The proof of God

"In 1078, Anselm of Bec wrote the most famous proof in Western religious tradition: the "ontological argument" for God's existence. Stating that the "idea" and "reality" of God were the same, Anselm daringly used the faculties of his mind, rather than the Bible or church authorities, to reach the proof. Larry Witham traces our modern-day conceptions of faith back to Anselm's claim, which unleashed a medieval debate that culminated in William of Ockham's notorious "razor." 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 Rene Descartes." "By turns history, biography, and philosophical inquiry, The Proof of God traces one of the seminal arguments of Western belief from its inception to our own day."--book jacket.