by Orestes J. Gonzalez

Created on: March 08, 2009   Last Updated: May 25, 2012

Those who affirm God's existence by faith or reason or both have no difficulty in recognizing God as true being. And the supporting facts and convincing evidence on which they base their belief and knowledge are not figments of the imagination.

Of greater interest in the context of the present discussion are the difficulties confronting those who postulate God as an invention of man's mind. For even the idea of God present in man's mind has been successfully taken to provide evidence for God's true being.

A serious analysis of how the idea of God present in man's mind leads to God's true being is reported in the works of Anselm of Canterbury. A close look at Anselm's prayerful formulation of the inference should prove helpful here to clarify why God cannot be an invention of man's mind.

Here I report a brief summary of the argument in the words of Anselm of Canterbury.

"Lord, grant me that I may understand, as much as You see fit, that You exist as we believe You to exist, and that You are what we believe You to be. Now we believe that You are 'something than which nothing greater can be thought.'

"Or can it be that a thing of such a nature does not exist, since 'the Fool has said in his heart, there is no God'?

"Surely, when the Fool hears what I am speaking about, namely, 'something than which nothing greater can be thought,' he understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his mind, even if he does not understand that it actually exists.

"For it is one thing for an object to exist in the mind, and another thing to understand that an object actually exists.

"Even the Fool, then, is forced to agree that 'something than which nothing greater can be thought' exists in the mind, since he understands this when he hears it, and whatever is understood is in the mind.

"And surely 'that than which a greater cannot be thought' cannot exist in the mind alone.

"For if it exists solely in the mind even, it can be thought to exist in reality also, which is greater. If then 'that than which a greater cannot be thought' exists in the mind alone, this same 'that than which a greater cannot be thought' is 'that than which a greater can be thought.' But this is obviously impossible.

"Therefore there is absolutely no doubt that 'something than which a greater cannot be thought' exists both in the mind and in reality.

"You exist so truly, Lord my God, that You cannot even be thought not to exist.

"Lord, not only are You 'that than which a greater cannot be thought,'

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