Thinking about the Existence of God, Part 1

An Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

1. All things that have being are either conceived only in themselves or conceived in another.
For example, John Smith is not conceived in himself; rather, he is conceived in human being and in the Smith family, that he is 5'8" is conceived in extension, etc. Extension as such, on the other hand, does not seem to be conceived in anything else; it is conceived in itself. We might call that which is conceived in itself a "substance" and that which is conceived in another a "mode."

2. It belongs to the nature of substance to exist.
Let us attempt to conceive of a substance as non-existent. In what would we be conceiving it? If we say we are conceiving it in itself, but are claiming that it does not exist, we are claiming to conceive it in non-being, in nothing; this is absurd. But if we say we are conceiving it in something else, then it is not a substance at all; it is a mode. Thus, a substance necessarily exists.

3. If God exists, God is substance.
God is not conceived in another, for God is not dependent and contingent being, but rather maximally great and the ground of all being. Instead, God is conceived in godself, i.e., God is substance.

4. God necessarily exists. 
This follows from God being substance.

(It may be replied that God simply cannot be conceived -- this particular concept of God is impossible, because it involves a self-contradiction of some sort. If this is correct, then God is not conceived in itself, since God is not conceived at all, properly speaking. I have no comment on this at the moment. Also, I have been far too brief and contrived on the third point, but I am relatively confident that any reasonable definition of God is going to end up saying that God is a substance, not a mode of some other substance. At any rate, my goal is not to be exhaustive on any point, but to provide the analysis in outline.)