3. do not say that God has any non-perfection, and
brian leftow kind are able to have it and they would (ceteris paribus) be better or more valuable members of the kind if they had it than they would be if they did not. One point Anselm is making is that wisdom is an improving attribute for rational beings. The other comparison is between things able to be wise (men) and things not able to be wise
(masses of gold). In this second case, "whatever is not wise would be better if it were wise" does not compare a thing in an actual state with the same thing in another possible state. It asserts instead that things of a kind to be wise are better or more valuable than things not of such kind. Involved here, obviously, is the idea that some kinds of thing are objectively better to be than others: being a spirit, for instance, is supposed to be better than being a physical object
(Mon. 15). Members of superior kinds can not have some improving attributes for inferior kinds. It improves a human body to be muscular. Spirits can not be muscular. But presumably Anselm thinks a very weak spirit is still a better thing than a very muscular body.
Thus when Anselm calls being wise "in every respect better than its negation," he asserts that being wise is an improving attribute for a kind, and being able to be wise does not entail belonging to a kind with a superior.
Anselm's other rules for selecting descriptions for God come in this passage:
Just as it is blasphemous to suppose that (God) is something which in some respect it would be better not to be, so (God) must be whatever in every respect it is better to be than not to be. For (God) alone is that than which nothing at all is better. (Mon. 15) Let us call being a member of a kind with no superior a perfection, and also call every improving attribute for that kind a perfection.
Then there are at least two rules here:
3. do not say that God has any non-perfection, and 4. do say that God has every perfection.
To smooth the discussion, I will talk of attributes, not descriptions, despite what was said above.7 Then (3) dictates denying God membership in every kind with a superior and possession of every improving attribute only a member of such kinds can have. Rule (4) dictates ascribing to God membership in the highest kind in the scale of kinds and possession in the highest degree of the improving attributes for Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2006
Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2006