by Philo Gabriel

Created on: February 21, 2010

Many of the classic arguments in favor of the existence of God - including the cosmological argument, the argument from design, and Pascal’s wager - are, in their essentials at least, not difficult for most non-philosophers to grasp, and in fact they are pretty close to the kinds of arguments regular folks tend to come up with on their own when they’re contemplating whether it’s possible to justify believing God exists on rational grounds alone.

Not so the ontological argument.  Even people sympathetic to religious belief often struggle to understand the ontological argument, dismissing it as just some kind of tricky word games.  Which it may indeed be, but before drawing such a conclusion, let’s take a closer look at this argument.

The ontological argument is perhaps associated most closely with the Medieval theologian St. Anselm, though well-known versions have been put forward by René Descartes and numerous other philosophers, including Alvin Plantinga in modern times.

In order to lay the groundwork for the argument, it is necessary first to go over some relevant points about language.

Consider the following pairs of sentences:

1. All bachelors are unmarried.

2.  No bachelors live on Mars.

1.  Triangles have three sides.

2.  Some triangles are written on blackboards.

1.  Gold has the atomic number 79.

2.  Gold is more expensive than silver.

All of these sentences are true, but notice anything special about the first of each pair?

The first sentence of each pair is true by definition.  That is, if we knew absolutely nothing about bachelors, triangles, and gold except the definitions of the words “bachelor,” “triangle,” and “gold,” we’d know that these three sentences are true.

However, for the second sentence of each pair, in order to know they’re true, we’d have to have some additional empirical knowledge about the world besides just the definitions of the words.

The characteristics that something has by virtue of its definition alone are called its “defining attributes.”  “Bachelor,” for instance, is defined as an unmarried, adult male.  So a bachelor’s defining attributes are being unmarried, being adult, and being male - that’s what makes him a bachelor.  Therefore, the sentences “Bachelors are unmarried,” “Bachelors are adult,” and “Bachelors are

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