Response To Anselm's Ontological Argument

The argument for the existence of God will always give rise to infinitive points of view. St. Anselm (c. 1033- April 21, 1109) was an Italian monk who later went on to become the Archbishop of Canterbury developed one of the most notable Ontological Arguments of all time. St. Anselm proposes that if God can be thought of and perceived, then he must exist. Anselm defines God as that than which nothing greater can be conceived—meaning no one can think of anything better than God. Although Anselm’s Ontological Argument will always be very significant in philosophy, he relies on the pre-existing belief of God without attempting to provide explanations making his argument weak. Anselm uses reductio ad absurdum as his method of argumentation, …show more content…
Gaunilo’s Parody is an argument constructed to discount Anselm by applying his ontological argument to the “perfect island”. Gaunilo asks his readers to imagine the most perfect, conceivable island—nothing you could add to this island would make it better (and to follow the premises of Anselm’s argument to prove the existence of the island). This perfect island likely does not exist; however, his argument would then say we are not thinking of the greatest conceivable island because the greatest conceivable island would exist. Nevertheless, the reasoning behind the argument is if it is conceivable then it must exist. Anselm asserted that there are three classes of objects: things that cannot exist, things that may or may not exist, and things that necessarily exist (not dependent upon other things for existence). According Anselm, God is the only thing that is self-existing; he also describes God as divine and eternal—God can never stop existing. Anselm opposed to Gaunilo’s Parody by stating that his ontological argument only works when it is applied to God (not contingent things such as islands that are rooted in time and space), for only God can be the greatest thing conceivable or else it would not be …show more content…
Faith in God is something that many people struggle with because humans often have a hard time accepting what they cannot see in reality. One struggling with their faith in God may rely on Anselm’s argument to reinforce their belief in God. St. Anselm was not the first to develop an argument for the existence of God, but his reasoning was one of the first well-known pieces in philosophy. Anselm’s argument being one of the first does not add any strength to the content of his argument, but it is notable that he set the stage for later arguments to be developed. I believe that Anselm opening to the door to the argument of the existence of God is what makes his argument so significant in philosophy—more so than the content of his