> > At any rate, I still don't get the proof. It seems like it becomes circular at some point: "How do we know this ultimate being exists outside our imagination?" "Well, if he doesn't, then we can imagine a yet greater being, which requires that he is absolutely real." "And how do we know that this one exists outside our imagination?" "Well, if he doesn't, ..."
>
> Yeah, that's the thing. The ontological argument *is* logically flawed (to begin with, it assumes that having the quality "existence" is a component of greatness; it's a bit of a stretch to take "that which exists is greater than that which does not exist" strictly for granted) - that's why Anselm is not referred to as "The man who proved the existence of God," and that is why the existence of God is still a subject of some debate.
>

Not only flawed but made infinitely worse by utterly confusing semantics, as you noted. Just WHY is this argument of any use, if everyone recognizes that thinking of the 'concept' of an object/person is *different* from the existence of the object/person in itself? Anselm's explanation as you quoted it,

"For if that greater than which cannot be thought can be thought of as not existing, then that greater than which cannot be thought is not that greater than which cannot be thought, which does not make sense,"

is something which I've tried to break down as a syllogism. It appears to be saying, rather circularly,

1. Any conceptualization of God has to be that of the greatest Being who ever existed.
2. But the existence of something merely in the mind is inferior to its existence in reality;
3. Therefore, since God is the greatest conceivable Being, He must exist in reality, as well as in the mind.

Needless to say, this doesn't make any sense to me. If I were to lean in the direction of an soft (indirect) proof of God, I think I'd prefer Aquinas' Cosmological argument. How does it go? Let me see... Aquinas suggested that whenever nature is observed, it is seen to follow certain laws, sequences, and predictable events. These laws and sequences must have been ordained since the beginning as part of the structure of the universe. Every thing and every event each appears to have a cause, always. So if ordinary natural events are all traced back to the beginning of time, then most likely there must have been one First Cause or "Prime Mover," a.k.a. something like God. Therefore, studying the natural world and universe is a way in which we can understand something of the mind/nature of God.

This is good news for scientists because it means that science inherently is NOT a heretical or apostatical activity. Q.E.D.

Wolf "Of course you can kick holes the size of a barn door in Aquinas' argument; you could argue that it supports not only a theistic but a pantheistic view of the Deity as well, and in equal measure. At any rate, I think logic based on observable causation is a better place to start than in the vagarities of inspirational but rather subjectively-interpreted wordplay." spirit