The ontological argument in Anselm’s Proslogion II continues to generate a remarkable store of sophisticated commentary and criticism. However, in our opinion, much of this literature ignores or misrepresents the elegant simplicity of the original argument. The dialogue below seeks to restore that simplicity, with one important modification. Like the original, it retains the form of a reductio, which we think is essential to the argument’s great genius. However, it seeks to skirt the difficult question of whether ‘exists’ is a genuine predicate by appealing instead to a distinction between having only mediated causal powers and having unmediated causal powers. Pegasus has no unmediated causal powers, but he has mediated causal powers through the thoughts, depictions, and literature in which he figures. By contrast, those people who think about Pegasus, portray him in paintings and sculptures, and write stories about him themselves have unmediated causal powers. The Argument Anselm (in prayer): You, O God, are something than which nothing greater can be conceived. Fool (i.e., atheist, who has overheard Anselm’s prayer): God is just an object of the imagination.