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A modified Meditation: exploring a grounding modal ontological argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2021

Stephen Kearns Open the ORCID record for Stephen Kearns [Opens in a new window]
Stephen Kearns*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Florida State University, 151 Dodd Hall, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA
*
Corresponding author: Stephen Kearns, email: skearns@fsu.edu
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Abstract

I present an argument for God's existence based on the idea that the possibility of God requires the existence of God as a ground. After setting this argument out, I compare it to other arguments for God, concentrating on an argument from Descartes's Third Meditation. I then address various objections and conclude by setting out a non-theistic version of the argument.

Keywords

ontological argumentDescartesmeditationsmodal ontological argumentgrounding
Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , December 2022 , pp. 801 - 813
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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