Anselm's Argument Analysis

To provide an argument to justify that one’s beliefs are true beyond a shadow of a doubt can be a process in which faces many challenges. There must be a thorough unbiased investigation of what is trying to be discovered or verified which can often lead to one’s conjecture. There are many phenomenon in this world that would prove challenging to explain, and one of those things is the existence of a god. Throughout the history of humanity, there have been many speculations on this topic in particular, which has seemed to point towards many different possibilities. Saint Anselm provides a controversial argument for the rationalization of god’s existence, which requires a thorough analysis.
The first aspect of this argument that attracts my …show more content…
I understand that Anselm’s argument heavily depends on the concept that things that physically exist have a more profound existence than an existence through an idea. Therefore, the idea of a being which none greater can be conceived has to exist in a physical sense or else the sole idea of god contradicts itself. In other words, god has to be more than an idea if nothing greater can be conceived, which means god must have the highest degree of existence. I feel that Anselm has an ontological basis of proof to stand on through definition, but it is still heavily theoretical. From an ontological point of view, Anselm has proven the existence of god physically and through basis of idea. Since ontology is the study of how things exist, it would stand true to god’s existence through ideas. I feel that this is not a fair argument because of the definition used to explain who god is. I also feel that Anselm is biased in this argument. For one, Anselm is a saint which makes him more recognized in a church of god. I feel like this argument would hold more ground if someone less involved in religion were trying to make the same points as Anselm, and not using their own creation of words to define god. Anselm doesn’t seem to take any measures to try and disprove the physical existence of god either. If he is confident enough in his argument to prove god’s existence, than he should have taken steps towards trying to disprove god to leave no stone unturned. Anselm could have looked for possible flaws in the concepts of existence and the definition of god, but doesn’t seem to question them. He seems to accept them fully as they are, which is bold because he is basing an entire controversial argument through those principles. I feel that Anselm gave god a fabricated definition in which he would have to exist in both facets, otherwise one