Saint Anselm's Objection To The Ontological Argument

Saint Anselm delivered the strongest ontological argument for God through conceptual analysis. The ontological argument is a deductive argument that is an analytical statement that can be constructed by definition(s). He argues that one thing is necessary to exist, and that thing is God. God is a necessary being. His argument is known as reductio ad absurdum, which demonstrates through a contradiction that God exists.

Then we look at the second argument of Aquinas, The Argument of Causation- everything that is caused has to be caused by something else, there cannot be an infinite number of causes, and same as argument number one that must mean there is a God since all effects have causes. The Argument from Contingency asks if everything already exists contingently has a reason to do so, does the universe exists for a reason and if the universe has a reason for its existence that that reason must be God. The Aquinas fourth argument the Argument from Degrees Aquinas says in order to compare two things in the terms of good or bad, we must have something to compare it to, this would have to be an absolutely perfect thing aka God. Aquinas’ fifth and final argument is The Teleological Argument-

Then we look at the second argument of Aquinas, The Argument of Causation- everything that is caused has to be caused by something else, there cannot be an infinite number of causes, and same as argument number one that must mean there is a God since all effects have causes. The Argument from Contingency asks if everything already exists contingently has a reason to do so, does the universe exists for a reason and if the universe has a reason for its existence that that reason must be God. Aquinas’ fourth argument is the Argument from Degrees Aquinas says in order to compare two things in terms of good or bad, we must have something to compare it to, this would have to be an absolutely perfect thing aka God. Aquinas’ fifth and final argument is The Teleological Argument-

God 's existence has been a continuous debate certainly for centuries. The issue of God 's existence is debatable because of the different kind of controversies that can be raised from an "Atheist as being the non-believer of God" and a "Theist who is the believer of God". An atheist can raise different objections on the order of the universe by claiming that the science is a reason behind the perfection of the universe. In Aquinas 's fifth argument, he claims that the order of the universe cannot be explained by chance, but only by design and purpose. To explain this order of the universe he concludes that, there is an intelligent being whom we call "God".

Aquinas’ First Cause argument is one of a number of Cosmological arguments that aim to prove the existence of God. A Cosmological argument is based on observation and entails the insistence of Gods necessary existence in order to explain the existence of the Universe. The Fist Cause Argument uses the cause and effect of material objects going back into the past in order to find the first cause. It comes to the conclusion of the first cause being an uncaused cause which is said to be the traditional Christian, all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful, God. There are a number of arguments and objections to the First Cause but I will argue the success of the objection ‘God is More’ objection which objects to the conclusion of the argument that states that the Christian version of God ,with its attached attributes, exists.

In this part, according to Neal (1990) “he is not interested in merely the existence of God, but in the sheer necessity of God's existence”. Anselm begins by stating that God cannot be conceived not to exist. He continues by arguing that “that than which a greater cannot be conceived (God)”, cannot be conceived not to exist, as being ‘conceived not to exist’ is ultimately less perfect than being ‘conceived to exist.’ This essentially boils down to the fact that ‘existing’ as a concept is more perfect that ‘not existing’, which leads Anselm to the conclusion that God must exist in reality. The alternative would exist of a being greater than God, who would ascend above God and pass judgement over him, and since God is the most perfect conceivable being, this is impossible.

Thus for example, Swinburne is more careful in The Christian God than in «Could there be More than One God» to use the term ‹God› as such only when refers the Trinity and not to the divine persons individually. 4.1.1. Tritheism Peter van Inwagen on his article in the Routledge Encylopedia of Philosophy points out that even after a positive evaluation of Swinburne’s concept of a triune God, the suspicion of tritheism is debatable

For speculative reason, the concept of freedom was problematic, but not impossible. That is to say, speculative reason could think of freedom without contradiction, but it could not assure any objective reality to it… Freedom, however, among all the ideas of speculative reason is the only one whose possibility we know a priori. We do not understand it, but we know it as the condition of the moral law which we do know ( KpV3-4). With a completely different strategy in the First Critique where freedom was explicated in order to confirm the possibility of morality, Kant reverses this doctrine by noting that the moral law is the grounding of the possibility of transcendental freedom.

I, for one, believe in God and I do not visualize God as manipulative and generating mechanisms. What I visualize is that by subjecting God creative energy to what appear to be inflexible laws, God creates what appear to be mechanisms, which appear to be designed. All of these appearances exist in the sense of the stable

We must be able to use knowledge to question judgement. A question many people would ask that does not have empirical evidence to prove tends to be if God exists? There is no empirical evidence whether god exists, inductive reasoning and intuition strongly oppose each other at this point because deductive reasoning would ask for evidence to suggest that God exists however my intuition would say that God does exist through personal experiences. CREATIONISM: However the big bang could be argued because monotheists believe that a higher being is only possible to create such an event.

Anselm’s reasoning was that, if a being existed only in the mind but not in reality, then a greater being was conceivable (a being which exists both in the mind and in reality). Since God is an infinitely great being, therefore, God must exist. Anselm logically proved that God existed by our understanding aside from reality and our understanding combined with reality. Another argument is the cosmological arguments. It begins by examining some empirical or metaphysical fact of the universe, from which it then follows that something outside the universe must have caused it to exist.

This is its biggest weakness, in order for it to succeed someone has to presuppose that God exists. Another weakness is based on whether or not existence is an actual property of something like its size, weight, or color. If existence isn’t considered a property then it fails, but if it is then it succeeds. Then there is the cosmological argument.

Hume had a lot to say about the cosmological argument and he had some critiques about it as well. David Hume spoke his peace on the argument and he also had some critiques about it. He questioned how is it really possible to make guesses on how the world works and what is causing things to happen. He says that it is really not possible to change ones mind on their philosophy such as Aquinas did in this argument. He said that one cannot say that there are certain causes for why things happen, then turn around and say that the universe we live in has a main cause.

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.

Saint Anselm’s Ontological Argument was most likely constructed during a time when the majority of the population was religious, in order to strengthen the belief that God exists. The thesis of the argument is as straightforward as it gets – that God does indeed exist. In this argument, God is defined to be the greatest entity that an individual can ever conjure in his or her mind. His argument uses the reductio assumption, and the proof that starts it off – ironically – is that God does not exist. It is assumed that the majority of the people living back then believed in God, but in order to emphasise this fact, Anselm talks about how “even the fool” that does not believe in God, admits that God is thought to exist.