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Anselm's Ontological Argument

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Anselm's Ontological Argument
During the whole second semester in our philosophy, we had tackled the different arguments that were made by different philosophers which concerns about the existence of God. Its aim is to deepen our understanding of certain religious concepts and beliefs as it tries to critically analyze and examine through the method of philosophical inquiry. Philosophy of religion does not simply study what we believe but more significantly, subject these beliefs to rigorous rational criticism and assessment. Anselm’s Ontological Argument is an ideal of a purely analytic and speculative reasoning. It is a “priori argument” which attempts to show that the existence of God depends on how we define “God”. It is a faith that seeks understanding and presented …show more content…
Thomas formulated the five ways where God’s existence can be proved and many criticisms have been made in his argument. Next is the teleological argument which is based on the apparent order and design of the cosmos and the purposive nature of things in the world. Paley’s proof for the existence of God begins with what we can promptly observe in the rational world of natural processes. He uses the watch to compare with the universe. According to him, there is someone behind all those things around us. Cardinal John Henry Newman is one of the philosophers who made the “Argument of Conscience” which is an earnest attempt to lead people to the truth of God in terms of living, personal, and passionate way, rather than the way of formal and syllogistic reasoning. Conscience is the voice of God in the soul. There are two kinds of assent, the notional assent which derived through rational inference and the real assent that was based on kind of knowledge that is personal, vivid, direct, concrete and alive. For some people, choosing to believe in God or not is so difficult and confusing to make. Some would say that it is hard to defend that there is really God because nobody has seen Him or evidence that would prove in His …show more content…
If one remains indifferent or to suspend judgement constitutes a choice; it is a choice against God. On the other hand, if people believe that there is God it means that they win because they gain infinite happiness. It is definitely better to believe in God than not to believe in him at all because if we do that we don’t lose anything. In our life we can’t escape at one moment that we had to decide on something that could change our entire life. In lined with this, John E. Smith made an article that makes a distinction between the “Holy” and the “profane”. According to him, Holy is something different from what is ordinary that we found in human life. It shows powerful, awe-inspiring, and dangerous presence. The profane is the opposite of it. After establishing the distinction and interrelation of holy and profane, Smith presents 2 types of situations; first, it is the kind of experience where everything is ordinary, a habitual that doesn’t “arrest”

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