Ontological Argument In Proving The Existence Of God

How successful is the Ontological Argument in Proving the Existence of God? For centuries, the existence of God has been questioned and argued by many different philosophers. One of the “big three” arguments is the Ontological Argument, an argument that could be said to be valid, as it has a good structure, but the soundness is questionable. The argument was founded by St Anselm (1033-1109) on the basis of two things: firstly, that God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” , which means that God is the most superior being that can possibly be imagined; he is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-seeing), benevolent (all-loving), omnipresent (present everywhere) and eternal (always existing). Secondly, that existence is a perfection; existence is superior to non-existence. Once these two premises are accepted, the only logical conclusion can be that God exists, as God is the most superior being in every way. To believe that God could just be a being that exists only in our minds would be a misunderstanding of the definition of God. This is not an argument that has persuaded many of the …show more content…
The structure of a deductive argument is a set of general premises that lead to a specific conclusion. Deductive arguments are a priori, meaning that it occurs before the need for any experience; it is the understanding of the definition of the word “God” that creates the Ontological Argument. Deductive arguments are said to be stronger than inductive arguments, which are based on experience, making them a posteriori. Inductive arguments are made up from a set of specific premises that lead to a general conclusion, whereas deductive arguments are based on facts that have been proved. Inductive arguments, being based on experience, are stronger the more they are