The Existence Of God : God

In the bible, it says that “Fools say in their hearts, "There is no God” (Psalms 14:1). Anselm's reflection to this has become known as the Ontological Argument. Anselm defines God by saying God is that “which nothing greater can be conceived.” One way to interpret this phrase is to define “God” as maximal perfection, i.e. the greatest possible being. Anselm justifies his argument by using the idea of a painter. When a painter first knows of what it is he or she wants to accomplish, they have it in their understanding but does not yet understand it to exist. They don’t understand it to exist because they have yet to construct their painting. He is trying to say that there is a difference between saying that something actually exists in my mind and saying that I believe that something actually exists. when you hear the word square, you picture a square, or when you hear the word circle, you picture a circle. Anselm argued when humans hear the word God, they think Supreme Being. When I hear the word “God,” I recognize a God that I know from my personal experiences, but I also know that this God of mine is also working through the lives of everyone, not just mine. He has an intimate oneness with all of us, even if we don’t recognize or know it. I don’t think the God I know of is worried about whether people are religious or not. I think this God is interested in exploring experience, through us.

1. The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is based on the principle of cause and effect. What this basically means is that the universe was the effect of a cause, which was God. One of the oldest and most well known advocates of the Cosmological Argument was Thomas Aquinas who outlines his argument for the existence of God in his article entitled The Five Ways. The first way in his argument is deals with motion. Aquinas says that in order for something to be in motion something had to move it because it is impossible for something to move without the presence of some sort of outside force upon it. Therefore the world around us, nature, and our very existence could not have been put into motion without the influence of the

Some of the three major arguments for the existence of God are cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments. Cosmological argument is the reasoning that the being of the universe is powerful proof for the existence of a God who made it. There are two main forms of cosmological argument, the modal and temporal. Modal cosmological argument, also known as the argument from contingency, recommends that because the world may not have existed, we then need some clarification of why it does exist. When there is more than one likelihood, something has to decide which of the possibilities is understood clearly. Therefore the world is contingent, because there has to be a logical reason for its existence. This form of argument also claims that the only type of existence that doesn’t need any clarification is a being that does not failed to exist such as God. Temporal cosmological argument, also known as the Kalam argument, contends that all evidence are that there is a point in life at which the world began to exist, and that this starting must either have been caused or uncaused. The cosmological argument used by Aquinas declares that since nothing originates from nothing. Therefore the world must have been brought into reality by something outside it, which can be called "God".

To begin with, Anselm introduces the Ontological argument as a viral component of the religious aspect of mankind. The presence of a God should not be debated. He portrays this God as an all perfect being that represents the divine concept. He argues that no being is greater than God whether imagined or perceived by the human mind. From the human perspective of divinity, God’s existence is merely an idea of the mind. Even though man’s imagination can present an even higher being than God, it fails to make sense in philosophical principles since it is contradictory. Also, the existence of God can be conceptualized. This means that the senses of man are enough to act as proof of the presence of a being higher and more powerful than him. Philosophy allows for proof to be logical and factual as well as imaginative. From this point, the objection to an idea or imagination such as the existence of God makes his

A common argument used is the cosmological argument or the cause of the universe’s existence. Since the universe exists, what is

The Main Points of Anselm's ontological argument (1) God is that than which no greater can be conceived. (2) If God is that than which no greater can be conceived then there is nothing greater than God that can be imagined. Therefore: (3) There is nothing greater than God that can be imagined. (4) If God does not exist then there is something greater than God that can be imagined.

The ontological argument argues that if you understand what it means to talk about God, you will see His existence is necessarily true. Anselm defined God as 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived', hence God must exist. Anselm also believed that even

Truth, what is truth? This question itself has a thousand answers, no person can ever be sure of what truth is rather, truth can be justified, it can checked for reliability with strong evidences and logic. If the evidence proves to be accurate then it can be established that a certain answer is the truth. However, have we ever tried to think about what intrigues us to seek the truth? To think about a question and set foot firmly on the path of knowledge. Definitely it has! That was the very cause itself which is why this world has witnessed some of the greatest philosophers like Aristotle, Plato and Socrates etc. along with the school of thought. The ability to think and reason is one of the greatest ability humans have, it is what

Anselm goes on to justify his assumption by using the analogy of a painter. In short, when a painter first conceives of what it is he wants to accomplish, he has it in his understanding but does not yet understand it to exist. He doesn’t understand it to exist because he has yet to construct his painting. His point in general is that there is a difference between saying that something exists in my mind and saying that I believe that something exists. Anselm goes on to introduce another assumption that could be considered a new version of the argument. He tries to show that God cannot possibly exist in the understanding alone by contrasting existing in the understand with existing in reality.

The cosmological argument is an a posteriori argument which intends to prove that there is an intelligent being that exists; the being is distinct from the universe, explains the existence of the universe, and is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenevolent. The basic notion of cosmological arguments is that the world and everything in it is dependent on something other than itself for its existence. It explains that everything has a cause, that there must have been a first cause, and that this first cause was itself uncaused.

In order to understand where Anselm is coming from we have to have some background information. Anselm is speaking to Ganilo about the fool, in other words the atheists, that understands two important aspects of God. The first is that he accepts that claim that God exists and the second is that he does not believe in the existence of God. The next big piece of Anselm's proofs is his definition of God which is “that than which nothing greater can be thought”. The definition is stating that it is not possible for something greater then God to be thought. Knowing these two very important aspects of information we can dive into the argument itself.

Does God exist? That question has been asked by people for centuries. Christians, Jews, and Muslims would all say that God exists. They would claim that He is the creator of all things and is of a higher being than man is. Others would claim either that God does not exist or that God is not what the Christians, Jews, and Muslims say He is. Both Anselm and Aquinas address this question: Anselm in his "Proslogion" and Aquinas in his "Summa Theologica." The opinions of Anselm and Aquinas as to the nature of God are the same, although Anselm lacks the proof to back up his claims.

Ever since philosophy existed, the topic of God existence was one of the main discussion philosophers’ questions. Questions like do we have good reason to believe in God? If God is real why do bad things happen to good people? Or why is there evil in the world if God is all powerful. Our society is driven to find a clear answer to such questions.

I begin with the constructs of Anselm. The ontological, or a priori, argument was first expressed in 1070 by Anselm. He argued that because we have a notion of an all-perfect being "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" – It must be God. Anselm regarded God as a being one who enjoys all conceivable perfection. Yet if God "existed" only as an idea in our awareness, then God would be less perfect than if He in fact existed. Therefore God had to be greater than what our finite minds have ability to conceive so as not to contradict the definition of God.

     The existence of motion to the existence of a first mover as the cause of movement, was argued by Aristotle. This first mover he called God. The reason for this was that nothing caused God to move yet God was responsible for the motion of all other things. Thisargument is based on presumptions in other cosmological arguments. The first was that something could not cause itself, second something cannot come from nothing, last there could not possibly be an infinite amount of cause and effects.