Anselm’s Classical Form

• Most famous form of the Ontological Argument was formulated by Anselm.
• Anselm was the former Archbishop of Canterbury
• Anselm said he wrote as someone with faith seeking understanding.
• Anselm’s work is written as a prayer rather than a philosophical thesis.
• Anselm had a medieval style of writing.
• • Anselm’s argument forms a proof by contradiction.
  • He makes an assumption but shows that this leads to a logical contradiction and therefore the assumption must be false.
• Anselm’s argument was based on three premises.

  1. God is something than which no greater can be conceived.
  2. This can either exist in the mind only or in the mind and reality.
  3. It is greater to exist in the mind and reality than only in the mind.
• In the mind = in intellectu
• Existing in reality = in re
• 1. Anselm asks us to assume that God exists in the mind only.
  2. Yet if we add that to premise three (it is greater to exist in the mind and reality than the mind only). It is possible to imagine a being greater than God.
  3. Therefore God is not something than which no greater can be conceived.
  4. However this contradicts premise 1.

  These form a logical contradiction and prove that the only other alternative is that God must exist in the mind and in reality.
• Anslem’s second form of the Ontological Argument

  1. God is something than which no greater can be conceived.
  2. Things either exist contingently (dependant) or necessarily (Independant)
  3. It is greater to exist necessarily than contingently.
• Using his second form of the ontological argument, Anselm concludes that God must exist not contingently but necessarily.