1. THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Premise 1
Premise 2
Premise 3
God is that which nothing greater can be conceived.
Existing in understanding and reality is better than existing in just understanding.
God must exist in reality as to only exist in understanding would mean that things that existed in reality were better than Him and God is by definition the best.

2. THE STRENGTHS OF ANSELM’S ARGUMENT
DEDUCTIVE
COMMON STARTING POINT
LOGICAL
EXPLANATION
Because it is deductive, it is not reliant on evidence (that may turn out to be wrong).
If the claim is valid, it will be proof for both the believer and the atheist as it will
demonstrated by logic.
The atheist accepts the definition that God is that which nothing greater than that which can be conceived – they just don’t believe that such a being exists.
God therefore exists in the understanding of the atheist for them to be able to reject a belief in God.
It is reasonable to assume that God would be the greatest thing.
If God is not human, He must be different to humans.
Humans are imperfect therefore it is not unreasonable to assume that God is therefore perfect.
POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS
Not everyone agrees that the claim is valid
Just because someone has an understanding of an idea, eg what a witch is, it does not mean that they are half way to believing in them.
Just because two things are not the same, it does not necessarily follow that they will be opposites.
EXAMPLE
Girls are the opposite to boys – girls are mortal, however this does not make boys immortal

3. MUTUALLY INCONSISTENT CANNOT DEFINE INTO EXISTENCE
THE WEAKNESSES OF ANSELM’S ARGUMENT
NOT COHERENT
MUTUALLY INCONSISTENT
CANNOT DEFINE INTO EXISTENCE
IS GOD PERFECT?
EXPLANATION
How can God be omniscient, he cannot know future choices?
What about free will?
How can something be omnipotent and omniscient?
An omnipotent being could create a creature who had a secret unknown to anyone else, yet an omniscient being must know every secret.
Just because you can define something, it does not mean that it exists.
A definition is not proof of existence, it merely explains to us what something would be like if it did exist.
When we say that God is perfect and that part of this perfection is existence, we are merely saying that no non-existing being can be God.
Not all believers define God as perfect in all aspects – some say that what is perfect about him is that unlike humans, his intentions are always perfect, yet the outcomes are not.
Some describe him as the ‘fellow sufferer who understands’
POSSIBLE OBJECTIONS
God does know our future choices but does not compell us to do a certain thing – just because He knows what is going to happen, we still make the decision ourselves
Aquinas’ response to the Paradox of the Stone – omnipotence is limited to that which is logically possible and a stone so heavy that God can’t lift it is logically impossible.
Even if God is not perfect, it is still reasonable to assume that nothing else is better than Him.

4. PREDICATES Unicorns Cadbury’s Caramel Pencil River God Horn
Caramel filling
Lead/ graphite filling
Water
Necessary existence
(would not depend on anything else to exist and therefore must exist)
Because God has the inseparable predicate of necessary existence, Anselm argued that God must exist.

5. KANT’S FIRST CRITICISM OF ANSELM
Just because we cannot separate a subject from it’s predicate it does not mean that it exists.
All this tells us is what it would be like if it did exist.
EXAMPLE:
If unicorns existed, they would have horns
If God existed, his existence would be necessary, ie not dependent on anything else

6. KANT’S SECOND CRITICISM OF ANSLEM

7. KANT’S CRITICISMS Kant 1 Kant 2
Existence is not a true predicate because it does not tell us any information about the subject. Kant used the example of ‘thalers’ (coins used in his day) to say that round, gold, rusted were all predicates because they added to our understanding, but existence did not.
Just because we cannot separate a subject from it’s predicate it does not mean that it automatically exists.

8. WHY DOES A HAVE TO COME BEFORE B?
Just because a subject has a predicate it does not mean they both exist
Existence is not a real predicate because it does not describe the subject
Because the second criticism talks about existence not being a real predicate. If you say this first then it makes no sense to start talking about it being an inseparable predicate in Kant 1

9. DESCARTES 1
1, I exist
2, In my mind, I have the conept of the a perfect being
3, As an imperfect being, I could not have conjured up the concept of a perfect being
4, The concept of a perfect being must therefore have originated from the perfect being itself
5, A perfect being must exist in order to be perfect
6, Therefore, a perfect being exists
DESCARTES 2
1, The idea of God is the idea of a supremely perfect being
2, A supremely perfect being has all perfections
3, Existence is a perfection
4, A supremely perfect being has the perfection of existence
5, It is impossible to think of God as not existing
6, Therefore God exists

10. KEY IDEAS (INCLUDING ANY COUNTER ARGUMENTS)
IN OPPOSITION OF ANSELM’S ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT – ‘God is that which nothing greater can be conceived’
NAME
KEY IDEAS (INCLUDING ANY COUNTER ARGUMENTS)
KEY QUOTES
Gaunilo
You cannot define something into existence (just because you can define a perfect island, it does not mean that it exists in reality).
A definition only tells us what something would be like if it were real, we need evidence to prove it does exist.
Anselm said that he had missed a fundamental point, an island relies on other things for its existence (is contingent) whereas God does not rely on anything to exist (is necessary)
Aquinas
It is a ‘transitional error’ to move from a definition of God to the existence of God.
Human intellect alone was too weak to prove the existence of God.
Kant
Just because you cannot separate a subject from its predicate, you can deny the existence of both together.
For example, a unicorn must have a horn to be a unicorn (otherwise it is just a horse). This does not prove that unicorns exist, it only tells us what they would be like IF they did.
The same can be said of God and the predicate necessary existence, this does prove that God exists, it only tells us what he would ‘necessarily exist’ (not rely on anything else) IF he did.
The job of a predicate is to describe the subject, it is supposed to develop your understanding of it, eg having three sides is a true predicate of being a triangle because it helps us to understand what a triangle looks like.
Existence does not give us any information about a subject and therefore cannot be counted as a true predicate.
Existence is obviously not a real predicate
Russell
Existence is a term to indicate the instance of something in the spatio – temporal world, in other words, something
that occupies a place in the world.
A - All cows have tails
B – All unicorns have horns
These two statements are not the same because we have evidence that cows exist but none for unicorns. Russell was making the point that we need some other information about a thing or being in order to make accurate claims about its existence.
Moore
Existence is not a real predicate because it does not function in the same way as other predicates.
A- Some tame tigers do not growl.
B- Some tame tigers do not exist. We have learned nothing about the tigers in this statement so ‘exist’ is not a real predicate.
Hume
Necessary existence is an incoherent concept.
‘We cannot define something into existence – even if it has all the perfections we can imagine’. Hume
Dawkins
We should be suspicious of any line of reasoning which lacks any data from the real world to support it.

11. KEY IDEAS (INCLUDING ANY COUNTER ARGUMENTS)
IN SUPPORT OF ANSELM’S ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT – ‘God is that which nothing greater can be conceived’
NAME
KEY IDEAS (INCLUDING ANY COUNTER ARGUMENTS)
KEY QUOTES
Descartes
God is perfect, a predicate of being perfect is necessary existence
In our minds we have a concept of a perfect being, as we are imperfect, we could not have conjured up the concept ourselves, it could only have come from the perfect being itself – therefore a perfect being must exist.
Kant and Moore said that existence was not a true predicate
Aquinas said that the definition of God as perfect is not shared by all believers
Does not explain why an imperfect being cannot conceive of a perfect one
‘I think therefore I am’ – Descartes.
This relates more to setting the scene for Descartes work, rather than his thoughts on the onotological argument specifically.
Leibniz
‘Perfection – a simple quality which is positive and absolute, and expresses without limitation whatever it does’.
Malcolm
God’s existence is either impossible or necessary, he cannot exist contingently. Therefore God must have necessary
existence.
All this tells us is that if God did exist, he would have necessary existence.
Plantinga
Since it is possible to imagine any number of worlds where things would be different, eg a world in which Pavarotti chose to become a painter instead of a singer, there must be any number of possible world including our own.
If God’s existence is necessary, he must exist in them all and have the characteristics of God in them all.
This argument only succeeds in showing us that God is possible in all possible worlds, not that he is actual in all possible worlds.
It is impossible to think of God as lacking any perfection and to possess all perfections and not to exist would be meaningless.

12. 3 REASONS WHY THE ARGUMENT FAILS
For a deductive argument to work the first premise has to be correct.
Anselm’s first premise –
‘God is that which nothing greater can be conceived’
(God is perfect and a predicate of perfection is having necessary existence) 1
Not everyone agrees with Anselm’s definition of God 3
Existence is not a real predicate so the statement is not analytically true 2
Having a predicate is not proof of existence

13. ESSAY PLAN - IN OPPOSITION TO THE A necessary being cannot not exist
ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
CONCLUSION
If necessary existence is not a predicate of God then it is not analytically true that a perfect God exists and so the whole argument collapses
INTRODUCTION
Seriously flawed
ARGUMENT AGAINST
Anselm – Gaunilo had misunderstood, islands are contingent whereas God is necessary
A necessary being cannot not exist
COUNTER
ARGUMENT
Existence is not a real predicate because it doesn’t give us any information about the subject
Moore – ‘Some tame tigers do not growl’ and ‘Some tame tigers do not exist’ – exist does not tell us anything new about the tigers
IDEA
Kant 1 – the predicate of necessary existence does not prove that God actually exists, it only tells us what he would be like if he did (unicorn example)
Gaunilo – Defining something as ‘perfect’ does not automatically mean that it exists, you still need evidence

14. IN SUPPORT OF THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Liebniz
Anti - Realism
IN OPPOSITION TO THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Hume
Russell

15. WHO SAID THIS… God is that which nothing greater can be conceived1
God is that which nothing greater can be conceived 2
Transitional error 3
Existence is obviously not a real predicate 4
A necessary being cannot not exist 5
Some tame tigers do not growl, some tame tigers exist 6
Humans are imperfect, therefore they could not have thought of a perfect being by themselves 7
A perfect God that did not exist would be meaningless 8
The analogy of the perfect island 9
Necessary existence is an incoherent concept 10
We should be suspicious of arguments that ‘lack a single piece of data from the real world’

16. THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
KEY IDEA
Gaunilo
Necessary and Contingent
Kant 1
ACCORDING TO KANT, WHY DOES THE ARGUMENT COLLAPSE (BASED ON KANT 2)?
Kant 2

17. THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Across
Who said that existence referred to occupying space in the world?
3. What of his own was Anselm hoping to develop?
6. What type of error did Aquinas say that it was to go from definition to existence
8. Who said that a perfect God that did not exist would be meaningless?
9. What type of argument is the ontological argument?
10. What did Kant say that the function of a predicate was?
Down
2. What does the ontological argument lack (2 words)
4. Who said that an imperfect being could think up a perfect one?
5. What did Hume call necessary existence?
7. Who devised the analogy of the perfect island?