AO2 essays.
In your AO2 essay, you have a short time to show that you can ‘sustain a critical line of argument and justify a point of view.’ So, it is very important that you start off with a clear point of view so that you can argue it through in a sustained way in the time.
This example essay includes basic information structured with an opening point of view and then a line of argument that explains the first part of the point of view and then argues for the second part of the point of view.
‘Ontological arguments prove that God exists.’ Discuss
Ontological arguments prove that God exists for believers, but they do not prove that
God exists for non-believers.
To give proof, a deductive argument must be valid. This means that its two reasons require its conclusion. This is clearly the case with Anselm’s argument. To use the first form as an example: given that God is that than which nothing greater can be thought and that it is greater to exist than not to exist, then God must exist. However, this proof is only of interest to you if you accept the two definitions. This is why it only proves the existence of God for a believer. Anselm seemed to recognise this when he described his argument as faith seeking understanding. He started with faith in the definition of God and then proved that on the basis of that definition God must exists. However, when Anselm claimed that only a fool would say in his heart that there is no God he may have thought that the argument should convince everyone.
What he probably meant was that if the person understood and accepted the definition of God they would be foolish not to see that this meant that God must exist. Once someone believes in the definition, the argument will prove the existence of God for them. Indeed, he also said that he was writing the argument for other Christians, to give them the pleasure he had experienced in seeing the truth of their faith.
A non-believer may simply reject the definition of God and, therefore, the argument will not prove the existence of God for them. The fact that the argument gives logical necessity to the existence of God, does not prove that God actually exists necessarily.
This can be shown in relation to Descartes’ ontological argument. Descartes said that he could no more imagine God not existing than a triangle not having three sides. But the beliefs in Descartes imagination do not prove claims about existence in the world.
Furthermore, there is a major problem with the claim that it is greater to exist than not to exist and a non-believer could reject this reason in the argument. It assumes that existence is a predicate, describing a property that an object has. However, according to Kant, existence does not add anything to the properties of an object that exists.
Again, the argument is shown to depend on the definition of God, which includes existence as a property. The ontological argument only shows that ‘if God exists, then
God must exist’. (Peter Cole) Therefore, it proves the existence of God for a believer, but not for a non-believer.