Anselm’s Ontological argument is a priori, deductive and analytic. This means that it is based on what we can logically work out without the need for experience (unlike a posteriori), it comes to an (arguably) obvious conclusion unlike inductive arguments which come to the most probable conclusion and it is true by definition, unlike a synthetic statement which relies on outside knowledge and observation.
Anselm was primarily concerned with a basis for the logical belief in the existence of God, a kind of back up to pure faith. This marriage of faith and logical reason is found in the deist movement of the Enlightenment attempts to find God through sound reasoning rather than blind the scholastic angle of pure faith.
The fact that Anselm’s Proslogion was written as a prayer delivers us the vital information that he already believed in God, rather than finding Him through the argument itself. This pre-belief can be seen as a weakness to the argument’s main objective of trying to prove God’s existence. This is because an argument that presumes already existing belief will draw on that belief in its attempts to ‘prove’ God. It could be argued, then, that the OA falls at the first hurdle – presuming that belief in God is necessary for belief in the argument, it may be difficult to persuade an atheist that God really is the greatest of all conceivable beings.
Aquinas criticized the argument in several ways. Firstly, he argued that not everyone conceives of God in the same way and therefore the argument only works for those people who understand the thing known as ‘God’ to be the greatest of all conceivable beings. If a person had a different understanding of what God was, the argument would be likely to not work for them, for example, a pantheist would have to reconstruct the argument in order to make it work for them. Similarly, he states that although it is possible to repeat the words ‘a being than which none greater can be imagined’, it is impossible to truly conceive of this, just like trying to conceive of the largest possible number.
Anselm responded with the following. We have understanding enough of a number than which no larger can be conceived to be able to understand that it can’t possibly exist. If this is the case, then surely we have enough understanding of what the greatest conceivable being must be like to be sure that it must exist, by definition.
Kant’s major criticism of the OA is his famous statement ‘existence is not a real predicate’. First, a grammar lesson – a predicate is the part of sentence which offers extra information about a noun, for example ‘the apple is red’. Considering the statement ‘God exists’, Kant asserts that ‘exists’ cannot be a real predicate because it does not offer any extra information about the properties of the noun ‘God’. For a thing to have any properties, it must already exist in order to have those properties. This is the reason for ‘exists’ not being a real predicate – as God must exist in order to exist. However, what happens when we consider the statement ‘unicorns exist’? Unicorns possess widely discussed and agreed upon properties (one horn, four hooves etc.). Therefore, when we say they exist, they must do as they have properties that are agreed upon, and something must exist in order to have properties.
Another criticism came from Gaunilo in the form of his lost island analogy. While not disproving the argument, he simply used the same logical pattern as the OA uses to prove the existence of a greatest possible island, which is agreed by most does not exist. For a start, just think of the inevitable subjectivity that the concept would bring up. Of course – my greatest conceivable island would be covered in horses and strawberries, whereas yours may have opera singers and gherkins everywhere. Gaunilo stated that if the OA is true for God, the greatest conceivable being, then it must also be true for the greatest conceivable island, the greatest conceivable dog, the greatest conceivable football team, and so on. In response to this, it can be said that the OA is referring to a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. As islands are by definition limited, it is not possible for them to possess every greatness and therefore they are certainly not ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived’. Therefore, it can be said that the OA only works for God – the only being with infinite greatness.
In conclusion, I will state that I believe the ontological argument is a failure on many grounds. Its adherence to the classical western concept of God (thus disregard for other approaches such as pantheism or polytheism) means that it will not work for many people who have differing concepts of God. Also, it is vital to the argument that you must accept Anselm’s first premise (God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived), and if this is not the case then the rest of the argument is futile. This is a fatal blow from the atheist point of view: it is unlikely that an atheist will accept that God is that than which no greater can be conceived. And considering that this argument is attempting to prove a priori the existence of God, the requirement to already believe in God for the argument to work clearly renders it useless to anyone but a believer. Therefore, it becomes more of a ‘crutch’ for pure faith – a back up for believers rather than a proof for those not yet convinced.
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