IN SUPPORT OF THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT If God is the greatest he must exist in reality as this is better than just existing in understanding Necessary existence is greater than contingent existence – God must necessarily exist An imperfect being could not have thought of a perfect being on its own A perfect God that did not exist would be meaningless Could be subjectively true statements – language game Liebniz Anti - Realism IN OPPOSITION TO THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT Cannot define something into existence - Gaunilo 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 Existence means occupies space in the world Necessary existence is an incoherent concept Hume

WHO SAID THIS… Anselm Aquinas Kant Malcolm Moore Descartes Liebniz 1 God is that which nothing greater can be conceived Anselm 2 Transitional error Aquinas 3 Existence is obviously not a real predicate Kant 4 A necessary being cannot not exist Malcolm 5 Some tame tigers do not growl, some tame tigers exist Moore 6 Humans are imperfect, therefore they could not have thought of a perfect being by themselves Descartes 7 A perfect God that did not exist would be meaningless Liebniz 8 The analogy of the perfect island Gaunilo 9 Necessary existence is an incoherent concept Hume 10 We should be suspicious of arguments that ‘lack a single piece of data from the real world’ Dawkins

THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT KEY IDEA You cannot define something into existence, you need evidence God is that which nothing greater can be conceived – God is the best thing It is better to exist in reality and understanding than in understanding alone – for God to be the best, he must exist in both Gaunilo Inseparable predicates do not prove existence, they only tell us what something would be like if it did exist Necessary and Contingent Kant 1 WHY DOES THE ARGUMENT COLLAPSE? Necessary existence is better than contingent existence – God must have necessary existence and a necessary being cannot not exist If existence is not a real predicate then it is not analytically true that a ‘perfect’ God must exist Kant 2 Existence is not a real predicate of perfection or anything else