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Anselm's ontological argument essay
Ontological argument anselm
Anselm's ontological argument essay
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Short Essay #2 In Chapter 2 of the Proslogion, Anselm presents his famous ontological argument for the existence of God. This argument can be formally summarized into five premises. The first premise that Anselm presents is “you exist, as we believe.”(Proslogion, Ch.2) Meaning that God exist as an idea of the mind, and the human idea of God is that there is no greater being that exist. Anselm than presents his second premise that an idea that is in the mind and also exist in reality, is greater than an idea that only exist in the mind. Something that can be imagined and tangible is considered perfection. The third premise states that since God only exist in the mind, than it is capable for humans to think of something greater. However, Anselm’s
The intricacy of a simple time telling device has sparked controversy about the creation of the universe. In William Paley’s “The Analogical Teleological Argument” he argues that the universe must have been created by a universe maker, God, due to its complexity. However, David Hume, provides an empiricist objection by arguing that one cannot prove the existence of a universe maker due to lack of experience regarding the creation of a universe. Ultimately, I will argue that Paley’s argument by design is not sufficient for proving God 's existence because, as individuals, we cannot assume that the world works the way we wish it.
Saint Thomas of Aquainas may have been one of the greatest thinkers who attempted to bridge the proverbial gap between faith and reason. His Sacred Doctrine which was the initial part of his Summa Theologica was the basis for his conclusion about the existence of God. Aquinas tended to align his beliefs close with Aristotle's supposition that there must be an eternal and imputrescible creator. In comparison, Anselm's impressions were influenced largely by Plato. In his text Proslogion he outlined his Ontological argument that regarding the existence of God. It was simply that God was the ultimate and most perfect being conceivable, and that his state of existing is greater than not existing therefore god, being perfect in every way, must exist. This is where their paths divide, and although they essentially reach the same determination they paint the picture quite differently.
To begin, Anselm’s ontological proof functions from the essence of God to God’s existence. The argument
The Ontological Argument, which argues from a definition of God’s being to his existence, is the first type of argument we are going to examine. Since this argument was founded by Saint Anslem, we will be examining his writings. Saint Anslem starts by defining God as an all-perfect being, or rather as a being containing all conceivable perfections. Now if in addition of possessing all conceivable perfections t...
Anselm begins by supposing that we, as functional human beings, can understand his definition of God. As Anselm himself puts it, even “when the fool [atheist] hears the words ‘something than which nothing greater can be conceived’, he understands what he hears.” This premise is intended to demonstrate the fact that when we conceptualize something (e.g. God), the thing that we are conceptualising exists in our underst...
Another way that St. Anselm's argument differs from other arguments is that it requires that you look at a definition of the concept of God. As Sober says, the definition of an object does not, in itself, prove its existence. Some examples he gives are unicorns and golden...
Anselm’s ontological argument can be viewed as a proof by contradiction - taking God to refer to Anselm’s “being than which nothing greater can be conceived” :
For many, the idea of existence as a predicate causes issues for the ontological argument. In the argument Anselm states that God is a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and using logic he comes to the conclusion that God must exist by definition. This can be seen as strength to the argument as if it is a valid deduction it proves God’s existence to an atheist as well as a believer. However, Kant counters this argument by saying that existence could not be a predicate of anything. This is because a predicate should be something that enriches our concept of what the thing is like. For example, Kant uses the analogy of a pile of one hundred coins, by saying that an imaginary pile of coins has the exact same value as a pile of one hundred coins that exists in reality. By adding existence to the idea it does not enrich our concept of said coins or make them any better, but will only state what is real. Therefore existence can’t be a predicate of anything, so therefore can’t be a predicate of God. As the argument is reliant on this assumption, it falls apart as the deductions made are based on this whole concept. To counter this, the philosopher Malcolm disagrees with Kant by saying that existence can be a property of a necessary being such as God. The same concept can’t be applied to contingent beings, such as coins, because they are imperfect beings. I don’t believe this to be valid however, as we don’t know for certain anything about God’s properties. Aquinas believes, as humans we don’t have the intellect to prove God’s existence Overall, this shows that the ontological argument doesn’t prove God’s existence, as existence can’t be a predicate, so any deductions made from this assumption can’t form valid conclusion...
Anselm’s argument for the existence of God is quite simple. He first proclaims that humans can grasp in their mind “something than which nothing greater can be thought” (Anselm 7). This “something” is an all-perfect God. Then, Anselm states that, if the all-perfect God existed only in thought, then something greater than the the all-perfect God can be conceived, namely, an all-perfect God that exists in reality. And
Anselm’s argument he starts by stating the concept of a “being than which no greater can be conceived”. This statement is one of the strategies Anselm uses to defend the existence of God. St. Anselm has confidence that if individuals understand the terminology of God and existence and also can understand what it means to speak of him, they must then come to the conclusion that he is of existence (Halsall, par. 14). This statement then leads everyone to believe that God definitely exists in our understanding as well as the atheist mind. The preposition that a being existing in reality is far greater than solely in the mind, assists Anselm’s argument of proving God’s existence. He believes that if God exists in reality then that would contradict the statement of a “being than which no greater can be conceived” because that would mean something greater could be conceived (Halsall, par 13). Anselm’s argument then looks something like this, God is greater than which nothing greater could be conceived from this statement there then can be nothing greater imagined. So if God in fact did not exist then there could be something greater conceived but there is not, therefore God does exist (Oppy, par.
By far the most important aspect of Anselm’s argument, however, is its religious significance (Pojman 70). Anselm’s argument distinguishes itself from other traditional arguments in that it clearly delineates the properties which distinguish God, i.e. properties such as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence (Pojman 70). To Anselm, just as Psalms 14:1 warns, ignoring the proof of God’s existence is an error which only a fool would make (Pojman
Even if I follow Anselm's logic and agree (and I paraphrase in the extreme) that God is the most possible perfect being I can imagine; and since a property of the most possible perfection necessarily must include actual existence, then God must necessarily exist--even if I concede this, I still can't get over the hurdle of my own imagination and its inherent human limits--I do not find that I can truly imagine God (though this does not mean I can't believe in God; from my perspective, imagination and definition are
Anselm's second contention guarantees that God is endless, boundless, by or in time and in this way has important presence and is an essential being. Anselm contends that it is smarter to be a vital being than an unexpected being, a being that relies upon different things for its reality i.e. having a reason/end since this would eventually constrain your energy. He clarifies that God must be an important being on account of if God exists as an unexpected being we could envision more noteworthy, hence God would not be that than which no more noteworthy can be considered. A being which can't be imagined not to exist must be more prominent than one that can be considered not to exist. Anselm at that point clarifies it would be a self logical inconsistency
St. Anselm was a philosopher and theologian who attempts to prove the existence of God by logical deduction from the nature of being, and that is why this is known as ontological arguments. He argues that, if we can imagine two identical objects, one real and one not real, necessarily the real is going to be more perfect than the other, and therefore, God has to be real because he is perfect and there is not anything more perfect than him. This theory had many critics and opponents, and one of those who disagreed with was Gaulino, a French monk of the same era. He suggests that something real is not necessarily perfect. According to Gaulino, if an argument worked for a case, then it should work for all cases. Hence, he says that if we imagine
The ontological argument defines the existence of God through an a priori assumption about the omnipotence of God as a premise to causality. This view defines the role of God as a the Creator in the universe, which supports the contention that human beings exist because God has created them. In this belief system, Descartes, much like Spinoza and Leibniz, supports the contention that all forms of causality originate from God as an external influence on the human mind. Therefore, if human beings can think, then God must have allowed human beings to see reality and to exists. In a more effective argument, Saint Anselm adopted a method in which a priori assumptions on the existence of God in the universe in Chapter V of the Proslogium: