Anselm's Argument Today

American Academy of Religion

Anselm's Argument TodayAuthor(s): Colin GrantSource: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Winter, 1989), pp. 791-806Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1464178 .

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion. LVII/4

Anselm's Argument Today Colin Grant

THE RECOGNITION ACCORDED the line of reasoning St. Anselm developed in his Proslogion to demonstrate the rationality of believing in God has extended all the way from Schopenhauer's dismissal of it as a "charming joke" (Taylor:vii) to a virtually idolatrous veneration. This diverse impact has been described most cogently by Kenneth Wilson:

It is a teasing issue which has provoked contrary reactions: some give up the study of the argument in despair because the fallacy seems so obvious, while others cannot leave it alone as they feel they have almost glimpsed the crux on which its truth depends. The argument holds an almost mystical quality; it is as if it does not convince by logical argument but by revealing the Living God to the man who commits himself to search out its intricacies. (173)

This paper arises out of that sense of "an almost mystical quality." Its thesis is that this quality is threatened by the modem treatment of the argument which virtually amounts to an inversion of Anselm's approach, and that this contrast between Anselm and his modem critics and supporters both provides perspective on our modem outlook and clarifies the significance of Anselm's argument for today.

I. THE MODERN REJECTION AND REVIVAL OF ANSELM'S ARGUMENT

The undisputed mortician of "the ontological argument" was the person who gave that very designation to Anselm's chain of reasoning, Immanuel Kant. The label "onto-logical" suggests that the argument amounts to the attempt to derive ontos from logos, being from reasoning. From the idea of God as "that-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought" [id quo maius cogitari non potest] (Proslogion II, 116), Anselm argues to the existence of God, because if this were only an idea it would not be "that- than-which-a-greater cannot-be-thought." The conclusion that "that- than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought" exists in reality and not sim-

M. Colin Grant is a Professor of Theology in the Department of Religious Studies, Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada E0A 3CO.

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792 Journal of the American Academy of Religion

ply in concept is thus required to resolve this contradiction. In this way, existence is affirmed in order to avoid a logical contradiction. Being is generated from the process of reasoning itself, and this, according to the critique which developed from Kant's initial challenge, is the fallacy of the argument.

Actually the modem critique was not directed against Anselm's version of the argument, but against the variant formulated by Rene Descartes. On this version, existence was seen to be part of the definition of God, just as fully as having three angles whose sum is equal to two right angles is part of the definition of a triangle. This more blatant identification of the argument for God's existence with pure rationality makes Kant's response even more understandable. He pointed out that it may well be contradictory to deny existence of God just as it would be contradictory to deny the property of having three angles whose sum is equal to two right angles of triangles, but that this remains purely in the realm of concepts. There would be no contradiction in rejecting the existence of God thus defined any more than there would be in rejecting that the definition of a triangle establishes the existence of any particular triangle.

The nub of Kant's criticism is captured in the phrase: "Existence is not a predicate." The subject "God" may imply the predicate "existence", just as the subject "triangle" implies the predicate "three right angles whose sum is equal to two right angles," but this only describes the subject and does not add anything to it. If you affirm the subject you can only deny the predicate on pain of contradiction, but there is no contradiction involved in rejecting both subject and predicate. This purely logical relation of subjects and predicates assumes a priority and autonomy of predication such as was formalized by Bertrand Russell in his logic of descriptions. Whether or not those descriptions have any counterparts in reality is a further matter, which only investigation will decide. If they do, the result will be the identification of real predicates. Thus the greatness of God might require that existence is part of what "God" means, but this does not decide the further question of whether there is any reality corresponding to that description.

The almost universal acceptance of this dismissal of the argument was only significantly challenged in the early sixties, and even this was a flanking manoeuver rather than a direct challenge. It consisted essentially in the acceptance of the Kantian critique on its own terms, supple- mented by the contention that there is a second version of the argument in Anselm which this critique does not destroy. The recognition of a second dimension in Anselm's reasoning can be attributed to Karl



Grant: Anselm's Argument Today 793

Barth, who in 1931 identified two stages in Anselm's argument (McGill, 1967a:39). In Proslogion II, according to Barth, Anselm presents the argument that God has "general" existence, while in Proslogion III, he attempts the further argument that God has the "special" existence peculiar to God. This distinction was pressed to the point of separation in the early sixties by Norman Malcolm and Charles Hartshorne, who independently argued that while the Kantian criticism undermines the argument of Proslogion II, it leaves intact the more interesting argument of Proslogion III.

In Proslogion III, Anselm goes beyond his argument that God exists because of what God means to contend that:

... this being so truly exists that it cannot be even thought not to exist. For something can be thought to exist that cannot be thought not to exist, and this is greater than that which can be thought not to exist. (119)

Thus Anselm is not contending simply that God exists, but that God cannot not exist. The revival of the argument sponsored by Malcolm and Hartshome centers on understanding Proslogion III in terms of the claim that God is characterized not simply by existence but by "necessary existence." And this kind of existence, it is contended, is a predicate or property. Thus Hartshome insists that while Kant is right in claiming that existence is not ordinarily a predicate or property, modal- ity of existence is always a property and so is always deducible from the definition of the thing (1967:321-333). Whether or not a particular thing exists can only be determined by empirical investigation, but God does not exist like contingent things. God exists necessarily so that God cannot not exist. Seeing the argument to be dealing with this mode of existence appropriate to God lifts it above the Kantian criticism that existence is not a perfection. As Malcolm puts it: "The logical impossibility of non-existence is a perfection" (142).

Neither Malcolm nor Hartshome would contend that this modal version of the argument constitutes a totally coercive proof of the existence of God. Perhaps the expectation for this revived version of the argument that would both share is stated by Hartshome when he suggests that what Anselm discovered was that atheism is bad grammar (1970:131). It tends to treat the question of God's existence as though it were com- parable to the question of the existence of sticks and stones. Anselm showed that God belongs in a different category. God does not just hap- pen to exist or not exist. God either exists necessarily or is impossible. This latter category is not precluded. It may be that "God" is an inco- herent notion like round square. But that is where the issue is to be




decided. The existence of God is a question of meaning, not of evidence. If "God" is possible, that is, if the idea of God is coherent, then God exists and exists necessarily. While sharing Hartshome's assessment of the importance of necessary existence as characteristic of God, Malcolm would not be so inclined to look to rational clarification as the direction for further resolution. Following Wittgenstein, he would look more to the factors that sustain a particular form of life and language game such as the one in which God is spoken of. While Anselm cannot be said to have proved the existence of God in direct, purely rational, terms, he has exhibited the logic of belief in God which clearly clarifies what is at stake and eliminates the kind of skepticism which thinks of God in the categories of contingency.

II. ANSELM AND HIS MODERN CRITICS AND DEFENDERS

It is especially difficult for us to understand Anselm in his own terms today because we read him in light of intervening developments. As a result we are inclined to attribute to him a sophistication of distinctions that he did not attain. Conversely, because these are distinctions that we take for granted, we are equally apt to miss distinctions that Anselm himself did make. If we compare Anselm and his modem critics and defenders with this in mind, it is possible to identify prominent examples of these heuristic sins of commission and of omission.

Since the recent revival of the argument centers on the nature of necessity, it will be instructive to notice how this modem distinction between logical necessity and ontological necessity differs from Anselm's argument. Anselm simply does not have a concept of strict logical necessity corresponding to that notion which has become increasingly determinative throughout the modem era. He speaks of "necessary reasons" (rationes necessairae), but he uses this term in two senses. In addition to a strict sense applying to rational demonstration, which approaches the modem meaning of "logical necessity," he also uses it in a looser sense which allows him to preserve the transcendence of faith over the constraints of pure rationality (Charlesworth:34). But even the more restricted sense of the term is very different from the modem notion of logical necessity because, for Anselm, necessary reasons do not operate in their own logical domain. Their role is rather to explain the rectitude between a sign and the objects it signifies (Colish: 199). Contrary to the modem assumption of a fundamental separation between logical necessity and reality, Anselm assumes an inherent con-




nection. The implications of this for assessing his argument are immense, but before considering this, we should notice the other side of the picture, the kind of distinctions Anselm makes that we modems are apt to overlook.

Anselm's first major critic, Gaunilo, challenged Anselm's argument in what can only appear to us as decidedly modem terms. He denied having this idea of "that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived," and he further insisted that even if he did have the idea it would only be that, an idea, and, as such, would carry no assurance that there was anything in reality corresponding to it. In regard to the first prong of this counterattack, Gaunilo conceded that he could understand the words of that peculiar phrase, "that-than-which-nothing-greater-can- be-conceived," but that this was all he could understand. He could not get beyond the words as sounds in the air or marks on a page. Anselm challenges this assumption of a meaning confined to words in them- selves. As he sees it, Gaunilo distinguishes between a mere verbal understanding, which has no connection at all with reality, and a clear understanding, which is based on reality. For Anselm this amounts to saying that unless we can see the purest light of the sun we cannot see daylight at all (Reply:173). In contrast to this distinction between merely verbal understanding and clear understanding of reality, Anselm oper- ates with a different distinction, one where the contrast is not between words and reality, or thought and reality, but between a form of know- ing involving both thought and words which is relatively vague and indeterminate, cogitare, and a developed form which has achieved clarity of understanding, intelligere. Anselm's argument moves from cogitare to intelligere. The notion of God as "that-than-which-nothing-greater-can- be-conceived" (cogitari) represents a general awareness of God. A developed appreciation of the implications of that awareness will result in an understanding of God (intelligit) for which it will not even be possible to entertain the idea that God might not exist. "Whoever really understands (intelligit) this [that God is that-than-which-nothing-greater- can-be-conceived] understands (intellgit) clearly that this same being so exists that not even in thought (cogitatione) can it not exist" (Proslogion IV, 121).

To our modem ears Anselm's talk of that-than-which-nothing- greater-can-be-conceived existing in the mind (in intellectu) (Proslogion II, 116), and "so existing that not even in thought (cogitatione) can it not exist" thus carries a meaning that not only was not intended by Anselm, but actually may be the contrary of his meaning. We hear him speaking of this being as captured by the mind, contained in the mind, but what




we are really hearing is the modem version of Anselm. It is Descartes, the fashioner of the modem argument, who thinks of the intellect in terms of ideas in the head; whereas for Anselm intellect involves a form of relationship (McGill 1967b:69). Thus Descartes argues that the idea of a perfect being, contained in the mind, entails existence, whereas Anselm talks of a being having a certain kind of existence, in the understanding (Alston:94). This leaves Descartes with a problem that did not arise for Anselm, that of deriving an existence from the constraints of thought (Campbell:103). Actually, Descartes himself remained largely in the realm of thought, contending that it is necessarily true that existence is entailed in the very meaning of God as perfect being. It was left to the recent revivers of the argument to claim a connection between such logical necessity and the ontological claim that God necessarily exists. As Jonathan Barnes observes: "I conclude that, in its full- blooded form, the modal Ontological Argument is a creature of this cen- tury" (26). With this development we may well have come full circle, arriving not at a further explication of the original argument advanced by Anselm but at a form of reasoning which is almost exactly the opposite of that which he advanced. Where he tried to refine the understanding of God of whom we are dimly aware, his modem counterparts have attempted to move from our own clear thinking so as to find there a basis for concluding that God must be.

III. ANSELM AND HIS MODERN CRITICS

In spite of the tendency to read Anselm in light of our modem outlook, it is still easier to see the contrast between the two than it is to explain it. The most obvious explanation is that Anselm assumes an intrinsic link between thought and reality, and this is what makes the argument work, whereas the modem outlook assumes a basic split between thought and reality, and this just as surely makes the argument unworkable. Thus Langdon Gilkey regards the modem outlook as anti- thetical to the argument:

The modem sentiment that, since existence is in all cases contingent, assertions about existence must be logically contingent and so must be discovered empirically, thus indicates a sense of separation of thought from what is, of essence from existence, that runs directly counter to the assumptions of the ontological proof. (214)

What makes Gilkey's assessment particularly interesting is not its con- firmation of this contrast between Anselm's assumption of a link between thought and reality and the modern assumption of a contrasting




split, but his explicit rejection of this characterization of the modem outlook in spite of his conclusion. What he actually says is that the basis of the modem outlook is the conviction that existence is contingent and that this requires that assertions about existence must be logically contingent. It is difficult to imagine a more direct connection between thought and existence than this. It affirms that the modem outlook is fundamentally a view of existence and that this determines the nature of thought.

The contradiction between Gilkey's premise and his conclusion is not the only difficulty with his statement. His suggestion that the foundation of the modem outlook is a particular view of existence must also be questioned. The central preoccupation of modem thought has been epistemological rather than metaphysical. The concem to know how we know, to justify our knowledge claims, is surely the most determinative feature of the modem outlook. It is because we can only have contingent knowledge of reality that reality is seen to be contingent. This is why necessity is confined to the formalities of logic and language. We can control the meanings of words and the relations of signs and sym- bols so that these can be held to be necessarily true. The fundamental dogma of modem epistemological self-consciousness is this basic division of knowledge into the contingent synthetic propositions which describe the world and necessary analytic propositions which prescribe the meanings of words and the laws of language and inference.

Yet Gilkey is right in his fundamental impression. This epistemo- logically derived outlook does involve a particular understanding of existence. Existence is equated with contingency. Hartshome assures us that "a statement can be contingent only if the thing the statement is about could conceivably be or have been otherwise than it is" (1977: 160). In spite of the primacy of the epistemological motive, it is accom- panied directly by a metaphysical vision. The contingency of our knowledge is seen as a reflection of the contingency of reality. Thus it is patently mistaken to conclude that the difference between Anselm and his modem successors is that he assumed an inherent connection between reality and thought whereas we modems assume a fundamental split between thought and reality. The modem outlook is as firmly com- mitted to its metaphysical vision as was Anselm to his. Indeed, the truth may well be that the modem outlook is more dogmatic in its metaphysics than was Anselm.

J.N. Findlay lays bare the metaphysical implications of the modem outlook when he contends that it recognizes that Anselm's accomplishment was exactly the opposite of what he thought he had achieved:




It was indeed an ill day for Anselm when he hit upon his famous proof. For on that day he not only laid bare something that is of the essence of an adequate religious object, but also something that entails its necessary nonexistence. (55)

The essence of an adequate religious object is that it cannot merely hap- pen to be but must be characterized by necessary existence. However, the stringency of modem epistemological standards requires that necessity be confined to the formalities of thought and that existence be regarded as totally contingent. Consequently necessary existence simply cannot be because necessity and existence are mutually exclusive. So, for the modem outlook, far from demonstrating the existence of a necessary being, Anselm's line of reasoning "entails its necessary non- existence."

This inversion of Anselm can hardly constitute anything more than a Pyrrhic victory, however, when it is recognized that its triumphal conclusion is precisely what the modem outlook itself forbids. The dichotomy between formal necessity and contingent existence surely precludes "necessary non-existence" just as firmly as it precludes "necessary existence." The only necessity that can be acknowledged on the basis of the modem dichotomy is logical necessity. Yet Findlay is fundamentally accurate in drawing out the inner logic of the modem outlook. Contrary to its own professed gulf between thought and reality, it not only endorses a particular understanding of existence as characterized by contingency, but it does this in the name of necessity which is supposed to be confined to the realm of thought. It excludes necessary being with the force of necessity, prescribing its "necessary non-existence"; or, pos- itively stated, the fundamental platform of the modem outlook is what M.J. Charlesworth describes as "logical atheism," the view that contingent things "are necessarily the only things" (71). It is thus that the modem outlook is more dogmatically metaphysical than that of Anselm. It prescribes its metaphysical vision with the self-conscious stringency of the modem epistemological orientation.

IV. ANSELM AND HIS MODERN DEFENDERS

The metaphysic integral to the modem outlook suggests that the difference between Anselm and modems is not that we split thought from reality where he sees them conjoined, but rather in the different views of reality which each assumes. Anselm allows for necessary existence as well as contingent existence, whereas the modem outlook only permits the latter. But we have seen that the source of the modem outlook is




epistemological rather than metaphysical. This disjunction between the necessities of thought and the contingencies of factual information, the compromise of this division by the equation of reality with contingency, and even the contradiction of the division by the generally unstated assumption that all existence is necessarily contingent, all are ultimately traceable to the desire to justify knowledge. Since this is the most dis- tinctive feature of the modem outlook, it is reasonable to expect to find that it is also the most likely source of the contrast between Anselm and his modem successors. It is this epistemological focus which accounts for the contrast between Descartes' starting point in his clear and dis- tinct idea of God as total perfection and Anselm's dim awareness of God existing in cogitation.

The gap between Anselm's approach and the modem perspective is as evident in the empiricist, Hume, as in the rationalist, Descartes. His confidence that "whatever we conceive as existent we can also conceive as non-existence," is directly contrary to the confidence underlying Anselm's stronger argument in Proslogion III that "something can be thought to exist that cannot be thought not to exist," and Hume leaves no doubt about the self-conscious epistemological basis of his position.

Nothing is demonstrable unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Con- sequently there is no being whose existence is demonstrable. I propose this argument as entirely decisive, and am willing to rest the whole controversy upon it. (Hume 1948:58)

In spite of his empiricism, Hume, no less than Descartes, finds the crite- rion of existence in the human powers of conceiving. Whatever we can conceive prescribes the range of the possible, and, what is more, what we cannot conceive determines impossibility.

It is an established maxim in metaphysics, That whatever the mind clearly conceives includes the idea of possible existence, or, in other words, that nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible. We can form the idea of a golden mountain, and from thence conclude that such a mountain may actually exist. We can form no idea of a mountain without a valley, and therefore regard it as impossible. (Hume 1911:39)

The modem controversy has focussed on this issue of conceivability. This focus is distinguished from that of Anselm not only by its self- conscious epistemological character but also because of its anthropocen- tric orientation. Anselm's dim relational awareness has been displaced




by the sense of full responsibility for an autonomous sponsorship of the range of the meaningful.

The contrast between Anselm's perspective and that of his modem successors is not totally unmediated. A point of transition might be detected, for example, in one of the central reasons St. Thomas Aquinas gives for rejecting Anselm's argument, the fact that we cannot conceive God as self-evident for us:

For assuredly that God exists is, absolutely speaking, self-evident since what God is is His own being. Yet, because we are not able to conceive that which God is, that God exists remains unknown in relation to us. (1.11.2)

It is difficult to say who knows that God's existence is self-evident in the absolute sense. St. Thomas has not arrived at the notion of purely logical necessity where such a statement would designate the definitional requirement that it is a necessary truth that God exists because of what "God" means. The absolute self-evidence he alludes to is more akin to the ontological necessity that Anselm takes to characterize God, and so is perhaps known to believers. In any case, the aspect which is of immediate relevance is the further assumption that this self-evidence cannot be known by us ordinary mortals generally because we cannot conceive of God. In this St. Thomas stands mid-way between Guanilo's rejection of Anselm's argument because he cannot conceive of "that- than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived" and the modem refine- ment of the focus on conceivability as the determination of possibility and impossibility. A striking example of this assumption on this end of the development is J.N. Findlay's premise that "the Divine Existence can only be conceived, in a religiously satisfactory manner, if we also conceive it as something inescapable and necessary, whether for thought or reality" (48). Divine existence is possible only if God is inescapable for us. What makes God religiously significant is that we cannot avoid thinking of God. God's being depends upon our thinking.

The import of this fundamental difference in perspectives between Anselm's relational orientation and the modem subjective fixation is seen in the different conclusions arrived at by Anselm and his modem defenders. The modem approach starts with the human mind and its powers of conception and ends, in the modal version, with claims about the being of God. Anselm began with a dim awareness of God and ends with out inability to conceive of God's non-existence. "Something-than- which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought exists so truly then, that it cannot be even thought not to exist" (Proslogion III, 119). Malcolm and Harts- home eliminated this explicit reference to thought in Anselm's conclu-




sion, reading it as "cannot not exist." For the more stringent categories of modernity, Anselm is seen to be groping toward the idea of logical necessity. What he is really saying is that by definition, God cannot not exist. But, as Richard Campbell points out, while "cannot not" is equivalent to "necessary", "cannot be thought not" is hardly so, or else the "be thought" is completely redundant (14). The reason that the modal version can assume this equivalence is probably due to the fact that its whole approach is rooted in thought as such. For it "cannot not" means essentially absence of logical contradiction. For an approach which assumes autonomous thought, the reference to thought would be redundant. Conversely, for Anselm, since thought is not an autonomous activity but rather involves a relation with reality, "cannot be thought not" is not equivalent to "cannot not."

The result is that Anselm's argument is badly misrepresented not only by his modem critics but also by his modem defenders. Modem critics and defenders are operating with a different agenda, one which is foreign to Anselm. His problem is to try to understand how the fool can deny God. His answer to this is to demonstrate the logic which exposes this foolishness. The modem problem is to try to justify belief in God to autonomous human reason.

V. THE RELEVANCE OF ANSELM TODAY

The gulf between Anselm and his modem foes and friends might suggest that the relevance of his argument to the critical consciousness of modernity is bound to be very slight. On the other hand, in light of the apparent stalemate over the prospects for modem versions of his line of reasoning, it may be that this very gap can provide perspective on both our contemporary situation and what is at stake in the argument itself.

The relevance of Anselm's reasoning for our situation is suggested most poignantly by Findlay's contention that the modem outlook amounts to an inversion of Anselm's argument. Where he thought he had demonstrated that God must exist, the modem outlook entails the conclusion that God cannot exist. As well as laying bare this logic of modernity, Findlay also clearly identifies its implication: "We may accordingly deny that modem approaches allow us to remain agnosti- cally poised in regard to God: they force us to come down on the atheistic side" (55). It is difficult to fault either Findlay's reasoning or his interpretation. However, it does present problems for both advocates of the modem approach and admirers of Anselm.



802 Journal of the American Academy of Rehgion

In spite of the reasonableness of Findlay's analysis, his conclusion is not one that exponents of the modem quest for certainty are likely to find congenial. The mythology of modernity celebrates the virtue of openness almost as ardently as the pursuit of certainty. The sustaining vision is one of the progressive establishment of a sure foundation of empirical knowledge which leaves the regions beyond as beckoning frontier. In principle, this beyond is assumed to be accessible to the omnicompetent grasp of modem epistemological sophistication, but what that will involve remains for the future extension of the steadily expanding platform of established knowledged. The theological stance appropriate to this outlook is the modest tentativeness of agnosticism. Who can say whether there is a God or not? That question might be answerable at some future date, but for now the only intelligent position is to admit our ignorance. This profession of ultimate openness suffers a rude shock with Findlay's disclosure that not only is the modem outlook fundamentally atheistic rather than agnostic, but that it is atheistic in the most dogmatic, absolute, a priori form. It excludes the possibility of God by definition. If Anselm's argument were to have no further relevance for us beyond this exposure of the logic of modernity, its significance would stand secure. It is of no minor consequence to be enabled to see that the modem secular Zeitgeist, which professes to deal with an immediate range of reality, leaving questions of ultimate whys and wherefores open, is in truth a closed atheistic system which, because of the surrepti- tious nature of its dogmatism and absolutism, is even more dogmatic and absolutist than the supposedly dogmatic and absolutist visions it displaces.

Important though this exposure of the dogmatic atheism of the modem secular outlook is, Anselm's argument is even more relevant for us today because of its own positive significance. For while Findlay's analysis exposes the inner logic of the modem outlook, it can stand as an inversion of Anselm's argument only on the basis of that outlook. When we consider the basic differences between Anselm's own argument and the modem variants, it is clear that this counterargument of Findlay's cannot be regarded simply as an inversion of Anselm. For Anselm had no intention of proving God on the basis of logical necessity, which Findlay shows to be the focus of the modem atheistic stance.

The modem assumption that God as necessary being could be acknowledged only if this acknowledgement had the force of logical necessity is foreign to Anselm not only on technical grounds but also for theological reasons. The notion that the existence of God could be proven by an autonomous rational argument represents virtually the




antithesis of Anselm's position. To assume that the existence of God should be demonstrable by us with the force of logical necessity would almost certainly strike Anselm as an inescapable prescription for idola- try. He did believe that he had hit upon "one single argument that for its proof required no other save itself, and that by itself would suffice to prove that God really exists" (Proslogion, "Preface," 103), but the further claims he goes on to make for this proof in this same sentence indicate that he does not understand this in the modem sense of a fundamentally autonomous proof, for he takes it to prove not only that God exists but also "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." This qualification clearly indicates that far from thinking he had articulated a self-sufficient autonomous proof, Anselm sees his argument as a summation of what is known of God through the Christian tradition ("whatever we believe about the Divine Being") as well as of the cosmological type of consider- ations he had considered in the Monologion ("He whom all things have need of for their being and well-being"). This organic orientation is typical of Anselm's outlook, pursuing fundamental unities which are assumed to be there if we are attentive enough to appreciate them, in contrast to the artificial direction of modem thought which assumes that real knowledge consists of synthesizing isolated bits of information. Apart from the total misunderstanding shown by Gaunilo, the general misreading of Anselm may well have begun with the designation of his argument as a priori. It is not a large step from there to the view that it is an analytic argument, dealing not merely with the realm of pure thought but appealing to the necessities of thought.

Because he does not profess to provide an autonomous rational argument, Anselm's accomplishment is much less independently coercive than modem expectations would require. Rather than presenting a strict, autonomous rational demonstration for the existence of God, he is really engaged in explicating the logic of faith. However, just as Anselm's argument does not profess to be a self-contained logical demonstration with anything like the strictness of modem logical necessity, neither does its explication of the logic of faith entail the arbitrariness that designation connotes for us. The divorce between faith and reason is just as foreign to Anselm as the modem divorce between logical necessity and contingent existence. To read into Anselm the sociologi- cal self-consciousness which understands faith as the special preserve of an isolated form of life is just as anachronistic as to invest his argument with the strictness of logical necessity. For him, faith is generically




human. The fool who denies God does not occupy some special domain. The fool lives in all of us, but Anselm also wonders how this is possible. This argument shows that it is possible only because we do not understand the rationality of faith.

No doubt the prospects for understanding the rationality of faith were much better in Anselm's day. Citizens of Christendom, living in the age of faith, might be expected to be much more susceptible to Anselm's argument than we can be today. In fact, if the analysis presented here is on the right track, we are precluded from intelligently believing in God insofar as our outlook is genuinely modem. But just as the difference between Anselm's argument and its modem treatment exposes this counter-faith of modernity, so too the thrust of his argument indicates an important characteristic of faith as such. This might be called its comprehensiveness, or, in more contemporary language, its paradigmatic nature. From this point of view, what the argument shows is that either God is there from the start, and our reflections and exper- iences amount to a recognition and clarification of this, or else God will never be recognized by us. Since God cannot be thought not to be, there is no prospect for producing belief in God out of a basis in agnosticism, much less from the covert atheism that characterizes the modem outlook. The only basis for belief in God is God. This is why the very notion that there might be an independent rational proof for God's existence is really the antithesis of Anselm's approach. It may also account for the inescapable fascination the argument continues to hold for many people. For if it works, it does so not by providing a second order rational proof of God, but only by exposing us to the living God whose reality it helps us recognize to be pervasive.

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