Name: アンセルムと神の主張クラッシュコースの哲学#9 (Anselm and the Argument for God: Crash Course Philosophy #9)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T06:08:40.000Z
Duration: 9 min 13 s
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基礎受動態

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It’s about time that we had a serious talk about religion.

The philosophy of religion is often confused with theology, which makes sense, because

they both take God and religion as their subjects. But theology starts by assuming that God exists,

and then figures out what follows. Or theology might try to solve philosophical problems

that might arise from a belief in God. But one thing that’s never on the table in theology

is simply not believing in God. Atheism is not an option.

This is what separates the philosophical study of religion from the theological.

Philosophers take nothing as a given – and that includes religious belief. Everything is on the table,

and everything needs an argument. So, no area of belief is sacred, and that means even your

sacred beliefs are going to need to be examined, and evidence will need to be given.

Some people say religion is the one area where you don’t need arguments – that faith alone is enough.

But philosophers don’t take faith for an answer.

After all, I might have faith Faith moon is made of green cheese. So what

Faith is definitionally unprovable, which makes it, from a philosophical perspective, not valuable.

So, if you’re a theist, now’s the time to offer some justification for your religious beliefs.

religious beliefs. And if you’re an atheist, it’s time for you to pay attention too.

No one’s off the hook – we all need to pay attention to these arguments, because

religion is hugely important. Can you think of many things that have been as influential

in shaping history than religious belief?

Probably not. So if we can get to the bottom of it, we should.

I’ll get to God in a minute. But first I want to go over a few other things that the

It’s not about believing whatever your parents taught you. Because that doesn’t prove anything

about the truth of a religious belief. If how you were raised proved something about

religious truth, then every religion – and therefore also no religion – would be true.

So, how you were raised can give you a reason that you hold a certain belief, but it says

Philosophy of religion is also not the study of the Bible, because you can’t use what’s

written in a book to prove the truth of the book. You need outside evidence.

certain things about religion. But it doesn’t help us here.

the time and place in which it was written. And such study can be very helpful in understanding

psychological understanding of our reasons for religious belief. Those are all wonderful things

that you can study, but they are not what we’re studying here.

What we are doing is considering whether we can offer arguments in support of belief in God’s existence.

you can study, but they are not what we’re studying here.

French monk Anselm of Canterbury. He offered a deductive argument for the existence of God,

based on what he understood to be the nature of God’s being, or the definition of God.

Because the study of being is called ontology, this argument, and others like it, are called ontological arguments.

French monk Anselm of Canterbury. He offered a deductive argument for the existence of

God, based on what he understood to be the nature of God’s being, or the definition

of God. Because the study of being is called ontology, this argument, and others like it,

Long, flowing white beard, robe to match? Nice guy, hard to reach on the phone?

Well, Anselm aimed a little bit higher. In fact, he thought that God is, by definition,

In Anselm’s words, God is “that than which no greater can be conceived.” So what does that mean?

Just try to think of the coolest, awesomest, most amazing and wonderful thing you can imagine.

And whatever you’re thinking of, Anselm said that God is better. He’s just the best.

In Anselm’s words, God is “that than which no greater can be conceived.”

Well, it means God must exist, according to Anselm.

After all, he pointed out, there are just two ways in which something can exist.

Something can exist only in our minds and be strictly imaginary -- like Santa, or unicorns.

Or it can exist in our minds but also in reality, like pizza and horses --

something that we can imagine, but that’s also real.

Anselm pointed out -- and he does appear to be right about this -- that any good thing

would be better if it existed in reality as well as in our minds.

I mean: unicorns. They’re pretty great. But wouldn’t they be better if they were real?

Or the perfect romantic partner: smart, funny, hot, likes the same movies and games that you do?

Pretty rich? Would be pretty nice in your mind, but EVEN BETTER if they actually existed.

Well Anselm thought so too. And from there, he believed he could prove God’s existence.

Because, if we define God as the greatest thing we can conjure up in our minds, the

only thing that could possibly be greater than him would be – a real version!

And since we’re already imagining the greatest thing possible, there can’t be anything better.

Therefore, God has to exist, both in my imagination and in reality!

Anselm was sure that he had done it -- deductively proven God’s existence in a way that was immune to error.

Here it is, one more time, laid out as a philosophical argument:

God is the greatest thing we can think of.

Things can exist only in our imaginations, or they can also exist in reality.

Things that exist in reality are always better than things that exist only in our imaginations

If God existed only in our imaginations, he wouldn’t be the greatest thing that we can

think of, because God in reality would be better

Anselm thought this was a tidy little argument.

But one of his contemporaries, a fellow French monk named Gaunilo, wasn’t satisfied. He

suggested that we could run the same line of reasoning to prove the existence of literally

anything we can imagine. He came up with an argument with the exact same formal structure

as Anselm’s, to prove that a mythical Lost Island exists. He proposed: The best island

I can imagine is one where I can swim and relax on a tropical beach and ski down snow-covered

mountains all in one afternoon. I can imagine it, so it must exist. Otherwise, it wouldn’t

be the best island – there would be one better And that one would have to be real!

Basically, Gaunilo said, you could make the same kind of argument to prove the existence

of whatever you wanted most -- but it wouldn’t make it real.

Anselm responded to Gaunilo’s criticism by saying he’d missed the point, that the

argument only works for necessary beings, of which there is only one – God.

Folks, what we have right here is a classic example of the fallacy known as begging the question.

A fallacy is a flaw in reasoning, something that weakens or destroys an argument.

And when you beg the question, you assume the very thing you’re trying to prove with your argument.

By adding this idea of “a necessary being” to his definition of God, Anselm

makes God’s existence a part of the definition of God. A necessary being is one that must

exist, so Anselm’s response assumed the very point of contention to be true – that God exists!

Other philosophers since Anselm have tried to save his argument by tweaking it in various ways,

and dissenters have continued trying to deflate them.

One of the most famous objections came hundreds of years after Anselm’s time, from the 18th

century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant offered the point that, as he put it,

“existence is not a predicate.” A predicate is just something that’s said of another object.