Central to Anselm’s argument is the belief that it is greater to exist than not exist, and if God is the greatest-possible being, then by definition, God must exist. If God, only existed as an idea, then that God would not be the greatest possible being because we could think of something greater, namely something that exists in reality. Anselm also points out that even if we don’t know rationally or logically that God exists, there are no logical contradictions in talking about God existing. It is not a contradiction of terms, as,
He then goes on to say that it is always greater to exist in reality (in re) than just in the mind (in intellectu). The last part logically concludes that if there is no greater being than God, then God must exist in both the mind and reality. If God was to only exist in in our thoughts and not in reality then we would be able to think of a greater being, e.g. the prime minister because he exists in both reality and our minds. But because it’s impossible to conceive a greater being that God he must exist in both reality and our minds.
These arguments never get to any particular God. They have all established that the existence can be described by itself; none of this even implies a deity, or a universal consciousness. When you start by rejecting the presumption of a God, all the arguments fall flat on their face. What these three arguments are, are thesis trying to defend the indefensible. Although, these three arguments all agree in the way that they use unfound assumptions to prove what has yet to be proven; they do disagree on the studies of how to prove what really is God.
According to him, there must be as much reality or perfection in the cause of anything as in the effect. Moreover, he believed that the notion of God represents something so ideal that he could not have been the cause of this idea. I believe that Descartes arguments are not really such convincing because of the following reasons which I would like to point out. We may all come to this point and consider that we all exist; however, it’s not completely true because Descartes had an idea of the perfect being in his mind, but I surely don't have such an idea. Now what am I to believe?
It is too big a thing for words and therefore not necessarily understood by those who have not experienced it. Noetic means intellect. It is an experience that is not purely based on emotion, but one that provides an insight into religious truths which have universal or eternal significance. A transient experience short, and cannot be sustained for a long duration of time. The final type, passive, is an experience which the recipient has no control over.
However some philosophers such as Richard Dawkins have challenged such arguments. Dawkins stated that if God is to be omniscient, whether possessing self-knowledge or not, then He must know what shall happen. Even if there is a variety of possibilities you could choose from God would still know every single one, so no matter which one you choose God will already have known that specific
defining God as maximal perfection, there literally cannot be anything greater than God as God is the greatest thing that can possibly exist. If the ontological argument proves that God exists, then it basically does so without question regardless of what someone would wish to call such a being of maximal perfection. This then leads to the point that if someone was rational why should they be reluctant to call such a being ‘God’ or even why God wouldn’t be the greatest possible being there is. When defining God as the greatest possible being, it does raise a few questions and arguments when stating such a strong statement. One of these is it has been significantly more of a challenge to demonstrate that God is not possible.
There are things in the world that do not have the reason or cause of their existence, this mean that some things in the world are contingent - they might have no existed. The world is the real or imagined of individual objects, and none of these have the reason or cause of there existence and they depend of other causes. The universes explanation therefore must be eternal and self explanatory to be complete, necessary being - God and he is his own sufficient cause. Copleston redeveloped Aquinas’ argument by concentrating on contingency: 1)There are things in this world that are
These other objects, in turn, was put into motion by still another object preceding it, and so forth. This series cannot go on backward to infinity, though, since there would otherwise be no first mover and thus no subsequent movement. Therefore, we must conclude that there is a first unmoved mover, which we understand to be God. Second, we observe that everything has an efficient cause and that nothing is or can be the cause of itself. It is impossible, though, that the series of causes should extend back to infinity because every cause is dependent on a prior cause and the ultimate cause is thus dependent on a previous cause.
He heard his voice and held a conversation. He was able to interact with God, which is evidence that he must exist. The fact that he experienced God means that he must exist. It would be contrary to go against your senses and say he doesn’t exist when you directly heard him. Furthermore, James & Swinburne identified countless religious experiences during which the people were able to experience God.