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ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD - ANSELM - Coggle Diagram
ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD - ANSELM
Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm = 11th Century Theologian/monk
'I believe in order to understand'
Belief precedes understanding
His argument is written as a prayer
Anselm is a committed theist whose argument is anchored in the theistic language game
Deductive Argument
Intend to guarantee the truth of the conclusion
If the premises of the argument are true, then the conclusion must be true
Ontos = Nature/being/essense
The argument is based on the claim that God's existence can deduced from his definition - once God is correctly defined, there can be no doubt that he exists
Three Claims the Ontological Argument makes
The proposition 'God exists' is
a priori/deductive
- it can be known to be true without reference to sense experience, just by thinking about God's nature
In the proposition 'God exists', the subject 'God' contains the
predicate
'exists'... so God MUST exist
God's existence is a
necessary truth
, not a
contingent one
Psalm 14:1 - 'The fool says in his heart, there is not God'
Anselm's argument is a response to 'the fool' in Psalms who has said 'there is no God'
The fool has a concept of God within their mind + this is a starting point for Anselm's argument
Anselm's Definition of God
'God is a being than which nothing greater can be conceived'
Anselm believes that everyone shares this definition of God
He says that even the fool would accept his definition of God
Anselm's is assuming that everyone accepts this definition of God, when in fact most people don't - the dictionary does not contain the same definition
P1 - God is the greatest conceivable being that than which nothing greater can be conceived
P2 - It is greater to exist in reality than to exist only in the mind
C - Therefore, as the greatest conceivable being, God must exist in reality
More detail of his argument
P1 - God is the greatest conceivable being that than which nothing greater can be conceived
P2 - This is a definition which even a fool understand in his mind, even though he does not understand it to exist in reality
P3 - There is a difference between having an idea in the mind + knowing that his idea exists in reality
P4 - For example, a painter has an idea in his mind of what he wants to paint; but when he has painted it, that idea now exists both in his mind + in reality
P5 - It is greater to exist both in the mind + in reality than to exist only in the mind
P6 - If God existed only in the mind, I could think of something greater namely a God who existed in reality also
C- Therefore, in order to be the greatest conceivable being, God must exist both in the mind + in reality
In Summary Anselm says
It is better to exist both in the mind + in reality than just one of them
It was so much greater when the painter produced his ideas on a canvas (reality) then just picturing the image in his mind
So, therefore God must necessarily exist in reality because he is TGCB
If God only existed in the mind, then he would not be the greatest conceivable being because something else could be conceived as greater - e.g. if God were to exist in reality as well