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On the Impossibility of Successful Ontological Arguments

revised September 2002

Paul Franceschi

University of Corsica

[email protected]

http://www.univ-corse.fr/~franceschi

1. Ontological Arguments

Ontological arguments are arguments that purport to demonstrate the existence of God from a priori
considerations. They are intended to provide a proof of God's existence on the basis of straightforward reasoning
from indisputable premises. One characteristic feature of ontological arguments is that they are based on non-
empirical grounds. If successful, an ontological argument would constitute a special case of proof of God's
existence. Historically, ontological arguments come in several forms¹, the most ancient and well-known being
that of St. Anselm. Descartes in his Meditations² has also provided an ontological argument, whose general trend
is definitional. Lastly, it is worth mentioning Godel's ontological argument, which has attracted recent interest,
and modern variations by Norman Malcolm³ and Alvin Plantinga⁴.

For the sake of brevity, I will only sketch Anselm's and Descartes' ontological arguments. Anselm's conceptual
ontological argument goes roughly as follows⁵. Begin with the concept of a being than which no greater can be
conceived⁶. But if such a being does not exist, then a being than which no greater can be conceived and which in
addition exists, can be conceived of. But this leads to outright contradiction, since the latter is a greater being
than the former. Hence, a being than which no greater can be conceived exists.

Consider, second, Descartes' definitional ontological argument, which is very concise. It runs as follows. We
can conceive of a being with every perfections. But existence is also a perfection. Hence, God exists. As
Descartes points it out, this argument rests on the fact that existence is of the essence of God.

On the other hand, several objections have been pressed against ontological arguments. One major criticism
emanates from Kant⁷ who famously points out that ontological arguments rest on the implicit but false premise
that existence is a predicate. On the other hand, ontological arguments are also regarded by most authors as
inconclusive. For they seem insufficiently convincing to persuade a non-theist of God's existence.

In what follows, I shall present a novel, as far I can see, objection to ontological arguments. This objection
does not concern one specific form of ontological argument, nor does it address one specific premise or
inference in ontological arguments. Rather, the present argument aims at showing that ontological arguments in
general, given the intrinsic nature of their conclusion, are of an impossible nature. The argument entails that
conclusive ontological arguments would contradict the very nature of God. In short, it leads to the conclusion
that no ontological argument can be successful.

2. A General Objection to Successful Ontological Arguments

The argument for the impossibility of successful ontological arguments can be sketched informally as follows.
Begin, on the one hand, with the consideration that God is a perfect being and, on the other hand, with the fact
that humans are imperfect beings. God, as a perfect being, aims at maximising all human qualities. But if we had
a successful ontological argument, then faith would be unnecessary. Hence, we would fail to develop this last
quality. And this would contradict the aforementioned fact that God aims at maximising the development of
human qualities.

At this step, it is worth analysing the argument in more detail:

God is a perfect being

humans are imperfect beings

faith is a human quality

a sound ontological argument is a special case of proof of God's existence
a perfect being aims at maximising the development of human qualities
God aims at maximising the development of all human qualities

if we had a proof of God's existence

then faith would be unnecessary

then we would fail to develop faith

then we would fail to develop one human quality

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