Anselm faith and reason??

groovyangel2008

Anyone explain pleaseee :smile:

Reply 1

groovyangel2008

I will appreciate it if anyone can help because i've been asking this question for a while and no one seems to want to helpp :frown:

... or maybe no one knowss..i dont know..
and i have my exam on monday and i really don't understand...someone mustt know.
the question is basically...explain what anselm's ontological argument show's about the relationship between reason and faith?? :s-smilie:

Thankk you!

Reply 2

GaryCarter

groovyangel2008

the question is basically...explain what anselm's ontological argument show's about the relationship between reason and faith?? :s-smilie:

Thankk you!

I didn't really know that it did have anything to do with reason/faith. I guess the one thing I could point out was that when Anselm came up with the argument he believed in God, but thought that faith wasn't enough. He wanted reason to back up his faith.

I suppose you could also suggest that he thought that reason in itself was strong enough to prove God's existence, where as faith didn't prove it.

Another minor point is that he assumed that his faith was correct, saying that we know God to be perfect. He took this to be true, while as Hume pointed out we don't actually know this.

Hope this helps a little.

Reply 3

Galatea

groovyangel2008

the question is basically...explain what anselm's ontological argument show's about the relationship between reason and faith??
Thankk you!

It could be argued that Anselm preserves the integrity of faith before the scrutiny of reason, by seriously entertaining the idea of non belief in God - the notion of the fool, the "insipiens"; this is an essential prerequisite in rational enquiry; we can only understand and perceive of something by contrasting it with it's 'proper other'; because of the contrastive nature of reason, faith cannot be scrutinized without firstly encountering the possibility of the non existence of God. His aim with the ontological argument was arguably to prove that the God of the Christian faith is such that reason cannot deny his existence.

Anselm perhaps opened the door for the reasoned exploration of faith, establishing its rational acceptability, and demonstrated that resaon can operate freely, on its own terms, within the boundaries of faith.