Critically discuss the Ontological Argument for God’s existence. Why are you convinced or not convinced by the argument?
...ed to give an account of a better island. Yet to imply that you can add to something, which is perfect in order to make it, more perfect does not make sense. Perhaps another palm tree or coconut could be added but it cannot improve an already perfect island as it is already at the highest state in which it can exist. Yet, for Anselm God is not perfect in the sense of being at the top of a hierarchy of perfection; God is, rather, the absolute standard of perfection against which all else is judged and found wanting. In this, Anselm is resolutely Platonist as the implication here is that nothing other than God can be ‘the greatest possible’. Another problem with Anselm’s argument is his belief that it is better to exist in reality as well as in the mind. Since existence is an abstract concept, it does not really seem like the type of thing, which can be judged in this way. Yet, it seems reasonable to claim that to exist in two states is better than to exist in just one. Descartes put forward the ontological argument in a slightly different way. Like Anselm, Descartes argued that existence could not be separated from the idea of God, like the idea of three sides cannot be separated from the concept of a triangle. We cannot think of a triangle without three sides and similarly we cannot understand what God is without accepting his existence. Hume’s reply to this was that ‘whatever we can conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent’ . All statements that deal with the existence of something can either be true or false and thus are synthetic. You cannot decide on the truth of a statement by analysing that which is in question, i.e. the truth about X by analysing X. Probably the best-known criticism came from Kant. He rejected the arguments jump from the phenomenal world, the world as we experience it, to the world beyond. Kant claimed that we cannot know what the world is like by any means, which is independent of the way in which we experience the world. He also maintained that existence is not the kind of property that can be part of the definition of any concept, that existence is not a predicate. Kant says: “Whatever, therefore, and however much our concept of an object may contain, we must go outside it if we are to ascribe existence to the object” . Kant was arguing that we cannot make the hypothetically ideal God into an existing God simply by adding the word “exists” to the specification. Hume and Kant’s criticisms only work if God is not considered an exception. If God is neither something nor nothing, but in a category of God’s own, then these criticisms do not seem to hold good, and considering the supposed nature and attributes of God most religious believers would argue that this is so. Martin Lee rejects this idea that God can be classed in a special category, neither something nor nothing. As something would need an explanation and nothing could not be the agent behind the creation of the universe. It also appears to be a very convenient answer to have as it can be used in any situation without really giving a satisfactory explanation. Norman Malcolm argued against these criticisms by saying that once someone has understood what it means to talk of prime numbers, they will see that prime numbers have to exist. Similarly once someone has understood what it means to talk of God, they will see that God must exist. It all depends on the notion of existence. In the case of prime numbers if you understand that they are numbers that are not divisible by any other number than themselves and one, then they have to exist. However, you would not then ask where is a prime number. To ask that question is to show a misunderstanding of what a prime number is. The statement “prime numbers exist” is true – due to our understanding of language use in relation to prime numbers. The same is true for God in the anti-realist sense. The word “God” has meaning and value for the religious believer, as they understand the language used in relation to “God”. However this does not mean that you can infer a timeless supreme being from this argument. The truth of the claim that God exists depends on its coherence with other statements held true by religious believers and does not depend on reference to a God who is independent of the universe. However this depends on what sense you give to the existence of prime numbers. It is tempting to say they exist wholly as a human construct but it could be subtler than this – that they are par...