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Articles

The Ontological Argument and the Sin of Hubris

Toni Vogel Carey’s answer to the most argued-over argument for the existence of God.

Commuter conversation normally amounts to nothing much, or nothing at all. So what was my surprise when a sixth-grade teacher seated next to me, seeing me red-penciling a paper, asked what it was, and hearing the word ‘philosophy,’ told me eagerly that his favorite philosophical topic is St Anselm’s Ontological Argument.

Smart guy, he picked the most intriguing of the attempted proofs of the existence of God. Indeed, according to one claim the Ontological Argument has generated more philosophical debate than any other in history. And it did indeed originate with Anselm, abbot of Bec and later archbishop of Canterbury, in his eleventh-century Proslogion.

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