Norman Malcolm - A modern revival of The Ontological Argument

Malcolm's argument revived Anselm's 2nd Ontological Argument found in Proslogion 3, which posits that God exists necessarily. He believed that only a necessary being is worthy of religious devotion because a being that is limited in any way would not be consistent with the theistic idea of an omnipotent God or That Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived (TTWNGCBC).

He outlines four possibilities concerning the statement "God exists":
1) It is necessarily false (i.e. God cannot exist).
2) It is contingently false (i.e. God could exist but doesn't).
3) It is contingently true (i.e. God could exist and does).
4) It is necessarily true (i.e. God has to exist).

However, Malcolm implicitly defines God as immutable (i.e. he is unchangeable; he cannot and will not change), which means that God cannot come into existence nor cease to exist. As God is not limited or dependent on anything, he cannot change from the state of non-existence to existence or vice versa, and so his existence is either necessarily false or necessarily true. This translates that if God does not exist, his existence is impossible and if He does exist, his existence is necessary.

For Malcolm, regardless of how God is defined, the statement "God exists" cannot be impossible because it is not self-contradictory. A self-contradictory statement is not logically coherent, for example 'The square is round'. However, this does not apply in the same way to God because it is possible to imagine that God exists.

'The square is round' is a necessarily false statement because it is self-contradictory of the definition of a square.

Therefore, God's existence is not impossible and God necessarily exists.