Descartes Ontological Argument For God's Existence

Chad Dubin Many philosophers have used the ontological argument to try to prove the existence of God. Descartes and Anselm are two examples of philosophers who have done so. Both use the concept of having the idea of God to try to prove his existence. However, the ontological argument for the existence of God is unsuccessful in proving his existence. Descartes uses the idea of existence being a property and an aspect of perfection to try to prove God’s existence while Anselm uses the concept of God existing in the understanding rather than reality to do so. Descartes’s argument is unsuccessful because existence is not an actual property. Anselm’s argument is unsuccessful because existing in reality does not cause a being to be greater than a being that only exists in the understanding. The ontological argument is unsuccessful in proving God’s existence. Descartes’s ontological argument for the existence of God revolves around the idea of perfection. This a priori argument is explained in Descartes’s fifth meditation. Descartes starts by claiming that the idea of God is the idea of a perfect being. He then goes on to say that existence is in the nature of perfection. In other words, perfection encompasses existence. A being cannot …show more content…
His argument uses reductio ad absurdum to try to prove God’s existence. Anselm starts by assuming that God is a being that which no greater being can be conceived and that he exists in the understanding but not in reality. He then presents a contradiction for this claim. He states that in addition to imagining a being that exists only in the understanding, we can imagine a being that can exist in both reality and the understanding. Following this logic, God must exist. A being that exists both in reality and understanding is greater than a being that exists purely in the understanding and since God is a being which no greater can be conceived, God has to