1. Purpose: to meditate on the divine being as a supplement to the meditation of the Monologion but with a single argument (unum argumentum) for the divine being.

2. Titles: fides quaerens intellectum ("faith seeking understanding") and then Proslogion ("An Allocution").

3. General Character of Text:

To show by meditative reason that God is and is what Faith proclaims him to be ("quia es sicut credimus, et hoc es quod credimus." The attributes of goodness, truth, and justice must cohere as necessary attributes of a single being who cannot be thought of as nonexistent.

4. Outline of Text:

chapters 1-4: argument for the existence of God

chapters 5-13: argument for the determinate being or nature of God

Follows the Aristotelian distinction between an est (existence of a thing) and quid est (essence of a thing).

5. Differs from Monologion by its noticeable lack of dependence (except in influence or form) on Augustine. Avoids all references to source - very nonscholastic!

Contrary to popular presentation (originating with Aquinas), Anselm does not treat the existence of God as self-evident, as a proposition the negation of which is obviously or immediately seen to be self-contradictory. He presents an argument for the existence of God.

[DEF] God = df. that than which none greater can be conceived.

(cf. Seneca)

Therefore,

Argument is valid. (instance of modus ponens)

But is it sound?

Is Premise (B) true?

The truth of premise B depends in part on the coherence of Anselm's definition of God as "that than which none greater can be conceived."

But, the coherence of Anselm's concept of God requires an absolute comparison of things, a sense in which something is "absolutely speaking" greater than something else. We are accustomed to comparing things as being greater than other things in particular aspects, but not per se.

Anselm's notion of "greatness" should be read within the context of his neo-Platonic metaphysics. The greater is the more perfect, or that which possesses a higher degree of existence in absolute terms. "That than which none greater can be conceived" is a maximally perfect being, a being who possesses the greatest array of compossible great-making properties. (Note Anselm does not say, a being "greater than all" (maius omnibus).

The existence of such a being in reality (in re) is logically possible. No contradiction is involved in postulating such a being.

The "we" includes both theists and (some) atheists. Roughly, anyone who understands by "God", that than which none greater can be conceived. The person excluded from this argument is what we might call a logical atheist, one who holds that a maximally perfect being is incoherent or meaningless. Such a person would deny that we can conceive of such a being. Anselm is targeting factual atheists, those who understand what it is for there to be a God but who deny such a being actually exists.

Anselm's argument plays on a crucial distinction between esse in intellectu and esse in re, where the former is understood as a thing's being thinkable or logically possible and the latter being the thing's actual existence or instantiation. The two are not the same, for Anselm says, "It is one thing for any object to be in the understanding, and another to understand that the object exists."

As for God, God's existence in intellectu follows from the fact that there are individuals who can conceive of a maximally perfect being (which is identified as God). In other words, the word God has a definite description which is understood. But is God exists in intellectu, then he can be conceived of as existing in re - His existence in re is logically possible. As Charlesworth says: "We know what it would be like for that thing to exist, but we don't know whether it actually exists or not" (St. Anselm's Proslogion, p. 63).

Let's restate the argument, then, as:

(A*) If God exists in intellectu, then God exists in re.

(B*) God exists in intellectu.

therefore,

(C*) God exists in re.

Is (A*) true?

How can we move from mental to extra-mental existence?

Anselm thinks that we can show that (1) is true by way of an argumentum reductio ad absurdum. To establish a proposition, we assume its negation and show that it leads to a contradiction. In this case, the fool, when he hears of "a being than which nothing greater can be conceived understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding, although he does not understand it to exist." But the fool says "there is no God." Anselm's objective is to show that the fool's assertion is self-contradictory.

Anselm's argument rests on three premises:

The fool may be understood to say:

We may think of Anselm's argument in chapter two of the Proslogion as an argumentum reductio ad absurdum derived from (4) and the Anselmian premises (in italics).

Since (7) is self-contradictory, the assumption (4) from which the contradiction was deduced is false. It is not the case that God exists in intellectu and not in re. Therefore, God exists in both the understanding and in reality. It follows (by simplification) that God exists in reality. Thus, if a person can conceive of a being than Whom none greater exists, God exists. Such a being can be conceived. Therefore, God exists.

Having derived the existence of God, Anselm begins chapter 3 by saying, "And it [God] assuredly exists so truly, that it cannot be conceived not to exist." As it is one thing to exist in the understanding and quite another to exist in reality, so it one thing for a thing to be that which can be thought to not exist and another to be a thing which cannot be thought not to exist. Although Anselm was emphatic that in the Proslogion he intended to give unum argumentum, chapter 3 presents what has generally been conceded to be a different version of the ontological argument.

In chapter 3, though Anselm functions with the same definition of God, instead of the premise "existence in re is greater than existence in intellectu alone," Anselm substitutes "what cannot be thought not to exist is greater than what can be thought not to exist." This has been taken to be an argument which contrasts necessary and contingent existence. The argument of chapter 2 says nothing of the mode of God's existence. Simply concluding that God actually exists is compatible with God existing contingently. But it is logically possible to conceive of a being who cannot be conceived not to exist (a necessary being). Since such a being is greater than one who can be thought not to exist (a contingent being), if God can be thought to not exist, he would not be a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. Again, contradiction follows.

Although Anselm does not (as he has been often accused of) define God as necessary being and deduce his existence from a mere consideration of the definition (as if "God exists" were an analytic proposition), it would seem that a more plausible reading reveals Anselm inferring that God's existence is necessary from the notion of degrees of perfection. Since God is the being than whom none greater can be conceived and a being who exists necessarily is greater than a being who exists contingently, God exists necessarily. It is the latter premise, as something independent of the definition of God, which is required to derive the necessity of God's existence. And the necessity of God's existence proves eo ipso his actual existence, for if it is possible that that which cannot not be can be, then it must be. God's possible existence provides a basis for his actual existence.

The monk Gaunilo, one of Anselm's contemporaries, found several flaws in Anselm's argument. Gaunilo's criticisms focus, as nearly all subsequent ones do, on the move from God's existence being conceived of in the mind to His extra-mental existence. Anselm and Gaunilo both agree that there is a distinction between X in re and X in intellectu. Both also recognize that there are false things as well as true things in the mind, so that it is often the case that X is not in re but X is in intellectu. Inasmuch as Anselm agrees with this, there would seem to be a need for establishing how it is that with respect to this one object, God, His being merely conceived of somehow entails that He actually exists. Otherwise, it remains impossible to distinguish between X in re and X in intellectu--one of Anselm's own premises.

Gaunilo also provides what he apparently takes as a reductio of Anselm's position of arguing from conceptual existence to existential reality. It is possible to conceive of an island than which (which by virtue of its excellencies) none greater can be conceived. But it is greater to exist than not exist, so if this island did not actually exist, we would not be conceiving of an island than which none greater exists. Presumably one could multiply examples ad infinitum at this point. It is clear, though, that Gaunilo's example here misses the mark. First, it seems to play on an equivocation of "greatness" (between absolute and relative). Secondly, Anselm is arguing that the move from existing in intellectu and existing in re only holds for God. This, of course, only pushes us back to Gaunilo's previous point. How is it that in God's case one can argue from mental existence to extra-mental existence? Perhaps God's necessary existence holds the key to this. In any event, this matter would appear to be the heart of Anselm's ontological argument, and its chief difficulty.

The main criticism seems to be that there is an illicit move being made from the obviously true statement:

(1) There is [a thought of something X which must exist.]

To the questionable claim that:

(2) There is [a thought of something X] which must exist.

 © Michael Sudduth 1996