The Ontological Argument
by Stephen Chapman
Truly there is a God, although the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.
- St. Anselm
The ontological argument is thought by many to be among the most venerable
philosophical arguments of all time. The original argument, despite having first
been put to paper almost one millennia ago, is still debated fiercely at all levels
of philosophical thought, be they academic or merely amateur. This essay will
explain the argument, and then question it on a fundamental level – does it
work?
To begin, we must explain the argument in its entirety. The ontological
argument exists to prove the existence of God using nothing but a priori
reasoning. In other words, it attempts to prove the existence of God without
physical evidence, using only thought and logic. It has been argued by many
that it is not intended to be used to prove the existence of God to a nonbeliever,
merely to reenforce the beliefs of those who already believe. This is
suggested because in the work of the original author, St. Anselm, he prefaces
his work with the words “[f]or I do not seek to understand that I may believe,
but I believe in order to understand”. What he states, in effect, is that he
already believes, and he merely used the argument to reenforce this belief.
Therefore, the ontological argument does not rely on physical evidence to
prove the existence of God, it merely uses the purest definition of the word
God in order to create a situation in which God cannot fail to exist. The
argument, as laid down by St. Anselm, reads as such: “God cannot be
conceived to not exist, God is that which nothing greater can be conceived,
that which can be conceived to not exist is not God”. To explain, because of the
very definition of God that Anselm suggests, that of a being that is the
greatest conceivable being, God must exist because a non-existent God would
not be the greatest conceivable. To simplify – to be the greatest...