Ontological Argument Essay

opinions of what God is truly like and if He exists as the greatest being in reality. Many different views of this argument are included in John Feinberg and Russ Shafer- Landau’s Reason and Responsibility: Readings in Some Basic Problems of Philosophy which helps to gain a broad perspective on the claims that notable philosophers have made. Specifically, there is The Ontological Argument, from Proslogion by Anselm of Canterbury in which he defends the existence of God using faith and reason. God exists

God exists in reality just by being understood in the mind. In Anselm’s The Ontological Argument, he analyzes the definition of god in his own version of the ontological argument. He claims that god cannot exist solely in the mind without also existing in reality. God is too great a being to be only understood in the mind without existing, which would make him less than great and contradict the understanding. God is a being too great to be contained as an understanding within the human mind without

“supreme being” God with arguments concerning the universe’s existence, and humans’ ability to understand the nature, intentions and involvement of God. The main argument focused on throughout this essay is the ontological argument, claiming that once humans understand the concept and idea of God, humans should therefore see that God must exists. Ontology focuses on a Priori; knowledge that is independent of all experiences. The ontological

Essay #2 Beverly Perez Dr. Jacob Tuttle PHIL 1880-21 // MWF3-4PM 04 December 2015 An ontological argument tries to show that God exists by appealing only to truths of reasons, which can be known apart from observation. This is what Anselm attempts to do. Anselm first starts by establishing that God is the greatest possible being that can be imagined, acknowledging that God exists in the mind. Based on this his argument can be stated with the following premises: It is a conceptual truth that God is the

exists, otherwise known as the ontological argument. Anselm believes that “there is no doubt that something than which a greater cannot be thought exists both in the understanding and in reality (Anselm, Proslogion, 7).” In other words, we cannot imagine something that is able to be greater than God; it would be a contradiction to think being greater than the greatest possible being that can be thought of. A number of philosophers do not agree with Anselm’s argument, such as Gaunilo, St. Thomas Aquinas

Anselm of Canterbury ontological argument is a priori argument for the existence of God, which unlike other arguments attempts to show the existence of God based only on reason. It claims that the understanding the meaning of God, then the conclusion is that God exist. Anselm demonstrated that even a person who denies God’s existence means God does exist. Even atheist claim that God does not exist meant to acknowledge he knows that there is a supreme being and would agree that by even by not saying

exists in our minds then it is possible that an even more illustrious being exists in the individual’s mind and in reality. Accordingly, Anselm stated that this divine being must exist in reality. The ontological argument is a debate for God’s existence established

essays, and full fledged books have been written offering arguments and reasons both for and against the existence of a divine creator. One of the more popular arguments against his existence claims that an all-powerful, loving God would not allow evil to be in the world. The reasoning being that if God truly is all-powerful and loving, then he would only choose the best in making the world. On the surface this seems like a reasonably strong argument, but there are some gray areas which leave room for

The Ontological Argument   The Ontological Argument, put forth by Saint Anselm in his Proslogium, attempts to prove the existence of God simply by the fact that we have a particular concept of God - that God is "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." Saint Anselm presents a convincing argument that many people view as the work of a genius. It is also quite often considered a failure because, in William L. Rowe's words, "In granting that Anselm's God is a possible thing we are

understanding itself." Guanilo's criticizes Anselm argument by calling him a fool. Guanilo's criticizes Anselm speech that talks about how he is seeking and understands God, but still does not fully recognizing God's existence. The strength of Guanilo's argument was him saying the not yet created picture in the mind of the painter should not be a comparison to God's existence for it is not the same. Some would agree the strength of Guanilo's argument is when he says, "I still answer: if it should