ONTOLOGICAL ARGUEMNT

Question 1

The argument

Answer 1

priori, deductive and analytic argument for the existence of God. Developed by st Anselm in the 11th century and written in his text ,the Proslogion, it is based around the definition of God which says that God is ‘that which nothing greater can be conceived’ Essentially God is the greatest being we can think of.

Question 2

Anselms argument

Answer 2

His argument is deductive which means the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion.
P1: God is the greatest conceivable being
P2: if God is that which no greater being can be conceived then there is nothing greater than god that can be imagined.
P3: There is nothing greater than God that can be imagined.
P4: if God does not exist in reality, then there is something greater than God that can be imagined.
C: therefore, God exists (in reality aswell as the mind)

The reason for premise 4 is if God only existed in the mind and not in reality then we could imagine a greater being that existed in both the mind and in real life.
This is because it is greater to exist both in the mind and reality than only in the mind.