
	“The fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” The preceding quotation is seen first in Psalm 14 of the Christian Bible, and is found at the beginning of St. Anselm’s argument regarding the existence of God. This belief seems to also be held by the other author whom we will be discussing, Thomas Aquinas. Because each of their arguments is in defense of the same concept, and our challenge is to determine who’s is the better of the two, we must, for sake of brevity, begin with the presumption that they are both correct in their belief in the existence of God, specifically the God of the Bible. To allow for a God-type figure that may not resemble the one in whom our two authors believe would not permit us to appropriately compare their two arguments, as they are essentially in defense of one specific concept of God. That being said, I would suggest that while each of them brings up valid points, neither truly provides a holistic basis for belief in God.
	To illustrate this point, we will first examine the basic argument of St. Anselm. Anselm’s passage reflects a path of gaining understanding through faith, looking within one’s self to find proof of God. He explains that because God exists within our understanding, we cannot effectively conceive his nonexistence. While this concept, when spelled out in his terminology, is a bit tedious and at times unclear, the basic gist of it is that the proof for God lies within one’s own mind. St. Anselm is suggesting to us that we needn’t go beyond the confines of our own soul to find truth about God, but that the existence of this being is found to be true simply by examining that which we inherently know to be true within our own minds. Foreign evidence is presumably unnecessary. This concept of accepting that for which there is not an irrefutable body of empirical evidence is often referred to within Christian texts as faith.
	This idea is very different from that held by St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas instead suggests that the existence of God can be proven entirely through reason and empirical evidence, with no need for faith of any kind. Such an idea would be beneficial in evangelism, an important element of Christianity, because it would enable the recruiting of new converts without any dependency upon their willingness to accept something that cannot be proven. They could instead be persuaded by logic alone. St. Thomas elaborates on five different logical arguments supporting the existence of God: change, causation, contingency, degrees of excellence, and harmony. In each he essentially demonstrates that the proof of God lies in the logical necessity for God. If you are told that that you are missing one puzzle piece, and assemble the rest of the puzzle, logic dictates that you can know of the features and the existence of the missing piece without having to see it.
