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. This argument is realised as
When looking through the logic of philosophers from the medieval period of Philosophy and their unconvincing logic, we first look at Anselm. Anselm wanted to prove God existed, Anselm argues that you can prove the existence of God through metaphysic metaphysical analysis, for example: Think of the most perfect being possible. If you can picture the most perfect being in your mind, then it is possible that it exists only in your mind as an example of Plato’s Theory of Forms. Anselm’s argument fails because anything you can imagine can come popping out of your mind if you wished it to be so, If anyone were to sit down and imagine the perfect God or the perfect island, would that perfect God or island even exist outside of their mind, would that
Despite of Aquinas 's fifth argument being one of the most prominent argument for the existence of God, there are some limitations to the fifth argument. The expected limitations especially from the atheists can be applied to this argument due to its nature in the fact that it’s inductive, meaning we can never be 100% certain of its correctness. One example that can be used by an
Hence, in this case regarding the existence of God, I would agree with Pascal that when it comes to things that which we do not have certainty such as the existence of God who as Pascal said “infinitely incomprehensible” the most reasonable thing to do therefore is to believe since in believing there would be more
Whereas atheism does not poses any objective facts that actually prove that God does not exist. Hypothetically, in terms of endless attempt of understanding the world, people still cannot provide any basis of nonexistence of God due to all the knowledge that mankind has already received has an insignificant part in a scale of infinite information field. Thereby, if God had not had existed, it would have been the biggest mystery for humanity. The second major part of atheism is to answer on what exactly should the human do in order to make sure that God does not exist. An atheistic theory does not give a clear answer to this question.
In Proslogium St. Anselm presents his argument for the existence of God, an argument that has thus far withstood the test of time and many criticisms, one of which I will discuss here. Anselm works his way from the “fool’s” assumption that God does not exist, or at least does not exist in reality, through his premises that existence is greater than understanding alone and that a being with God’s properties and existence can be conceived of, to the conclusion that because God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived and God can exist in understanding, God must exist in reality. Gaunilo, a fellow monk, gives his criticism of Anselm’s argument in the form of a reductio ad absurdum argument. Gaunilo attempts to show Anselm’s argument to be false by taking a parody of Anselm’s argument to an extreme and absurd conclusion, that being the existence of the Perfect Island from the same reasoning as the existence of God. I then present a reply that I believe to be in accordance with something Anselm might have responded to Gaunilo with.
So the first cause argument proves that God does not exist assuming the first cause argument is sound then there must be some other cause because it is not God. In summary the notion of omnipotent is a miss-name because it implies the potency, power, causality when in fact all that it does is imply logical entailment, it implies that if it wills something you can deduce from the statement that something exists, you do not need a causal step, it is a logical deduction and therefore the first cause argument argues from causes in the world
The objection addressed the validity of the argument which had the premise 1, nothing is the efficient cause of itself except God and premise 2, a chain of causes cannot be infinite. The argument thus concludes there must be a first cause. This conclusion agrees with my thesis that Saint Thomas Aquinas’s argument formulated in the second way leads to a valid argument, which concludes that there must be a first cause and that God
When looking through the logic of philosophers from the medieval period of Philosophy and their unconvincing logic, we first look at Anselm. Anselm wanted to prove God existed, Anselm argues that you can prove the existence of God through metaphysic metaphysical analysis for example: Think of the most perfect being possible. If you can picture the most perfect being in your mind, then it is possible that it exists only in your mind as an example of Plato’s Theory of Forms. I think Anselm’s argument fails because anything you can imagine can come popping out of your mind if you wished it to be so, If I were too sit down and imagine the perfect God or the perfect island, would that perfect God or island even exist outside of my mind, would that
In fact, the God Aquinas proves is so far off from the God that thesis believe in, it actually makes thesis very uncomfortable. His arguments prove that there must be at least but not limited to one God and not one in particular. His arguments also do not rule out the idea of polytheism or multiple Gods happening at once. Furthermore, his arguments also to not give us any insight into what God or the Gods are like in nature. There would be no way of telling if he or they would be smiteful, forgiving, loving, or actually have any hand into our lives at all past the point of creation according to Aquinas’ third