Examine the significant features and strengths of the ontological argument for the existence of god (18 marks)

The theory was developed by Anselm in ‘Proslogian’. In Proslogian 2 Anselm uses a priori and deductive logic to prove God’s existence. Anselm states that the definition of God is ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived’. He argues that is impossible to think of anything better than God, since by definition, God is perfect and therefore has all good attributes. Existence as an attribute is better than non-existence because what exists in re is better than was exists in intellectu. Therefore since by definition God is perfect, we can deduce that God must have existence as a perfection and therefore must exist. This is a priori because if God didn’t exist then he wouldn’t be perfect as he wouldn’t be as good as a real god which did. Since it’s a prior it doesn’t require any empirical evidence which is relativist. This means that anyone can understand the argument as we are all at the same vantage, unlike in the argument from religious experience which puts people who have had an experience at an advantage than those who don’t as they are more likely to be convinced by the argument. It’s even convincing to Atheists who despite not believing in God’s existence would agree that god is defined as a perfect being. Therefore since it’s the argument is universal it’s more convincing to a greater number of people. The argument being deductive is also a strength as it includes the conclusion that God must exist in the premises as it states by definition God is perfect. This is convincing as if the premises are true, then it would be impossible for the conclusion not to be; therefore impossible that God doesn’t exist. Plantinga strengthens this, stating that God is the ‘greatest conceivable being’