Do numbers exist? Do ideas? Does perfection? And since people disagree, how can we know? Anselm’s ontological argument attempts to establish God’s existence through reason alone. God is defined as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” Anselm argues that such a being cannot exist merely in the understanding, because a being that exists in reality is greater than one that exists only as an idea. Yet this reasoning conceals a fundamental problem: it assumes that existence in reality is a superior condition without adequately establishing what kind of existence can meaningfully be attributed to the God it seeks to prove. The problem becomes particularly striking when the argument is considered within the context of classical Christian theology. God is not understood as a physical object or even as a particularly powerful mind within the universe. God is uncreated, immaterial, and independent of the created order. God has not simply existed for an infinitely long ti...
Truth and meaning can be enemies—but they can also be partners. At their best, they function like a heartbeat: systolic and diastolic, contraction and release. One grounds us in reality; the other animates that reality with purpose. They are like a married couple on a dance floor. Sometimes truth leads, sometimes meaning does. Harmony doesn’t require sameness—only coordination. When the rhythm holds, movement feels alive rather than forced. Carl Jung called this process individuation : the integration of what is known with what is felt, of fact with value, of the conscious self with what lies beneath it. But like a shadow that doesn’t always move in perfect unison with the body, truth and meaning can fall out of sync. When they do, illusion begins to grow—quietly, like mold in a dark basement. Jung called this the shadow : not evil, but unacknowledged reality. Transcendence is not escape from the shadow, but its integration—where truth and meaning converge rather than compete. Diss...