Essay, Research Paper: Anselm And Aquinas

Philosophy

Free Philosophy research papers were donated by our members/visitors and are presented free of charge for informational use only. The essay or term paper you are seeing on this page was not produced by our company and should not be considered a sample of our research/writing service. We are neither affiliated with the author of this essay nor responsible for its content. If you need high quality, fresh and competent research / writing done on the subject of Philosophy, use the professional writing service offered by our company.


Although born in Alpine Italy and educated in Normandy, Anselm became a
Benedictine monk, teacher, and abbot at Bec and continued his ecclesiastical
career in England. Having been appointed the second Norman archbishop of
Canterbury in 1093, Anselm secured the Westminster Agreement of 1107,
guaranteeing the (partial) independence of the church from the civil state. In a
series of short works such as De Libertate Arbitrii (On Free Will), De Casu
Diaboli (The Fall of the Devil), and Cur Deus Homo (Why God became Man), Anselm
propounded a satisfaction theory of the atonement and defended a theology like
Augustines', that emphasized the methodological priority of faith over reason,
since truth is to be achieved only through "faith seeking
understanding". Anselm's combination of Christianity, neoplatonic
metaphysics, and Aristotelean logic in the form of dialectical
question-and-answer was an important influence in the development of later
scholasticism. As a philosopher, Anselm is most often remembered for his
attempts to prove the existence of god: In De Veritate (Of Truth) he argued that
all creatures owe their being and value to god as the source of all truth, to
whom a life lived well is the highest praise. In the Monologion he described
deity as the one good thing from which all real moral values derive, whose
existence is required by the reality of those values. Most famously, in the
Proslogion (Addition), Anselm proposed the famous Ontological Argument,
according to which god is understood as "that than which nothing greater
can be conceived". Such a being, he argued, must necessarily exist in
reality as well as in thought, since otherwise it would in fact be possible to
conceive something greater--something exactly similar except for its existence.
Thus, at least for Anselmian believers guided by a prior faith, god must truly
exist as the simple, unified source of all perfections, which excludes
corruption, imperfection, and deception of eve. Reflecting on the text of Psalm
14 ("Fools say in their hearts, 'There is no god.'") in his Proslogion,
Anselm proposed a proof of divine reality that has come to be known as the
Ontological Argument. The argument takes the Psalmist quite literally by
supposing that in virtue of the content of the concept of god there is a
contradiction involved in the denial of god's existence. Anselm supposes that in
order to affirm or deny anything about god, we must first form in our minds the
appropriate concept, namely the concept of "that than which nothing greater
can be conceived". Having done so, we have in mind the idea of god. But of
course nothing about reality usually follows from what we have in mind, since we
often think about things that do not (or even cannot) actually exist. In the
case of this special concept, however, Anselm argued that what we could think of
must in fact exist independently of our thinking of it. Suppose the alternative:
if that than which nothing greater can be conceived existed only in my mind and
not in reality, then I could easily think of something else which would in fact
be greater than this (namely, the same thing existing in reality as well as in
my mind), so that what I originally contemplated turns out not in fact to be
that than which nothing greater can be conceived. Since this is a contradiction,
only a fool would believe it. So that than which nothing greater can be
conceived (that is, god) must exist in reality as well as in the mind. Born to
an aristocratic family living near Naples, Italy, Thomas Aquinas joined the
Dominican order and studied philosophy and theology in Naples, Paris, and Köln,
where he was exposed to Aristotelean thought by Albert the Great and William of
Moerbeke. During the rest of his life, he taught at Paris and Rome, writing
millions of words on philosophical and theological issues and earning his
reputation among the scholastics as "the angelic doctor." Aquinas
developed in massive detail a synthesis of Christianity and Aristotelian
philosophy that became the official doctrine of Roman Catholic theology in 1879.
De Ente et Essentia (On Being and Essence) includes a basic statement of
Aquinas's philosophical positions. His literary activity stopped abruptly as the
result of a religious experience a few months before his death. Although he
wrote many commentaries on the works of Aristotle and a comprehensive Summa de
Veritate Catholicae Fidei contra Gentiles (Summa) Contra Gentiles) (1259-1264),
Aquinas's unfinished Summa Theologica (1265-1273) represents the most complete
statement of his philosophical system. The sections of greatest interest for
survey courses include his views on the nature of god, including the five ways
to prove god's existence, and his exposition of natural law. Although matters of
such importance should be accepted on the basis of divine revelation alone,
Aquinas held, it is at least possible (and perhaps even desirable) in some
circumstances to achieve genuine knowledge of them by means of the strict
application of human reason. As embodied souls, human beings naturally rely on
sensory information for their knowledge of the world. Anselm's Ontological
Argument is not acceptable, Aquinas argued, since we are in fact ignorant of the
divine essence from which it is presumed to begin. We cannot hope to demonstrate
the necessary existence of a being whose true nature we cannot even conceive by
direct or positive means. Instead, Aquinas held, we must begin with the sensory
experiences we do understand and reason upward from them to their origin in
something eternal. In this vein, Aquinas presented his own "Five Ways"
to prove the existence of god. The first three of these ways are all variations
of the Cosmological Argument. The first way is an argument from motion, derived
fairly directly from Aristotle's Metaphysics: 1.There is something moving.
2.Everything that moves is put into motion by something else. 3.But this series
of antecedent movers cannot reach back infinitely. 4.Therefore, there must be a
first mover (which is god). The second way has the same structure, but begins
from experience of an instance of efficient cause, and the third way relies more
heavily upon a distinction between uncertain and necessary being. Aquinas's
fourth way is a variety of Moral Argument. It begins with the factual claim that
we do make judgments about the relative perfection of ordinary things. But the
capacity to do so, Aquinas argued, presupposes an absolute standard of
perfection to which we compare everything else. This argument relies more
heavily on Platonic and Augustinian notions, and has the advantage of defending
the existence of god as moral exemplar rather than as abstract initiator of
reality. The fifth way is the Teleological Argument: the order and arrangement
of the natural world (not merely its existence) bespeaks the deliberate design
of an intelligent creator. Although it is an argument by analogy, which can at
best offer only probable reason for believing the truth of its conclusion, this
proof offers a concept of god that most fully corresponds to the traditional
elements of medieval Christian theology. Since its experiential basis lies in
our understanding of the operation of nature, this line of reasoning tends to
become more compelling the more thorough our scientific knowledge is advanced.
0
0
Good or bad? How would you rate this essay?
Help other users to find the good and worthy free term papers and trash the bad ones.
Like this term paper? Vote & Promote so that others can find it

Get a Custom Paper on Philosophy:

Free papers will not meet the guidelines of your specific project. If you need a custom essay on Philosophy: , we can write you a high quality authentic essay. While free essays can be traced by Turnitin (plagiarism detection program), our custom written papers will pass any plagiarism test, guaranteed. Our writing service will save you time and grade.




Related essays:

0
0
Anselm concludes that one requires two wills to be free by arguing that to be free is to have an ability. In this paper I will argue that Anselm believes that this ability is incompatible with an Ari...
3191 views
0 comments
0
0
Philosophy / Anselm On God
In the beginning of Scholasticism, one of the biggest problems is the place of dialectic, because it was often inconsistent with theology. Anselm made a moderate point between dialectic, philosophy a...
3594 views
0 comments
0
0
Philosophy / Antigone`s Ethics
Some individuals in literature try to do what they believe is right, even though they face oppositions. In the play "Antigone", by Sophocles, and "A Few Good Men", by Rob Reiner, ...
3867 views
0 comments
0
0
The love as discussed by the characters in the Symposium is homosexual love. Some assumed that homosexuality alone is capable of satisfying “a man’s highest and noblest aspirations”. Whereas heterose...
4065 views
0 comments
0
0
Achieving excellence in terms of Aristotle's "Nichomachean Ethics" Before actually focusing on the main details of Aristotle's Argument, we must pay careful attention to the opening remarks...
3693 views
0 comments