god? :: essays research papers

Many people have tried to prove through many ways that God exists. Anselm used the ontological argument, proposing that if God could be thought of and perceived, then God has to exist. At the center of the ontological argument is the idea or concept of existence. The Ontological argument is a group of different philosophers arguments for the existence of God. "Ontological" means talking about being and so in the Philosophy case, that being is the existence or being of God. The ontological argument differs from other arguments in favor of God because of the fact that it is an a priori deductive argument, a priori means that a person arguing this can reach a certain conclusion by the use of reason and not proof. A deductive argument means that if the premises that are put into the argument are true, then the conclusion must be true. Thus, Anselm tends to base his argument on the definitions and the terms that he used. Anselm’s first form of the argument is that God is "that than which none greater can be conceived" (45) . Firstly, it must be emphasised that Anselm’s definition does not limit God to being the "greatest" but Anselem makes it known that nothing greater can be thought than God himself. Therefore, God should not in any way be linked to terms such as ‘omnipotent’ as terminology such as this limit him to what he really is. With this definition, Anselem tries to prove that not only does God exist in the mind but also in reality. He is saying that Because God is something and can be perceived, God must exist. Another way of stating this is that: God is perfect so he must exist because he would not be perfect if he didn't exist. Anselm uses the example of "the fool" to prove his point on God’s existence. He says that when "the fool" says that "There is no God" in the Psalms, he must therefore understand what he hears , and what he understands in his language by the term "God". Therefore, if he knows what God is, God must exist as it is impossible to know what something is if it does not exist. The atheist, as Anselm points out, is able to understand the phrase "being than which none greater can be thought." He concludes that if an atheist can understand this, then God is in the atheist's understanding.