That the Descartes Ontological argument is sound

In this round my opponent has really suddenly increased the number of contentions he offers: 1. It's also impossible to be red and not exist 2. Premise 2 is just stating that if something exists then its non existence is impossible 3. Circular reasoning 4. Defining perfection and X into existence 5. Concepts vs Actuality While my opponent has run much of this past me before, I must say I'm impressed with how he managed to condense it all into one round. I shall now proceed to address all his concerns: 1. It's also impossible to be red and not exist If something does not exist, can it be described as red? As I have stated, yes. Clifford is a big red dog. That's not a claim that Clifford is real. Yet it is a claim that Clifford is red. To go to a deeper level of analysis, does that mean Clifford is ACTUALLY red? Well, when we say actually, what we mean to say is within the realms of existence. The sentence "Clifford is a big red dog" says nothing about existence, only about color. So while we can claim that Clifford is red, we cannot claim that Clifford exists, based on that sentence alone. Therefore we cannot say Clifford is actually red. Is it possible, in this scenario, that Clifford the big red dog does not exist? Of course. Therefore it is perfectly plausible to say that one can be red and not exist, which obviously is the very opposite of what my opponent is saying. Can the same be said of perfection? No. Perfection is in a different class to red in that red is an attribute, whereas perfection is a direction. To justify this, all I need to do is show that a claim of perfection can be logically connected to a claim of existence. I did this last round, when I provided unresponded-to analysis that perfection requires value, and things with value must exist. 2. Premise 2 is just stating that if something exists then its non existence is impossible Let us revisit premise two: : It is impossible to be perfect and not exist Which can be restated as: : If something is perfect it is impossible for it not to exist It logically follows that within the class of existence, one or more things have the subclass "perfect." Therefore: : If something exists it is possible for it to be perfect Now lets look at what my opponent wrote: : If something exists then its non existence is impossible Let's get rid of that horrid double negative and we're left with: : If something exists then its existence is possible Versus : If something exists then its perfection is possible So basically this argument only works on the ASSUMPTION that everything that exists is perfect. I'd like to see my opponent justify that one. 3. Circular reasoning Let us examine the line where my opponent thinks I have presupposed my answer: : It is impossible for perfection not to exist In case it wasn't already painfully obvious, this was not in the argument. The relevant premise in the argument read: : It is impossible to be perfect and to not exist As I argued in round one, perfection is an attribute. It cannot "exist" in and of itself - it must be tied to an object. When I say Clifford the big red dog, I do not mean to say "big" exists, rather, I mean that something big (and red and named Clifford and of the dog species) exists. This is, however, perhaps only a problem with my opponent's phrasing. For the sake of the principle of charity, let us suppose he had argued I had made a circular argument in saying it is impossible to be perfect and to not exist because it is logically equivalent to God must exist (and therefore God exists). To make that claim, it must be knowable from that premise alone what the conclusion is. Thus the premise must contain an explanation as to why God is perfect. It does not offer this. Premise two is simply stating a general rule, premise one a specific fact situation and the the conclusion is just the rule applied to the facts. Simply put, this is Aristotelian deductive reasoning at its purest. Here is another example: a) Clifford is a dog b) It is impossible to be a dog and not be red c) Therefore Clifford must be red This is not illogical. C cannot be obtained without reference to the specific facts in a and the rule in b. The exact same form is taken by the Descartes Ontological. There is nothing circular about it because the conclusion does not include the specific facts, that God has the quality of perfection, only the general rule, that if something is perfect it exists. The general rule can be drawn out from the additional analysis I gave in point one of this round. 4. Defining perfection and X into existence The question here is whether something can be said to have perfection by virtue of a definition. Put it another way, when I say Thomas the Blue Tank-engine, my opponent would argue that I have defined the color blue, tanks and engines into existence. However, this is a non-sequiter. Nothing about "Thomas the blue tank engine" suggests that Thomas is actually real. I could say Paul the wagauagonagible, but that doesn't mean Paul is actually real. As I have already stated time and time again, ascribing a property to something is different from ascribing existence to a property (which is impossible because properties cannot exist - "Clean exists" makes no sense). Wagauagonagible may be ascribed to something, but that doesn't make it anything more than a whole bunch of letters I typed on my keyboard a moment ago. The real underlying question, I think, is how we can know that God must be perfect without reference to the definition. Well, what am I out to prove? That God exists. What is God? Initially my opponent gave me a list of God's attributes from which one could induce the property of perfection. I think that in common speech, when we say "God" perfection is at least implied, and the dictionaries are on my side. But these are all just definitions - and therefore obviously they can't be logically permissible. Or can they? I did not define God as being existent after all, so it is not contrary to the argument to use a definition. What makes a definition illogical? Can there even be an argument that does not rely on a definition? No. Arguments are a form of text, which is a type of constructed meaning. Definitions form the basis for all constructed meanings. Therefore there should be no problem with using them. One more issue. Did I define God into existence? No. I did not define anything into existence. I used a rule to show that it is illogical to accept that God is perfect and God exists. Did I thereby show that God is perfect? No. This was an observation. You might ask what evidence I have for this observation. Well, we began by assuming God was a non-existent thought object (I justified this in my second argument with my opponent). In this case, then, God is what it is thought to be ... and when we say God what we mean is a perfect entity. In other words by observing our thought of God we are in fact observing the reality of God, because the thought of perfection must logically be connected to the idea of reality. This is the same logic as that behind Descartes' more famous line "cogito ergo sum." 5. Concepts vs Actuality I've already dealt with this mostly, but allow me to give a few answers anyway. My opponent gives this construction of my logic: a > I conceive of God [ n.b God not perfection - perfection cannot exist without an object as it is only a direction ] b > I conceive of God as being necessarily existent c > God actually exists My opponent claims that c is jumping to a conclusion from b, that a conception of necessity does not show necessity. What makes a necessity true is the logic of the case. If there is a necessity, we know the alternative is false. Therefore my opponent's case here is not an argument - it is simply saying that if my case for why it is a necessity is not valid, then my argument is not valid. However, I think we already knew that. Looking forward to next round!