Anselm, Aquinas and Augustine each exhibited a love of knowledge and shared strong ties to religion, namely Christianity. Apart from of their personal religious beliefs they also agree on several basic principles regarding creation. The most common thought these ancient seekers of wisdom share is the belief that a being greater than themselves upholds divine unity, goodness and power, someone called God.

Augustine describes God as eternal, Anselm defines God as the “most perfect being” and Aquinas refers to God as the “unmoved mover.” Whatever name or label each philoso

Augustine and Anselm base their views on the idea that faith and reason are the only true sources of human knowledge. On one hand, Anselm believes in God, but does not think a Christian worldview is necessary to explain the existence of God therefore; his argument is designed to be acceptable to believers and nonbelievers. This explains why Anselm upheld the Christian faith in his intellectual life and refused to accept any thought into his theories that did not hold up to the scriptures.

For Anselm, faith must be the starting point in the search for the truth. In his quest, he decided that a human could not comprehend the mysteries of faith, otherwise they would not be mysteries, but he thought it possible to prove the necessity of the Trinity and the incarnation. Anselm stresses that he wants to find a proof of God, not because he does not believe, but because he does believe he wants proof of his belief.

On the other hand, we have the views of Aquinas, which strongly disagree with Anselm and the ontological argument. Aquinas refuted that since we are in fact ignorant of the divine essence from which existence is presumed to begin we cannot hope to demonstrate the reality of a being whose true nature we cannot even conceive. Instead, Aquinas thought we must begin our insight with sensory experiences we do not understand and reason upward from them to their origin in something eternal. Aquinas’ claim was that it was at least possible, and perhaps even desirable in some circumstances, to achieve genuine knowledge by means of human reason. Aquinas’ philosophy resulted in five ways of proving God exists.

The third statement outlines that God is the necessary being, which brings everything else into being. His fourth concept refers to God as an ultimate standard of goodness, truth and nobility. Therefore, says Aquinas, “… there must also be something which is to all being

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