INTRODUCTION
The
issue of God’s existence has been a controversial issue among philosophers and
non-philosophers alike from the middle ages (scholastic epoch) to the
contemporary period. Among those who deny God’s existence include the Atheists,
Empiricists, et cetera. For the empiricists,
“Esse est percepi”, meaning “To be is
to be perceived”. For them, whatever is, must have been perceived by the
senses, so, whatever is not perceived by the senses does not exist. Thus, since
God for them, cannot be perceived through the senses, therefore, God does not
exist.
Nevertheless,
many other philosophers believe in God’s existence and some of them made
meritorious attempt to prove it rationally. Among these philosophers were
Saints Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, et cetera. These
scholastics were outstanding in their philosophical and theological thoughts on
the existence of God. Such thoughts include the teleological argument,
cosmological argument, ontological argument, et cetera. Thus, this paper seeks
to present and appraise Saint Anselm’s Ontological Argument for the existence
of an all perfect God, its criticisms and his reply. Prior to that, we shall
consider briefly his biography to give a clue to his ingenious personality.
SAINT ANSELM- LIFE AND
WORK
Saint
Anselm, a famous medieval philosopher and a renowned theologian, was born of a
noble family at Aosta in Northern Italy in 1033. Against his father’s wishes,
he decided to become a monk at the Benedictine Monastery. He eventually became
the Abbot of the monastery and was later called to be the Archbishop of
Canterbury. He died in 1109. Generally speaking, the thoughts of Anselm is said
to belong to the Augustinian tradition. His philosophical goal is concerned
with providing rational support (rationes
necessariae) for the doctrines of Christianity, which he already accepted
as a matter of faith. He holds that one should first of all believe certain
truths by faith and then try to penetrate these mysteries of faith with reason.
This gave rise to the saying, “Credo ut
intelligiam” which means “I believe in order that I may understand”. Like
his predecessor, the great African doctor, Saint Augustine, he was particularly
concerned with using dialectical method to providing rational support to the
doctrines of the Christianity and for defending the Church. Interestingly, this
merited him the title “The father of Scholasticism” (Pater Sacrum).
Also,
Saint Anselm’s popularity in the history of thought lies in his famous and
celebrated Ontological Argument for the existence of God, which appears in his
work entitled Proslogion. Prior to
this work, he formulated three other arguments in an earlier work called Monologion. These three arguments show
his overall philosophical orientation namely, his acceptance of Realism and his
rejection of Nominalism. Stated briefly, his three early arguments are these;
People
seek to enjoy what they consider good and they compare things to be good in
relation to a Being which is good-in-itself and consequently, such is the
supreme God.
Everything
that is, exists either through something or by itself. Obviously, it cannot
come out of nothing, for out of nothing comes nothing (ex nihilo nihil fit). Thus, there must therefore be one thing that
alone is from itself and that, causes all other things to be and this is God.
There
are various degrees or levels of being, whereby animals have a higher being
than plants, and people have a higher being than animals. Using this line of
reasoning, Anselm concluded that unless we continue to move up through an
infinite number of levels, we must arrive at a highest and most perfect being,
than which there is none more perfect.
The
later work, Proslogion, contains the
famous Ontological Argument for the existence of God, which he developed
following the request of his contemporary Christian brethren. In proving the
existence of God, Anselm distinguishes himself from other philosophers; in
that, other philosophers argued from the creatures to God but Anselm argued
from God to creatures.
THE ONTOLOGICAL
ARGUMENT FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
Saint
Anselm’s Ontological proof for God’s existence proceeds from the idea of God as
a reality or as existent. This argument attempts the method of a priori proof
that uses intuition and reason alone which can be presented in a syllogistic
form to prove God’s existence. Anselm starts with a definition of God, or
necessary assumption about God’s nature. Thus, his argument states;
I have
within my understanding, an idea of God,
This idea
of God is the idea of a being that is the greatest that can be conceived.
A being
is greater if it exists in reality than if it exists only in the understanding.
If God (the
greatest conceivable being) exists in the understanding alone, then a greater
being can be
conceived, namely one that also exists in
reality.
So if I
have an idea of the greatest conceivable being, such a being must exists both
in my
understanding and in reality;
Therefore,
God exists in reality.[1]
Now,
we believe that God is that which no greater can be thought (aliquid que nihil maius cogitari posit).
Thus, He is the greatest conceivable being. The question then is; does the
greatest conceivable being really exist in reality? However, if such a being does not exist in
reality but only in ideas; we could conceive still, a greater being which does
not exists simply mentally but in extramental reality. A being that exists in
reality is greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind. But we
cannot imagine something that is greater than God, for it is a contradiction to
suppose that we can imagine a being greater, to the greatest possible being
that can be imagined. If follows then, that the idea of God as absolute perfection
is necessarily the idea of an existent being. Therefore, the Supreme Being
greater than which it is impossible to think of any other, necessarily exists
in reality.
Furthermore,
Saint Anselm argues that it is not possible even to imagine God as not
existing; for him, “one who denies God’s existence is guilty of plain
contradiction”, it is only the fool (insipiens)
who has said in his heart; there is no God above (cf. Psalms 14:1); for when
the fool hears the words “the greatest conceivable being”, he understand what
he hears, and what he understands can be said to be in his intellect. But it is
one thing for something to be in the intellect; it is another to understand
that something actually exists. A painter, for example, thinks in advance what
he is about to portray. At this point, there is in his intellect an
understanding of what he is about to make, though not an understanding that the
portrait, which is still to be made, actually exists. But when he has finally
painted it, he both has in his understanding and understands it to be in
existence the portrait he has finally made. What this proves, according to
Anselm is that something can be in our intellects even before we know it to
exists. There is then, in the fool’s intellect an understanding of what is
meant by the phrase “the greatest conceivable being”, even though the fool does
not necessarily understand that this being does in fact exists. It is in his
intellect because when the fool hears this phrase, he understands it, and
whatever we understand is thereby in our understanding. Hence, even the fool
knows that there is at least in his intellect a greatest conceivable being.
Therefore,
Anselm asserts that “there exists beyond doubt something than which a greater
cannot be thought, both in understanding and in reality”. Conclusively, Anselm
thanks God because through His Divine Illumination, he now truly understood
that, which through His generous gift, he formerly believed.
GAUNILO’S
REBUTTAL
Even
though Anselm’s Ontological Argument was considered a classic in his epoch, it
was not devoid of criticism. The weirdest antagonist of the argument was a
contemporary of Anselm, a Benedictine monk, by name; Gaunilo. He did not want
to deny God’s existence but only intended to argue that Anselm had not
constructed an adequate proof. Gaunilo in his work; “liber proinsipiente adversus Anselm rationcianationem”, came to
the defence of the fool. He argued that the proof is impossible to achieve. It
requires that there be in the understanding an idea of God, that upon hearing
this word the fool is expected to have a conception of that than which there is
no greater. But, Gaunilo says, the fool cannot form a concept of such a being
since there is nothing among other realities he experiences from which this
concept can be formed. Indeed, Anselm himself already argued that there is no
reality like God. Actually, if the human mind could form such a concept, no
“proof” would be necessary. To criticize Anselm’s argument, he introduces an idea
of the greatest conceivable island we can think of, yet that would not imply
that there is any such island in reality, outside the mind.
ANSELM’S REPLY TO
GAUNILO
Firstly,
Anselm said that we, along with the fool, are able to form a concept of the
greatest conceivable being. We do this whenever we compare different degrees of
perfection in things and move upward to the maximum perfection; than which
there is no more perfect. Secondly, he thought Gaunilo’s reference to a perfect
Island showed that he had missed the point of the argument. Anselm replied that
the two cases are not the same; the idea of the most beautiful Island does not
necessarily imply its existence since it is not an absolutely perfect being.
However, the idea of God, according to Anselm is one of an absolutely perfect
being which involves existence, and in God alone is essence and existence
Identical; since if He does exist, it would not be an absolutely perfect being.
Hence, it is a contradiction to posit such argument. An Island does not have to
be, it is a contingent kind of being. This would be similarly true of every
finite thing. There is only one thing which everything else was, its being is
not derived from anything else, but has its existence necessarily from itself;
that thing such Being is God.
THOMAS
AQUINAS' CRITICISM
While Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) believed that God’s
existence is self-evident, he rejected the idea that it can be deduced from
claims about the concept of God. Aquinas argued plausibly enough, that not
everyone who hears this word ‘God’ understands it to signify something than
which nothing greater can be thought, seeing that some have believed God to be
a body. The idea here is that, since different people have different concepts
of God, this argument works, if at all, only to convince those who define the
notion of God in the same way. From my perspective, the problem with this
criticism is that the Ontological Argument can be restated without defining
God.
EVALUATION AND
CONCLUSION
From
the foregoing, there is no doubt that Anselm’s Ontological Argument is a
convincing one. The argument proposes to show that we can deduce God’s
existence from the very definition of God; God is that than which no greater
can be thought, consequently, He is the highest God, Who needs no other but is
needed by all else.
Conclusively,
though Gaunilo, Aquinas, Kant and other philosophers criticized Anselm’s
argument; other philosophers like Bonaventure, Leibniz, and Descartes supported
it. So, in the history of medieval philosophy, Anselm has attained a status quo
by the fascinating and all time honored argument; and his ingenuity has earned
him the title “the father of
scholasticism”.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
STUMPF,
S.E. & FIESER, J., Philosophy: History and Problems. New
York: Mc Graw
Hill Press,
1971.
LAWHEAD,
F.W., The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical
Introduction to
Philosophy. Belmont: Wadworth Publishers,
2002.
COPLESTON, F.S.J., A History of Philosophy: Medieval Philosophy, vol. II. New
York: Doubleday Publishers, 1993
ENEREMADU,
T.O.S., Unpublished lecture
note.
[1] W.
F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery: A
Historical Introduction to Philosophy (Belmont: Wadsworth Publications,
2002), p. 158.
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