Anselm (1033-1109)
“You exist so truly, Lord my God, that you cannot even be thought not to exist.” (Proslogion, 1077).
Anselm of Canterbury developed a powerful argument for the existence of God.
As Prior of Bec, Anselm has raised the abbey’s prestige and made it a first-rate school, for he has a superb mind, perhaps the best in the 11th-century Christian world. Many in future generations will consider him the founder of scholasticism, a method of learning which asks questions and attempts to resolve them, often through dialectical reasoning. At Bec, he has written the first of his philosophical works, which he titles An Example of Meditation on the Meaning of Faith, but will later change to Monologion.
Writing the Monologion, which consists of a lengthy string of propositions and arguments on the nature of God and His creation, has led Anselm to wonder whether a single, compelling argument can be found which proves that God really exists.
He grapples with the possibility for a long time without success. He wonders if it is right to go on in his search, for the effort is eating up mind-time which might better be spent on more soluble questions. He decides to abandon his quest.
His mind has a will of its own, however. The more he tries to turn off the problem, the more it recurs to him. Suddenly, when he is quite worn out from seeking a solution, he is filled with joy. The very argument he needs wells up within his mind. It turns on the phrase “that, than which nothing greater can be conceived.” Future philosophers will name it the “Ontological Argument” and of all arguments for God’s existence it is the subtlest, the most difficult to overthrow, racking the intelligence of the most eminent philosophers of subsequent millennium, such as Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Hegel, and Kant. Even Bertram Russell, known for his atheism (but one of the finest mathematicians and logicians of the 20th-century) will at one point exclaim to a friend that the proof actually seems to work.
Anselm publishes his argument in a new book, the Proslogion, for he believes “that what had given me such joy to discover would afford pleasure, if it were written down, to anyone who might read it…” The heart of his argument appears in chapter two:
“And indeed, we believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. Or is there no such nature, since the fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God?’ (Psalm 14:1). But, at any rate, this very fool, when he hears of this being of which I speak a being than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived, understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding; although he does not understand it to exist.
“For, it is one thing for an object to be in the understanding, and another to understand that the object exists. When a painter first conceives of what he will afterwards perform, he has it in his understanding, but he does not yet understand it to be, because he has not yet performed it. But after he has made the painting, he both has it in his understanding, and he understands that it exists, because he has made it.
“Hence, even the fool is convinced that something exists (in the understanding, at least) than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived. For, when he hears of this, he understands it. And whatever is understood, exists in the understanding. And assuredly that, than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.
“Therefore, if that, than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived, is one, than-which-a-greater-can-be-conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being, than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.”
In chapter three, he reinforces his argument with additional considerations:
“God cannot be conceived not to exist. God is that, than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived. That which can be conceived not to exist is not God.
“And it assuredly exists so truly, that it cannot be conceived not to exist. For, it is possible to conceive of a being who cannot be conceived not to exist; and this is greater than one which can be conceived not to exist. Hence, if that, than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived, can be conceived not to exist, it is not that, than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived. But this is an irreconcilable contradiction. There is, then, so truly a being than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived to exist, that it cannot even be conceived not to exist; and you are that being, O Lord, our God.
You exist so truly, Lord my God, that you cannot even be thought not to exist; and rightly. For, if a mind could conceive of a being better than you, the creature would rise above the Creator; and this is most absurd…”
Anselm will go on to become Archbishop of Canterbury, and author of several other books, including his famous Cur Deus Homo? or Why Did God Become Man?
— Dan Graves
Dig a Little Deeper
- Anselm, Saint, Archbishop of Canterbury. Proslogium, Monologium; An Appendix in Behalf of the Fool by Gaunilon; and Cur Deus Homo, translated by Sidney Norton Deane. Open Court Publishing, 1903, 1926.
- —————————–. St. Anselm’s Proslogion, translated and introduced by M. J. Charlesworth. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 1978, 1965.
- Hopkins, Jasper. A Companion to the Study of St. Anselm. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1972.
