Explore the weaknesses of the ontological argument. (8 marks) Definition of God proves that he exists Kant 1 – inseparable predicates Gaunilo – perfect island Kant 2 – existence is not a predicate Moore – tame tigers

Explore the weaknesses of the ontological argument. (8 marks) The ontological argument takes an a priori approach, this is seeking to prove the existence of God based on logic and reason rather than empirical evidence. The argument was developed by Anselm in 1078 who believed that the definition of God as ‘That which nothing greater can be conceived’ proved analytically that God existed. One weakness of the argument is its assumption that an inseparable predicate is enough to prove existence. This was explained by Kant who argued that having an inseparable predicate does not automatically prove that something exists, it only tells us what it would be like if it did, therefore Kant believes we should understand this inseparable predict of necessary existence as ‘if God did exist, he would do so necessarily, and no non-necessarily existing being could be God’. Gaunilo shared similar objections about defining something into existence. Gaunilo explained this by comparing Anselm’s idea of God as perfect and therefore existing to that of a ‘perfect island’; his point being that just because you can define a perfect island, it does not mean it actually exists, you would still need some other proof. Part of Anselm’s first premise was the assumption that necessary existence was a predicate of being God, for the argument to succeed this has to be analytically true. Kant believed that it could not possibly be true as existence is not even a real predicate, ‘Existence is clearly not a real predicate’. The function of a predicate is to develop our understanding of something, to give us more information about something and existence fails to do this. This point was echoed by Moore who said that whilst the statement ‘Some tame tigers do not growl’ gives us information about the temperament of the tigers, the statement ‘Some tame tigers do not exist’ does not enable us to learn anything about the animals.