Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Ontological Argument

The ontological argument is different than the cosmological or teleological arguments as it relies on A Priori knowledge rather than A Posteriori. A Priori knowledge is knowledge that you can know prior to any experience; it is known through reason alone. This essay will explore how reliable the ontological argument is. The ontological argument is an argument for the existence of god by St Anselm (1033-1109). Anselm defined god as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” His argument states that God is the most perfect thing possible. After defining god as the greatest conceivable thing he asks “what is greater god as an idea or god as an existing thing?” if it is agreed that existing is always better than not existing god as an existing being is greater than god as an idea, therefore god must exist as if god is just an idea then he is not the most perfect conceivable thing. God must exist by …show more content…
One weakness of the ontological argument is that its logic can let us say a lot of things exist by definition. You just have to imagine it in its most perfect form and then we can say logically that it exists by definition. This doesn’t happen so the argument is flawed and unreliable. E.g. a perfect beach, just because you can imagine something as perfect doesn’t mean that it must exist.
Another flaw is that the argument treats existence like it is a property of god, like omnipotence, but it is not. God would have to exist to have any properties as if something does not exist it cannot have properties. You must know something exists before you can know any properties it may