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the proof turns on problematic axioms/assumptions.
1.
the requirement of a prototype, which itself leans on the notion that language is best understood via nouns, which are names.
if you remove that assumption and run the proof, it functions as a demonstration of semantic effect: because there is the word god, it follows that god could exist...but in this form, what you are demonstrating is the effect of the category god on (say) practical understanding (a way of designating interactions with language, say, for purposes of doing this in shorthand)...and nothing at all about any real or potential referent.
another way: without the notion of template or form, the proof cannot and does not do what it is supposed to do.
2.
obviously the issue that arises at s4 has to do with definitions of this character god that are in no way demonstrated by the proof.
if you want a nice example of the extent to which theological and philosophical questions in "modern" philo remain tangled (and this but one example)--this proof turns up verbatim in descartes's meditations.
so to tie this and (1) together:
descartes version runs through the opposition imperfection/perfection. the claims are---once the actual ontological proof has been completed--ontology here being routed through determinism and thus through certainty or knowability--so what can be known absolutely is the center of the proof. known absolutely means what can be apprehended as clear and distinct. so having finished that part off, descartes can be understood as standing up, brushing off his pants and saying "now what?"--the next move is to say something on the order of (a) and i see that i am an imperfect being but (b) i can imagine a perfect being--(c) but i could not do this on my own--therefore the notion of perfection must have been put there (there being in language or in descartes mind as something of a mental form) (d) therefore god and (e) therefore everything else (so begins the deduction of the world...
but it is also possible that the notion of perfection is posited along with that of imperfection as its inverse...and so creates a semantic environment if you like----so perfection is simply a way of grouping properties or phenomena (a category) that are hypothetical or transcendent----that one can fill in practically (i.e. make meaningful or operational via praxis in the context, say, of particular belief communities)--and which neither supposes nor requires (a) a form "perfection" or (b) anything like apprehension of contents associated with the category in any direct manner.
in other words, you could easily claim that the notion of perfection is a simple semantic inversion of imperfection. as an inversion it (the category) comes to be given content--it does not HAVE content----it does not come with it from the word factory.
which is not the part of the meditations that folk who want to see the text as the origin of modern philosophy generall sned a whole lot of time on)
now these are not the only problems with descartes (you mght wonder about the infinite regress that gets going once he tries to import the criteria for judgment just after the reduction is completed---process it via set theory and voila, a seamonkey-like infinite regress of your very own. you can play with it. it makes a lovely hat, i have found.)
what is more, if you juxtapose the above with the other proofs outlined so far in this thread, you can set up a quick and easy formal explanation for the recurring differends that are the principle charateristic of the gazillion atheism/nonatheism threads. believers are not going to be inclined to follow you when you reduce god or perfection to a simple name.
the way out from within the christian tradition is nominalism. everything about the name god outlined above could be true---this because human understanding is finite and has no access to the infinite--so it follows that the name god is but a name, a convenience, a signifier given content in various control-contexts--which may or may not have anything to do with the (putative) referent, or that which the category "god" points to but does not and cannot signify--any relation between the two would be accidental.
and this claim does not require that one posit some outside observer postion from which one can evaluate the fit between what folk think this god dude is and what this god fellow "really is"---instead it follows from definitions concerning human understanding that are every bit as deeply embedded in xtian theology as are the rather sad desires to know perfection or to "prove"
god's existence.
so the critiques of the ontological proof do not require that one therefore abandon one's christianity--but they do push you toward nominalism, which i would think would be the basis for a better christianity in any event. but that's just my opinion, man.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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