St. Anselm's Argument For The Existence Of God

Argument For the Existence of God : A Critical Evaluation

There have been many theories for and against the existence of God. For example: the Faith- based Arguments, Pascal’s Wager, James’s Will to Believe, the Contingency Argument and

several more. The argument being analysed here however is Ontological argument given by St.

Anselm and its counter-argument.

In St. Anselm’s argument, God has been thought by the definition: ‘the entity (or being) than

which none greater can be conceived’ 1

in the human mind and does not depend upon the world and its existence in any way whatsoever.

He then goes on to state that an entity which exists both in reality and in mind is greater than an

entity existing only in the mind (other things remaining
same). He then says that if God exists

only in the mind, there must be another being in reality who is greater than God (as he exists

both in mind and reality). But, as this contradicts the basic definition of God (greatest possible

thing conceived), God exists.

Some points that are worth debate are:

● One of the biggest fallacies one can think of in this argument is that he states that

something that exists is necessarily greater than something that does not exist. However,

there is no difference in characteristics between the real and imaginary beings, apart

from the fact that one exists and the other does not. It is like comparing an amount of

real money with the same amount of imaginary money.2

mean that we can perceive it. For an individual, more often than not, reality is something

that he can sense, which may or may not be true in the case of God. If we can not even

sense this reality, how can we be so sure it is better than something that exists ‘only in

the mind’? Kant’s argument about necessity shows that existence is not a necessity for

perfection and supremacy.

● God is thought of as the being with all the possible attributes. However, is this number

limited? No matter how many attributes one assigns to God, the moment another possible

good attribute is discovered, we then assign it to God. In other words, a being with

ALL possible attributes can not even be completely thought of. A suitable analogy in

mathematics would be of the greatest number possible. Mathematicians have named it

infinity, but none of them will ever know its true value as it can always be incremented

by one. Complete perfection (as we have defined God) can never even be conceived by

the human mind.
● Another argument one can come up with is the existence of , say a person with all

the attributes and good qualities one can imagine, and then argue about his existence.

However, that point would not precisely show what is wrong with the Ontological

argument because St. Anselm’s argument also deals with what is non-physical. Hence

this point can not be used to disprove it.

St. Anselm’s argument is a posteriori argument. Just as a person can prove that a four-sided

triangle is absurd, so is the idea of an imperfect God.3

if God is non-existent, God is imperfect. This is not necessarily true. Hence the argument is an

unsound one.

Argument Against the Existence of God : A Critical Evaluation

Gasking put forward his own version of the Ontological argument, meant to disprove St.

Anselm’s argument. He stated that the greatness of an achievement is based on its quality and the

abilities and handicaps of the creator. If the greatest achievement is the creation of the universe,

in order for God to be the greatest being conceivable, God must have the greatest handicap,

which Gasking says is inexistence. Hence God does not exist.

Some debatable points
are:

● The most key point of this argument is the fact that non-existence is termed as the biggest

disability.
Just as in St Anselm’s argument, it was pointed out that existence is not

necessary for perfection, similarly non-existence need not even be a handicap. Although

one may argue that a painter without hands painting the Mona Lisa is more impressive

than Leonardo da Vinci, the important thing to be kept in mind is that in these arguments

we are dealing with a non-physical entity, whose disabilities need not be as obvious as for

the physical beings.

● Whether the disability of the creator affects the merit of the achievement depends on the

creation itself. For example, if a painter did not have legs, he could have as easily created

a painting which after all humans mostly use hands for. Similarly, if we do not know

what it takes for a non-physical being to create the universe, we can not claim for sure

which disability would make it the greatest achievement possible by ‘the greatest being

conceivable’.

● Another argument could be that we can not be certain that the greatest achievement

possible by the being is the creation of the universe.

Gasking’s argument in fact shows how St Anselm’s argument was unsound. Just as St Anselm

made the error of saying that existence is necessary for perfection, Gasking made an
unsound

point that non-existence is a disability. He also assumed that disabilities of physical and non- physical beings are the same, which although seems correct, need not necessarily be so. Hence

we can conclude that even Gasking’s ontological argument is unsound.

Although slightly irrelevant, it may be remarked that it will be difficult to come up with a sound

argument for or against the existence of God, when the only thing one can be perfectly sure of is

his own existence.