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Saint Anselm's Ontological Argument Saint Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God is based on logical inconsistency of two equally legitimate statements, which consequentially derive out of each other. Saint Anselm suggests that one cannot imagine anything greater than omnipotent and omnipresent God. If this statement is true, there can be nothing imaginable greater than God. However, if God does not exist, than we should be able to imagine something greater than God.
Yet this is impossible, therefore, God exists. This argument, of course, is based on sophist philosophical tradition, which used to popular in ancient Greece. Its main fault is that it does not consider the fact that peoples sense of logic cannot be considered as an absolute category, because it derives out of their limited ability to perceive the surrounding reality. This leads to situation when we can logically prove something that does not correspond to the objective reality. For example, it is possible to prove that flying bullet never reaches its target, after it leaves the barrel, because it remains suspended in the air. Yet, we know that this is not true.
The best contra argument to Saint Anselm's thesis is that our sense of logic is affected by the limitations of our sensory apparatus. Along with Saint Anselm's ontological argument, which is supposed to prove the existence of God, there are so called arguments from motion and cause. They are associated with the name of Saint Augustine, who was first to define them. He suggested that since every movement in this world is cased by another movement, there should be a primeval force, which was behind the very first movement. He calls it God. In addition, Saint Augustine says that nothing is caused by itself.
There has to be an infinite power, which started the chain of causes and consequences. This can only be God. The main fallacy of such approach is that it assumes that this power can only be referred to as God, although this is not necessarily the case. The force behind the original creation might have been very powerful, but not necessarily omni powerful, which we associate with God. We can say that the validity of Saint Anselm and Saint Augustine's arguments for the existence of God is undermined by the fact that authors sense of logic is based on religious idealism.
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Research essay sample on Greater Than God Existence Of God
