Anselm’s Ontological Argument Essay Example

The ontological argument for God’s existence is a work of art resulting from philosophical argumentation. An ontological argument for the existence of God is one that attempts the method of a priori proof, which utilizes intuition and reason alone. The term a priori refers to deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is the type of reasoning that proceeds from general principles or premises to derive particular information. The argument works by examining the concept of God, and arguing that it implies the actual existence of God; that is, if we can conceive of God then God exists. However, this type of argument is often criticized as committing a bare assertion fallacy. The bare assertion fallacy is fallacy in formal logic where a premise in an argument is assumed to be true merely because it says that it is true. Anselm was one of the most important Christian thinkers of the eleventh century. He is most famous in philosophy for having discovered and articulated the so-called “ontological argument”. Anselm first gave what has become known as the ontological argument in chapter 2 of his Proslogion. Anselm presented two proofs for his argument in his Proslogion. In chapter 2 of his Prosologion Anselm wrote “we believe that thou art a being which nothing greater can be conceived”. This is his definition of God. In other words, God can be described as an absolutely unsurpassable being or a being that cannot conceivably be improved on. This definition of God should be treated as a stipulation towards Anselm’s argument since everyone may not agree on or depict God in the same way. Anselm went on to write “Or is there no such nature, since the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. This statement questions whether or not there is a being with the properties Anselm’s definition assigns to God. To answer this question, Anselm tries to show how God exists in the understanding of someone’s mind but not in actuality. For example, Anselm wrote “this very fool…when he