Ontological Argument For God's Existence

The so-called ontological argument for the existence of God was formulated by the medieval and philosopher, St. Anselm (1033-1109), though it did not acquire its modern name till that was assigned by Kant in the eighteenth century (Cahn, Kitcher, and Sher, p. 557; all subsequent page references are from this work).

Anselm's argument is, briefly, as follows: Imagine the greatest entity that can possibly be conceived of as existing -- setting aside for the moment whether it actually does exist or not. Now, since by definition the greatest entity we can conceive of existing is God, what we are imagining is in fact God. Thus, by stipulation, we are imagining God, whether or not God actually exists.

We now turn to the question of whether or not this greatest imaginable entit

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Category: Philosophy - O