Question
Can you argue God into existence from the idea of God?
Anselm tried: a being than which none greater can be conceived must exist, or it would not be the greatest. It is a real argument. It is a poor opening move at a job site, and it does not carry the case alone.
The ontological argument does not start from the world. It starts from the concept of a maximally great being. Anselm said that existing in reality is greater than existing only in the mind, so a God who is only an idea is not the God you just defined. Later forms, especially Alvin Plantinga’s, talk about necessary existence: if a maximally great being is possible, He exists in every possible world, including this one. The fight then moves to whether such a being is possible at all.
People hear a trick, and sometimes it is used as one. ‘Imagine a perfect island’ is the old parody, and it fails because islands do not have a maximal greatness the way the argument claims God does. Still, the argument persuades fewer honest readers than the beginning of the universe or the moral law. It belongs in the kit as a sharpening tool, not as the first card you lay down.
Use it when someone says ‘God’ cannot even be coherent. If a greatest conceivable being is not a nonsense phrase, the question of God is not a grammar error. Then go back to the public evidence. A God who is necessary, if He is, is the same God who would explain why anything contingent exists. The shop-floor case is still the beginning, the design, and the cross.
See it
Slide decks that belong with this page.
Talking points
- Anselm: a God who exists only in the mind is not the greatest conceivable being.
- The modern form turns on possibility: if a maximally great being is possible, He exists necessarily.
- The perfect-island parody misses what ‘maximal’ means. It is still a warning not to be cute.
- Do not lead with this argument. Lead with it when someone says the very idea is empty.
Say this
There is an old argument that if God is the greatest conceivable being, He cannot be a mere idea. I will not rest your faith on that sentence. I will say the idea is not nonsense — and then I would rather talk about why the universe began and why Jesus’ tomb was empty.
If they say…
“You defined God into existence. That is a word game.”
Only if existence is smuggled in by the definition with no remainder. The argument claims that maximal greatness includes necessary existence, and then asks you to deny that such greatness is possible. Deny that, if you can. Do not just call it a game and walk off.
“If it were any good, you would open with it.”
The best tool is the one the hearer can check. Most men can check a beginning, a moral law, and a historical claim. Fewer want to start with modal logic. Order is wisdom, not a confession that the argument is fake.
“From everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
“God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’”
“In him we live and move and have our being.”