His first form of the argument runs as follows: (P1) God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived (P2) If God exists in the mind alone (in intellect) then a greater being can be conceived (in re) (P3) God to be the greatest being, has to existing the mind and in reality, otherwise another being would be greater than God. (C) Therefore God must exist both in the mind and in reality. This method of reasoning aims to demonstrate the truth of something by reducing to absurdity the very opposite of what you are trying to prove. In Anselm’s case this would be that God does not exist, which he claims is absurd by means of an argument which he claims is logically necessary. For Anselm, God cannot not exist.
Anselm was a renowned Christian Bishop, who would become the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is also credited with being one of the first Christian Theologians to try and prove that God existed, as opposed to just trying to pick apart any argument made by none Christian groups. The argument for which is his best known is known as “The Ontological Argument,” in which he attempts to prove that God exists. Arranged more like a prayer than a philosophical work, the argument attempts to logically prove that God must exist. Anselm was attempting to prove that god existed “a priori,” or through reason alone.
The ontological argument is further defined as analytic, which means when you look at the word (which in this case is God) and you already know what it means. In Proslogion, St Anselm uses a phrase to define God. This phrase is “that than which a greater cannot be thought”. He uses this phrase because he believes God to be the greatest being ever, and the being which the best at absolutely everything. Also he believes that if you asked someone who doesn’t believe in God what their definition of God was, then it would also be something along the lines of this.
The actual existence of this being is a greater thing than merely a concept or understanding. Therefore, that than which nothing greater can be thought must exist both in the mind and in reality. Descartes' ontological argument is an a priori argument, which means that it is based upon reason, rather than empirical evidence or experience. Descartes stated that God is a being with all perfections. He goes on to say that existence is a perfection.
Anselm’s Ontological Argument The philosopher Anselm of Canterbury’s ontological argument debates the existence of God to be very much true. Anselm concepts God as a being in which nothing greater can be conceived. He also iterates that this being is too the greatest that one can possibly imagine. Therefore, for God to be the ideal concept of perfection, he must too in fact exist in reality and not just the mind, as in the understanding. An atheist, whom may not believe that God actually exists in reality, surely understands the concept of what God is so he then exists in his understanding.
P3: It is possible to have an experience of God. C: Therefore God must exist. This shows the inductive nature of the argument as well as the synthetic experiences it is based on. As Swinburne's proof of god through religious experience shows, there is a logical thought process that can systematically prove the existence of god if these premises are agreed upon. Some philosophers such as Ayer argue that experience cannot provide a stable base for the indication of reality because it is the interpretation of the experience that we are hearing for the experiencer, therefore we can never have concrete evidence that that is how the experience occurred.
Outline two key objections to the Ontological Argument and explain the responses made to them. The ontological argument was first introduced by Anselm in the ‘Prosologian’. It is an a priori argument as it is not based on empirical evidence but id deductive and analytic in that it allows one to use logical reasoning to reach a logically necessary conclusion which, in theory, cannot be disputed. Anselm defines God as ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived’ (TTWNGCBC) and states that everyone, theist or not, can accept this definition. He argues that ‘the fool’ in Psalm 53 can conceive of God but fails to believe he exists.
In this essay I am going to focus on Anselm ontological argument and comment on its strengths and weakness of his argument to prove the existence of God. Anselm’s ontological argument can be seen as a Reductio ad absurdum, which means it is a logical argument that aims to prove contention by demonstrating that its denial leads to absurdity. Anselm’s argument explains that it is contradictory for someone to accept that God to exist in understanding and not in reality. This is because according to the existence of perfection a doctrine that something is greater if it exists in addition t being thought of, and God is greater than which nothing can be thought therefore He has to exist in both understanding and reality. The argument goes like this: 1.
It also puts limits on God’s power. According to the definition of a theistic God, God is omnipotent. If God is all powerful then he should be able to command whatever he wants but by saying that morality is independent of God would mean that God is subject to the rules of morality (Fisher, 359). All in all the main issues with the Autonomy Thesis are that it would only be reasonable if one was not considering the existence of a theistic
And so Metaphysical claims such as ‘God is omnibenevolent’ are meaningless, the Statements they did find acceptable were analytic statements, which are true by definition and those which are synthetic, which is confirmed through the senses. Ayer does not just deny God’s existence, he denies the possibility of God’s existence altogether on the grounds that there is no way of empirically verifying his existence. Needless to say, Ayer would disagree with all of the traditional arguments for the existence of God, as none of them conclusively and empirically prove the existence of God. Flew also put forward an argument called the ‘falsification principle’. Flew argues that when we say something is the case such as God is good we are also denying the opposite saying that God is not good but also denying at the same time by saying that God is not, not good.