God or No God?

The ontological argument for God's existence has been one of the most discussed topics in philosophy for centuries. The basis of this argument is purely rational, as opposed to experiential or historical, and its conclusions come from nothing but necessary and a priori rationalizations. The first philosopher to be widely recognized for his ontological argument was St. Anselm of Canterbury who derived the existence of God from the existence of a being than which no greater can be conceived. His logic goes that if such a being does not exist then there is some being greater than that. This is not possible for it is impossible for a being to be greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived. As this is implausible a being than which no greater can be conceived must therefore exist, with that being being God. Another ontological argument is that of Descartes, which depends heavily on his assertion that anything that can be clearly and distinctly perceived as an idea of something is in fact true of that thing. From this central tenet of Descartes' metaphysical philosophy he asserts that he has a clear and distinct perception of God. That God has a necessary characteristic of existing, therefore, since God is clearly and distinctly perceived and that perception has a necessary characteristic of existing, God must exist.

Both of these ontological arguments suffer the same drawbacks as almost all other ontological arguments. One of the biggest problems with these arguments is that the idea of God, which is essential, is defined not by a rational process or experiential knowledge, but by the definitions and assertions of the thinkers. These arguments are dependent on specific definitions on the nature of God, a matter that has for centuries created controversy and discord as a result of God being defined differently by multitudes of groups and individuals. There is not one definition of God that is universally accepted or agreed upon, yet these arguments depend on very distinct and individual definitions that the thinkers assert themselves. St. Anselm's definition of God, for example, includes the characteristic that God is a being than which no greater can be conceived. This is problematic as while St. Anselm might not have been able to conceive a greater being than his individual God another individual's conception could be much greater. Descartes' conception of God, for example, could be greater than that of St. Anselm, but that is impossible for any individual to know as these beings only concretely exist in each thinkers intellects.

Descartes' example suffers the same flaw that comes from its rigid definitions, as many cultures and traditions do not clearly and distinctly perceive of a being that is God. They might perceive of something than which no greater can be conceived, as St. Anselm did, but not have a clear and distinct perception of the idea of that "something," as is necessary in Descartes' argument. The definitional problems that have been discussed become even more problematic when the possibility of a non-believer is thrown into the mix. While both of these thinkers claim to believe in the existence of God, or a being than which no greater can be conceived, an atheist would not be able to come to the same conclusions as either of these individuals. In Descartes' argument, for example, God's existence is necessitated on the fact that an individual conceives of the idea of God. To an atheist this idea is not clearly and distinctly perceived, therefore, God as naïve believers might put it is necessarily non-existent. It might be said that God exists for Descartes and not for the non-believer as a result of their conceptions of an almighty being, but that would undermine the definitional necessity of an omnipotent being that is central to most ontological arguments. To sum up the main problem with ontological arguments for God's existence is the fact that individual definitions of God are necessary for each argument to be legitimate and rational. These definitions are not the same nor are they agreeable for every individual in every circumstance, nor are they based on any experiential or rational facts. They come only from the minds of the thinkers and thus are fundamentally limited in the universality of their application.