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Saint Anselm's Ontological Argument Analysis

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Saint Anselm is known as one of the most important Christian philosophers of his time and still today. He is best known for his ontological argument regarding God’s existence and is consistently referenced for his work regarding the nature of God, redemption, freedom, and sin. Anselm believes God to be something “…that which nothing greater can be conceived” (Anselm, 40). He finds support and uses personal and commonsense logic to support his main ideas. His argument is broken up into several topics that reference the concept of just considering the idea of God, His true existence, considering the impossibility of God’s nonexistence, and a few others. The true test though, is to see if Anselm’s support towards these ideas are one’s that are realistic. Anselm’s main premise is the concept that God is “…something than which nothing greater can be conceived” (Anselm, 40). Although it may seem redundant, this statement is saying that God is the greatest thing of all things. There is nothing bigger or greater than Him. This concept seems far-fetched to the average joe of today’s world because our minds cannot fathom anything so great. Anselm supports this concept initially by using the example, saying “When a painter plans out a painting, he has it in his understanding, but – not yet having produced it – he doesn’t yet think it exists” (Anselm, 40). This …show more content…

God’s existence is so extravagant and so intense that the human mind cannot simply fathom something so great. Our brains weren’t made to understand anything so great because then we could imagine something greater which would make God that that which anything could be conceived. He created us, making us a smaller part of him which means that our brains are smaller than Him and his existence. This supports Anselm’s argument that God is that that which nothing greater can be

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