Preview

Anslem's Argument Deals With The Existence Of God

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1346 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Anslem's Argument Deals With The Existence Of God
During the 11th Century Saint Anslem came up with an apriori argument which deals with the existence of God. This argument was refuted by Aquinas in the 13th Century, while in the 17th century it was revised by Descartes only to then be refuted once more by Immanuel Kant. It was Kant himself who finally gave a name to this argument to which today we know it as the Ontological Argument.
With works such as ‘Fides Quaerense Intellectum’ and ‘Proslogian’ Anslem tried to prove and show that certain Christian beliefs are actually true. He got his inspiration from Psalm 14 which shows how the Fool ‘hath said in his heart ‘There is no God.’ This simple statement is what triggered Anslem in developing the Ontological Argument; he starts off by portraying …show more content…
Anselm's argument makes the use of both these thoughts. Anselm begins with a meaning of God saying that in the event that we could consider something that was more prominent than the being we called God, at that point without a doubt this more prominent being would be in reality God. In any case, this is nonsense: God being more prominent than God. The first being is not God in any way. We cannot consider anything being more prominent than God; in the event that we want to, we are not considering …show more content…
Thus much an island can exist, since it would be less more prominent on the off chance that it did not. Be that as it may, this is silly, so the ontological argument must be defective. He opposes that one cannot conclude the presence of something from a thought of its being great. Anselm answered that the ontological argument works just for God; in light of the fact that the connection amongst God and perfection and greatness is unique. An island would not stop to be what it is - an island-in the event that it was not immaculate; obviously, it would not then be an impeccable island. In any case, islands are not impeccable by definition; flawlessness is something an island can have or not have. It is an unintentional not a fundamental property of islands. It is flawlessly reasonable to think about an island that is not
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    • Explain Anselm's Ontological Argument (25 Marks)
    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages

    • Explain Anselm's Ontological Argument (25 Marks)

    Anselm put forward his ideas about the existence of God through his book, the Proslogion. He started by simply giving the word ‘God’ a definition, and then explaining that to not believe in God was absurd. The Proslogion consisted of two main parts. In Proslogion 1, Anselm explained God as being…

    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Evaluate Anselm's Ontological Argument
    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Evaluate Anselm's Ontological Argument

    explanation that God necessarily exists. Anselm's goal is to prove to the "fool" that God has to…

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    On Behalf Of The Fool By Gaunilo
    • 351 Words
    • 2 Pages

    On Behalf Of The Fool By Gaunilo

    The key idea of the Ontological argument is that God exits in reality as well as in the understanding. Anselm’s first premise states that God exists in the understanding. The second premise states that God might have existed in reality. If something exits only in understanding and might have existed in reality, then it might have been greater than it is as stated in the third premise. If God can only exist as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something greater than God. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God. Therefore, God exists.…

    • 351 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The weaknesses of the Ontological argument give support to Atheism. Discuss this statement
    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The weaknesses of the Ontological argument give support to Atheism. Discuss this statement

    Anselm’s ontological argument described in part (a), was refuted in his own lifetime, by Gaunilo, who demonstrated in a reduction ad absurdum of his own, that if the logic of the argument were applied to things other than God, it led to invalid conclusions. Gaunilo didn’t identify any specific fault with the argument, but argued that something must be wrong with it, because if there wasn’t anything wrong, then we can use its logic to prove anything, which we may have no reason to believe to be true.…

    • 823 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Examine the Key Concepts of the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God
    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Examine the Key Concepts of the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

    The ontological argument rests on the premise that the universe’s existence is contingent- it depends on something else to exist. The argument is deductive, analytic and a priori, and was first formed by St. Anselm, who prayed for a short argument that would prove God to be “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”. This prayer was called the proslogion and tried to prove God by means of reductio ad absurdum, which states that the existence of God is logically necessary. The argument is based on the word “God”, a being that possesses all perfections, therefore must exist. Anselm was aware that the existence of God is denied by atheists and in response to this, he states “the fool has said in his heart there is no God”.…

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Anselm Ontological Argument Analysis
    • 118 Words
    • 1 Page

    Anselm Ontological Argument Analysis

    Anselm is not trying to say that whatever one can think of exist because, everyone can think of something that does not exist. Neither is he trying to saying believing in something without any doubt makes it exist. Finally Anselm might believe in God, he is not trying to convince us that God exist but rather he is trying to show us that once one understands or grasp the concept of who or what God, then based on logic it follows that God has to exist. Anselm ontological argument follows that if one makes an assumption and can show things that follow from that assumption lead to contradiction, then the initial assumption is rejected and conclude the opposite…

    • 118 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Logic Cannot Prove the Existence of God
    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Logic Cannot Prove the Existence of God

    For Anselm, using logic that can be deducted about God, it is clear to see that God’s existence is necessary. In the second ontological argument from Anselm, God is the greatest being possible; it is greater to exist by necessity than by contingence, it is therefore, impossible for God to not exist. In this argument, God’s existence is an analytic statement, it is impossible to prove that God exists and although Anselm believes that it does not need to be proven, there is no way of knowing that it is analytic. For example take triangles, every triangle that anyone can ever think of will have 3 sides that all add up to 180 degrees, that is simply a part of what a triangle is. Humans can however, prove this by drawing every possible triangle and testing them to see, with God’s existence that is not possible. For humans to consider his existence as an analytic statement, they would have to go faith and logic alone. In a way God’s existence could be a synthetic statement, which would mean that it would need to proven before the statement was true or not, the reason for this is because whether God exists or not does not prove his existence in reality as Anselm suggests in his argument. Kant would agree with this as he reviews Anselm’s ontological argument by saying that God’s existence is not a predicate, existence may be a part of the concept of God, but it does not proof that God exists.…

    • 442 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Primary Divine Attributes: A Comparative Analysis
    • 2513 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Primary Divine Attributes: A Comparative Analysis

    Ontological arguments are a priori, they begin with some prior claim about the concept of God, and deduce conclusions or proof from this conception. In line two, he asserts that if God, or x is the most perfect object thought, it then follows also that x exists either in the understanding or reality. Line 3 follows from this assertion. In line 4 Anselm asserts that if x exists in the understanding only, then something else greater can be thought and that being greater, it then must exist in reality. In line 5 he restates his assertion in line one, and concludes that x then exists in reality.…

    • 2513 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Anselm's Ontological Argument
    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Anselm's Ontological Argument

    Anselm’s argument did lead to objections as most do. The first was that of a Monk Named Gaunilo, who argued against Anselm’s ontological Argument with the use of the concept of a perfect island. Gaunilo argued that concept of a perfect island does not prove that the existence of an island. In this case that perfection does not imply ‘existence’. Gaunilo claims that if the word God was replaced with the words perfect island, then Anselm’s ontological argument would not conclude that the perfect island exists. The fact Gaunilo was trying to bring across that a valid argument can never have true premises and a false conclusion, as the conclusion has to follow logically from the premises. Constructing a similar argument in which the conclusion is false shows that Anselm’s argument is flawed. Gaulino’s argument follows the basic form as such:…

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Explain Anselm's ontological argument.
    • 585 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Explain Anselm's ontological argument.

    Anselm’s first argument is based on three premises followed by a conclusion. The first premise is that God is the greatest conceivable being. For someone to say ‘there is no God they must first have conceived an idea of what God is and Anselm suggests that god is usually conceived as the ‘greatest conceivable being’. He then followed this with the premise that God exists either in the mind alone or in the mind and reality as well. His third premise is that that which exists in the mind and in reality is greater than that which exists in the mind alone. For example unicorns may exist in the mind as a great concept but anything that exists in reality would be greater than the concept of the unicorn. Anselm therefore states that an idea that exists in the mind and reality has an extra quality in comparison to the idea that exists in the mind alone, this quality being existence. From this he therefore concludes that god must exist in reality as well as the mind because he is the greatest conceivable being.…

    • 585 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Cosmological Argument From Evil Essay
    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Cosmological Argument From Evil Essay

    In Saint Anselm and Gaunilo’s “The Ontological Argument”, Anselm believes that God is the greatest of all conceivable things and nothing else can be ....…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Explain Anselms Ontological Argument
    • 310 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Explain Anselms Ontological Argument

    Hence, Anselm states that God exists in the mind, even the mind of those who deny His existence. However he points out that it is greater to exist in reality and in the mind than in the mind alone. Take for example; a pile of notes worth £1000. If it exists in the mind it is merely a pleasant thought, however, if it exists in reality it can be spent and is greater. Since God is the greatest conceivable being, He must exist in reality and in the mind, because to think otherwise involves contradiction of the theory, which you agree with.…

    • 310 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Anselm's Ontological Argument Essay
    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Anselm's Ontological Argument Essay

    Anselm’s second argument states that it is logically necessary for God to exist. Anselm states that god is the greatest conceivable being, so it would be less great to imagine him not existing than to imagine him existing.…

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Explain how Descartes developed Anselm’s argument that God’s existence is necessary.
    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Explain how Descartes developed Anselm’s argument that God’s existence is necessary.

    Anselm used the Ontological Argument to prove that God’s existence is necessary. The origins of this argument are found in Anselm’s writings, he began with a quotation from a Psalm “The fool says in his heart, ‘there is no God’…” and then reflected on the truthfulness of this. Anselm defined God as ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived’ assuming you accept this a priori definition Anselm went on to state that anyone who denies God’s existence is a fool. He observed that it is greater to exist in reality than in the mind alone (you would prefer to have a real £20 note than an imaginary one). Someone who doubts God’s existence must have a concept of God in order for them to be able to reject it therefore if the concept of God is the greatest conceivable being then he must exist. He argued that existence was part of perfection, so if God is the greatest being (with all perfections) then it is necessary that he exists otherwise he cannot be the greatest conceivable being and that is not – to Anselm – the definition of God, the very fact that we can conceive of him as the greatest being proves, for Anselm, that he exists. For Anselm someone who denies God’s existence is essentially saying “God, who exists, does not exist”.…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Ontological Argument
    • 566 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Ontological Argument

    Anselm defines God as a being “that than which no greater can be conceived.” He argues that, whatever can be understood exists in the mind and that the concept of God can be understood, so God exists in the mind. Anselm then tries to prove that God also exists in reality and not only in the mind. The first premises states “assume that God only exists in the mind and not in reality.” The second premises positions “but then a greater being than God can be thought.” Finally, we can conclude “but God was defined as a being that than which nothing greater can be conceived; so, no greater than God can be thought.” The second and last premises that “a greater being than God can be thought” and “no greater than God can be thought” are contradictions. Therefore, our original assumption that God only exists in reality must be false. Anselm implies that only a fool would deny God’s existence. He questions, “Why, then, has the fool said in his heart, there is no God (Psalms XIV. 1), since it is so evident, to a rational mind, that you do exist in the highest degree of all? Why, except that he is…

    • 566 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics