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Anselm and the Concept of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Frederick Sontag
Affiliation:
Pomona College, Claremont, California 91711

Extract

John Hick begins his essay on verification by agreeing that ‘there are many different concepts of God’. Thus, at the outset of considering the problem of verifying any one concept, we are faced with a plurality. This complicates the question, since some concepts of God relate more easily to verification than do others. But Hick opts at the outset for a strong meaning for ‘verification’: the removal of ignorance or uncertainty concerning the truth of some proposition. Of course, we are faced with the question of whether ‘dealing with God’ really means dealing with propositions. All this aside, it is clear that some classical notions of God defy verification while others fit more easily.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1982

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References

1 Hick, John, ‘Theology and Verification’, Theology Today, Vol. XVII, No. 1, April 1960, pp. 1231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Ibid. p. 12.

5 Ibid. pp. 13–14.

6 Malcolm, Norman, ‘Anselm's Ontological Arguments’, The Philosophical Review, January 1960, pp. 4160Google Scholar. Also in: The Many-faced Argument, ed. Hick, and McGill, . The Macmillan Company. New York, 1967, pp. 301320.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. p.41.

8 Ibid. p. 42.

9 Ibid. pp. 45–47.