Augustus Hopkins Strong

In his own words

But we reply that this argument confounds the idea of the infinite with an infinite idea. Man’s idea of the infinite is not infinite but finite, and from a finite effect we cannot argue an infinite cause. This form of the Ontological Argument, while it is a priori, as based upon a necessary idea of the human mind, is, unlike the other forms of the same argument, a posteriori, as arguing from this idea, as an effect, to the existence of a Being who is its cause. A posteriori argument = from that which is later to that which is earlier, that is, from effect to cause. The Cosmological, Teleological, and Anthropological Arguments are arguments a posteriori. Of this sort is the argument of Descartes; see Descartes, Meditation 3: “Hæc idea quæ in nobis est requirit Deum pro causa; Deusque proinde existit.” The idea in men’s minds is the impression of the workman’s name stamped indelibly on his work—the shadow cast upon the human soul by that unseen One of whose being and presence it dimly informs us. Blunt, Dict. of Theol., 739; Saisset, Pantheism, 1:54—“Descartes sets out from a fact of consciousness, while Anselm sets out from an abstract conception”; “Descartes’s argument might be considered a branch of the Anthropological or Moral Argument, but for the fact that this last proceeds from man’s constitution rather than from his abstract ideas.” See Bib. Sac., 1849:637. 3. That of Anselm. We have the idea of an absolutely perfect Being. But existence is an attribute of perfection. An absolutely perfect Being must therefore exist.

Quoted verbatim from the library, as an answer would quote it.

What we hold of him

• Systematic Theology Vol 1

  Classic

• Systematic Theology Vol 3

  Classic

• Systematic Theology Vol 2

  Classic

Others in the library

• Charles Haddon Spurgeon
• John Calvin
• John Gill
• Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch
• Albert Barnes
• Jonathan Edwards