Briefly describe how St. Anselm's ontological proof is an example of the "Medieval Synthesis"

Answer 1

Medieval philosophy focuses merely on the subject of reason in connection to faith. With the exception of Avicenna and Averroes, St. Augustine, Aquinas, and Anselm did not view themselves as philosophers but mainly as theologians who use ancient logic only to address the most difficult theological issues. That explained their use of Cosmological and Ontological arguments to prove the existence of God.

Anselm developed the Ontological Argument based on the idea that God exists because He is omnipotent, omniscient and greatly perfect. As opposed to the twentieth century existentialists such as Sartre, who believes that "existence precedes essence", Anselm in medieval age reversed such existential concept.

Anselm states that God is the best of the best and the greatest of all than which none greatest can be conceived. As such, God cannot be the best and the greatest of all if He did not exist. Therefore, His essence precedes His existence.

This kind of argument faces critics at different times.

One of the critics is Aquinas, who is a contemporary of Anselm. Aquinas states "The ontological argument would be meaningful only to someone who understands the essence of God completely as only God can completely know His essence, only He could use the argument."

Another critic of Anselm Ontological Argument is the eighteenth-century philosopher Kant. Kant postulates that existence is not a predicate. In other words, Kant believes in God as a Concept. For him we cannot derive existence from a Concept. For example, in the proposition "This apple is red", the essence (property) of redness can be derived from the object "apple" because "apple" is a physical object. However, in the proposition "God is omnipotent", the property of omnipotence cannot be derived from God as a concept.