Many would reject these arguments for the existence of God based on the identifiable flaws. Gaunilo attacks Anselm’s argument saying that you can define anything to existence. He uses the example of the ‘perfect island’; imagine an island that TTW, now row onto it.. you can’t as it is not there. Anselm responds, God is necessary whereas islands are dependent and contingent. Plantinga supports Anselm saying that islands have no intrinsic maximums, whereas God does.
Theist Aquinas identifies a major weakness of the argument saying that further proof is needed to show that existence is part of the essence of God, as well he feels that a posteriori means are needed. Self evident statements are so as soon as the terms are known either in themselves and to us or in themselves and not to us. The predicate is only included in the essence if the essence of the subject is known, for example ‘man is an animal.’ For the statement ‘God exists’ the essence of god is unknown. says ‘we can only know that God is, not what he is.’ Not everyone accepts Anselm’s definition, we don't know what God is like in order to conceive of him, and to use the term ineffable, Ayer would argue that we are talking nonsense. With these flaws in the argument, agnostics and atheists can easily reject it.
Kant describes Descartes argument as ‘labour and effort loss.’ A distinctive weakness which features is the use of the word ‘existence.’ Kant questions whether existence is really a predicate? Does it add anything to the subject? For example this dog is a Labrador and it exists, adding that it exists does not add to our understanding of the dog, but the fact it is a Labrador does, this is a concern Russel raises too. This weakens the argument. Frege criticizes Anselm’s and Descartes’ argument for using first order predicates (a predicate that tells us something about the nature of something) when it is in fact a second order predicate (tells us about concepts.) Existence is not a property of things but of the ideas of those things. Furthermore, existence requires empirical proof as ‘all existential propositions are synthetic’ Hume argues Gods existence can only ever be contingent as there is no empirical proof, this response strongly weakens the idea that God has a necessary existence (a main feature of the ontological argument.)
Hick responds to Malcolm’s serious flaws in the argument saying it is rather confusing. Hick states that Malcolm only shows logical necessity (something whose non-existence is strictly unconceivable) Davies says Malcolm's argument is like saying ‘a pixie is a little man with pointed ears. Therefore Pixies exist.’ This will not do as an argument as it ‘moves from an ‘is’ definition to an ‘is’ of affirmative predication. Malcolm is doing the same with ‘necessary existence.’ Davies says Malcolm is arguing God IS the greatest conceivable being, therefore God IS. That God is ‘definitionally’ necessary could be true but it does not mean that there must truly be something which is ‘ontologically necessary.’
Conclusively, it would be appropriate to reject the Ontological argument based on the proposed versions of the argument as they are flawed and do not prove the existence of God. However the argument does develop ideas about God as ‘If God exists he has necessary existence’ providing some strength to the argument. I agree that with this type of argument we can bring anything to existence, like the example Russel uses: As men exist, and Santa Claus is a man, then Santa Claus exists; it is non-sensical. To prove God’s existence, it does not make sense to make assumptions that cannot be validated by empirical evidence.
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