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Just By Thinking About God We Can Know He Exists Analysis

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“Just by Thinking about God We Can Know He Exists” Summary & Response
The article Just by Thinking about God We Can Know He Exists recounts the experience of Anselm, an 11th -century Italian philosopher who is now referred as St. Anselm. He sets up an imaginary argument, called the Ontological Argument, to prove God's existence. He believes that God is so superior that “nothing greater can be thought” (80, St. Anselm). The argument ultimately forces his imaginary adversary to accept God's existence. Even though many philosophers welcome this concept, detractors like Gaunilo of Marmoutiers challenged Anselm by publically showing the defect of his argument: it would still make perfect sense if the word “God” is replaced by anything else, such …show more content…

To the people who might argue that the premise does not clearly state that God exists, or that implications do not make a strong argument, it is a solid fact that Anselm imagined this argument with the sole purpose of proving God's existence. Because of this goal, it was likely that Anselm was inclined to “argue” based on irrational principles, particularly considering that he was a strong believer in God and that there was no one to converse with him: the debate was merely in his imagination. Moreover, since Anselm's Ontological Argument could be used “to prove that there exists somewhere a marvellous island” or any other object one could think of, the argument can be used to prove the authenticity of atheism, which is the opposite of what Anselm attempted to prove in his argument (80, Buckingham, et. al). For these reasons, that Anselm was biased and assumed the conclusion right from the beginning premise, I do not agree with the ideology drawn from his Ontological

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What phrase does Anselm use to designate God? Explain why he formulates his designation in this way. Do you think this is an appropriate way to speak of God? The Phrase he used was “God is that than which no greater can be conceived”. There are two reasons as to why Anselm words this the way he does, reason one is the idea that “ no greater can be conceived” he doesn’t want you to be able to think about something greater hence the idea that no greater can be thought of by a person.

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The ontological argument states that perfection is a part of the concept of God, and that perfection entails existence, and so the concept of God entails God’s existence. However, it can be argued that if God is an infinite goodness, then its contrary, evil, should not exist. Alas, there is evil in the world, and, therefore, God cannot exist. The ontological argument also seeks to demonstrate that God exists on the basis of concept alone. Pascal’s Wager attempts to justify the belief in God with an

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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,

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It is covered in the first section of the book. He accomplishes this by stating that the book's purpose is "to demonstrate through rational argument that the existence of the one thing that is absolute and true God's existence is more reliable than any other fact. " Anselm then continues by explaining that the concept of "that which is greater" is the cornerstone of the logical arguments that will get used to demonstrate that God does exist. Anselm argued that God must exist because God is beyond human comprehension. After that, Anselm strengthens his case by utilizing various devices from the art of rhetoric.

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Anselm’s argument is based on this known definition of the concept of God alone. Descartes’ argument for the existence of God is based on his foundation of knowledge, logic. Humans have the idea in their minds of infinite perfection. Humans also have the idea of themselves as inferior to this idea as imperfect. For humans to have the idea of infinite perfection, there must be truth in the reason for them having this idea.

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This tries to prove God’s existence by saying that all natural things were created for a purpose by an intelligent designer; this is much like Paley’s Teleological Argument. This argument does not work because it does not prove that the intelligent designer of natural things must be God. Overall, Aquinas’s argument fails to fulfil its only purpose: prove that God exists. If an argument cannot prove that God is all knowing, all good, and all powerful, then it does not prove the existence of a god at all. Another main reason why this argument and many other arguments for God’s existence does not work is because of the problem of evil.

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The debate over the existence of God has been a focal point of society for thousands of years. There are two points of emphasis that Anselm believes prove the existence of God or “something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought.” Firstly, he believes that since one can understand the phrase “something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought,” it exists in the mind. He continues by asserting that it is greater to exist in both reality and the mind than it is to exist in the mind alone. He thus deduces that “something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought” must exist in both the mind and in reality.

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Before restating the Anselm’s argument for the existence of God, it is important to understand who Anselm was and what might have compelled him to come up with the ontological argument for the existence of God. Anselm’s background information will be helpful in evaluating the validity and reliability of his arguments. Anselm was born in Italy in c. 1033. In 1063, he entered the famous monastery. In 1093, he moved to England, having been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

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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.

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This argument says that we can deduce the existence of God from the concept of God. Just by thinking of Him, he must exist, otherwise, we would have no conception of this being. This argument is much more convincing than the design argument but does have its flaws, which will be explained later. St Anselm says that God is ‘greater than which cannot be conceived.’ If we could think of something greater than God, then this greater thing would be God.

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However, one of the arguments is superior ant that is the ontological argument. The Ontological argument is the stronger of the two due to the fact that it is based in pure logic and reasoning. The major premise of the Ontological argument is about what God is. In the Abrahamic tradition God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

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According to the text book, Anselm’s conception of God was the ontological argument that “being than which nothing greater can be conceived.” If God doesn’t exist, there could be something imagined that is greater than God, an existent greatest being, but this being would be God. Anselm proof of God’s existence by saying " the being than which no greater can be conceived" is impossible to understand. There is no clear and distinct idea of a "being than which no greater can be conceived." He also said that, even a fool is convinced that something exists in the understanding that which nothing greater can be conceived.

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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

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Thomas Aquinas regarding God’s existence, as he was one of very first people, who tried to prove that God does exist. In 13th century, he tried to prove God’s existence by describing five points. The first proof was to give arguments from the movement/motion. As per this point, he said that everything which moves in this universe, is moved by something else, so it is evident that would be first Mover, a God who creates these motions and movements. The second point stated that nothing can be there by itself, there must be the first cause, and that first cause is God.

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Anselm argument is about God’s existence, comparing God’s, existence of a painting. Anselm argues a painting is a creation that was once an idea in a painter’s head, but that does not mean the idea of the painting was not always alive. In disagreement it is clear that Anselm is a new Christian, because this is what new Christian’s struggle with or complain how they cannot see God so why do they need to seek someone they cannot see with their whole heart. The strength of his argument is Anselm has a point that everybody comes across at one point in their lives that one cannot see God and it is up to this person to put their faith in God. God does want his creation that is us to have a choice in his own existence and he wants his creation to have faith in its own existence.

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