ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the real role of the ontological argument in both St. Anselm and Rene Descartes, is to establish some crucial feature or features that God must have. The argument must be placed not in the genre of proofs for the existence of God—in which, despite the enthusiastic reconstructions of some modern logicians, it fares very badly—but in the genre of arguments about the nature of God. The ontological argument is usually taken to show that there is at least one thing that exists, namely God. The chapter argues that the fact that Anselm and Descartes come to far more orthodox conclusions should not disguise from us the fact that the argument is playing the same role. The difference is that Anselm and Descartes were concerned to establish orthodox conceptions of God against either non-Christian or naturalist versions, whereas Benedict Spinoza was concerned to establish a form of pantheism.
