Glossary
GLOSSARY ACCIDENT: An accident is a feature something has that does not belong to its essence* (sense 3).
ACCIDENTAL (NATURE): An accidental nature is simply an accident.* ACCIDENTALLY: (1) "differ accidentally": If two things have the same essence but differ from each other in some way, they are said to differ accidentally. For example, two human beings differ accidentally, since they have the same essence but differ in their accidents;* a human being and a cat differ substantially,* since they have different essences. (2) "said (or predicated) accidentally": see substantially/essentially.*
BODY: The word 'body' is used more broadly in philosophy than in ordinary language. Any material object at all is a body in the philosophical sense.
(Similarly, in scientific language we might speak of "a body in motion.") So chairs and tables are bodies, as are the bodies of human beings and other living creatures.
CONSUBSTANTIAL: The Nicene Creed says that God the Son is consubstantial with the Father; that is, God the Son is one in being with the Father.
It might be helpful for the reader to have the relevant portions of the Nicene Creed.The italicized phrases are those that Anselm deals with explicitly in the Monologion. Following each phrase is the number of the chapter in which he argues for the truth of that phrase.
I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son (42) of God, begotten of the Father (42) before all worlds (32), God from God, Light from Light, true
God from true God, begotten (40–41), not made (29), consubstantial with the Father
(29). Through him all things were made (29). . . . I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son (50, 54).
DIFFERENCE: In a definition, the difference is what sets apart one sort of thing from others in the same genus.* For example, in the definition of human being as "rational animal,"rational is the difference that sets human beings apart from other things in the genus animal.
EFFICIENT CAUSE: In Chapter 6 of the Monologion Anselm distinguishes three sorts of causes.The efficient cause is the one that more or less corresponds to our ordinary usage of the word 'cause' (though note the broader characterization
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of efficient causes in Lambeth Fragments 9). The efficient cause of x is whatever brings about or produces x. The material cause of a thing is the matter out of which it is made; the instrumental cause of a thing is any tool that was used in bringing it about. To use a standard example, the material cause of a marble statue is the marble it is made of, the instrumental cause is the sculptor's chisel or other tools, and the efficient cause is the sculptor.
In Chapter 6 of the Monologion Anselm is generally careful to use different prepositions for each of the three causes.A thing is said to come about "by the agency of" an efficient cause,"from" a material cause, and "by means of" an instrumental cause.
ESSENCE (LATIN, ESSENTIA): Anselm uses the word essentia in a variety of ways:
(1) It signifies the individual thing that exists. In this usage "an essence" is synonymous with "an existent being." (2) Sometimes it is used to indicate what a present-day philosopher might call "ontological status." In this sense one might say that darkness, for example, has no essence, because it is nothing more than the absence of light, whereas light has essence because it is something in its own right. To say that darkness has no essence, in this sense, is therefore equivalent to saying that it is nothing and that it is not something.
(3) It sometimes signifies the nature of a thing. For example, the essence of a human being is to be rational and animal. Such other features as being tall or short, dark or fair, male or female are accidents.* (4) Sometimes (particularly in On Truth 7) Anselm uses it strictly as the abstract noun corresponding to esse, "to be," where that verb includes the meanings "exists" and "is a certain way." In such cases I translate essentia as 'being', and 'being' should be understood to include the meanings 'existence' and 'being a certain way'. (5) Occasionally it simply means 'existence'.
ESSENTIALLY: See substantially/essentially.* ETERNAL: To say that God is eternal is not to say that he exists at all times.
Rather, it is to say that God exists outside time altogether. That is, he exists in such a way that he has no past, present, or future; all of his existence is simultaneous.
GENUS: In a definition, the genus is the general classification to which the thing defined belongs. For example, in the definition of human being as "rational animal," animal is the genus to which human beings belong. (See also difference.*) IMPASSIBLE: This word comes from the Latin pati, "to undergo or suffer," which is contrasted with agere, "to do or act." To say that God is impassible therefore means that he cannot suffer or undergo anything. He cannot be acted upon by anything else; he simply acts.
GLOSSARY
IMPROPERLY: A word is used improperly when it is used in a way that is misleading or not philosophically precise.Anselm is concerned in particular about expressions that, if taken literally, seem to attribute a power, obligation, or characteristic to something that does not actually have that power, obligation, or characteristic. For example, if I say "Elderly parents ought to be supported by their children," I seem to be attributing an obligation to the parents. But in fact it is the children who have an obligation, the obligation to support their parents; so Anselm would say that I am using the word 'ought' improperly. See also PROPERLY.* IMPUTED: An act is imputed to an agent whenever the agent is held to be both causally and morally responsible for the act.
NATURAL/NATURALLY: An act is natural (or someone acts naturally) when the act can be fully explained by the nature God gave the agent.
NATURE: 'Nature' is interchangeable with essence* in senses 1, 2, and 3.
NECESSARY: A proposition is necessary (or necessarily true) if it is not possible for that proposition to be false.An action is necessary if it is not spontaneous.*
NECESSITY: An action is said to happen out of necessity if it is not done spontaneously.*
POSTERIOR TO: There are a number of different ways in which something can be posterior to something else. For example, x is posterior to y if (1) x is later in time than y, or (2) x is caused by y, or (3) the existence or truth of x is explained by the existence or truth of y, but not vice versa.
PRIOR (IN NATURE): x is prior in nature to y if and only if x explains,accounts for, or causes y. Priority in nature does not imply priority in time, as Anselm argues in Chapter 22 of On Truth.
PROPERLY: A word is used properly when it is used strictly and literally, not loosely or in a way that is apt to be misleading or violates precise philosophical usage.
QUALITY/QUANTITY/QUIDDITY: These three terms (Anselm uses only the first two) are associated with three different kinds of questions one can ask about a thing. One can ask "Quid est?" or "What is it?" The answer to that question will tell you a thing's quiddity—in other words,its essence* (sense 3).One can ask "Qualis est?" or "What sort of thing is it?" (more colloquially, "What's it like?").The answer to that question will tell you some quality a thing has,such as justice or goodness. Finally, one can ask "Quantum est?" or "How great is it?"The answer to that question will tell you something about the quantity of the thing, as for example whether it is great or small.Anselm argues in Chapter 16 of the Monologion that when we apply words like 'just' and 'great' to
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God, they do not signify some quality or quantity of God's. Rather, they signify his essence. For example, justice is not a quality God has, as if God were one thing and his justice some other thing. Rather, justice is what God is.
RELATIVE(S): 'Daughter', for example, is a relative (or "relative term"), since it implies a relation to a parent. Someone is called a daughter, not because of what she is in herself, but because of the relation she has to someone else.
RELATIVELY: Anselm claims that relatives* are not said substantially* of things.
In the sentence, "Mary is a daughter," 'daughter' is not said substantially of Mary, since it does not signify her essence or substance. Instead, it is said relatively of Mary. If instead one said "Mary is rational," 'rational' would be said substantially of Mary, since being rational is part of the essence of being human.
SEVERAL: I sometimes use 'several' to translate the Latin word plures, which means "more than one." The reader should therefore keep in mind that 'several' need not imply a large number; it simply implies more than one.
SIMPLE: To say that God is simple is to say that he has no parts. More specifically,Anselm argues that God has no spatial parts, no temporal parts, and no metaphysical parts.
SIMPLY: See unqualified/in an unqualified sense/simply.* SPONTANEOUS(LY): 'Spontaneous' and 'spontaneously' are used in this translation to represent the Latin spontaneus and sponte in contexts in which the usual
English equivalents (such as 'willingly','freely', or 'of one's own accord') could be misleading; they do not connote impulsiveness or lack of premeditation, as they do in ordinary usage. An act is spontaneous (or an agent acts spontaneously) when the act can be fully explained only by reference to something that originates within the agent. For example,Anselm argues in On the Fall of the Devil that the sin of the angels was spontaneous, because it was up to them whether to sin or not; the powers and the knowledge they had received from God were not enough to explain either their sinning or their remaining just.
If an act is not spontaneous, it is natural.* SUBSIST: 'Subsist' means "to exist (as a substance)." In other words, saying that a substance subsists is exactly the same as saying that it exists. But accidents* do not subsist; they can only exist in a substance, not as a substance.
SUBSISTENT: An individual existent being; a thing that subsists.
SUBSTANCE: The word 'substance' is used in a variety of ways: (1) It can be used interchangeably with essence* (senses 1 or 3). (2) It can be used to signify the individual thing that underlies accidents.* In Chapter 79 of the Monologion Anselm argues that individual things are properly called substances because they "stand under"(substant) accidents.He argues in Chapter 26 of the
GLOSSARY
Monologion that God cannot be called a substance in sense (2), because he does not, strictly speaking, have any accidents. (3) It has a technical usage in Trinitarian theology. Anselm explains his use of the term in the Prologue to the Monologion and in Chapter 16 of On the Incarnation of the Word with reference to a terminological difference between the Eastern Church ("the Greeks") and the Western Church ("the Latins").
SUBSTANTIAL (NATURE): A substantial nature is simply a substance.
SUBSTANTIALLY/ESSENTIALLY: (1) "differ substantially": Two things differ substantially when they have a different essence* (sense 3).For example,a dog and a horse differ substantially, whereas two horses differ only accidentally.* (2)
"said (or predicated) substantially": In the sentence "Socrates is human,"
'human' is said substantially (or essentially) of Socrates. That is,'human' signifies something belonging to Socrates' substance* or essence* (sense 3). Contrast this with 'pale' in "Socrates is pale." Being pale is not part of Socrates' substance or essence, and so in that sentence 'pale' is not said of Socrates substantially,but instead accidentally.*When Anselm asks what can be said of God substantially, he is asking what terms (if any) signify God's essence.
SUSTAINER: Recently the practice has arisen of speaking of the Trinity as "Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer" rather than as "Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit." It is therefore important for me to point out that when Anselm uses the word 'Sustainer' he is not referring exclusively to the Holy Spirit.When the word is first introduced in Chapter 14 of the Monologion, it refers to God the Father. Later, after Anselm has argued that all three persons of the Trinity are Creator, we can assume that all three are also Sustainer, since he argues in Chapter 14 of the Monologion that the same agency both creates and sustains all things.
UNQUALIFIED/IN
UNQUALIFIED
SENSE/SIMPLY (LATIN,
SIMPLEX/SIM-
PLICITER): The colloquial English equivalent is "period" (or in British English,
"full stop"). For example,"God is an unqualified good" or "God is good in an unqualified sense" or "God is simply good" means that God is good, period; no qualification of the statement is necessary (or even possible).A creature, by contrast, can only be good in a certain respect or for a certain purpose or to a certain degree. Similarly, Anselm says that God exists in an unqualified sense, or "simply exists." Creatures exist for a time or in a certain way or to a certain extent;
God just exists, period.
WORD: The Prologue to the Gospel according to John states,"In the beginning was the Word.And the Word was with God; and the Word was God.All things were made through him, and without him was nothing made." As Anselm explains it,'Word' is a particularly apt name for God the Son, since he is God's utterance of himself and of creation. In keeping with these words from
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Scripture as well as the Nicene Creed (see consubstantial*),Anselm argues that this utterance or Word existed in the beginning (that is, eternally: see Chapter
32, Monologion); that he is God (Chapter 29); and that all things were made through him (Chapter 29).