The first human beings and the rebel angels sinned through an exercise of their power for self-initiated action, and so it is appropriate to say that they sinned through free choice.
Nonetheless, free choice does not entail the power to sin. For free choice can be perfected by something else, as yet unspecified, that renders it incapable of sinning. In On the Fall of the Devil De casu diaboli Anselm extends his account of freedom and sin by discussing the first sin of the angels.
In order for the angels to have the power to preserve rectitude of will for its own sake, they had to have both a will for justice and a will for happiness. If God had given them only a will for happiness, they would have been necessitated to will whatever they thought would make them happy.
Their willing of happiness would have had its ultimate origin in God and not in the angels themselves. So they would not have had the power for self-initiated action, which means that they would not have had free choice. The same thing would have been true, mutatis mutandis , if God had given them only the will for justice.
Since God gave them both the will for happiness and the will for justice, however, they had the power for self-initiated action. Whether they chose to subject their wills for happiness to the demands of justice or to ignore the demands of justice in the interest of happiness, that choice had its ultimate origin in the angels; it was not received from God. The rebel angels chose to abandon justice in an attempt to gain happiness for themselves, whereas the good angels chose to persevere in justice even if it meant less happiness.
God punished the rebel angels by taking away their happiness; he rewarded the good angels by granting them all the happiness they could possibly want. For this reason, the good angels are no longer able to sin. Since there is no further happiness left for them to will, their will for happiness can no longer entice them to overstep the bounds of justice.
Thus Anselm finally explains what it is that perfects free choice so that it becomes unable to sin. Like the fallen angels, the first human beings willed happiness in preference to justice. By doing so they abandoned the will for justice and became unable to will justice for its own sake. Apart from divine grace, then, fallen human beings cannot help but sin. Anselm claims that we are still free, because we continue to be such that if we had rectitude of will, we could preserve it for its own sake; but we cannot exercise our freedom, since we no longer have the rectitude of will to preserve.
Whether fallen human beings also retain the power for self-initiated action apart from divine grace is a tricky question, and one I do not propose to answer here.
So the restoration of human beings to the justice they were intended to enjoy requires divine grace. Augustine, Saint Duns Scotus, John free will medieval philosophy ontological arguments. Life and Works 2. The Theistic Proofs 2. The Divine Nature 3. Freedom, Sin, and Redemption 4. Life and Works Anselm was born in near Aosta, in those days a Burgundian town on the frontier with Lombardy. Thus Anselm opens the Monologion with these words: If anyone does not know, either because he has not heard or because he does not believe, that there is one nature, supreme among all existing things, who alone is self-sufficient in his eternal happiness, who through his omnipotent goodness grants and brings it about that all other things exist or have any sort of well-being, and a great many other things that we must believe about God or his creation, I think he could at least convince himself of most of these things by reason alone, if he is even moderately intelligent.
Anselm concludes the first four chapters by summarizing his results: Therefore, there is a certain nature or substance or essence who through himself is good and great and through himself is what he is; through whom exists whatever truly is good or great or anything at all; and who is the supreme good, the supreme great thing, the supreme being or subsistent, that is, supreme among all existing things.
M 4 He then goes on in chapters 5—65 to derive the attributes that must belong to the being who fits this description. As he tells us in the preface to the Proslogion , he wanted to find a single argument that needed nothing but itself alone for proof, that would by itself be enough to show that God really exists; that he is the supreme good, who depends on nothing else, but on whom all things depend for their being and for their well-being; and whatever we believe about the divine nature.
Correctly understood, Anselm says, the argument of the Proslogion can be summarized as follows: That than which a greater cannot be thought can be thought. If that than which a greater cannot be thought can be thought, it exists in reality. Therefore, That than which a greater cannot be thought exists in reality. For example, it is clear to every reasonable mind that by raising our thoughts from lesser goods to greater goods, we are quite capable of forming an idea of that than which a greater cannot be thought on the basis of that than which a greater can be thought.
Who, for example, is unable to think … that if something that has a beginning and end is good, then something that has a beginning but never ceases to exist is much better? And that just as the latter is better than the former, so something that has neither beginning nor end is better still, even if it is always moving from the past through the present into the future?
And that something that in no way needs or is compelled to change or move is far better even than that, whether any such thing exists in reality or not? Can such a thing not be thought? Can anything greater than this be thought? Or rather, is not this an example of forming an idea of that than which a greater cannot be thought on the basis of those things than which a greater can be thought?
So there is in fact a way to form an idea of that than which a greater cannot be thought. His discussion in Monologion 22 makes the problem clear: This, then, is the condition of place and time: whatever is enclosed within their boundaries does not escape being characterized by parts, whether the sort of parts its place receives with respect to size, or the sort its time suffers with respect to duration; nor can it in any way be contained as a whole all at once by different places or times.
By contrast, if something is in no way constrained by confinement in a place or time, no law of places or times forces it into a multiplicity of parts or prevents it from being present as a whole all at once in several places or times.
M 22 So at least part of the reason for holding that God is timeless is that the nature of time would impose constraints upon God, and of course it is better to be subject to no external constraints. In spite of these arguments, Anselm acknowledges that there is a residue of mystery here: Thus your mercy is born of your justice, since it is just for you to be so good that you are good even in sparing the wicked. And perhaps this is why the one who is supremely just can will good things for the wicked.
But even if one can somehow grasp why you can will to save the wicked, certainly no reasoning can comprehend why, from those who are alike in wickedness, you save some rather than others through your supreme goodness and condemn some rather than others through your supreme justice. P 11 In other words, the philosopher can trace the conceptual relations among goodness, justice, and mercy, and show that God not only can but must have all three; but no human reasoning can hope to show why God displays his justice and mercy in precisely the ways in which he does.
Critical Edition Niskanen, Samu, Letters of Anselm of Canterbury, Vol. Schmitt, Franciscus Salesius, Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia. Translations Davies, Brian, and G.
Evans ed. Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williams, Thomas, Anselm: Basic Writings. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Secondary Literature Baker, Lynne Rudder, Burgess-Jackson, Keith, Campbell, Richard, Davies, Brian, and Brian Leftow eds. Ekenberg, Tomas, Evans, G. Anselm , London: G. Chapman; reprinted , London and New York: Continuum.
Gasper, G. Logan eds. Heathwood, Chris, Henry, Desmond Paul, Holopainen, Toivo, Hopkins, Jasper, A Companion to the Study of St. Anselm , Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Klima, Gyula, Hintikka ed. Mann, William E. Nash-Marshall, Siobhan, MARC Records. Titles No Longer Published by Brill. Latest Key Figures. Latest Financial Press Releases and Reports. Annual General Meeting of Shareholders.
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Open Access Content. Contact us. Among the various tasks Anselm took on as prior was that of instructing the monks, but he also had time left for carrying on rigorous spiritual exercises, which would play a great role in his philosophical and theological development. He became particularly well known, both in the monastic community and in the wider community, not only for the range and depth of his insight into human nature, the virtues and vices, and the practice of moral and religious life, but also for the intensity of his devotions and asceticism.
In , Anselm began to write, particularly prayers and meditations, which he sent to monastic friends and to noblewomen for use in their own private devotions. He also engaged in a great deal of correspondence, leaving behind numerous letters.
Eventually, his teaching and thinking culminated in a set of treatises and dialogues. In , he produced the Monologion , and in the Proslogion. Eventually, Anselm was elected abbot of the monastery. In , Anselm traveled to England, where Lanfranc had previously been arch-bishop of Canterbury.
The Episcopal seat had been kept vacant so King William Rufus could collect its income, and Anselm was proposed as the new bishop, a prospect neither the king nor Anselm desired. Eventually, the king fell ill, changed his mind in fear of his demise, and nominated Anselm to become bishop. Anselm attempted to argue his unfitness for the post, but eventually accepted. In addition to the typical cares of the office, his tenure as arch-bishop of Canterbury was marked by nearly uninterrupted conflict over numerous issues with King William Rufus, who attempted not only to appropriate church lands, offices, and incomes, but even to have Anselm deposed.
He was declared a doctor of the Roman Catholic Church in , and is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the churches in the Anglican Communion. Today, Anselm is most well known for his Proslogion proof for the existence of God, but his thought was widely known in the Middle Ages, and still today in certain circles of scholarship, particularly among religious scholars, for considerably more than that single achievement.
With the exception of St. Augustine, and to a lesser extent Boethius, it is difficult to definitively ascribe the influence of other thinkers to the development of St. Anselm cites Boethius, but does not draw upon him extensively. It is possible that either one of them, or other thinkers, influenced Anselm, but going beyond mere possibility given the texts we possess is controversial.
Latin terms in brackets or parentheses have been romanized to current orthography. Augustine remains one of the mysteries of his mind and personality. As Southern has also pointed out, this originality was not confined to the treatises and dialogues. Bonaventure, St. His works were copied and disseminated in his lifetime, and exercised an influence on later Scholastics, among them Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham.
Some of the brothers have often and earnestly entreated me to set down in writing for them some of the matters I have brought to light for them when we spoke together in our accustomed discourses, about how the divine essence ought to be meditated upon and certain other things pertaining to that sort of meditation, as a kind of model for meditation….
They prescribed this form for me: nothing whatsoever in these matters should be made convincing [ persuaderetur ] by the authority of Scripture, but whatsoever the conclusion [ finis ], through individual investigations, should assert…the necessity of reason would concisely prove [ cogeret ], and the clarity of truth would evidently show that this is the case.
They also wished that I not disdain to meet and address [ obviare ] simpleminded and almost foolish objections that occurred to me. The original audience for his writings was fellow Benedictine monks seeking a fuller understanding of the Christian faith and asking that Anselm provide an articulation of it in a form quite different than those typical and traditional of their time, namely, where such theological discussions were carried out primarily through citation and interpretation of Scripture and patristic authorities.
Precisely what this single argument consists of has been a subject of considerable scholarly debate. At the other extreme, some commentators take the single argument to be the entirety of the Proslogion.
A third, intermediary position argues that the unum argumentum is the entirety of the Proslogion , minus the last three chapters, for two reasons: 1 Anselm calls the last three chapters coniectationes ; 2 Anselm says in the prooemium that he wrote the Proslogion about the argument itself de hoc ipso and about several other things et de quibusdam aliis. As Anselm explains to his interlocutor Boso, his writing the De Conceptu Virginali is motivated by a purpose similar to that of the Proslogion, reexamining and rearticulating topics previously addressed in other works.
For I am certain that when you read in the Cur Deus Homo. Accordingly, I feared that I would appear unjust to you if I conceal what I think on this [ quod inde mihi videtur ] from your enjoyment [ dilectioni tuae ]. The prologue to the three connected dialogues De Veritate , De Libertate Arbitrii , De Casu Diaboli does not indicate conclusively whether they were written to answer specific requests of the monks. Clearly, however, they treat matters of both theological and philosophical interest arising out of reflection and discussion on Christian faith, life, and thought.
Anselm begins from, and never leaves the standpoint of a committed and practicing Catholic Christian, but this does not mean that his philosophical work is thereby vitiated as philosophy by operating on the basis of and within the confines of theological presuppositions.
Rather, Anselm engages in philosophy, employing reasoning rather than appeal to Scriptural or patristic authority in order to establish the doctrines of the Christian faith which, as a faithful and practicing believer, he takes as already established in a different, but possible way, through the employment of reason.
In some cases, he has the student or his own questioning voice as in Proslogion , Chapter 8 bring up Scriptural passages of truths of Christian doctrine in order to raise problems that require a rational resolution.
In other cases as in De Concordia , Book 1 Chapter 5 , he does use Scriptural passages as starting points for arguments, but for erroneous arguments that he then criticizes. In yet other cases, Anselm brings up Scripture precisely to explain how certain passages or expressions should be rightly understood as in the De Casu Diaboli , explaining how God causing evil should be understood.
For discussion of Anselm and Scripture, cf. Barth, , Tonini, , and Henry, For instance, in Proslogion , Chapter 15, he concludes that God is not only that than which nothing greater can be thought, but something greater than can be thought. Monologion Chapter 1 exemplifies this. Chapter 64 of the Monologion provides another important discussion of the use of reason and argument.
Anselm distinguishes between being able to understand or explain that something is true or that something exists, and being able to understand or explain how something is true.
Since the divine substance, the triune God is ultimately beyond the capacities of human understanding, reason, or more precisely the reasoning human subject, must recognize both the limits and the capacities of reason. I think that for someone investigating an incomprehensible matter it ought to be sufficient, if by reasoning towards it, he arrives at knowing that it most certainly does exist, even if he is unable to go further by use of the intellect [ penetrare.
Nor for that reason should we withhold the certainty of faith from those things that are asserted through necessary proofs [ probationibus ], and that are inconsistent with no other reason, if because of the incomprehensibility of their natural sublimity they do not allow themselves [ non patiuntur ] to be explained. Anselm is not skeptically questioning or undermining the capacities of reason and argumentation.
Not every possible object the intellect attempts to engage with presents such problems, but only God. Accordingly, although a completely full and exhaustively systematic account cannot be provided of the divine substance, this does not undermine the certainty of what reason has been able to determine. The former represent pedagogical discussions between a fairly gifted and inquisitive pupil and a teacher.
The De Conceptu Virginali and the De Concordia are not written in the same dialogue form as the other treatises, but they are dialogical in their narrative voice s , since Anselm addresses himself to another person in the De Conceptu Virginali to Boso , articulating possible problems and objections his reader might make in order to address them.
Indeed, it is not always easy to respond wisely [ sapienter ] to someone who is asking foolishly [ insipienter ]. Interestingly, it appears that a recurring problem for Anselm was his treatises being copied and circulated without his authorization and before their final and finished state.
He asserts this to be the case with the three connected dialogues and the Cur Deus Homo. With the exception of the Proslogion , Monologion , and Cur Deus Homo , the works are examined in chronological order as best as we know it. In the Proslogion , Anselm intended to replace the many interconnected arguments from his previous and much longer work, the Monologion, with a single argument.
It has unfortunately become so ingrained in our philosophical vocabulary, especially in Anglophone Anselm scholarship, however, that it would be pedantic to insist on not using it at all. Noting that God is believed to be something than which nothing greater can be thought quo maius cogitari non potest , Anselm asks whether such a thing exists, since the Fool of the Psalms has said in his heart that there is no God.
For it is one thing to be in the understanding, and another to understand a thing to exist. Therefore even the fool is compelled to admit [ convincitur ] that there is in his understanding something than which nothing greater can be thought, since when he hears this he understands it, and whatever is understood is in the understanding.
And certainly that than which a greater cannot be thought cannot exist in the understanding alone. For if it is in the intellect alone [ in solo intellectu ], it can be thought to also be in reality [ in re ], which is something greater.
If, therefore, that than which a greater cannot be thought is in the intellect alone, that very thing than which a greater cannot be thought is that than which a greater can be thought. But surely that cannot be.
Therefore, without a doubt, something than which a greater cannot be thought exists [ exsistit ] both in the understanding and in reality.
In Chapter 3, Anselm continues the argumentation, providing what some commentators take to be a second ontological argument. And, it so truly exists that it cannot be thought not to be. For, a thing, which cannot be thought not to be which is greater than what cannot be thought not to be , can be thought to be. So, if that than which a greater cannot be thought can be thought not to be, that very thing than which a greater cannot be thought is not that than which a greater cannot be thought, which cannot be compatible [ convenire , i.
Therefore, there truly is something than which a greater cannot be thought, and it cannot be thought not to be. Addressing himself to God, Anselm explains why God cannot be thought not to exist, indicating why God uniquely has this status. And anything else whatsoever other than yourself can be thought not to exist.
For you alone are the most true of all things, and thus you have being to the greatest degree [ maxime ], for anything else is not so truly [as God], and for this reason has less of being. Why does the Fool not only doubt whether God exists, but assert that there is no God? One possible, but rather circular answer is provided at the end of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 provides an answer. A thing is thought of in one way when one thinks of the word [ vox ] signifying it, in another way when what the thing itself is is understood.
Therefore, in the first way it can be thought that God does not exist, but in the second way not at all. Indeed no one who understands that which God is can think that God is not, even though he says these words in his heart, either without any signification or with some other signification not properly applying to God [ aliqua extranea significatione ].
What then are you, Lord God, that than which nothing greater can be thought? But what are you if not that which is the greatest of all things, who alone exists through himself, who made everything else from nothing? For whatever is not this, is less than what can be thought. But this cannot be thought about you. For what good is lacking to the supreme good, through which every good thing is?
And so, you are just, truthful, happy, and whatever it is better to be than not to be. These attributes of God, what it is better to be than not to be, are filled out in Chapter 6 percipient, omnipotent, merciful, impassible , Chapter 11 living, wise, good, happy, eternal , and Chapter 18 an unity. Therefore, life and wisdom and the other [attributes] are not parts of you but all of them are one, and each of them is entirely what you are, and what the other [attributes] are. In Chapter 23, he employs this notion of superlative unity to explain how God can be a Trinity, indicating that all of the persons of the Trinity share equally and completely in the divine attributes.
There are five other main matters that Anselm addresses in the Proslogion , the first three of which are sets of problems stemming from seeming incompatibilities in the divine attributes.
Anselm puts these questions in Chapter 6. How can you be omnipotent, if you cannot do everything? How can you be merciful and impassible at the same time? The argumentation of Chapter 7 is particularly important. There are things that God cannot do, for instance lying, being corrupted, making what is true to be false or what has been done to not be done. It seems that a truly omnipotent being ought to be able to do these things. To be able to do such things, Anselm suggests, is not really to have a power potentia , but really a kind of powerlessness impotentia.
The more a person can do these things, the more adversity and perversity can do against that person, and the less that person can do against these. This, as Anselm explains, relies on an inexact manner of speaking, where one expresses powerlessness or inability as a kind of power or ability.
In Chapters , through a longer and more sustained argument, Anselm answers the third question explaining how God can be both merciful and just at the same time. Accordingly, you are the very life by which you live, and the wisdom by which you are wise, and the goodness by which you are good to good people and bad people; and likewise with similar attributes.
It is, in effect, greater to be able to be just and merciful at the same time, which is possible for God precisely because justice and goodness coincide only in God. At the same time, Anselm concedes that when it comes to understanding precisely why God mercifully forgives of justly rendered judgment in a particular case is beyond our human capacities.
For further discussion of Chapters , cf. Bayart, , Corbin, , and Sadler, Again, as in Chapter 4, one can say that something is and is not the case at the same time, because it is being said in different and distinguishable ways.
But, is not the truth and the light what it saw and yet did it still not yet see you, since it saw you only in a certain way [ aliquatenus ] but did not see you exactly as you are [ sicuti es ]? The reason the human soul does not see God directly is twofold, stemming both from finite human nature and from infinite divine nature.
It is obscured by its own shortness of view [ sua brevitate ], and it is overwhelmed by your immensity. Truly it is restricted [ contrahitur ] in by its own narrowness, and it is overcome [ vincitur ] by your grandeur.
Gaunilo asserts that an additional argument is needed to move from this being having been thought to it being impossible for it not to be. A second problem is whether one can actually understand what is supposed to be understood in order for the argument to work because God is unlike any creature, anything that we have knowledge or a conception of.
For I neither know the thing itself, nor can I form an idea of it from something similar. Gaunilo continues along this line, arguing that the verbal formula employed in the argument is merely that, a verbal formula. The formula cannot really be understood, so it does not then really exist in the understanding.
The signification or meaning of the terms is grasped only in a groping manner. A third problem that Gaunilo raises is that the argument could be applied to things other than God, things that are clearly imaginary, so that, if the argument were valid, it could be used to prove much more than Anselm intended, namely falsities.
Here, the example of the Lost Island is introduced. You repeat often that I say that, because what is greater than everything else [ maius omnibus ] is in the understanding, if it is the understanding it is in reality — for otherwise what is greater than everything else would not be greater than everything else — but such a proof [ probatio ] is found nowhere in all of the things I have said.
But quite evidently the matter is and remains otherwise [ aliter sese habere ]. For, every lesser good, insofar as it is good, is similar to a greater good. It is apparent to any reasonable mind that by ascending from lesser goods to greater ones, from those than which something greater can be thought, we are able to infer much [ multum.
Earlier on, Anselm makes a distinction that sheds additional light on this distinction between thinking and understanding the expression, and thinking and understanding the thing referred to by the expression. He also employs a useful metaphor. The proof Anselm provides in Chapter 1 is one he considers easiest for a person. The Monologion proof argues from the existence of many good things to a unity of goodness, a one thing through which all other things are good.
He recognizes, of course, that there are a variety of ways for things to be good things, and he also recognizes that many things are in fact good through other things. But, he is pushing the question further, since for every good thing B through which another good thing A is good, one can still ask what that good thing B is good through.
If goods can even be comparable as goods , there must be some more general and unified way of regarding their goodness, or that through which they are good. This being granted, usefulness and intrinsic values can be brought to a more general unity. All other good things are ultimately good through this thing, which is the superlative or supreme good.
Certain corollaries can be drawn from this. One is that all good things are not only good through this Supreme Good; they are good, that is to say they have their being from the Supreme Good. Accordingly, there is one thing that is supremely good and supremely great, i. Chapter 3 provides further discussion of the ontological dependence of all beings on this being.
For any thing that is or exists, there must be something through which it is or exists. But nothing is through nothing. For, it cannot be thought [ non. So, whatever is, only is through something. There could be one single being through which all things have their being.
Or there could be a plurality of beings through which other beings have their being. In the first case, they are all through one single being. In the second case, there is still some single power or nature of existing through oneself [ existendi per se ], common to all of them. Saying that they exist through themselves really means that they exist through this power or nature which they share. Again, they have one single ontological ground upon which they are dependent.
One can propose the third case, but it is upon closer consideration absurd. For Anselm three things follow from this. First, there is a single being through which all other beings have their being.
Second, this being must have its being through itself. Third, in the gradations of being, this being is to the greatest degree.
Whatever is through something else is less than that through which everything else together is, and that which alone is through itself. So, there is one thing that alone, of all things, is, to the greatest degree and supremely [ maxime et summe ].
For, what of all things is to the greatest degree, and through which anything else is good or great, and through which anything else is something, necessarily that thing is supremely good and supremely great and the highest of all things that are.
Chapter 4 continues this discussion of degrees. In the nature of things, there are varying degrees gradus of dignity or worth dignitas. The example Anselm uses is humorous and indicates an important feature of the human rational mind, namely its capacity to grasp these different degrees of worth. By argumentation similar to that of the previous chapters, he adduces that there can only be one such highest nature.
For since the Supreme Nature, in its own unique manner, not only is but also lives and perceives and is rational, it is clear that. And, those things that, when they are taken away [ absumpta ] one by one from some essence, reduce it to less and less being, when they are reassumed [ assumpta ].
In the chapters that follow, Anselm indicates that the Supreme Nature derives its existence only from itself, meaning that it was never brought into existence by something else. Anselm uses an analogy to suggest how the being of the Supreme Being can be understood. Therefore in what way it should be understood [ intelligenda est ] to be through itself and from itself [ per se et ex se ], if it does not make itself, not arise as its own matter, nor in any way help itself to be what it was not before?.
This Supreme Nature is that through which all things have their being precisely because it is the Creator, which creates all beings including the matter of created beings ex nihilo. Creation ex nihilo could be interpreted three different ways.
The first way, Anselm says, cannot be properly applied to anything that actually has been made, and the second way is simply false, so the third way or sense is the correct interpretation. Chapter examine, discuss, and argue for particular attributes of God, and 28 being of particular interest. Chapter 15 is devoted to the matter of what can be said about the divine substance.
But still, it would be no less good on that account, nor would it suffer any loss of the greatness of its essence. And this is obvious, for this reason: whatever may be good or great, this thing is not such through another but by its very self.
There are still other ways of talking about the divine substance. For, it alone is that than which nothing is better, and that which is better than everything else that is not what it is. So, for instance, God will not be a body, but God will be wise or just. Anselm raises a problem in Chapter Granted that God has these attributes, one might think that all that is being signified is that God is a being that has these attributes to a greater degree than other beings, not what God is.
Anselm uses justice as the example, which is fitting since it is usually conceived of as something relational.
Anselm first sets out the problem in terms of participation in qualities. Accordingly, that very supreme nature is not just unless through justice. So, it appears that by participation in the quality, namely justice, the supremely good substance can be called just.
The problem is that God is what he is through himself, while other things are what they are through him. Everything else can have the attribute of justice, whereas God is justice. Whichever of them, then, is said about the supreme nature, it is not how [ qualis ] nor how much [ quanta ] [the supreme nature has quality] that is shown [ monstratur ] but rather what it is.
Thus, it is the supreme essence, supreme life, supreme reason, supreme salvation [ salus ], supreme justice, supreme wisdom, supreme truth, supreme goodness, supreme greatness, supreme beauty, supreme immortality, supreme incorruptibility, supreme immutability, supreme happiness, supreme eternity, supreme power [ potestas ], supreme unity, which is nothing other than supreme being, supremely living, and other things in like wise [ similiter ].
This immediately raises yet another problem, however, because this seems like a multiplicity of supreme attributes, implying that each is a particularly superlative way of being for God, suggesting that God is in some manner a composite.
Instead, in God not in any other being each of these is all of the others. Chapter 31 is of particular interest, and discusses the relationship between words or thoughts in human minds and the Word or Son by which all things were created by the Father. A human mind contains images or likenesses of things that are thought of or talked about, and a likeness is true to the degree that it imitates more or less the thing of which it is likeness, so that the thing has a priority in truth and in being over the human subject apprehending it, or more properly speaking, over the image, idea, or likeness by which the human subject apprehends the thing.
In the Word, however, there are not likenesses or images of the created things, but instead, the created things are themselves imitations of their true essences in the Word. The discussion in Chapters , which concludes the Monologion , makes three central points.
First, the triune God is ineffable, and except in certain respects incomprehensible, but we can arrive at this conclusion and understand it to some degree through reason. This is because our arguments and investigations do not attain the distinctive character proprietatem of God. That does not present an insurmountable problem, however. For often we talk about many things that we do not express properly, exactly as they really are, but we signify through another thing what we will not or can not bring forth properly, as for instance when we speak in riddles.
Indeed, in this way we talk about and do not talk about, see and do not see, the same thing. We talk about it and see it through something else; we do not talk about it and see it through its distinctive character [ proprietatem ]Now, whatever names seem to be able to be said of this nature, they do not so much reveal it to me through its distinctive character as signify it [ innuunt ] to me through some likeness. Anselm uses the example of the divine attribute of wisdom. The outcome of this is that all human thought and knowledge about God is mediated through something.
Likenesses are never the thing of which they are a likeness, but there are greater and lesser degrees of likeness. This leads to the second point. Human beings come closer to knowing God through investigating what is closer to him, namely the rational mind, which is a mirror both of itself and, albeit in a diminished way, of God.
For we have already come to know [ jam cognitum est ] that the rational mind, through the likeness of natural essence, most approaches that Being. What then is more evident than that the more assiduously the rational mind directs itself to learning about itself, the more effectively it ascends to the knowledge [ cognitionem ] of that Being, and that the more carelessly it looks upon itself, the more it descends from the exploration [ speculatione ] of that Being?
Third, to be truly rational involves loving and seeking God, which in fact requires an effort to remember and understand God. The Monologion and Proslogion although often only Chapters of the latter are typically studied by philosophers. The method, however, as in his other works, is primarily a philosophical one, attempting to understand truths of the Christian faith through the use of reasoning, granted of course, that this reasoning is applied to theological concepts. The second is for those same people, but so that they can engage in argument with non-Christians.
Each of the points he makes are argued in fuller detail later in the work.
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