Is God the greatest being that might be conceived? People have questioned this being’s existence since the beginning of time—What is it? How is it obtained? How is it defined? Among these topics, one of the most debated ones is the existence of God.

Archbishop St. Anselm of Canterbury, a philosopher of the Middle Ages, explains his perspective on this question in his ontological argument for the existence of God. His ontological argument is one of the oldest and most influential and has led many future philosophers to debate this topic. To understand the argument, we first need to know what ontology is, a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being. Hence an ontological argument concerning God is a piece of philosophical reasoning that aims to prove the existence of God. Anselm attempts to do this through the mere concept of God as the Greatest Conceivable Being (GCB). If there is a God, as He is the Creator of everything, then He would be perfect, and it would not be possible for any being to be greater than Him. If God really was perfect, it would mean that God actually existed because a God that exists is better than an imaginary God.

Anselm defines God as something of which nothing greater can be conceived. Anselm states that a being that exists in reality, is greater than a being that exists only in the mind, or as a concept, meaning that something that exists in reality is superior to something that does not exist. Hence existence is a necessary part of perfection because that which is perfect cannot be inferior to anything. Anselm states that if we assume that God is the GOB (the greatest of beings who exists only in our mind), then GOB* (a being that is even greater, which includes existence) would be possible. However, this would contradict the initial definition of God (GOB) as the greatest conceivable being, as GOB* would be greater which, by definition, is not possible. This leads to the conclusion that God must exist in reality, and nothing greater can be conceived.

Although, while I agree that it might be possible to prove the existence of God, including the idea that God is the GOB, I must question the validity of Anselm’s argument. A widely known objection to St. Anselm’s argument was first posed by one of his contemporaries, Gaunilo, who uses the Perfect Island analogy to prove that Anselm’s argument sounds absurd. From Gaunilo’s point of view, according to Anselm’s argument, anything can exist if we think about it. Gaunilo’s Perfect Island Analogy states that if one can imagine an island of which none greater can be conceived, then one knows that it exists in the mind, but how does one know that it exists in reality? Since we can always imagine an island that is greater and greater, and even though, we know that the new islands exist in the mind, we also know that they cannot exist in reality.. Things that exist in reality are necessarily greater than those that exist only in the mind. According to this, the second Island would be greater than the first, but since the second cannot be greater than the first, the first one exists. If this were true then everything we can conceive can be said to exist, but this is clearly not the case.

In addition to Gaunilo’s Perfect Island Analogy, I would like to pose some more fundamental questions about St. Anselm’s argument. The topic of the existence of God is one question we can pose to the argument. Even though we can imagine something like God, does that necessarily make God a reality? Even if God did exist, how can we know that it is the GOB if we do not know all the beings? There are also many things that are not defined in the argument. For example, what does it mean to be the greatest and the most powerful? Does it mean that God has the most power, is the most popular, is the kindest, etc.? Even if we had a trustworthy definition of “greatest,” we would still have to deal with the question of whether God really exists, and if God really exists, then we could prove that God is the GOB, but to do that we would still have to prove that he exists.

Another question that raises an objection to Anselm’s argument is whether we have discovered all beings. If we were to find a being that is even greater than God, would he become the new God? I would also like to question whether the argument works for all religions or is specific to one. There are many religions in the world, some religions have one god, while other religions have multiple gods. In the cases where there is only one God, is that specific God the greatest or could another God from another religion be greater? For religions that consist of multiple Gods, the argument also does not tell which God would be the greatest. If all of them were the greatest, it would no longer mean they are the greatest since it contradicts the definition of greatest. But, the word greatest has not even been properly defined yet.

These are some of the questions that St. Anselm does not clarify or explain in his argument if his argument is going to be unimpeachable. I think it is not possible to prove the existence of God especially because we do not have any evidence to indicate he was real. According to St. Anselm’s argument, if I can think of a way to make God a greater being, it would make that new concept into the new GOB. If God really was the GOB, why does he not come out and tell us he is God and he really exists? If God did that, wouldn’t that make him an even better being since he wouldn’t be the greatest if he cannot do that? If God were to actually do that, we can actually try and provide evidence concerning whether he is the greatest being to be conceived of, or not. Until then, I do not think it is physically possible to say that God actually exists just with St. Anselm’s reasoning.

Although there has been much more development on St. Anselm’s argument that philosophers have come up with, after him, St. Anselm’s argument itself cannot be proven to be true and could be questioned due to lack of definition and clarification of multiple key points.