Logic of the ontological argument

Abstract

In his ontological argument Gödel says nothing about its underlying logic. The argument is modal and at least of second-order and since S5 axiom is used so it is widely accepted that the logic of the argument is the S5 second-order modal logic. However, there is a step in the proof in which Gödel applies the necessitation rule on the assumptions of the argument (see [3]). This is repeated by all of his followers (see [1] and [5]). This application of the necessitation rule can seriously harm the consequence relation of the logic of the ontological argument. It seems that the only way to preserve the modal logic S5 for the ontological argument is to assume some of its axioms in the necessitated form.