Anselm and the Ontological argument
So I'm taking this philosophy of religion class and we've just finished covering Saint Anselm's proslogion, the book where he formulated the Ontological argument for the existence of God. And there's a problem. As far as I can tell and well uhh, reason, the entire argument doesn't make any sense at all to me.First step of argument:
God is that which nothing greater may be conceived
Second step:
there are two possible forms of existence, the understanding and reality. It is better to exist in reality than in the understanding.
Third step:
since it is better to exist in reality, God being that which nothing greater may be conceived must therefore exist in reality.
Conclusion:
therefor God must exist
Am I the only one who sees the problem with that? If I've made a mistake representing it, will somebody please tell me because that's what I understand Anselm's argument to be, and I find it deeply problematic.
So said Aerasio at 18:24
4 Comments:
well, you may disagree with him on that :)
i studied anselm last year and you're already doing it now, :) wow!
btw, we miss you in our meetings. :)
I didn't completely understand this when I studied it (it was an aside to another class) but part it is to understand that the God of the argument is not necessarily a being with a will. So by this argument alone, it is perfectly reasonable for God to be an emotion, a force, or the Force. That God is a being and has a will is a separate argument.
honestly, I don't think that does anything for the argument. The argument can pretty much be summarized as "suppose God exists, therefore God exists" It's kind of ridiculous really
I think it's a little more complicated than that; we can talk about it when we meet. Still, Anselm was a little while ago; his ontological argument is a bit different from (only slightly) more recent iterations...
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