Anselms Existence of God Refuted If the only proofs for the existence of God were Aquinass five ways and Anselms ontological argument, in my opinion, Anselm provides the best reasoning. I am not saying that Anselms argument is good, or even valid, but just that given the set of proofs by Aquinas and Anselm, Anselms is better.Anselm argues, in effect, that the existence of God is built into the very concept of God. He proceeds by a form of argument called reductio ad absurdum -- reduction to absurdity. He attempts to show that the position of the fool -- the non-believer who has said in his heart, "There is no God" -- is incoherent and leads to absurdity. (Cottingham, 1996: 246)How does Anselm's reductio work? A fully satisfactory answer to this question is not exactly simple. The idea appears to be this: The argument depends on a definition of sorts. Anselm says of God: We believe that you are something than which nothing greater can be thought. (Cottingham, 1996: 246) We can put this in shorthand by saying that Anselm understands God to be the greatest conceivable being -- the GCB, for shortNow you might protest that you do not use the word "God" in this way. Nevertheless, that does not really matter. If Anselm can show that such a being exists, then he has shown something remarkable whatever you call the being. Furthermore, it is not clear why anyone should resist calling such a being God. Now another worry may occur to you: conceivable by whom? The answer is conceivable by anyone, no matter how imaginative or brilliant. In fact, what Anselm really seems to be after is the greatest possible being, though he proceeds in terms of what we can or do conceive. The atheist, Anselm points out, can understand the phrase "being than which none greater can be thought." Therefore, God is in the atheist's understanding. However, just because something "exists in the understanding," we would not normally conclude that it also exists in realit...
