Topic > The existence of God - 860

The ontological argument aims to demonstrate the existence of God as an a priori argument. One of the distinctive features of Descartes' argument is its simplicity. The argument is deductive and based only on reason and does not require any physical proof of God, it attempts to prove the existence of God objectively and necessarily. There are some statements that we know to be false without any further information, such as “a circle has 3 sides” or “she is a bachelor” these statements are not true by definition. The ontological argument aims to make the statement “God does not exist” as absurd and false as the above statements, and that "God exists" is an analytic truth, so it is logically impossible that Descartes's background in mathematics is very influential on his version of the ontological argument, in attempting to make the most objective and confirmable philosophy like mathematics. Furthermore Descartes believed that every human being has an innate and clear understanding of God that we are born with, this is important because we can form a definition of God. "When I imagine a triangle, even if maybe there is not and never has been anywhere in the universe independently of my thought as one of these figures, it nevertheless remains true that this figure possesses a certain determinate nature, form or essence, which is immutable and eternal, and not structured by me, nor dependent in any way on my thinking” - Descartes (Meditations) Descartes' definition of God is an "extremely perfect being", a being with ALL perfections. It simply seeks to establish the existence of God through this definition. Since necessary (eternal) existence is a perfection, therefore a supremely perfect being must necessarily exist. If asked, would you rather have a £10 note with......half of a sheet of paper......or would this objection to existence not being a real predicate be that the necessary existence is a real predicate since the argument tells you so and is, probably, "a property that a thing may or may not have". Necessary existence tells us something real and meaningful about the subject, in this case God. Necessary existence implies an eternal and unlimited existence outside the boundaries of space and time, an existence that depends on nothing 'other. Where one might argue that existence is not a real predicate since existence is just the actualization of a definition, it doesn't actually inform us about the topic. An imaginary unicorn looks the same as an existing unicorn, so existence is not a real predicate. However, Descartes in his argument refers to necessary existence and not just existence, therefore Kant's objection can be considered irrelevant to the argument.