Whatever we may think of his ontological argument, we are all in Anselm’s debt for helping us to have a more adequate concept of God. According to Anselm, God is the greatest being conceivable (aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit). This definition does not make God dependent on the human imagination. “Conceivable” here means possible: God is the greatest being possible, that is to say, it is impossible for there to be any being greater than God.
It is clearly inadequate to think of God as merely the greatest being there is. For that does not exclude that God is imperfect in various ways, for example, limited in His goodness, knowledge, and power. Zeus was probably conceived by ancient pagans to be the greatest being there is, but such a finite and flawed being hardly commends himself to us as worthy of worship. Atheism is, in fact, consistent with the existence of a greatest being in the world.
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