The Ontological Argument in the Arabic Tradition

The revival of interest in the ontological argument in recent years has radically altered the perception of this argument by philosophers and logicians. It had been assumed for a long time that Gaunilo in the eleventh century, Gassendi in the seventeenth and Kant in the eighteenth had succeeded in putting this argument eternally to rest. Two major developments during the last five decades have injected new vitality into that argument; the reinterpretation of St. Anselm's thought by Karl Barth in 1931, (1) and the claim of Norman Malcolm in 1960 that in the writings of St. Anselm there are embedded two arguments, not just one. The first of these arguments given in Proslogion II states that God, defined as the being nothing greater than whom can be conceived, must exist both in the understanding and in reality; since a being who existed both in the understanding and in reality is surely greater than one who only existed in thought. This argument, according to Malcolm, is fallacious, because it rests on the mistaken notion that existence is a perfection or a real predicate, as Kant had rightly argued. The second argument, given in Proslogion III, is free from this logical fault and asserts that God as the most perfect being so truly exists that it cannot be conceived not to exist. In short, what sets God apart from

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