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The Ontological Argument and Theological Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

Dayton Haskin S.J.
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Even as organized religion becomes less fashionable in many corners, and perhaps especially in the university, a centuries-old scholastic debate about the existence of God has been resurrected to be pursued by the Academy with a new vigour. The so-called Ontological Argument, which St Thomas and Kant each in his turn demolished, is alive and well and alleged to have been more energetically debated in the last decade than ever before in its history, That this phoenix has risen from its ashes is not necessarily best accounted for by seeing it as an event in the war between belief and unbelief. For in large measure, today’s philosophers have occupied themselves with the new modal arguments of men like Malcolm and Hartshorne because of the fascinating logical problems which they entail. Moreover, in the course of the history of the argument, the sides have not been chosen by a strict division between those of the faith and those outside. St Anselm thought he had come upon a worthy insight when he first proposed the argument. But just as surely St Thomas thought the argument inadmissible—without by any means intending to deny God’s existence. There is a lesson here, albeit an embryonic one, for those who are carrying on another current debate—the one about whether theology can or should be done with detachment or commitments

To be academically respectable, some would say, theology must be pursued with scholarly objectivity and freedom from ecclesiastical constraints. Its integrity as a discipline hinges on dispassionate examination of the data and the freedom to draw conclusions wholly in accord with the evidence. One’s faith-commitment as such should not influence his theology.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 54 , Issue 635 , April 1973 , pp. 148 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © 1973 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

page 148 note 1 See Barnes, Jonathan, The Ontological Argument (London, 1972), p. viiiCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 148 note 2 See E.J. Yarnold, S.J., ‘The Theologian in the University’, The Month (March, 1972), pp. 79‐82.

page 148 note 3 See Roderick Strange, ‘Faith and Theology in the University’, New Blackfriars (July, 1972), pp. 307‐13. Bernard Lonergan's Method in Theology (New York & London, 1972) provides an illuminating perspective from which to consider this debate: see esp. pp. 115‐24.

page 149 note 1 Actually, Anselm employs three other phrases as well. But they are quite similar and he seems to use them interchangeably and to regard them as synonymous—a not very helpful practice according to the canons of modern logic.

page 149 note 2 Copleston, F. C., A History of Philosophy, II: Mediaeval Philosophy, Augustine to Scotus (London, 1950), II, 162Google Scholar.

page 149 note 3 See Sylvia Fleming Crocker, ‘The Ontological Significance of Anselm's Proslogion’, The Modern Schoolman (November 1972), p. 33. This article explores the ‘ontological meaning’ of the quo maius formula, arguing that Anselm's concept of ‘greater’ has to do with being—the more independent, underived and unconditional a being is, the greater or more real it is.

page 149 note 4 Norman Malcolm thinks that this addition actually constitutes a different proof although Anselm himself did not distinguish two separate arguments. See ‘Anselm's Ontological Arguments’, The Philosophical Review (January, 1960); rpt. in The Existence of God, ed. Hick, John (London, 1964), pp. 47‐70Google Scholar. Sylvia Crocker's article (pp. 33‐56) is premissed, however, on the basic unity of Anselm's argument.

page 150 note 1 P. F. Harris offers a similar objection to ‘neo‐scholasticism’ in ‘Natural Theology and the Historicity of Faith’, New Blackfriars (January 1973), pp. 12‐13.

page 150 note 2 See Barnes, pp. 68, 70.

page 151 note 1 See Crocker, pp. 45, 52.

page 152 note 1 See John Baillie, ‘The Irrelevance of Proofs from the Biblical Point of View’, in The Existence of God, pp. 204‐10.

page 153 note 1 Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post‐Critical Philosophy (London, 1958)Google Scholar. See also The Tacit Dimension (London, 1967)Google Scholar.

page 154 note 1 See Barnes, p. 81.

page 155 note 1 See Harris, pp. 12–19.

page 155 note 2 Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, ed. Smith, N. Kemp (London, 1947)Google Scholar, chap. ix. Although in its immediate context in the dialogue Philo's observation is directed chiefly to the so‐called ‘cosmological’ argument, it likewise embraces the ontological.