Living legend Alvin Plantinga was recently a guest on Unbelievable with Justin Brierley. The show was classic Plantinga — clear analysis, dry wit, admirable humility — and surveyed some of the highlights of his impressive career including warrant, proper basicality and Christian belief, the evolutionary argument against naturalism, and the ontological argument. The last choice […]
ontological argument
13. What about the ontological argument?
Can the existence of God be proven by reason alone? Anselm believed so, and for the last 900 years a long line of philosophers and theologians have lined up on both sides of this question. In this episode of the 59-Second Apologist we take on the ontological argument for God’s existence. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tentativeapologist/59+Second+Apologist+13-The+Ontological+Argument.mp3Podcast: Play in new […]
“Why I Became an Atheist”: A Review (Part 12)
Currently we’re in chapter 4, “Does God Exist?,” of our never-ending review of John Loftus’ book Why I Became an Atheist. Given that the topic of the book is a justification for adopting atheism rather than merely rejecting Christianity, one would have thought that Loftus would devote more than a mere 23 of its 500+ […]
Is the ontological argument a “piece of crap”?
Walter wrote: “I know that Randal considers this argument to be a Ferrari, but I would classify it as a Yugo: the engine runs, the car moves, but it is still a piece of crap.” Walter knows of Yugos that are still running? Seriously? (A brief aside. First, Walter’s saucy “piece of crap” quip reminds me […]
The last argument you’ll ever need?
I just returned from driving the Ontological Argument to the airport when I found the following comment from Jerry: Walter, and then TAM, posted a link to a counterargument to the ontological argument. I didn’t read it all, but I did notice the following: Plantinga writes: “Our verdict on these reformulated versions of St. Anselm’s […]
Randal interviews the Ontological Argument
Randal: “Thanks for joining us again. Today we are delighted to have a famous argument with us. It first gained fame in the twelfth century when it was proposed by Anselm. It has since occupied some of the great philosophical minds of history from Descartes in the seventeenth century to Norman Malcolm and Alvin Plantinga […]
What makes for a good argument? Spinning your wheels with Anselm
Imagine that you move to a little Carribean paradise. Your mode of transportation is a motorcycle. However, you have frequent guests — old friends from the snowy north from where you once lived — and you want to get another motorcycle that your friends can ride while they’re in town. So you’re looking through a […]
God is maximally great, God is perfectly good, so we can thank him in every possible world
There has been much ado about the ontological argument, most of it skeptical. In response to the chorus of incredulity, it may help to put this into a more formalized type of argument. However, doing so is risky given the sharp minds out there waiting to trip me up. But I care more about corporate illumination […]
