The ontological Argument

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Primarily, what Gaunilo pointed out is that if St Anselm’s argument, for whatever purpose did made sense it would be irrelevant as there are countless arguments of the same or similar rational form that have not been accepted (Cottingham, 1998). He contended that numerous religious followers, would acknowledge and accept that God cannot be understood as a whole, as this by nature. Thus, if humans are unable to entirely conceive God, the ontological argument is unable to work. Although Gaunilo’s argument makes sense for many, a widespread criticism of his approach to the ontological argument is that its main focus is on dealing with a diversity of terms, whilst St Anselm’s opinion focuses only upon the greatest conceivable thing. As stated by philosopher William Rowe, whilst it is sensible to say no other island might be more superior that the most conceivable island, it is absolutely rational to recognize that a non-island could be (Rowe, 1975). Gaunilo’s disagreement, points out the major flaws of the ontological argument through logical reasoning.

Another well regarded argument used against the ontological argument is one that is highly agreed upon by various philosophers and has been found hard to challenge. This argument utilizes very similar logic to the original one, and although it is deemed as a parody by some it is still highly recognised and esteemed. This argument was presented by Douglas Gasking who was an Australian philosopher. A simplified description of his argument is as follows: Firstly, we shall assume that the universe and everything in it was created. The creation of the universe, consequently, is expected to be the greatest achievement of all time. As the value of a creation is based on not only its value, but also the disability of its creator we can presume that the creator of us and the universe would most probably have a grave disability (Grey, 2000). The most serious disability that could face God would certainly be nonexistence. Thus, if one is able to imagine that the entire universe is the creation, created by an existing creator, one can imagine that a greater being, to be exact, a creator that has created the universe despite it having the disability of non-existence. A God that exists would not be the greatest being that is imaginable, as St Anselm states, due to a greater conceivable being would be one that is absent and does not exist, nevertheless it still created the universe, therefore implicating that God does not exist (Grey, 2000). As discussed this argument manages to point out a major imperfection in the ontological argument, it uses logic that is comparable to the original argument, and it invalidates it in a much similar way. Therefore, this argument demonstrates the errors with the ontological argument.

In conclusion, whilst the ontological argument may first appear to make sense to some, there are many ways in which the argument can be disputed upon, with it having a variety of flaws- two of which are introduced and explained in this essay. These arguments proposed by Gaunilo and Douglas Gasking against the ontological argument manage to analyse some major faults, and discuss them using a proportionate amount of common sense and reasoning. Generally speaking, even though the ontological argument is valued as a sound theory to a certain degree, the criticisms discussed in this essay have proven that there are a number of weaknesses displayed, showing that the theory emerges to be much weaker than it is stronger.

References

Anselm, and Deane, S. (1962). Basic writings. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Pub. Co.

Anselmus, Gaunilo., and Sciuto, I. (1996). Proslogion. Milano: Rizzoli.

Barnes, J. (1972). The ontological argument. [London]: Macmillan.

Clack, B. and Clack, B. (1998). The philosophy of religion. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Cottingham, J. (1998). Descartes. New York: Oxford University Press.

Descartes, R. (1955). The philosophical works of Descartes. [S.l.]: Dover.

Grey, W. (2000). Gasking's proof. Analysis, 60(4), pp.368-370.

Plantinga, A. (1965). The ontological argument, from St. Anselm to contemporary philosophers. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books.

Rowe, W. and Wainwright, W. (1972). Philosophy of religion. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.