The Ontological Argument

The ontological argument was devised by St Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury in 1078, and Descartes later revived it in his Meditations on First Philosophy. It is a priori argument, meaning it does not depend upon our senses, experiences, or anything else in the world in order to infer its premise and arrive at a conclusion. Unlike teleological and cosmological arguments, the argument is reliant upon logical stages that eventually attains a conclusion, which is logically necessary and self evident. Therefore, it can be said that it is deductive and analytic. It is said to be deductive as the premise of the argument holds the conclusion of the argument. Furthermore, it is said to be analytic because the reasoning and propositions used are correct

Whether existence can be classed as a predicate or not seems to be the predominant issue surrounding the argument, and as no real decision has been reached, I think that substituting existence being perfection with necessary existence could potentially avoid this problem. Say we consider necessary existence in the same way that being is perpetual, unbreakable and self supporting, and say that a being who exists contingently isn’t as great as one who exists necessarily; then Kant and Moore’s criticisms do not apply if we incorporate this theory into Anselm’s first form of the ontological argument in the same way existence was used. This is due to necessary existence adding conclusive attributes to a being, as it allows us to have a considerably larger understanding of what it is like. In this example, unlike existence where definite properties are not attributed, we automatically know that necessity in terms of existence is perpetual, unbreakable and self supporting. Therefore, necessary existence is a predicate that does develop our comprehension and idea of a being. It is fair to refer to necessary existence as a perfection in its absence and causes a being to be less great than it would have been had it possessed such an attribute. So if existence being perfection was replaced with necessary existence, then it can be said that by looking at the definition of ‘God’, then we know God