Most human beings are prone to idolatry.

I am in Bec Cathedral in Normandy, Franeh.  And once outside I stare at the statue of Anselm, he of the Ontological Argument, an argument that held sway for hundred of years.



So what as this 'great' idea that emanated from this man in this beautiful Normandy setting?

The ontological argument for the existence of God (or simply ontological argument) is any one of a category of arguments for the existence of God appearing mainly in Christian theology. The exact criteria for the classification of ontological arguments are not widely agreed, but the arguments typically start with the definition of God and conclude with his necessary existence, using mostly or only a priori reasoning and little reference to empirical observation.


It is widely accepted that the first ontological argument was proposed by Anselm of Canterbury in 1078 in his Proslogion. Anselm defined God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived", and then argued that this being could exist in the mind. He suggested that, if the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exist in reality. If it only exists in the mind, a greater being is possible—one which exists in the mind and in reality.

I walk away from the statue wondering about the other holy trinity of arguments:

The cosmological argument is an argument for the existence of a First Cause (or instead, an Uncaused cause) to the universe, and by extension is often used as an argument for the existence of an "unconditioned" or "supreme" being, usually then identified as God. It is traditionally known as an argument from universal causation, an argument from first cause, the causal argument or the argument from existence. Whichever term is employed, there are three basic variants of the argument, each with subtle yet important distinctions: the arguments from in causa (causality), in esse (essentiality), in fieri (becoming), and the argument from contingency.

The basic premise of all of these is that something caused the Universe to exist, and this First Cause must be God. It has been used by various theologians and philosophers over the centuries, from the ancient Greeks Plato and Aristotle to the medievals (e.g., St. Thomas Aquinas) and beyond. It is also applied by the Spiritist doctrine as the main argument for the existence of God.

A teleological or design argument is an a posteriori argument for the existence of God based on apparent design and purpose in the universe. The argument is based on an interpretation of teleology wherein purpose and design appear to exist in nature beyond the scope of any such human activities. The teleological argument suggests that, given this premise, the existence of a designer can be assumed, typically presented as God. Various concepts of teleology originated in ancient philosophy and theology. Some philosophers, such as Plato, proposed a divine Artificer as the designer; others, including Aristotle, rejected that conclusion in favor of a more naturalistic teleology.

In the Middle Ages, the Islamic philosopher Averroes introduces a teleological argument. Later, a teleological argument is the fifth of Saint Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways, his rational proofs for the existence of God. The teleological argument was continued by empiricists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who believed that the order in the world suggested the existence of God. William Paley developed these ideas with his version of the watch maker analogy. He argued that in the same way a watch's complexity implies the existence of its maker, so too one may infer the Creator of the universe exists, given the evident complexity of Nature. This argument resonates with a notion of the fine-tuned Universe, understood as an alternative to the anthropic principle.

Most human beings are prone to idolatry,in the words of Iris Murdoch, '...and they conflate

idolatry in the form of conflating God with the sensible images they have of him, as an avuncular bearded figure or as some evanescent substance coursing through all material things. The overcoming of this materialistic representation of the divine does not promise refuge from idolatry, however. Another form of idolatry, one to which philosophers are prone, comes from identifying God with the content of propositions signifying perfections, such as “God is good” or “God is goodness.”