Main Features Of The Ontological Argument

The Ontological Argument is an argument that claims the existence of God through the meaning of words and the idea of logic. Ontological literally means ‘concerned with being’. The argument concludes that the definition of God ultimately infers his existence, and Anselm, who was the main proponent of the argument argued that the existence of God was logically necessary due to the definition of God – ‘that which nothing greater can be conceived’. The main proponents of this argument are Anselm, Descartes, Malcolm, and Platinga and the main opponents are Aquinas, Kant, and Gaunilo. When looking at the weaknesses of this argument, it becomes clear that this argument fails at proving the existence of God.

A first distinctive feature of the ontological

Anselm defines God to be a necessary being; one that does not rely on anything or anyone else for its existence. Anselm delves deeper into this in the second form of the ontological argument that he proposed, where he talks about the fact that if God were to be the greatest possible being, then he must be necessary, as being necessary is greater than being contingent. ‘In summary, God must be a necessary being; he cannot not exist’ (Cole). Tyler and Reid describes this concept as ‘integral’ to the ontological argument, as to deny the idea of God being necessary is to contradict the idea that God is the greatest

a triangle having three sides with all angles adding up to 180 degrees. In the same way, existence is an integral part of God’s perfection, and so it cannot be separated from God, as God would not be God without existence – ‘If God is by definition something supremely perfect and if existence is a perfection, it follows that God, by definition, exists and that to deny that this is so is to contradict oneself’ (Vardy). Anselm also mentions this, as he places existence into the same category as goodness and love, both of which would be associated with a perfect being. This step of the ontological argument is important as ‘it establishes that existence may be possessed or lacked’, and that to possess existence is greater than to lack it. To deny God’s existence would then, once again, become self-contradictory. Anselm explains this further through the use of analogy. When a painter is considering his next work, it is in his mind, and he has a clear idea the painting. However, it can only be said to exist if he actually paints it, so that it exists in reality as well. Similarly, one can apply this to the idea of God’s existence, and come to the conclusion that he must exist in reality as something that only exists in the mind is not the greatest