Gasking’s Parody Re-examined

Sa？etak Gasking’s parody of Anselm’s ontological argument is primarily based on the idea that the greater disability of the creator makes the achievement more impressive, and that, therefore, the non-existent God would be a greater creator of the universe than the existent God would be. On the contrary, I argue that either the non-existent God cannot create anything existent, or, if we introduce Meinongian metaphysics in order to save the parody, that non-existence would cease to be the most formidable handicap within the domain of fictional characters, or that encoded achievements need not be more impressive than exemplified achievements. These insights suggest that Gasking’s parody does not work