Does Anselm 's Ontological Argument Successfully Show That God Exists?

To begin with, Anselm introduces the Ontological argument as a viral component of the religious aspect of mankind. The presence of a God should not be debated. He portrays this God as an all perfect being that represents the divine concept. He argues that no being is greater than God whether imagined or perceived by the human mind. From the human perspective of divinity, God’s existence is merely an idea of the mind. Even though man’s imagination can present an even higher being than God, it fails to make sense in philosophical principles since it is contradictory. Also, the existence of God can be conceptualized. This means that the senses of man are enough to act as proof of the presence of a being higher and more powerful than him. Philosophy allows for proof to be logical and factual as well as imaginative. From this point, the objection to an idea or imagination such as the existence of God makes his

The ontological argument for God’s existence is a work of art resulting from philosophical argumentation. An ontological argument for the existence of God is one that attempts the method of a priori proof, which utilizes intuition and reason alone. The term a priori refers to deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is the type of reasoning that proceeds from general principles or premises to derive particular information. The argument works by examining the concept of God, and arguing that it implies the actual existence of God; that is, if we can conceive of God then God exists. However, this type of argument is often criticized as committing a bare assertion fallacy. The bare assertion fallacy is fallacy in formal logic where a premise

Descartes’ ontological argument is an echo of the original ontological argument for the existence of God as proposed by St. Anselm in the 11th century. To illustrate the background of the ontological argument, Anselm’s argument works within a distinct framework of ontology that posits the existence of God as necessity by virtue of its definition. In other words, for the mind to conceive of an infinite, perfect God, ultimately implies that there must indeed be a perfect God that embodies existence, for perfection cannot merely exist as a mental phenomenon. God is, according to Anselm, self-evident in the mind. Criticisms to this argument can be found in Anselm’s contemporary, Gaunilo, who argues that such an argument can be used to - put

The next point Anselm makes is that God existing in reality as well as understanding is greater than just understanding alone. Anselm then follows that with his next point: that it can be thought that God can exist in reality. “So even the fool must admit that something than which nothing greater can be thought exists at least in his understanding, since he understands this when he hears it, and whatever is understood exists in the understanding. And surely that then which a greater cannot be thought cannot exist only in the understanding. For if it exists only in the understanding, it can be thought to exist in reality as well, which is greater” (Proslogion Chapter 2). The first point is self-explanatory. Proving God exists would be much easier if God existed in reality and understanding compared to understanding alone. Similarly, proving a cyclops existed would be much easier if you saw, captured, and defined it as a cyclops than just being able to define a cyclops. It is a reasonable assertion.

The Ontological Argument presented by Anselm is false because of premise two. Anselm argues that God’s existence is provable in a priori, this means that one knows God exists simply by reason alone and therefore does not need any prior experience to know it is true. In the next section, I will explain the premises and defend Anselm’s point. In the third section, I will explain how premise two is wrong.

Anselm believes that existence is broken into two categories, existence in reality and existence in the understanding. Now the only thing that does not exist, is something that you cannot conceive to exist, or understand.

In Chapter 2 of Anselm's Proslogian, Anselm offers what was later to be characterized as his Ontological Argument, which is an argument for God's existence he felt was so strong that even a fool as is said in Psalms 14:1- "who has said in his heart, 'There is no God'". Anselm's argument is as follows :

Anselm’s Ontological argument sets out to not only prove God’s existence, but to show that God’s existence is self-evident. Similar to other ontological arguments, it uses a priori knowledge to argue its validity, meaning that the propositions made are derived from internal reasoning instead of sense experience.

The ontological argument made by Anselm was criticized by one of his contemporaries, a monk named Gaunilo, who said, that by Anselm 's reasoning, one could imagine a certain island, more perfect than any other island, tf this island can exist in the mind, then according to Anselm, it would necessarily exist in reality, for a 'perfect ' island would have this quality. But this is obviously false; we cannot make things exist merely by imagining them. Anselm replied, upholding his argument by saying that Guanilo is essentially comparing apples and oranges. An island is something that can be thought of not to exist, whereas the non-existence of "that than which a greater cannot be conceived is inconceivable," Only for God is it inconceivable

Anselm's argument supports beliefs in gods existence. Anselm had a thought that gods presences are provable, and the nature of gods being. The study of “being” is called ontology. Anselm states” The best possible thing we can imagine “alluding god. Additionally, in Anselm's words “God is that than which greater can be conceived.” This implies god must exist.The existence of one can only be found in two ways. Either fanciful or tangible. God is the best thing we can consider. Things can exist just in our creative impulses, or they can likewise exist. Things that exist are as a rule are constantly superior to things that exist in our creative impulses. On the off chance that god just existed just in our creative energy, he wouldn’t be the best

In his ontological argument, St. Anselm aims to “refute the fool who says in his heart that there is no God” . This ‘fool’ has two important features: 1) he understands the claims that God exists and 2) he does not believe that God exists. Anselm works to show that this combination of features is unstable. Therefore, in his ontological argument, Anselm argues the following: 1) God is that than which no greater can be conceived, 2) if God is that than which no greater can be conceived then there is nothing greater than God that can be imagine; therefore: 3) there is nothing greater than God that can be imagined, 4) if God does not exists then there is something greater than God that can be imagined; therefore: 5) God exists . In this paper,

St. Anselm Ontological argument is known to be the most popular Ontological argument however, it is also known to be the most confusing of them all. When defining God Anselm stated "a being than which nothing greater can be thought." By saying this Anselm makes a very strong claim that

Davies begins with an example of the Ontological Argument presented by Anselm, who believes that if God can be conceived in thought and it is far greater for that being to actually exist, then God must exist. I find this to be misleading. That creating an ideal in someone’s intellect/imagination somehow necessitate the means to attribute the existence of God to be true in the realm of reality.

The debate of the existence of God had been active since before the first philosopher has pondered the question. Anselm’s Ontological Argument was introduced during the 11th century and had stood deductively valid until the 18th century. Then there are the arguments to aim disprove God, such as the Argument from Evil.

Saint Anselm was born near the Lombardy region in Aosta, Italy, in 1033, and later became the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a very intellectual Christian theologian and philosopher who was the founder of the ontological argument for God’s existence. He was a very spiritual early figure in the Catholic Church who used critical thinking to investigate the affirmation of God. St. Anselm led the Church of England under strict supervision by King William and King Henry, but he was able to continue his research as a Christian philosopher, and was able to document many versions of his philosophies during this time. Anselm passed away in 1109, and was elected by the Roman Catholic Church into sainthood in 1494. St. Anselm’s written arguments for