God and Necessity. The Ontological Argument and Plantinga’s Modal Argument

Abstract

This essay purports to criticize the modal version of the ontological argument, a classical argument that pretends to be a proof for the existence of God, put forward by Alvin Plantinga in his book The Nature of Necessity , which tries to prove God’s necessary existence . The essay first considers the ontological argument in its classical form, as it was formulated by Anselm of Canterbury in his Proslogion . Then it considers other versions of the argument (such as those of Descartes and Leibniz) and criticisms directed to it (by, for example, Gaunilo and Kant). Finally, Plantinga’s argument is analyzed and considered, fo llowed by some criticisms, that purport to show the circular and question begging nature of the argument The conclusions arrived at in this paper may shed light to the fact that, to some extent, this is a problem that all versions of the argument face, so that the ontological argument, independently of whether one believes in the existence of God, will stand as a failed piece of natural theology.