Analysis Of Saint Anselm's Ontological Argument

Perfection is only an opinion from a person in great power. In the novel, The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, God is the person in power from what He says in the Bible. The Waknukians believe that they are becoming closer and closer to perfection as the years go by. Some people like David believe the opposite; they are going further away from being perfect. Being perfect is solely based on an opinion, in The Chrysalids, David is placed in a world where being perfect is mandatory and if you are not perfect, great consequences will follow.

There have been an innumerable amount of arguments for the existence of God for hundreds of years. Some have become much more popular due to their merit, and their ability to stay relevant through changing times. Two arguments in particular that have been discussed for a very long time are the ontological and cosmological arguments. Each were proposed in the period of the high middle ages by members of the Roman Catholic Church. They each have been used extensively by many since their introduction.

The eighth premise is that premise four is false. Therefore, it is false that God only exists in the understanding. Anselm then concludes that God has to exist in reality and in the understanding (Rowe,

2001 p. 180). To fully understand Anselm’s argument, a series of steps needs to be understood. The first step towards understanding Anselm’s argument is that one must first accept the fact that God is the greatest possible being. The second fact or point to note is that God exists in the human mind or understanding. The third point, step, or fact to accept is that if God exists only in the human mind, then God is not the greatest possible being (McGrath & OverDrive, Inc. 2001

The existence of God is a highly debatable topic; the different views of believers, atheists and agnostics, show us that God's Existence remains a question with no definite final answer. Descartes is one of many philosophers who tried to establish a number of arguments in order to prove God's Existence. In fact, the French philosopher formulated the "trademark argument", an argument that he developed and defended in order to prove that God does exist despite the doubt that many have. In the first place, I will start by defining the trademark argument and the procedure Descartes used to attain it including the first principle summarized in the Cartesian method and the theory of ideas which puts God at the origin of the idea of His Existence.

Is there one real god? Are all gods ideally perfect? The main character Antonio in Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima is torn between which god he must choose. On one hand there is the Virgin, a forgiving god, or God, a wrathful and critical god. In Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima he uses juxtaposition to reveal the differences between God and the Virgin to show the two halves of Antonio’s personality thus revealing that in life people need to be critical and caring towards others.

We know whether it exist in the physical world or not. But when we think of something like God we cannot imagine the shape and size and image of the god, as we are forbidden to worship the image of god. We cannot prove its existence and hence, the existence of god is inconceivable. For example, a blind man approaching fire knows that fire is hot when he comes closer to fire, but

Existence in only the understanding is tainted with human inequality and does not even necessitate an accurate portrayal. Existence in reality would always be seen as greater than just the understanding because it has the ability to engage in the real world and affect cause and effect. If god is that being which no greater can be thought and existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding, then god must exist in reality. While this argument is sound I do not believe that it is valid. It necessitates god’s existence through its very definition and this seems to be circular logic.

In this essay, I will set out to prove that Thomas Aquinas’ First Cause Argument does not show that God exists and the conclusion that God exists does not follow from the premises of the first cause argument. I do think that the conclusion is valid and could be sound/or has the potential to be, but the premises fail to provide the basis upon which to reach such a conclusion. Hence, I will be raising some objections to the premises and will try to disprove any counter-arguments that could be raised in its defense. This would be done by examining Aquinas’ First Cause Argument and trying to disprove it whilst countering arguments in its defense.

Among the many points raised in these readings I was particularly interested in the five proofs of the existence of God that Aquinas puts forward in the Summa Theologiae. I was particularly interested in the first proof that Aquinas makes. In his first proof of God he suggests that our senses show us that things are in motion and the only way something moves is if a potential motion changes to actual motion. Since only actual motion can convert potential motion then things cannot be potential and actual at the same time and thus each thing placed in actual motion is done so by something else in actual motion. This sequence of transferring potential to actual motion cannot continue on forever and thus something or someone must have been the

St. Anselm and Descartes are known for presenting the first ontological arguments on the existence of God. The word ontological is a compound word derived from ‘ont’ which means exists or being and ‘–ology’ which means the study of. Even though Anselm and Descartes’ arguments differ slightly, they both stem from the same reasoning. Unlike the other two arguments on God’s existence (teleological and cosmological), the ontological argument does not seek to use any empirical evidence but rather concentrates on pure reason. The rationale behind this school of thought

Question No. 10 Answer: Anselm guaranteed his ontological argument as confirmation of the existence of God, whom he depicted as that being for which no more noteworthy can be imagined. A god that does not exist can 't be that than which no more noteworthy can be considered, as existence would make it more prominent. Hence, as per St. Anselm, the concept of God essentially entails His existence. He denies Gaunilo a Godless epistemology. Gaunilo scrutinized Anselm 's argument by utilizing the same reasoning, by means of reductio commercial absurdum, to demonstrate the existence of the mythical Lost Island, the best or absolute best island possible: if the island of which we are thinking does not exist, it can 't be the best possible island, for,

PAPER #2 History of philosophy: Philosophy 20B Thomas Aquinas reasons that “God is one” in the Summa theologiae, part one, question eleven, article three. Using three proofs, one on “Gods simplicity,” the second on “the infinity of Gods perfection” and the last based on “the unity of the world.” The following will be Dissecting and providing explanations along with criticism. As well, what it is meant by “God is one”.

Descartes declares he has to determine if there is a God and if he does exist, whether he can be a deceiver. The reason he has to determine the existence of God and what he is, rests in his theories of ideas. This is because we do not know if there is an outside world and we can almost imagine everything, so all depends on God’s existence and if he is a deceiver. “To prove that this non-deceiving God exists, Descartes finds in his mind a few principles he regards as necessary truths which are evident by the “natural light” which is the power or cognitive faculty for clear and distinct perception.” If arguments is presented in logical trains of thought, people could not help but to be swayed and to understand those arguments.

Secondly, the lack of complete understanding of a God that is greater than any other is the basis of Anselm’s argument. In other words, one needs not understand how it is that no other greater God exists, because it is not possible to do that. It is the concept of understanding that such a being exists that is important. As long as it is possible to have such a state, then the definition given by Anselm is