Rethinking Anselm S Arguments
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Rethinking Anselm's Arguments
This book re-examines Anselm’s famous arguments for the existence of God in his Proslogion, and in his Reply. It demonstrates how he validly deduces from plausible premises that God so truly exists that He could not be thought not to exist. Most commentators, ancient and modern, wrongly located his argument in a passage which is not about God at all. It becomes evident that, consequently, much contemporary criticism is based on misreading and misunderstanding his text. It reconstructs his reasoning through three distinct but logically connected stages. It shows that, even if Anselm’s crucial premises are sceptically interpreted, his conclusions still follow. Properly understood, this argument is not vulnerable to the standard criticisms, including Gaunilo’s ‘Lost island’ counter-example.
A Cosmological Reformulation of Anselm’s Proof That God Exists
In this book, Richard Campbell reformulates Anselm’s proof to show that factual evidence confirmed by modern cosmology validly implies that God exists. Anselm’s proof, which was never the “ontological argument” attributed to him, emerges as engaging with current philosophical issues concerning existence and scientific explanation. Because every observable thing has a beginning, it can be deduced that there is always in reality something than which a greater cannot be thought, which exists necessarily. It follows that its non-existence is inconceivable. Anselm then proves that this is the God in whom he believes, who alone so truly exists that He could not be thought not to exist. The contingent nature of the universe is therefore a consequence of the proven belief that God is the Creator of everything else.
Anselm of Canterbury
This volume explores important aspects of the life and writings of Anselm of Canterbury. His is a world in which the created order with its hierarchies of natures and roles manifests a divine order that proceeds from the divine nature. Individual chapters examine Anselm’s understanding of rectitude, truth, justice, and redemption, the relationship of free will and grace and of faith and reason, whether and how we can speak of or reject the divine, Anselm’s approach to death, his understanding of the superiority of monasticism in the social and spiritual order, and the role that angels play in his metaphysical and theological arguments.