Objection:

Now that Anselm’s Ontological Argument has been fully explained, I am going to raise my objection to one of its premises, as I believe that premise 1 (specifically, the notion that God is the greatest being that can conceive) is unsound. The reason premise 1 raises my objection, as well as controversy in general, is that Anselm’s definition of God is not accepted by everyone universally, and furthermore, begs the question to the ontological argument. In order to explain the bombshell of my former sentence, I shall provide an example as to why Anselm’s definition of God begs the question to his Ontological argument: a solid definition is only proven once an object exists. For example, the reason we know that an apple is a fruit is because it exists, which means that people can analyze apples and determine that they have seeds meaning that they are fruits. This would follow this argumentative structure:

1. Apples exists
2. Since Apples exists, humans can analyze the qualities of an apple and determine it has seeds
3. Since the Apple has seeds, we classify it as a fruit

As you can see, one can only reach the conclusion that an apple is fruit through the observation of its characteristics, which can happen because it exists, and this helps us formulate the definition of the apple. In other words, the definition of an apple is formed because it exists in the first place, and because it exists we can analyze it. Therefore, in order for Anselm’s first premise to be sound and uncontroversial, one would have to seek a universal definition of God that is backed by fact, however, this is what the argument is trying to prove, which means that Anselm has committed the informal fallacy of begging the question: because the definition of God can only be proven by the existence of God, and Anselm includes his own definition of God, the Ontological argument is unsound, because Anselm already assumes the existence of God in his premises before reaching the conclusion. Furthermore, as stated previously, Anselm’s definition of God also coincides with the Bible’s definition of God, and since the Bible is a holy text thought to have been written by God/Jesus Christ, Anselm’s definition of God also begs the question through this method.  In fact, if one ignores the previous statement as a whole/disregards Anselm begging the question, Anselm’s interpretation of God is still very controversial as a whole, since many different people throughout history have had very different interpretations of what God/a supreme being would be like: by using Anselm’s definition in the Ontological argument, which is essentially picking one of hundreds of interpretations of God, the reader is already conforming to Anselm’s claim that God is real. In conclusion, Anselm’s premise 1 begs the question in that it assumes the definition of God, when a definition can only be solidified as universal when the object it is referring physically exists and the analysis of such objects characteristics: since Anselm’s ontological argument is trying to prove/conclude the existence of God, the argument begs the question as it assumes god exists which is exemplified through Anselm’s use of his definition of god.