Alexandra Zetlaoui PHI2010 Jason Miller 19th of September 2011 Word count 442 St Anselm believes that we can prove God s presence by simply understanding the nature of God and existence He uses an ontological form of argument which is the study of nature of being existing to create his premises to prove that God does in fact exist In this essay I will simplify and explain The Ontological Argument by showing that all the premises have to be true without contradicting themselves Anselm believes that God is a being than which non greater is possible Anselm and uses the logic of A Priori claim or argument independent of experience that can be proven true or false to prove his reasoning He believes that as long as you can understand nature and its existence than understanding the concept of God s existence should be a given In the first premise he states that God exists in the understanding a statement meant to prove that he could of existed in our realm or at least our minds which is linked the second premise God might have existed in reality making God appear as a possible being He then goes on to premise three deducing that If something exists only in the understanding and might have existed in reality then it might be greater than it is Anselm believes that existence is a great making quality something that exist is superior over something that does not so if we understand that this being than which none greater is possible exists in our understanding of nature and that there is a chance that it could very well exist in our reality than nothing is greater than he because of that existence property In the fourth premise however Anselm stops his reasoning and supposes that God exist only in the understanding He is going against his previous claims using Reductio ad Absurdum a sentence later proven to be false by first assuming that it is true By saying that God only appears in the understanding he is saying that God is just an idea nothing more than a concept which denies premise one The next claim goes on to say that God might be greater than He is which changes the definition of God to a being in which a greater is possible premise six meaning that something greater than He can possibly exist premise seven and because that claim provides us with a contradiction any statement that applies a contradiction cannot be proven to be true it must be a false concept Therefore it cannot be true that God only exist in the understanding premise eight and God has to exist both in the understanding as well as the reality
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