Preview

Existence of God

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
909 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Existence of God
St. Anselm’s Proslogion A lot of people wouldn’t believe you without anything to prove your point. One good example is law. An individual or a group of people can be sued only if there is real proof or evidence, a witness, and/or a motive to do the wrong. If these things aren’t present then they cannot be sued or proven guilty. But in Anselm’s point of view, why and how would people believe in the divine Lord if we had not seen him yet even once? When we have said that we only believe what we can see… If you think about the quote made by man, “To see is to believe.” And how men believe in God, they’re two contradicting thoughts. We don’t see god, therefore why should we believe in him? What caused God to live from generations to generations when we can’t even see him, has anyone seen him besides the prophets? We know that we have friends, neighbors, teachers, parents, siblings, and other people around us because we see them physically with us. But when a child says that he has a friend which we cannot see or what we know as an “imaginary friend” do we believe them? Why don’t we? Because we can’t see them physically, but why do children believe in them? Do they only occur on kids? Does this also mean that God can only show himself to children? Why? Are grown up people not worthy to see God? Do the priests, bishops, cardinals, so on and so forth see God? If they do and they had proof, then St. Anselm wouldn’t have a thought about seeing God to believe more in God. He wants to see God like how we see our neighbors. Like how can we love our neighbors how God loves us when we don’t even see how God does it. This has really given me a thought, a new point of view in things, but my faith hasn’t changed. It’s all very intriguing and interesting to me. This is all very refreshing for the mind and soul. “What shall he do, most high Lord, what shall this exile do, far away from you as he is ? What shall your servant do, tormented by love of you and yet

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The key idea of the Ontological argument is that God exits in reality as well as in the understanding. Anselm’s first premise states that God exists in the understanding. The second premise states that God might have existed in reality. If something exits only in understanding and might have existed in reality, then it might have been greater than it is as stated in the third premise. If God can only exist as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something greater than God. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God. Therefore, God exists.…

    • 351 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Existence of God

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The argument that I have chosen for this assignment and feel more comfortable using when trying to convince an open-minded non-believer in the existence of God, is number 19 “The Common Consent Argument.” In my own words this argument argues that it is common that all individuals worship, respect, and admire God, many individuals has had their wrong opinion and been wrong their beliefs, and that everyone should believe in God and that God really do exist. It argues that there is some kind of God is intrinsic or innate and has existed deliberately in almost the whole humankind in history and if God didn’t exist, then God wouldn’t be as popular as he is. The strengths of the argument are that individuals all over the world people in God and a common part of the lives of individuals and their daily lives. Two of the arguments weaknesses are that it does not show the differences in the actual existence of some form of God and the desire that individuals have for God. The belief well-known in God can reflect the existence of God or the desire of the community for a protective force to have an answer for the hard questions, such as what happens after death and the reasons why it thunders. Another weakness is that the argument fit into place in a reasonable misleading notion misleading notion that is known as the bandwagon misleading notion. The attributes of God supported by the argument are: “For believing in God is like having a relationship with a person”, “God really is there, given such widespread belief in him”, “God is the result of childhood fears, that God is a projection of our human fathers: someone up there can protect us from natural forces we consider hostile”, and “God must be a cosmic projection of our human fathers.” I think that the argument might affect the non-believer intellectually and emotionally, because there are so many individuals who have their own view and their own opinions on God, many who believe that God really do exist and many who…

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ontological Argument

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In his argument, Anselm defines God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” This can be interpreted as defining “God” as maximal perfection, or the greatest possible being. It doesn’t matter what one means when they use the term “God”. If the argument proves that such a being exists, then it does so regardless of what one wishes to call the being of maximal perfection. Anselm also argues that God exists as an idea in the mind. A being that exists, as an idea in the mind and in reality, is greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (the greatest possible being that does exist in reality). According to Anselm’s argument, we cannot imagine something that is greater than God, for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined. Therefore, concludes Anselm, God exists.…

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Anselm’s ontological argument, sourced from the “Proslogium” (with himself as the author), is a highly controversial argument that aims to prove the existence of God. This argument is an attempt of an a priori proof, that which uses purely uses intuition and reasoning alone (Oppy G. 1996). The argument (simplified) is as follows:…

    • 1084 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    explanation that God necessarily exists. Anselm's goal is to prove to the "fool" that God has to…

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this passage, Anselm is speaking to God. He is speaking to God to try to understand that he exists, as we think God does, and that God is what we believe God to be. Anselm wants to explain what God is and if God is actually, a being than which nothing greater can be thought. To help explain this, he uses an example of a fool who believe that there is no God; the fool believes this until he hears what Anselm has to say to help explain his point. The passage also helps us to get an understanding about what Anselm means when he and other writers write about God.…

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To understand Anselm's argument for God's existence, one must first understand the principles that forms the argument. The first principle is the claim that “nothing greater can be thought.” There is too types of existing, existing in understanding (existing0) and existing in reality (existing1). Then, we try to think of something is existing1. Anselm let “something” be “something than which nothing greater can be thought (NGT),” or in another word “a being than which nothing greater can be conceived” according to the Proslogion. The very first act of thinking that something is existing1 serves as the basis of it existing0. Because in the process of trying to think of something greater, we already establish its existence0. For example, there is a flower A, existing1. This flower A is the most beautiful flower, that this flower is a NGT. In order to prove this flower is NGT, one has to think of all the flower he has seen, flower B, C, or D. In the process of searching through one's mind trying to think of a flower that is more beautiful than flower A, flower A already exists in one's mind, which is existing0. To open his argument, Anselm then said an example of NGT is God.…

    • 1715 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Anselm’s second argument states that it is logically necessary for God to exist. Anselm states that god is the greatest conceivable being, so it would be less great to imagine him not existing than to imagine him existing.…

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It gave me the ability to decompress what I read and explore it in any aspect that my mind took me to. Although it was odd to just sit and pray that the Lord reveals something to me through what I had read, I was able to find practical use out of my studies. Even though a great goal is to crave to glorify the Lord in everything I do, it is not very practical. Instead, my smaller goal for this week is to pray before each time I study or do work for a class and ask God that my work glorifies him in what I study. This will help me come closer to the Lord as on my walk, I will be trying to incorporate him even in my studies. In a larger aspect, a community can take a very important piece from this scripture. It is vital that as a community of followers who wish to be fruitful, we understand that our hearts must conform to Christ first. It should be in our nature to love everyone just as God loved everyone. Wishing to make a fruitful vine with plenty of branches, it is a church’s job to reach out to nonbelievers and share the Word so that someday they might become a fruitful…

    • 741 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thanks to Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury1, the ontological argument was born in the early 1100’s. The ontological point of view, according to St. Anselm, describes God as “a being than which no greater can be conceived”.2 St. Anselm concluded that if such being failed to exist, another even greater being could be conceived that does exist. This argument would be illogical, as no being can be greater than the greatest being. Therefore God must exist. As you can see, St. Anselm’s ontological argument attempts to prove the existence of a greater being but his argument contains two flaws within it. The first can be seen in his definition - or lack thereof - in the idea of conceiving. The second flaw lies in what sorts of inferences Anselm asks of his reader. Later in this essay I will defend my view against the charge that St. Anselm’s argument is a priori argument and not a posteriori.…

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Anselm, then posits a question of whether something of this nature exists, to which he builds an argument on the basis that if a person understands what it is meant by the term God then that person is motivated to the proposition that God exists. He argues that regardless of whether you believe in the existence of God or not you understand what is meant by the term God. To assert this point Anselm says even the fool (non-believer) when hearing the definition “understands what he hears, and what he understands exists in his understanding- even if he doesn’t think it exists.” He then makes the clear distinction that it is different for something to exist in understanding and to exist in reality. He furthers this point by using the analogy of the Painter who understands (in his…

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Anselm’s ontological argument is an a priori proof of God’s existence. Anselm starts with an idea that depends on experience for their justification and then proceeds by purely logical means to the conclusion that God exists. His aim is to refute “the fool who says in his heart there is no God” (Psalms 14:1) this is showing that the ‘fool’ has important features which are; he understands the claim that God exists and he does not believe God exists. Anselm said “an atheist cannot consistently be an atheist”, they want to challenge that God does not exist but by having an understanding concept of God, then he must exist. Anselm had a clear understanding of an all knowing, all powerful and an all loving God, thus believing God exists.…

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the most interesting arguments for the Existence of God comes from Anselm and the Ontological argument. According to the Ontological argument, there is no reason to go out and look for physical evidence of God’s existence. The ontological argument is based completely on reason and comes from the concept of a “being than which no greater can be conceived.” Anselm suggested that if such a “being” does not truly exist then a greater being can be conceived. But how does this make any sense?…

    • 845 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Anselm’s argument for God’s existence. He starts of by saying that there is a lost island somewhere in the ocean, and this is easily understood in words. But suppose he was to say that is island is the more excellent than all other lands that exist, since you have no doubt that this island exists in your thoughts. And since this island is so excellent it must not only exist in thought but also in reality, therefore this island must exist. Gaunilo says that if it does not exist, than there is some other land in the world that is more excellent than the island, and the island that is already understood by you to be excellent will no longer be excellent.…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Anselm’s argument said ‘God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived’, by greater he means perfect and by conceived he means to think of, so we can put in other words: God is that than which nothing more perfect can be thought of. When Anselm first wrote this in the Proslogion, his intentions for this were not for it to be used as an argument to prove God’s existence but just a mere prayer for believers, but due to his reliance solely on reason and logic it has become popular and has overcome the test of time as it is still relevant today and is being studied.…

    • 1258 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays