The Proof of God: The Debate that Shaped Modern Belief

by Larry Witham

Anselm, Ockham, and three thinkers locked in one of Western philosophy's greatest debates.

In 1078, Anselm of Bec wrote the most famous proof in Western religious tradition—what we know now as the "ontological argument" for God's existence. Stating that the "idea" and "reality" of God were the same, Anselm provoked enormous controversy through a radical rather than appealing to the Bible, church authority, or the physical senses, he employed the faculties of his mind, crafting a method of logic that paved the way for modern thought.

Larry Witham traces our modern-day conceptions of faith and reason back to Anselm's formidable claim. In attempting to "prove God," Anselm unleashed a medieval debate that culminated in William of Ockham, whose notorious "razor" denied all such proofs, limiting knowledge to "things" only. Scrupulously managing fact and theory, Witham tells the story of this intellectual quest across the Middle Ages and how it inspired the West's "first modern philosopher," René Descartes.

By turns history, biography, and philosophical inquiry, The Proof of God follows one of the seminal arguments of Western belief from its inception to the present.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published July 14, 2008

About the author

Larry Witham is an author, editor, journalist, and artist. His new novel, The Haunted Artist (2025) is the fourth in the Julian Peale Art-Crime Investigator Series. Witham is the author of nineteen books (six of them novels), and was a finalist in the 2015 Pen Literary Awards for biography. He began his writing career as a daily newspaper reporter in Washington D.C. Witham has received several national awards for his newspaper work and books, and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for a newspaper series he co-wrote. He was Project Editor for the ten-volume Templeton Press science-and-religion series. A painter by avocation, his new novel character, Julain Peale, investigates crime and intrigue in the artworld. Witham lives with his wife in the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C.

Reviews

[Gary Land · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather than attempting to prove the existence of God, as the title might suggeest, this little book is a history of the ontological argument for God's existence. This highly abstract argument began with Anselm in the 12th century and has been highly controversial, some thinkers seeing it as a form of intellectual trickery and others as a serious and unaswerable proposition. Witham has written a simple and entertaining account without oversimplifying or talking down to his readers. I cannot imagine a more delightful handling of this difficult matter and wish that I had come across this book when I was teaching Introduction to Philosophy. I highly recommend this book to anyone with interest in such issues.

[David Swire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable, from Anselm to B. Russell