'The ontological arguments are successful in proving the existence of God.

'
Evaluate this view. [25]

Many philosophers would agree that this argument was first introduced by St Anselm
an 11th Cthinker who was the Archbishop of Canterbury for 16 years (Magee 1998:57).
In Proslogion 2 Anselm lays out his argument beginning by defining God as 'that than
which nothing greater can beconceived' from here he states that everybody has a
concept of God and therefore god exists in themind. But for God to be greater than
anything conceivable He must exist in reality (Jordan et al1999: 42). This came to be
known as the 'Classical Argument'. Gaunilo of Marmoutier gave animmediate response
to this. Using the same process by which Anselm moves from God's definitionto His
existence Gaunilo describes the 'most perfect island', which has to exist due to its
perfection.Be that as it may Gaunilo's argument is unable to oppose Anselm's because
an island relies uponother things for it to exist and as Plantinga mentions an island has
no intrinsic maximum (Jordan etal 1999: 48).

René Descartes revived the Ontological Argument much to the surprise of his
peers,when he further developed Anselm's argument. His definition, that God is 'a
supremely perfect being' is thefoundation of his argument. The second premise of
Descartes' argument is that necessary existenceis a perfection and therefore, a
supremely perfect being exists. Descartes says that if God did notexist physically, it
would be self-contradictory to Him being 'a supremely perfect being'. He uses
theanalogy of a triangle without three sides to demonstrate the illogicality of imagining
God withoutthe premise that God exists (Nolan 2011). The main opposition to
Descartes' argument comes fromImmanuel Kant, Kant rejects Descartes' claim that
not accepting God's existence is synonymouswith denying a triangle has three sides as
it is a contradiction. Kant says that you can definesomething however you wish, whether
or not anything matches that description in reality is anentirely different matter. Kant
goes on to raise a second objection to tackle Anselm's use of existence as a predicate.
Kant states that a predicate must give us information about about thesubject, to say
something exists does not comply with this rule and therefore cannot be a
predicate(Jordan et al 1999: 48-49).

Norman Malcolm formed a modern version of the argument based on Anselm's second
argumentfrom
Proslogion 3. I
n which he keeps the notion that God is 'that than which nothing greater can
beconceived' but this argument does not rely upon existence being a perfection;
instead it requiresnecessary existence to be a perfection (Jordan et al 1999: 45)
Malcolm's argument works on the basis that God is an unlimited being. For an unlimited
being to exist it could neither be created or destroyed or else it would be limited. So if
God does not exist His existence is impossible and if Hedoes then His existence is
necessary. Malcolm finishes by saying 'Thus God's existence is either impossible or
necessary. It can be the former only if the concept of such a being is self-
contradictory or in some way logically absurd. Assuming that it is not so, it follows that
Henecessarily exists.' Brian Davies a current philosopher criticises Malcolm's use of
the word 'is'. Hestates that: there are two uses of the word, one for describing and
the other to tell us there issomething. According to Davies, Malcolm's use of the word
tells the reader absolutely nothingabout the subject and relies heavily on the readers
supposition of God's existence (Jordan et al 1999:51).

When Plantinga talks of possible worlds he is not referring to another physical world,
merely adifferent set of scenarios that could have taken place on this world. With this
concept in mindPlantinga offers that there is a possible world in which there exists a
being with maximal greatnessand a being can only have maximal greatness if it exists in
every possible world. Up to this pointPlantinga is not talking about God as he has not
dealt with the factor of each possible world havinga more powerful being. To overcome
this Plantinga introduces 'maximal excellence'. He states that:it is possible for every
world to have a being with maximal excellence and therefore, such a beingexists. Brian
Davies criticised this argument by pointing out that it simply suggests a God is possible
and not a physical actuality. (Jordan et al 1999: 46)To recap it is possible to see both
strengths and weaknesses within the Ontological Argument. Theargument draws its
strength from the way in which it has been formed. Being an analytic argument by
nature, it uses the laws of language in a deductive way to come to conclusions contained
withinits premise. Additionally it requires no empirical evidence to support it although
this can also beseen as a weakness. Other weaknesses include the fact that it relies
heavily upon faith and is basedaround the notion that God's existence is self-evident.
As no a posteriori evidence is required theargument is based around the definition of
God, but as Kant said it is not possible to definesomething into existence. Perhaps the
strongest thing amongst the varying arguments is the logicemployed, one cannot argue
that it is logically sound. However logic alone is unreliable; as can beseen with Zeno's
paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise which is logically impeccable but in theworld of
experience it would not be possible for the Tortoise to win the race. In conclusion
theargument is generally flawed in too many ways to be considered a strong argument.
It is unlikely toconvert an atheist but for someone with faith it can illustrate the
nature of God as man understandsit.

What the Ontological Argument Proves

Whether this argument is successful is controversial. There are a number of objections to

the ontological argument, which many, though not all, accept as decisive. If the
ontological argument is successful, then it must be the case that God, “God” meaning
“perfect being”, exists.

This would establish a lot of what the monotheistic religions say about God to be true—if
God is perfect then he is also omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, etc., just as the
monotheistic religions say—but not all of it. It would show that there exists a God that is
perfect in every way, but it would not demonstrate much about the relationship between
that God and us.
The remaining arguments, in contrast, if they are successful, tell us less about what God is
like but more about how he relates to us. The first of them is the first cause argument,
which seeks to establish the existence of a Creator.