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.
Anselm was attempting to prove that god existed “a priori,” or through reason alone. He argued that not everyone needed a personal experience with God to believe in him – God’s existence was a logical conclusion if you thought the argument through. Specifically Anselm aimed his argument at “The Fool.” This does not refer to any
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.
However, this would be absurd, seeing as that nothing greater than God can be conceived in anyway. So a being, which nothing greater can be conceived, God, does in fact exist. According to Joel Fienberg’s text, Reason and Responsibility, an Ontological argument is defined as “an argument for the existence of God stating that the very concept or definition of God automatically entails that God exists; because the special nature of the concept, there is no way that God could fail to exist” (pg. 722). This argument is formulated around the idea that God is a being, which no greater being can be conceived.
It does not prove God’s existence; it argues that there must be a necessary being which created the universe. This is consistent with some views of God, however, it is far from an all-encompassing explanation. The argument is not considered to be the end-all-be-all defense for the existence of God. However, it is a good
And for morality to require God in such a way, there must be a direct link between the two. I believe that morality is defined by God, therefore immoral actions are wrong solely because God forbids them. Similarly, the “rightness” of moral actions is only because God has commanded them. In today's world things are defined as “right” or “wrong” or “moral” and “immoral.” This is because God, is the one that has allowed us to even understand what morality is. I believe that God is the creator and sustainer of all things, and that we would not even be self aware, let alone aware of right and wrong, if God had not created within us his image, and therefore the ability to make moral distinctions.
Kant then argued that God’s existence in the ontological argument is based on a synthetic statements (‘God is that which than greater cannot be imagined’ and ‘existing is greater than not existing’) therefore more evidence and proof is required in addition to the ontological argument in order to verify the existence of God. The ontological argument also features the idea that God has necessary existence – because his definition is that he is perfect and existing is more perfect than not existing, God must have necessary existence. However Kant opposed this idea and said that if we reject the whole idea of God that his definition is no longer important and thus he
The issues with this option mainly deal with the definition of a theistic God. If morality is independent of God and God’s commands only exist because the moralities of actions are predetermined, then God is no longer sovereign. If morals are independent of God’s commands then God is not sovereign over morality. This goes against the definition of a theistic God which defines God as the creator and ruler over everything. It also puts limits on God’s power.
If God does not exist, though, then something can be imagined that is greater that God, namely a God that does exist. “The hypothesis that God does not exist thus seems to give rise to a logical absurdity: that there both is and is not something that can be imagined that is greater than God. There is, because it’s possible to imagine a God that does exist. There isn’t, because it’s impossible to imagine something greater than the greatest thing imaginable.” Anselm’s second premise embarks on the fact that ‘that thing, like all things, exists in the mind or in the external world, or in both’. Just because something exists in the understanding does not mean that it also exists in reality.
Descartes declares he has to determine if there is a God and if he does exist, whether he can be a deceiver. The reason he has to determine the existence of God and what he is, rests in his theories of ideas. This is because we do not know if there is an outside world and we can almost imagine everything, so all depends on God’s existence and if he is a deceiver. “To prove that this non-deceiving God exists, Descartes finds in his mind a few principles he regards as necessary truths which are evident by the “natural light” which is the power or cognitive faculty for clear and distinct perception.” If arguments is presented in logical trains of thought, people could not help but to be swayed and to understand those arguments. Natural light