Anselm of Canterbury
(1033–1109)
How can we think that which surpasses all thought?
(1033–1109)
How can we think that which surpasses all thought?
Anselm developed an argument for the existence of God, which was much later called the ontological argument. This argument is a thread that runs through the history of metaphysics. It was criticized by Thomas Aquinas, taken up by Descartes (in his fifth Meditation) and by Spinoza, and then dismissed by Kant, before being rehabilitated by Schelling and Hegel.
His argument appears in 1077 in the text "Proslogion," which is part of a work originally entitled Fides quærens intellectum, or faith seeking reason (this is an expression attributed to Augustine). Faith is posited first, and it seeks to understand what it believes. Faith is the condition that makes intelligence possible, rather than the contrary: "I do not seek to understand in order to believe; I believe in order to understand."
How does faith understand God? We believe, says Anselm, that You (God) are “something than which nothing greater can be thought” (aliquid quo nihil majus cogitari possit). Another expression is used in chapter XIV: “Nothing better (melius) can be thought.”
The existence of God is not a problem for faith as it is its absolute condition. Anselm argues that only a fool would say: “There is no God” (Psalm 14: 1). Anselm writes his Proslogion to show the fool that if he, the fool, thinks God, the fool can only acknowledge that He is, or if the fool thinks that He is not, He is not God.
Anselm asks the fool to begin with what he means when he says that God is something so great that nothing greater can be thought. If the fool understands what he means when he speaks of God in this way, he cannot deny God’s existence. If God only exists as a thought, and not as a reality, he is not the greatest thing that can thought, and he is consequently not God, because what really exists is greater than what exists only in thought: But when this same fool hears me say “something than which nothing greater can be thought, he surely understands what he hears; and what he understands exists in his mind, even if he does not understand that it exists in reality. For it is one thing for an object to exist in the mind, and another thing to understand that an object exists in reality."
Anselm concludes:
"So even the fool must admit that something than which nothing greater can be thought exists at least in the mind, since he understands this when he hears it, and whatever is understood exists in the mind. And surely that than which a greater cannot be thought cannot exist in the mind alone. For if it exists only in the mind, it can be thought to exist in reality also, which is greater [quod majus est]. So if that than which a greater cannot be thought exists only in the mind, then the very thing that than which a greater cannot be thought is something that than which a greater can be thought. But this is obviously impossible. Therefore there is no doubt that something than which a greater cannot be thought exists both in the mind and in reality."
(Anselm, “Proslogion” in Basic Writings, trans. Thomas Williams (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2007), 81f.)
Thomas is very critical of Anselm’s “ontological” argument for God’s existence. He criticizes it severely before presenting his own five ways to God. According to Anselm as Thomas presents him, the existence of God would be self-evident because it would follow from the notion of a being, for which one cannot think anything greater. Thomas objects to Anselm’s argument on two points:
It is possible to distinguish something that is self-evident in itself, though not for us, from something self-evident not only in itself but for us as well.
Something can be called self-evident, explains Thomas, when the predicate is included in the subject, such as when one says “man is an animal.” But there are also cases where one does not know the nature of the subject or predicate. In this case, the proposition may be self-evident (Thomas’s example: “incorporeal things are not in space"), but not readily understood by all. Who indeed can claim to know the subject God? Thus although the proposition “God is” may be self-evident in these terms, it is not necessarily evident for us, nor, quite obviously, for those who contest the existence of God.
Thomas argues (Summa Theologica, I, q 2, art. 1) that Anselm may have employed a notion that can only be found in our mind. Even if one grants Anselm that God is such that nothing greater can be conceived, this could be no more than a mental concept. After all, who are we to know God’s Being? Would the existence of God follow from our concept? One can admit God’s existence only if God actually exists in reality. But this is precisely what nonbelievers deny. Therefore, concludes Thomas, the existence of God cannot be evident in itself, it can only be demonstrated by God’s effects.