What are contingent beings?

A contingent being (a being such that if it exists, it could have not-existed) exists. All contingent beings have a sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for their existence.

Is it possible for a maximally great being to exist?

If a maximally great being exists in one logically possible world, it exists in every logically possible world. Therefore, a maximally great being (that is, God) exists in every logically possible world.

What is the contingency argument for God?

The “Argument from Contingency” examines how every being must be either necessary or contingent. Since not every being can be contingent, it follow that there must be a necessary being upon which all things depend. This being is God.

Is God metaphysically necessary?

While many theologians (e.g. Anselm of Canterbury, René Descartes, and Gottfried Leibniz) considered God to be a logically or metaphysically necessary being, Richard Swinburne argued for factual necessity, and Alvin Plantinga argues that God is a causally necessary being.

What was Gaunilo’s reply to Anselm?

1. If Anselm’s proof for the existence of a greatest conceivable being were sound, then we could give a sound proof for the existence of a greatest conceivable island. 2. We cannot give a sound proof of the existence of a greatest conceivable island.

What is the significance of Anselm’s definition of God?

Anselm claims to derive the existence of God from the concept of a being than which no greater can be conceived. St. Anselm reasoned that, if such a being fails to exist, then a greater being—namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists—can be conceived.

Is Anselm’s argument true?

Anselm’s argument in Chapter 2 can be summarized as follows: It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (that is, the greatest possible being that can be imagined). God exists as an idea in the mind.