In the second part of Anselm’s argument Anselm tries to prove God’s existence as being necessary; as something which must exist, is greater than something which may not have existed. Therefore the most logical conclusion to come to is that God who is perfect has necessary existence and so must have existed as “it so undoubtedly exists that it cannot be thought of as not existing” Anselm. Thus, showing that God is not part of the contingent world as it’s logically impossible to believe or imagine that God does not exist and so God must have a necessary existence.
However one of Anselm’s contemporaries Gaunilo, created an overload objection, where he came up with an alternate theory; where he states that if a person were to describe the ultimate island “it would necessarily exist because of its perfections”. Gaunilo believed that Anselm’s thought process was not logical due to his process of stating a definition of God to then using this to prove his existence. Gaunilo’s example of an ideal and supreme island of a person’s dreams does not mean that it has to exist in reality because of its complete perfection. However philosophers such as Plantinga view this is flawed as how can you compare a supreme and ultimate being-God to an island which has no intrinsic maximum and so can always be improved upon? Therefore this criticism is flawed as he is referring to an island which is contingent and so does not have necessary existence.
b) ‘The Ontological argument can never overcome Kant’s objection that existence is not a predicate’ Discuss (17)
To see whether the ontological argument overcomes Kant’s objections considering Descartes’ Ontological argument is key. Descartes defines God as “a supremely perfect being” who exists as existence is a predicate of a perfect being. To predicate somethingis to ascribe a quality or property to something thus if existence is a quality of perfection and God is perfect in our imagination then the supreme being God must exist-which are the foundations for his argument. To demonstrate this belief Descartes stated that imagining a triangle without three sides totalling 180 degrees is just as illogical as defying God’s existence. Therefore God who is supreme and so ultimately perfect, must exist, in the same way which a triangle to be a triangle must have three sides adding to 180 degrees to exist. Contrary to Gaunilo’s Island, which depends on a contingent existence the triangle has a necessary existence as it is not susceptible to change though time and space due to its perfection. As shown by God who has necessary existence; within him is the cause of his existence and so could never had not have existed thus he must exist.
However Kant argues that it’s not necessary to accept that God exists simply because we can imagine him; thus disagreeing with Descartes. Kant demonstrates his beliefs in that existence is based upon experience and so it is not a predicate arguing that adding a reality to a concept does not make it any more realistic. Therefore I can define something as I see fit but the question is whether or not anything matches to that definition in reality. Thus distinguishing between an analytic statement; necessity which is about logic i.e. math factual and therefore true and an synthetic statement; existence is about experience. Thus the conclusion is that its acceptable to believe that it is logical for Gods existence to be logical, however it is not imperative to believe and accept that there is a God and he exists.
Another criticism is that of the definition of God as the “greatest and most perfect being “-can human beings truly understand and comprehend this concept? Also the thought process which Gaunilo undertakes comes under scrutiny, he moves from a thought of existence of an item to them stating the actual existence of that thing-surely this is not logical and casts dispersions on Gaunilo’s argument. Russell uses the Sylogism “Men exist, Santa Clause is a man, therefore, Santa Clause exists” to argue against Anselm’s use of ‘exist’ as a predicate and show that his argument is incorrect as it other wise wouldn’t be able to justify such an illogical thing.
