Monologion: Chapter 30
MONOLOGION
reason, I think it is appropriate, if I can do so, to examine his utterance, by which all things were made.39 And although everything I was able to ascertain about it above has the unbending rigor of reason, the fact that it is proved to be the very same thing as the supreme spirit himself especially compels me to discuss that utterance more carefully. For if the supreme spirit made nothing except through himself, and whatever was made by him was made through his utterance, how can that utterance be anything other than what he himself is?
Moreover, the things we have already discovered declare irrefutably that nothing at all ever could or can subsist* other than the creating spirit and what he creates.40 Now it is impossible for the utterance of that spirit to be included among created things, since every subsistent created thing was made through it, and it could not have been made through itself. Indeed, nothing can be made through itself, since whatever is made is posterior* to that through which it was made, and nothing is posterior to itself. And so, since the utterance of the supreme spirit cannot be a creature, the only remaining possibility is that it is nothing other than the supreme spirit.
Finally, this utterance cannot be understood as anything other than the understanding of that spirit, by which he understands all things. For what is it for him to utter something, in this sense of "uttering," other than to understand it? For unlike a human being, he never fails to utter what he understands.
Therefore, if that supremely simple* nature is nothing other than what his understanding is, just as he is the same as what his wisdom is, then it must be that in the same way he is nothing other than what his utterance is. But since it is already evident that the supreme spirit is only one, and in every way individual,41 his utterance must be consubstantial* with him, so that they are not two spirits but one.
Chapter 30 That this utterance does not consist of many words, but rather is one Word*
Why, then, should I hesitate over the question I left open earlier, namely, whether this utterance consists in several* words or in one?42 For if this utter39 Anselm's discussion in Chapters 29–63 is meant to provide a philosophical explication of certain elements of the Christian understanding of God as a Trinity. Since some of Anselm's points, as well as much of the language that he uses, will not be fully clear unless the reader already has some knowledge of Trinitarian doctrine, I have provided the necessary explanations in the notes as well as in the Glossary. See the entries for consubstantial* and Word.*
40 Anselm argues for this claim in Chapter 7.
41 Anselm argues for this claim in Chapter 37.
42 Anselm raised this question in passing in Chapter 12.