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God and the Philosophers

The Ontological Argument Revisited

Peter Mullen explores the argument that by definition, God exists.

In one form the Ontological Argument for God is basically the argument: 1) God is by definition the perfect being; 2) It is more perfect for a perfect thing to exist than not exist; 3) Therefore God exists.

This argument for the existence of God was given the name ‘ontological’ by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), but it was the invention of Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1078, in his book Proslogion (how we miss philosopher-bishops these days!). The word derives from ‘ ontos’, which is the Greek word for ‘being’. Anselm’s own form of the Ontological Argument begins with the words: id quo maius cogitari nequit – “there must be that [thing] the greater than which cannot be conceived.” Anselm concluded that a being who has all the qualities of greatness and who exists must be greater than the conjectural amalgamation of these qualities but who does not exist; therefore, God exists.

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