ANSELM: Like Augustine, Anselm used both faith and reason in his investigation for truth. In his view, Faith comes first but reason should follow, giving reasons for what human beings believe. Anselm’s monks asked him to write a model reflection on God in which everything would be proved by reason and nothing on the authority of Scripture. He replied with his “Monologion”. It contains three proofs of the existence of God, all of which are based on Neoplatonic thought.…
Anselm is best known for the arguments he provided in regards to the existence of God. He especially contributed to what today is known as the “ontological argument”, or an argument about the state of existing or being. Anselm provides many reasonable arguments for the existence of God, and had an avid ability to explain reason behind it. Through Cur Deus Homo, he tries to rationalize God’s method for saving the world through Christ’s death as satisfaction, Anselm has been able to offer a significant view and meaning that many Christians today follow by providing a definition for the significance of Jesus’ death on the cross.…
Ethics are the moral duty and obligation that a company has plan to abide by. The authors seem to agree that most malfeasance isn’t caused by greed or opportunism. The general consensus of the authors is that malfeasance is caused by the negligence and over promising of the workers and those in charge. The negligence/over promising is found specifically on the part of the higher ups such as the CEO’s and the board of directors. They choose to overlook a problem and act as if everything is okay choosing instead to pay any lawsuits that they may encounter if it is cheaper than calling a recall.…
Throughout Twenge's argument calls upon different statistics to convince readers that smartphones have destroyed an entire generation. “Only about 56% of high school seniors in 2015 went out on dates.” The way dating works within the iGeneration is when they first talk they “prefer texting” to get to know each other then they will decide if they want to go out and actually spend time with each other. She also brings up how jobs have changed throughout the years. “In the late 1970’s, 77% of high school seniors worked for pay during the school year; by the mid-2010s only 55% did.”…
Anselm’s Ontological Argument v. Pascal’s Wager In this paper, I will be describing Anselm’s Ontological Argument and Pascal’s Wager and then contrast the differences between the two. These two arguments help to determine the existence of God. There are three norms of belief: ordinary belief, religious belief, and faith seeking understanding. The norms of ordinary belief are based on sufficient evidence to prove it is true.…
Reason five god could be greater than he is. Reason six, god is the being than which none greater can be conceived. Reason seven, god is both the greatest and not the greatest being. Reason eight, reason four must be false. Reason nine, god exist in reality.…
Jean-Paul Sartre is a strong proponent of Existentialism which asserts that “existence precedes essence” (682). To expand upon this, Sartre believes in absolute free will where our essence, which can be defined as our human character, is created by the actions our lifetime. To defend this claim, Sartre provides three key arguments to show that “man…[is] the ensemble of his acts” (690). Sartre’s first argument is that there is no determined human nature to make us do what we do, or to excuse what we do. This simply means that a preexisting human nature, which is another term for essence, doesn’t exist and can’t control what a person will do or become.…
Philo begins his argument from the existence of evil by introducing a few examples on why God has either not willed humanity’s happiness or that He does not believe that happiness is an essential component to the human condition. In his first argument, he asserts first that God is a moral being who values traits such a justice, kindness, and mercy. He then states that God’s scope is infinite, and he can perform whatever deeds he so wishes. Finally, he says that humanity is unhappy. This leads to the conclusion that God must not wish for the contentment of mankind.…
The existence of God is, and has been, a very highly debated philosophical argument that has bewildered philosophers since even before the age of ‘Enlightenment.’ Many of the different arguments put forth have not adequately proven God’s existence, although, in order to move forward, failed arguments must be studied to ensure that mistakes are not repeated. One such argument is that of Saint Anselm’s Ontological Argument. Anselm’s ontological argument is about the fact that nothing greater than God can be imagined.…
In this paper I will dispute that Anselm’s ontological argument is dependent on Anselm’s personal faith in God. My argument lies within the premises that Anselm offers, it would not be rationally acceptable to create content of a maximally perfect being unless the person already accepted the Christian faith. The premises for Anselm’s argument can only be held if the only conception of non greater (relative to his attributes and worldly design) is God but if one does not follow such religious paths how can it be god. So in a sense god wouldn’t exists since you can’t have a mere conception of god without prior experience or impression of him. I will engage this scope of criticism by touching on Humean concepts and conveying how Anselm faith structured…
The Ontological argument, written by philosopher St. Anselm of Canterbury in his book the Proslogion in the eleventh century, is a metaphysical argument for the existence of God in reality. In this essay I will discuss the validity of this argument. In this text Anselm states that the concept of God has the necessary and sufficient condition of being maximally perfect- ‘that than which a greater cannot be thought’- and that, since existing in reality is greater than existing only conceptually, God must exist in reality as well. Thus, if you understand the concept of God, you must agree that he is the greatest and that he exists, since these are written into the framework of the concept.…
Summary John Arthurs has a unique stance on world hunger and moral obligation and the way that we should handle these issues. He opens up his argument by analyzing one of Pete Singers rules “If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. “(666) Arthur believes that rule of life is a flawed one. He counters this statement by giving a scenario using Singers moral rule. Arthur states “All of us could help others by giving away or allowing others to use our bodies.…
The ontological argument is different than the cosmological or teleological arguments as it relies on A Priori knowledge rather than A Posteriori. A Priori knowledge is knowledge that you can know prior to any experience; it is known through reason alone. This essay will explore how reliable the ontological argument is. The ontological argument is an argument for the existence of god by St Anselm (1033-1109). Anselm defined god as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.”…
James and Pascal’s defences of faith in some of their most famous arguments, specifically Pascal’s, devalue faith by making faith selfish, providing an obvious out to faith, and making the decision of faith into a gamble, oddly, his devaluation of faith does not hurt his argument, it makes it easier to convince the skeptics. To prove that Pascal’s argument devalues faith and to understand why it doesn’t negatively affect his argument, it’s necessary to understand the whole argument. His argument can be split into quite a few premises. He starts with the possibility of God, which is the main idea of his argument. Basically, it’s possible that God does exists, and it’s also possible that God does not exist, something nearly everyone agrees on.…
His definition is “something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought” (Pg.15) or in simpler terms the greatest conceivable being. Anselm uses reductio ad absurdum to prove that the contrary to his belief would be absurd.…