Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Material Beings', 'Utopia' and 'Lectura'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
There is no reason to think that mere existence is a valuable thing [Inwagen]
     Full Idea: There is no reason to suppose - whatever Saint Anselm and Descartes may have thought - that mere existence is a valuable thing.
     From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 12)
     A reaction: This is one of the simplest and most powerful objections to the Ontological Argument. God's existence may be of great value, but the existence of Hitler wasn't.
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 2. Pantheism
In Utopia, the Supreme Being is identical with Nature [More,T]
     Full Idea: Everyone in Utopia agrees that the Supreme Being (which they call Mythras) is identical with Nature.
     From: Thomas More (Utopia [1516], Bk 2)
     A reaction: This sounds remarkably like full-blown Spinozean pantheism, though it should be interpreted with caution. It certainly seems to show that pantheism was a possibility in the minds of late medieval religious thinkers.