ‘god does exist’ is a self-contradiction.
Gaunilo of Marmoutiers argues that if Anselm’s argument is valid, then it’s possible for anything to be defined into existence. An example of this is the perfect island, an island greater than what is capable of being conceived. The perfect island is, by definition, an island greater than which cannot be conceived. The argument goes, that we can coherently conceive of such an island, it is greater to exist in reality than to exist in the mind, therefore this island must exist. The conclusion of this argument is obviously false. He says that if Anselm’s arguments are valid then we can define anything into existence, the perfect shoes, book, or tree.
Hume argues that ‘god does not exist is not a contradiction. The ontological argument reasons from the definition of God that God must exist. This would make ‘God exists’ an
analytic truth. Denying an analytic truth leads to a contradiction, e.g., ‘there is a triangle with four sides. Because contradictions cannot be coherently conceived, the idea does not make sense. If you tried to imagine a four-sided triangle you would see either a triangle or a square. So, Descartes and Anselm’s idea that ‘god does not exist is a contradiction is argued against by Hume who says that anything we can conceive of as existent, we can also conceive of as being non-existent.
Kant however argues that to say something exists doesn’t add anything to the concept of it, that existence is not a property of things in the same way as (e.g.) green is a property of grass. When it is said that “God exists”, it does not mean “there is a God and he has the property of existence”, for if it did then when it is said that “God does not exist”, it would mean, “there is a God, and he has the property of non-existence” and this does not make sense.
Kant’s response here is considered to be a powerful argument against it, Norman Malcolm developed an alternative version to avoid criticism. He accepted Anselm and Descartes’ version as wrong and argues instead that existence isn’t perfection but is necessary existence instead. Malcolm’s ontological argument is as follows,
‘Either God exists or does not exist. God cannot come into existence or go out of existence. If God exists, God cannot cease to exist. Therefore, if God exists, God’s existence is necessary. Therefore, if God does not exist, God’s existence is impossible. Therefore, God’s existence is either necessary or impossible. God’s existence is impossible only if the concept of God is self-contradictory. The concept of God is not self-contradictory. Therefore, God’s existence is not impossible. Therefore, God exists necessarily.’ It can be argued that the meaning of ‘necessary’ changes between the premise about god’s existence being necessary and the conclusion, rendering his argument invalid. Malcolm is talking about necessary existence in the sense that it is a necessary truth that god exists, which is obviously not the same thing. It is okay to accept that if god exists, he has the property of necessary existence, but it is not true that god exists necessarily
I think that overall, this demonstrates the ontological argument to not be convincing as it is dismissed multiple times throughout many different approaches to the argument, many times.
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