Anselm (1033–1109) had opposed an Ontological Argument that one understands God as a being and cannot conceive anything greater because God cannot be understood not to exist. On the other hand, another philosopher named Gaunilo objected Anselm’s Ontological Argument by suggesting that the same style of argument can be used to prove the existence of other entities, such as the idea of a greatest possible island. Although this may be the case, Anselm never got the opportunity to plead his case against Gaunilo’s objection. However, there are numerous biblical evidence to help support Anselm’s argument. Anselm’s Ontological Argument states that one understands that God, as a being, cannot be conceived a greater.
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?
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.
The problem with this is there shouldn’t be anything more powerful than God because he is omnipotent. Another situation in which God’s omniscience could be questioned is whether he can be lost. If not, then there is something that God has not experienced, and so he cannot be omniscient. if God
Overall, I believe that Aquinas’ 3 ways are not very convincing as a proof of the existence of God. The different ways in which Aquinas try to prove the existence of God just make it either impossible for there not to be a God, which rejects any other ideas or, they make misleading assumptions that are not justified. My first reason for believing that Aquinas’ 3 ways are not very convincing is the 2nd way – from Cause. David Hume argues that you cannot see, hear or use any of your senses to see a cause. You cannot see a cause only two things happening in conjunction with one another.
However, understanding alone doesn’t amount to much because an existence outside of just one’s understanding alone is not the greatest conceivable being. Leaving God in the understanding alone, and not in reality, would not make him the greatest being since a being that existed would be better. Thus, God must exist in reality in order to be the greatest conceivable being. The first objection was presented by Gaunilo,
One could argue that the logical positivists were unsuccessful in arguing that religious language is meaningless because the verification principle has many weaknesses. For example Strong verification is not possible to talk meaningfully about history as no self- observation can confirm historical events. Swinburne stated that strong verification excludes all types of universal statements as there may be a random event that occurs that may mean that this cannot be verified. However, A.J Ayer developed a solution for this which is the weak verification principle. This form of the principle allows for statements to have meaning if the means to which a statement can be verified are known.
Second, he asks the following question, if God created evil and goodness, why can he simply make evil disappear? In a conclusion taken from the Euthyphro dilemma, this question demonstrates a limitation in God’s power, which is indicating a mayor flaw in the Divine Command Theory. Because the Divine Command Theory is based on faith, Mortimer, the main proponent of this theory, could find difficult to respond to John Arthur’s arguments. In other words, faith does not have a scientific explanation which makes it hard to be understood by some individuals. But one of Mortimer’s strongest arguments could be that the DCT is the only theory that explains and distinguishes between right and wrong in a simple and clear
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,
Another aspect of the anti-kingship argument is that, in the case of the Bible, there should be no king because God had not planned for one. Overall, I feel that in this case, the anti-kingship argument is the best, because it is what follows God's word. God would have have provided for a king to have been named without having to had asked Him for a king. This is another good example of why we should follow God's Word, because if we follow His words,