20. Phil Frag., Exordium.
brian leftow text's point is not affected by the Proslogion 2 distinction. Anselm would simply say that to have no attributes and no greatness, a thing must fail to exist not only in reality but also in intellectu.
16. Anselm, De Conc. 1.5 (S ii: 254.6–10, 13–15).
17. It also incorporates the claim that God has beliefs. While it is usual to speak so in setting out this sort of argument, not all philosophers accept this.
18. Phil. Frag., Exordium.
19. De Conc. 1.2.
20. Phil Frag., Exordium.
21. Cur Deus Homo 2.17.
22. Cur Deus Homo 2.17.
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brian davies
Anselm and the ontological argument Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) claimed that there are only three possible ways of proving the existence of God by means of "speculative reason."1 He called one of them "the ontological proof," and it is often said that this (or "the ontological argument" as it is now commonly called) was first advanced by Anselm in Chapters 2 and 3 of his Proslogion. Anselm's collected works run to many pages, but nothing he wrote has commanded so much attention as these short texts. Yet what was he arguing in them? And how should we evaluate his reasoning? These are questions which have been answered in a bewildering variety of ways.2 In this chapter I aim only to present a brief introduction to the reasoning of Proslogion 2 and 3 together with some tentative suggestions as to how we might reflect on it. faith, reason, and the proslogion Anselm's writings are not what some would regard as typical works of philosophy. Philosophers cannot, of course, avoid speaking from some viewpoint or other, but they often foster the impression that they seek only to follow "where reason leads," and they encourage us to suppose that they have no serious beliefs to start with, especially religious ones. Anselm, however, rarely does this. Almost all of his writings are presented as the work of a committed Christian, and such is the case with the Proslogion. This text is conceived as a religious treatise from start to finish. It is even written in the form of a prayer.
Its first chapter sets the tone clearly with a plea for divine assistance. "Come then, Lord my God," says Anselm, "teach my heart where and how to seek You, where and how to find You."3 In
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brian davies language full of allusions to the Bible, Anselm laments the fact that he does not see God but lives as a fallen descendant of Adam, and he begs for God to reveal Himself to him. According to Anselm, we cannot find God if God does not help us to do so. Proslogion 1 therefore ends with Anselm stating that his aim in what follows is to understand God from a position of faith.
I do not try, Lord, to attain Your lofty heights, because my understanding is in no way equal to it. But I do desire to understand Your truth a little, that truth that my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand. For I believe this also, that "unless I believe, I shall not understand."4
Anselm is here quoting from the prophet Isaiah, so we can understand those, such as Karl Barth (1886–1968), who maintain that the Proslogion is not a work of philosophy and should not be approached as such. In Fides Quaerens Intellectum (1931) Barth insists that Anselm's Proslogion is nothing but an attempt to articulate what belief in God amounts to on the basis of Christian faith. In particular, says Barth, it is at no point concerned to justify belief in God's existence at the bar of reason.
For all that he says about the importance of faith, however, Anselm manifestly thinks that some religious beliefs, including the belief that God exists, can be defended in what we may recognize as a philosophical manner. This fact is evident from his Monologion, which Anselm offers as a treatise on the existence and essence of God making no appeal to the authority of Scripture. And the Monologion and Proslogion should be read as complementary works. Anselm wrote the Proslogion only because he came to find the Monologion to be irritatingly lacking in something to pull its parts together. He describes it as "made up of a connected chain of many arguments" and says:
I began to wonder if perhaps it might be possible to find one single argument that for its proof required no other save itself, and that by itself would suffice to prove that God really exists, that He is the supreme good needing no other and is He whom all things have need of for their being and well being, and also to prove whatever we believe about the Divine Being.5
What Anselm describes himself as looking for here he believed he had found when reflecting on the idea that God is "something than which Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2006
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Anselm and the ontological argument
nothing greater can be thought" (aliquid quo maius nihil cogitari potest). This formula appears early in Proslogion 2, and it dominates the discussion to the end of the work. proslogion 2 Anselm begins Proslogion 2 by invoking the formula just noted. "We believe," he says, "that You [God] are something than which nothing greater can be thought." Since the Bible never explicitly speaks of God as being something than which nothing greater can be thought, one might wonder why Anselm does so. The reason may lie in the fact that his way of referring to God has parallels in non-biblical authors prior to Anselm. St. Augustine, for instance, says that God is something quo esse aut cogitari melius nihil possit ("than which nothing better is able to be or be thought").6 Then again, Seneca
(c. 5 bc–ad 65) asserts that God's "magnitude is that than which nothing greater can be thought."7 Wherever Anselm got his formula from, however, it is clear that he does not construe it as taking God to be something than which nothing, in fact, is greater. Anselm is saying that nothing could conceivably be greater than God, that to claim that something might be greater than God is to assert what is intrinsically absurd. And it is from this basis that he develops his subsequent case.
In Psalms 15 and 53 we read of a "Fool" who "has said in his heart, there is no God." Could the Fool here be right? Anselm's reply is "No." Why so? Because, thinks Anselm, when the Fool speaks of something than which nothing greater can be thought, he can understand the words being uttered. So "the Fool understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his mind, even if he does not understand that it actually exists." It is, says Anselm, "one thing for an object to exist in the mind, and another thing to understand that the object actually exists." I can have something in mind even though there is nothing in reality that corresponds to it. Or, as Anselm, by way of example, puts it: "When a painter plans beforehand what he is going to execute, he has [the picture] in his mind, but he does not yet think that it actually exists because he has not made it." And yet,
Anselm reasons, God cannot be nothing but an idea in someone's mind. Given that God is that than which nothing greater can be thought, he must exist not only in the mind (in intellectu) but also
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brian davies in reality (in re). "Si enim vel in solo intellectu est potest cogitari esse et in re quod maius est."
There are two possible ways of translating this piece of Latin. To begin with, we could render it along the lines: "For if it is only in the mind it can be thought to be in reality as well, which is greater." If we translate the sentence in this way, Anselm appears to be saying that something than which nothing greater can be thought cannot only be in the mind or understanding, since it is greater to exist in reality than it is to exist only in the mind or understanding. In other words, his argument would seem to be:
God is something than which nothing greater can be thought.
God exists in the mind since even the Fool can think of (have in mind) something than which nothing greater can be thought.
But God cannot just be in the mind since it is greater to be in reality than it is to be only in the mind and since God is something than which nothing greater can be thought.
Yet "Si enim vel in solo intellectu est potest cogitari esse et in re quod maius est" could also be translated "For if it is only in the mind, what is greater can be thought to be in reality."8 And if that is what Anselm intended to convey, he is not necessarily invoking a general evaluative contrast between things existing only in the mind and things both in the mind and in re. He is not obviously saying that it is always greater to be in re than to be only in intellectu. Rather, he might only be suggesting (a) that we can think of something that is greater than something which exists only in the mind, and (b) that, on the supposition that God is something than which nothing greater can be thought, God cannot exist only in the mind because something real (in re) and greater than it can be thought. In other words, his argument would seem to be:
God is something than which nothing greater can be thought.
God exists in the mind since even the Fool can think of (have in mind) something than which nothing greater can be thought.
But we can think of something which is greater than something existing only in the mind.
So something than which nothing greater can be thought cannot only exist in the mind.
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Anselm and the ontological argument
Which translation of Anselm should we prefer? It would have been nice if Anselm himself had helped us out here and elaborated on the thought in the sentence now in question. In Proslogion 2, however, he does not. He simply draws to a close with an emphatic reiteration of the claim that something existing only in the mind cannot be that than which nothing greater can be thought. "If then," he says, that than which a greater cannot be thought exists in the mind alone, this same that than which a greater cannot be thought is that than which a greater can be thought. But this is obviously impossible. Therefore there is absolutely no doubt that something than which a greater cannot be thought exists both in the mind and in reality.
Yet Anselm does seem generally to have believed that being in re and greatness somehow go together or imply each other.9 So Proslogion 2 may well be asking us to suppose that God cannot be only in the mind since it is greater to be in reality than to be only in the mind. It is, however, worth noting that, when elaborating on the reasoning of Proslogion 2 in another work, Anselm does not stress the idea that it is better to be in re than to be only in intellectu. Instead, he explains how it can be thought that there is something greater than something that is only in the mind.
I am referring here to the text known as Quid Ad Haec Respondeat Editor Ipsius Libelli (A Reply to the Foregoing by the Author of the Book in Question) – a response by Anselm to a criticism of his Proslogion argument for God's existence coming from Gaunilo, a monk of the Abbey of Marmoutier.10 Here Anselm argues that something than which nothing greater can be thought (as opposed to something which is only in intellectu) "cannot be thought save as being without a beginning" while "whatever can be thought of as existing and does not actually exist can be thought of as having a beginning of existence" so that "'that than which a greater cannot be thought' cannot be thought of as existing and yet not actually exist."11 In his reply to Gaunilo, Anselm also argues: (a) that something than which nothing greater can be thought must exist, whole and entire, at all times and at all places, and (b) that something which might or might not exist is not something than which nothing greater can be thought.12 We shall later be returning to Anselm's reply to Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2006
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brian davies Gaunilo, and to Gaunilo's reply to Anselm, but, even from what I have just noted, it should be clear that Anselm was to a large extent concerned to distinguish between (a) what is only in the mind and (b) that than which nothing greater can be thought, because he believed that the latter, unlike the former, must be without a beginning, must be whole and entire at all times and places, and must be not able not to exist. proslogion 3 Yet something can be both in the mind and in reality without being what Anselm took God to be. My cat is such a thing. I can form a concept of it (I can think of something matching its description, as a painter can think about a non existent work of art). But it also exists in reality. Fond though I am of it, however, I could hardly describe it as divine. Why not? One reason (among many) is that it has not always existed, and one day it will perish. Yet those who believe in God have not traditionally thought of Him as being like my cat in these respects. They have taken Him to be something the existence of which is ultimate, underived, and belonging to him by nature.
And Anselm seems to be very much aware of this fact as he proceeds to Proslogion 3, for here (anticipating how he will later argue in his reply to Gaunilo) he maintains that something than which nothing greater can be thought has to be something which cannot even be thought not to exist.
Some people have held that Proslogion 3 presents a separate argument for God's existence to be distinguished from what we find in Proslogion 2.13 In Proslogion 3, however, Anselm only seems to be supplementing what he maintains in the previous chapter. There he was concerned to explain why something than which nothing greater can be thought cannot just be in the mind. In Proslogion 3 he seems intent on adding that something than which nothing greater can be thought is, not just in re, but something in re that (in addition to being in re) cannot possibly fail to exist. In language that suggests that the reasoning of Proslogion 2 is just being carried a stage further,
Anselm begins Proslogion 3 by saying "And certainly this being so truly exists that it cannot even be thought not to exist."
Anselm seeks to establish this conclusion by means of the following argument:
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