Exposing the Weakness of Saint Anselm of Canterbury’s Ontological Argument

In the construction of the Large Hardon Collider, physicists seek and hope to unlock the mysteries of the universe by analyzing the attributes of the most miniscule particles known to man. In the same way, theologians have argued back and forth over the course of human history with regards to the divine attributes of God, seeking and hoping to unlock the mysteries of the metaphysical universe. Although these many attributes, for example omnipresence, could be debated and dissected ad nauseum, it is within the scope of this research paper to focus but on one of them. Of these many divine attributes of God, nothing strikes me as more intriguing than that of God’s omnipotence. It is intriguing to me because the exploration of

God doesn’t have to receive existence as he is already an existence in those who love and know Him. This is the primary truth about God. He is, he exists and he is real. He has the power to make existence in my life as long as I love and know Him.

One burning and enduring problem in philosophy to which we have given considerable examination is the question of the existence of God--the superlative being that philosophers have defined and dealt with for centuries. After reading the classic arguments of St. Anselm and St. Thomas Aquinas, the contentious assertions of Ernest Nagel, and the compelling eyewitness accounts of Julian of Norwich, I have been introduced to some of the most revered and referenced arguments for and against God's existence that have been put into text. All of them are well-thought and well-articulated arguments, but they have their holes. The question of God's true existence, therefore, is still not definitively answered and put to rest; the intensity of this

Brown, Neil. "The New Atheism and The Existence of God.” Compass, 46, no. 3, 2-5. Kensington, Australia: Compass, Spring 2012.

“In the God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) God existed before all of His creation, therefore He is the sovereign creator. He created all to be good in His perfect wisdom. Though God is invisible, He has several distinct characteristics; compassionate, faithful, infinite, just, wise and all-powerful.

The ontological argument can be stated in this way: “God is the greatest being imaginable. One of the aspects of perfection or greatness is existence. Thus, God exists.” Or put another way—“The fact that God can be conceived means that he must exist.”

Wendell Berry in “God, Science, and Imagination” condemns the central theme – nonexistence of God of Steven Weinberg’s essay “Without God”. The critique is all about his discontentment of Weinberg’s argument and says it is just Weinberg’s opinion and everyone has right to put forward his/her opinion but he refuted the notion of nonexistence of immaterial soul and God when science is just to prove or disprove the material existence of the universe.

In the article “ On Being an Atheist,” H.J. McCloskey attempts to inform his readers that the belief in atheism is a “much more comfortable belief” by effectively using a disdainful rhetoric towards theists and their faith. McCloskey delves into both the Cosmological and Teleological arguments, which within he criticizes the arguments and to further his argument against theism, he also presents the Problem of Evil and why evil cannot possibly exist with a perfect God being the creator of universe. What will be displayed in this essay are the counter-arguments to McCloskey’s criticisms and the attempt to discredit his claims that regard the “comfortable” position that lies within atheism and its arguments.

exists and his idea of what a perfect being is, such as God, then God exists.

For God to exist, one must accept that God exists in both the mind and reality. The diagram below is an argument diagram to demonstrate this mean of his reasoning.

In this paper, I am going to present an objection to the “divine argument” explained above. An obvious objection to this argument is that it begs the question of its readers, as it forces them to accept the fact that God exists. If one does not accept this fact, then the entire argument is rendered unusable. However, this objection is, quite frankly, boring, and so I shall attempt to give a more nuanced objection. I believe that line 3, which discusses how nobody can change the past, is actually false. Additionally, the inference from premise 7 to the conclusion is false, which renders the argument invalid.

St. Anselm's Ontological Argument has remained one of the most widely-known arguments for a Christian God, as well as simply probably the most famous logical proof of all time, since its inception in the late 11th century. The economical proof uses deductive logic starting from basic given premises to lead the reader to what is meant to be the inevitable conclusion that God must, necessarily, exist. The argument's polished simplicity is both a point in favor and a problem, however, for it provides little explanation for its premises beyond what is to be assumed within the tight structural framework of Christian thought beneath which all medieval philosophy operated. Anselm's proof is a clever piece of logic, and an important one, but its

“Does Science Make the Belief in God Obsolete?” by Kenneth Miller and Christopher Hitchens debate with no date of the discussion.

In the book, The Proslogion, written by Saint Anselm, we find the Ontological Argument. This argument made by Saint Anselm gives us proofs that he believes helps prove the existence of God. Anselm gives many reasons as to why the simple understanding of God can help prove that God himself exists, as well as mentioning how the idea of God cannot be thought not to exist. Though this argument has been looked at by people such as Guanilo, a monk, whose response to Anselm 's proofs was trying to say that there were flaws, there are more reasons as to why Anselm 's proofs work well with his argument. From the understanding of God existing, and the idea behind greatness Anselm 's argument is one that is strong and can work as a proof when trying

I begin with the constructs of Anselm. The ontological, or a priori, argument was first expressed in 1070 by Anselm. He argued that because we have a notion of an all-perfect being "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" – It must be God. Anselm regarded God as a being one who enjoys all conceivable perfection. Yet if God "existed" only as an idea in our awareness, then God would be less perfect than if He in fact existed. Therefore God had to be greater than what our finite minds have ability to conceive so as not to contradict the definition of God.