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A more recent ontological argument came from Kurt Gödel, who proposed a formal argument for God's existence. Norman Malcolm also revived the ontological argument in 1960 when he located a second, stronger ontological argument in Anselm's work; Alvin Plantinga challenged this argument and proposed an alternative, based on modal logic.
In 1960 he argued that the argument originally presented by Anselm of Canterbury in the second chapter of his Proslogion was just an inferior version of the argument propounded in chapter three. [5] [6] His argument is similar to those produced by Charles Hartshorne and Alvin Plantinga. Malcolm argued that a God cannot simply exist as a matter ...
Morewedge referred to the argument as "Ibn Sina's ontological argument for the existence of God", and said that it was purely based on his analytic specification of this concept [the Necessary Existent]." [28] Steve A. Johnson and Toby Mayer said the argument was a hybrid of the two. [25] [28]
There are many notable contributors to the development of various ontological arguments. In the 11th century C.E., Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) reasoned in his work Proslogion about the existence of God in an ontological argument based on the idea that there is a 'being than which no greater can be conceived'. [11] [1] [12]
The ontological argument is a defining example of the fusion of Hebrew and Greek thought. Philosophical realism was the dominant philosophical school of Anselm's day, and stemmed from Platonism . It held, in contrast to Nominalism , that things such as "green" and "big" were known as universals , which had a real existence in an abstract realm ...
A cosmological argument can also sometimes be referred to as an argument from universal causation, an argument from first cause, the causal argument or the prime mover argument. The concept of causation is a principal underpinning idea in all cosmological arguments, particularly in affirming the necessity for a First Cause .
In the philosophy of religion, Occam's razor is sometimes applied to the existence of God. William of Ockham himself was a Christian . He believed in God, and in the authority of Christian scripture ; he writes that "nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident (literally, known through itself) or known by ...
The Ontological Argument starts with a mere mental concept of a perfect God and tries to end with a real, existing God. The argument is essentially deductive in nature. Given a certain fact, it proceeds to infer another from it. The method pursued, then, is that of deducing the fact of God's being from the a priori idea of him.