Original Research

Anselm and Hagin: Ontological a rgument and prosperity cult

David T. Williams
Koers - Bulletin for Christian Scholarship/Bulletin vir Christelike Wetenskap | Vol 57, No 2 | a785 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/koers.v57i2.785 | © 1992 David T. Williams | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 28 January 1992 | Published: 28 January 1992

About the author(s)

David T. Williams, Department of Systematic Theology University of Fort Hare ALICE, South Africa

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Abstract

The teaching of the ‘prosperity cult’ that a Christian has a right to wealth is very much a product of the modem age. Similarly the ontological argument for the existence of God belongs very much to its own era. There is no developmental link between the two, but nevertheless they are connected logically. Both argue from a conception of God as infinite - a conception which assures on the one hand the existence of God, and on the other the receipt of blessings prayed for by a Christian. Although such results may well follow from that assumption, these must require qualification, especially in the light of a dynamic rather than a static world. Both ontological argument and prosperity teaching hold questionable assumptions on the nature of perfection and of comparability. A Christian conception of God must however mean that material blessing cannot be a right in this world as is claimed by ‘prosperity teaching\ simply on the grounds of conception and prayer.

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