Anselm on God: the Ontological Argument
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- Опубліковано 25 гру 2024
- Ryan M. Reeves (PhD Cambridge) is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Twitter: / ryanmreeves Instagram: / ryreeves4
Website: www.gordonconwe...
Another excellent piece from RR. He assumes that you are an intelligent adult with an interest in the topic, but no more. If he introduces any heavyweight theological terms he always briefly explains what they mean or points you to another lecture where you can get the in-depth version..
The best explanation of Plato's Theory of Forms I ever heard: simple and concise !
Thanks for the upload Doc. You have explained the concepts very clearly!
What you said in that re-cap of Plato made me wonder something. What would Plato think about things that we don't have any concept of and can't be recognized as anything except through some kind of experiment? As a physics student, my mind goes to things like the wide varieties of weird particles that take immense work to identify. Another example might be going into a workshop and finding a strange-looking tool and not know what it is or what it does.
This was the most informative video I found on this topic.
As someone who was introduced to the Ontological Argument without any historical context I found this enlightening. I initially thought the argument was weak much in the way Guanilo did. Then I saw it as very strong but useless because it seemed absolutely water tight and yet too simple. But now I see the whole argument hinges on the idea of a Maximally Great Being. If I'm right would it require someone to fully adopt Platonism to be persuaded or is it simply that Anselm's idea of a Maximally Great Being has Platonic roots. It seems to be that I can reject the idea of a 'perfect' chair but accept the idea of a Maximally Great Being due to the different natures of both. Is that reasonable to do?
I'd like to know what constitutes the 'perfect island'
Great job!
IMO, 1 Samuel 5 exemplifies the Anselmian notion that a real God is greater than an imaginary one...;-)
Hey professor, thank you for your sharing these lectures. At 7:57 you said Psalm 52 but i think you meant Psalm 14 "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God".
I think he meant psalm 53. Both Psalms 14 and 53 say "the fool saith there is no God"
To disagree with this argument is to disagree with Plato's thinking which is fine. I'm not sure I'm into Plato as well.
But I understand Anselm's response which is quite amazingly brilliant and seems to have been misunderstood as special pleading.
In Guanilo's example he simply misrepresents Anselm as he does not define an island, so he shoots himself in the foot. E.g if i define an island as a mass of land with water all around it, then a perfect island could be found by definition.
If Guanilo is pressed to define the CONCEPT of an island Greater than anything..so on
You would find that he would contradict himself while doing it, as an island is already defined. lol
It's very related to the flying spaghetti monster that created the universe thing the fools use as an objection, but when pressed by what they mean by spaghetti the end up contradicting themselves as they say spaghetti which is made up of physical substances created the physical world, circular reasoning.
Anselm is not saying that if you think of it, it exists. he is saying if you can think of it, it is possible. by think, he means defined. contradictory elements of a "defined" object is not Defined.
the next part of the argument is where it gets interesting.
Yes! When I heard Guanilo's retort I could not help but think of atheists "thinking" of unicorns and thereby proving according to the ontological argument that they exist. Completely missed the definition of a Maximally Great Being part.
I think the 'unicorn'-counterexample is not given as an attack on the 'definition'.. it's about "conceivable things".
How does one, and what does it mean to -, make a distinction between: conceiving of a unicorn ; and conceiving of an existing unicorn?
The problem with Anselm begins when he tries to, in one way or another, get 'existence' into the equation. One does not conceive things; one conceives 'concepts of things'.
He makes a similar equivocation to describe 'existing in the mind' as one form of actually existing; and existing in reality as 'the other side of that coin'...
One cannot simply adress 'the existence of something'; as long as one is talking of a concept.. and it's irrelavant whether that is 'the greatest or not'.... nothing has actual properties in realtiy (great-making or not) if it does not exist.
Having a bit of deja vu here. I believe the 'Anselm on God' post is pointing to the previous lecture 'Aristotle on Scholasticism'. Video 44 repeats 43. I bet the link for video 44 is misdirected back to 43.
Baffled by the responses to a video on philosophy.
There has never (in the history of this world) been only one god and goddess. Cuneiform texts begin the history and therefore bear witness to the gods (which the biblical Elohim suggests). The bible teaches henotheism (according to Dr Michael Heiser). By the time of Aristotle the Greeks would have been introduced to the Mesopotamian gods (if not before that time).
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berossus
There is no justification for believing in one single god and the exclusion of goddesses.
Furthermore, I am sick of the classification of pagan religions without mentioning the fact that the Jew's book lists a genealogy and the Christians attached GOD to that genealogy, which makes it pagan ancestor worship.