In the last blog, I went over the argument in some detail, explaining how it works, and why it ultimately fails to prove its point. However, we must bear in mind that the Ontological argument has a unique purpose. It is basically meant to be a master argument, by which several other arguments about God can be proven. So, instead of needing to have several arguments that aim to define the nature of God, we can use one argument to prove all that needs to be proven (or at least thats the idea). The reason that this is able to work is because of Anselm's definition of God as "that than which nothing greater can be thought." If God is truly the greatest thing that can be thought, then God will always be that which it is greater to be. For how can "that than which nothing greater can be thought" ever be in any way the lesser of two things? If God is God, according to Anselm's defintion, He must always be whatever it is better to be. Does this mean that God is conditional? That is to say, that in any given situation He chooses to be what it is better to be given the current circumstances? No, what this actually means is that God is, eternally, that which it is better to be. An example of this can be found in the idea of the doctrine of immutability, which states that God cannot undergo any kind of "real or intrinsic change in any respect." (thanks to http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/immutability/ for the definition). If Anselm's definition and argument are to be true regarding God's nature, then God must be immutable, rather than changing. The reason for this is as follows.
1. God is a perfect and eternal being.
2. If God is able to change, then He cannot be perfect. Since a perfect entity cannot undergo any sort of change (for if God were able to become greater than He already is, He would not be perfect. Likewise, if He were able to become worse, He would not be perfect.)
3. Also, if God were able to undergo change, this would seem to undermine His eternal existence. Since change requires time (this means that if God were able to change, He would have to be affected by time).
4. Therefore, if God is both perfect and eternal, He must be immutable.
Hopefully you can sort of see how Anselm's argument works. It allows us to, based on Anselm's defintion of God, prove several things about God that could otherwise require several different arguments and many different scripture references.
Whether or not you agree with Anselm's argument in this context or not, I think it can be safely said that this is, at the very least, an interesting argument.
-God bless and Jesus loves you!!
