Preview

God's Existence and Aquinas Objection

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1715 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
God's Existence and Aquinas Objection
Anselm's argument of God's existence and Aquinas objection I was in the debate team in high school. And there were times that our team would take the against side of the statement. In his famous work Prologion, written in 1077-1078, Anselm presents the idea the God exists because God is the greatest thing of all, that the idea of thinking of God exists prove its existence. Hundred of years later, Thomas Aquinas brings up the account that addresses Anselm's idea in objection 2 of Question II, First Article of Summa Theologica. Aquinas objects Anselm's argument later in his work by attacking the idea that God is something that can be thought greater. To understand Anselm's argument for God's existence, one must first understand the principles that forms the argument. The first principle is the claim that “nothing greater can be thought.” There is too types of existing, existing in understanding (existing0) and existing in reality (existing1). Then, we try to think of something is existing1. Anselm let “something” be “something than which nothing greater can be thought (NGT),” or in another word “a being than which nothing greater can be conceived” according to the Proslogion. The very first act of thinking that something is existing1 serves as the basis of it existing0. Because in the process of trying to think of something greater, we already establish its existence0. For example, there is a flower A, existing1. This flower A is the most beautiful flower, that this flower is a NGT. In order to prove this flower is NGT, one has to think of all the flower he has seen, flower B, C, or D. In the process of searching through one's mind trying to think of a flower that is more beautiful than flower A, flower A already exists in one's mind, which is existing0. To open his argument, Anselm then said an example of NGT is God. The second principle is the principle of “thinking of non-existing objects (Principle E).” Anselm uses the example of a painter conceiving the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

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

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The idea of God is intense, as both of these analyses have shown. Aquinas’ idea of God is “Ipsum esse subsistens,” or Subsistent Act of Existing Itself (Magee, 2015). To speak of God as a self-subsistent being is to say He “Just Is.” He articulates every creature is “fundamentally composed of essence and existence.” In order for everything to exist, there must be a First Cause and Aquinas says God is that cause because without it, nothing exists. God is infinite simplicity and perfect. Aquinas and Tillich both see God as Being Itself (Fesser, 2011). Tillich places God “above God.” He writes, “God does not exist.” However, this is not in an attempt to deny God, but to demonstrate that God transcends everything.…

    • 236 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    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
  • Powerful Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

    Thomas Aquinas's argument for the existence of God is a deductive argument. This assessment is based on the nature of the premises in the argument. As discussed during classroom lectures, the argument's premises and conclusion can be translated as evaluate the truth value of the premises and how they support the conclusion.…

    • 923 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    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
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A. For Thomas philosophy is ancilla theologiae (handmaiden of theology). Aquinas was first and foremost a theologian, though he was quite capable of distinguishing philosophy proper from theology. He held that…

    • 262 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    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
  • Good Essays

    Out of the two arguments presented by Anselm and Aquinas the one that makes the most sense to me is Aquinas. I think this because, unlike Anselm, Aquinas believes that people will never be able to fully grasp an understanding of “God’s nature” through reason alone. In my opinion Anselm is a mix between Locke's Empiricism and Kant's Structuralism. On the other hand Aquinas is more along the lines of someone who practices Plato's Dualism, and Descartes' Rationalism.…

    • 164 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The definition seems to be different from most definitions of God. God is usually a creator, a controller of the universe, or an arbiter of morality. When Anselm tries to prove this form of God, it is disconnected from many attributes described as God. Another point against this line is that God does not have to be constrained by our thoughts. God could be something beyond our comprehension.…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The existence of God is one of the greatly talked about philosophical topics throughout history. There have been many arguments proposed in order to answer the question. One argument is the ontological argument. The first person to propose the ontological argument is St. Anselm in the eleventh century. St. Anselm tries to prove the existence God from the idea of a being that which no greater being can be imagined. St. Anselm contemplated that, if such a being did not exist, then a more superior being can be thought of to…

    • 92 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Anselm presented his argument in the second and third chapters of Proslogian. In chapter 2, Anselm says that God being than which none greater can be imagined is a conceptual truth. He acknowledged that a being that is present in both mind and reality is much greater than a being that exists only in the mind. Hence, if God only exists as an idea in the mind, we can think of something that is greater than God. We can think of the greatest possible being that does exist. This is a contradiction Anselm says. He says that we cannot think of something that is greater than God, for he is the greatest being of all. With this deductive reasoning, Anselm believes God is existent. In Chapter 3, he supports his topic in a different view. He says that a being that exists in reality is greater than a being that doesn’t exist in reality. Anselm states that by definition, “if God exists as an idea in the mind but not in reality, something greater is there.” Again he says that this is impossible. If God exists as an idea in the mind, God exists in reality. Since God exist in the mind, god exists in…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Ontological Argument

    • 566 Words
    • 3 Pages

    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