Malcolm's Ontological Argument

Background 

  ·         Norman Malcolm (1911-1990)

  ·         Close Friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein

  ·         Severed In the American Navy 1942-1945

  ·          Known for propagating the view that common sense philosophy and ordinary language philosophy are the same.

The Argument

1.       If God does Not exist then his existence is impossible .

(God is immutable (unchanging ). If God doesn't exist then he couldn't or wouldn't change from none-existence to existence

2.       If God Does exist the his existence is necessary .

It is in the very definition of God that he exists necessary

3.       As a result of these statements it follows that Gods existence is impossible or necessary .

God can either exist necessarily (This does not mean that existence is a predicate of God but rather necessary existence is a predicate of God ) or his existence can be impossible

4.       God's existence is not impossible.

It is possible to imagine a world in which God exists only 'nothing exists' is impossible (which I shall explain in a later post)

5.       Therefore God must exist necessarily.

Therefore God existence is necessary

From his argument Malcolm suggests 2 possibility's. God cannot contingently exist. Gods existence must be either
necessarily false
or
necessarily true.
 Malcolm believes that the statement 'God's existence is necessarily false' is a logically contradictory proposition . For example 'a triangle has four side, and so therefore God exists necessarily must be the correct statement. This part hear to me seems like Malcolm's safe guard against Gaunilo's response to Anselm's first argument. Only God could exist necessarily while other objects within the universe exist necessarily for example Gaunilo's island could exist either or it could not but its existence is still contingent, thus Malcolm's