To such an extent does he carry this demand for
rational explanation that, at times, it seems as if he claimed for
unassisted intelligence the power of penetrating even to the mysteries
of the Christian faith. On the whole, however, the qualified statement
is his real view; merely rational proofs are always, he affirms, to be
tested by Scripture.
(Cur Deus homo, i. 2 and 38;
De Fide
Trin. 2.) The groundwork of his theory of knowledge is contained in
the tract
De Veritate, in which, from the consideration of truth
as in knowledge, in willing, and in things, he rises to the affirmation
of an absolute truth, in which all other truth participates. This
absolute truth is God himself, who is therefore the ultimate ground or
principle both of things and of thought. The notion of God comes thus
into the foreground of the system; before all things it is necessary
that it should be made clear to reason, that it should be demonstrated
to have real existence. This demonstration is the substance of the
Monologion and
Proslogion. In the first of these the
proof rests on the ordinary grounds of realism, and coincides to some
extent with the earlier theory of Augustine, though it is carried out
with singular boldness and fulness. Things, he says, are called good in
a variety of ways and degrees; this would be impossible if there were
not some absolute standard, some good in itself, in which all relative
goods participate. Similarly with such predicates as great, just; they
involve a certain greatness and justice. The very existence of things is
impossible without some one Being, by whom they are. This absolute
Being, this goodness, justice, greatness, is God. Anselm was not
thoroughly satisfied with this reasoning; it started from
a
posteriori grounds, and contained several converging lines of proof.
He desired to have some one short demonstration. Such a demonstration he
presented in the
Proslogion; it is his celebrated ontological
proof. God is that being than whom none greater can be conceived. Now,
if that than which nothing greater can be conceived existed only in the
intellect, it would not be the absolutely greatest, for we could add to
it existence in reality. It follows, then, that the being than whom
nothing greater can be conceived, i.e. God, necessarily has real
existence. This reasoning, in which Anselm partially anticipated the
Cartesian philosophers, has rarely seemed satisfactory. It was opposed
at the time by the monk Gaunilo, in his
Liber pro Insipiente, on
the ground that we cannot pass from idea to reality. The same criticism
is made by several of the later schoolmen, among others by Aquinas, and
is in substance what Kant advances against all ontological proof. Anselm
replied to the objections of Gaunilo in his
Liber Apologeticus.
The existence of God being thus held proved, he proceeds to state the
rational grounds of the Christian doctrines of creation and of the
Trinity. With reference to this last, he says we cannot know God from
himself, but only after the analogy of his creatures; and the special
analogy used is the self-consciousness of man, its peculiar double
nature, with the necessary elements, memory and intelligence,
representing the relation of the Father to the Son. The mutual love of
these two, proceeding from the relation they hold to one another,
symbolizes the Holy Spirit. The further theological doctrines of man,
original sin, free will, are developed, partly in the
Monologion,
partly in other mixed treatises.
Continued on page four.
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