St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033—1109)

anselmAnselm was one of the most important Christian thinkers of the
eleventh century. He is most famous in philosophy for having
discovered and articulated the so-called "ontological argument;" and
in theology for his doctrine of the atonement. However, his work
extends to many other important philosophical and theological matters,
among which are: understanding the aspects and the unity of the divine
nature; the extent of our possible knowledge and understanding of the
divine nature; the complex nature of the will and its involvement in
free choice; the interworkings of human willing and action and divine
grace; the natures of truth and justice; the natures and origins of
virtues and vices; the nature of evil as negation or privation; and
the condition and implications of original sin.

In the course of his work and thought, unlike most of his
contemporaries, Anselm deployed argumentation that was in most
respects only indirectly dependent on Sacred Scripture, Christian
doctrine, and tradition. Anselm also developed sophisticated analyses
of the language used in discussion and investigation of philosophical
and theological issues, highlighting the importance of focusing on the
meaning of the terms used rather than allowing oneself to be misled by
the verbal forms, and examining the adequacy of the language to the
objects of investigation, particularly to the divine nature. In
addition, in his work he both discussed and exemplified the resolution
of apparent contradictions or paradoxes by making appropriate
distinctions. For these reasons, one title traditionally accorded him
is the Scholastic Doctor, since his approach to philosophical and
theological matters both represents and contributed to early medieval
Christian Scholasticism.

1. Life

Anselm was born in 1033 in Aosta, a border town of the kingdom of
Burgundy. In his adolescence, he decided that there was no better life
than the monastic one. He sought to become a monk, but was refused by
the abbot of the local monastery. Leaving his birthplace as a young
man, he headed north across the Alps to France, eventually arriving at
Bec in Normandy, where he studied under the eminent theologian and
dialectician Lanfranc, whose involvement in disputes with Berengar
spurred a revival in theological speculation and application of
dialectic in theological argument. At the monastery of Bec, Anselm
devoted himself to scholarship, and found an earlier childhood
attraction to the monastic life reawakening. Unable to decide between
becoming a monk at Bec or Cluny, becoming a hermit, or living off his
inheritance and giving alms to the poor, he put the decision in the
hands of Lanfranc and Maurilius, the Archbishop of Rouen, who decided
Anselm should enter monastic life at Bec, which he did in 1060.

In 1063, after Lanfranc left Bec for Caen, Anselm was chosen to be
prior. Among the various tasks Anselm took on as prior was that of
instructing the monks, but he also had time left for carrying on
rigorous spiritual exercises, which would play a great role in his
philosophical and theological development. As his biographer, Eadmer,
writes: "being continually given up to God and to spiritual exercises,
he attained such a height of divine speculation that he was able by
God's help to see into and unravel many most obscure and previously
insoluble questions…" (1962, p. 12). He became particularly well
known, both in the monastic community and in the wider community, not
only for the range and depth of his insight into human nature, the
virtues and vices, and the practice of moral and religious life, but
also for the intensity of his devotions and asceticism.

In 1070, Anselm began to write, particularly prayers and meditations,
which he sent to monastic friends and to noblewomen for use in their
own private devotions. He also engaged in a great deal of
correspondence, leaving behind numerous letters. Eventually, his
teaching and thinking culminated in a set of treatises and dialogues.
In 1077, he produced the Monologion, and in 1078 the Proslogion.
Eventually, Anselm was elected abbot of the monastery. At some time
while still at Bec, Anselm wrote the De Veritate (On Truth), De
Libertate Arbitrii (On Freedom of Choice), De Casu Diaboli (On the
Fall of the Devil), and De Grammatico.

In 1092, Anselm traveled to England, where Lanfranc had previously
been arch-bishop of Canterbury. The Episcopal seat had been kept
vacant so King William Rufus could collect its income, and Anselm was
proposed as the new bishop, a prospect neither the king nor Anselm
desired. Eventually, the king fell ill, changed his mind in fear of
his demise, and nominated Anselm to become bishop. Anselm attempted to
argue his unfitness for the post, but eventually accepted. In addition
to the typical cares of the office, his tenure as arch-bishop of
Canterbury was marked by nearly uninterrupted conflict over numerous
issues with King William Rufus, who attempted not only to appropriate
church lands, offices, and incomes, but even to have Anselm deposed.
Anselm had to go into exile and travel to Rome to plead the case of
the English church to the Pope, who not only affirmed Anselm's
position, but refused Anselm's own request to be relieved of his
office. While archbishop in exile, however, Anselm did finish his Cur
Deus Homo, also writing the treatises Epistolae de Incarnatione Verbi
(On the Incarnation of the Word), De Conceptu Virginali et de
Originali Peccato (On the Virgin Conception and on Original Sin), De
Processione Spiritus Sancti (On the Proceeding of the Holy Spirit),
and De Concordia Praescientia et Praedestinationis et Gratiae Dei cum
Libero Arbitrio (On the Harmony of the Foreknowledge, the
Predestination, and the Grace of God with Free Choice).

Upon returning to England after William Rufus's death, conflict
eventually ensued between the archbishop and the new king, Henry I,
requiring Anselm once again to travel to Rome. When judgment was made
by Pope Paschal II in Anselm's favor, the king forbade him to return
to England, but eventually reconciliation took place. Anselm died in
1109, leaving behind several pupils and friends of some importance,
among them Eadmer, Anselm's biographer, and the theologian Gilbert
Crispin. He was declared a doctor of the Roman Catholic Church in
1720, and is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the
churches in the Anglican Communion.

Today, Anselm is most well known for his Proslogion proof for the
existence of God, but his thought was widely known in the Middle Ages,
and still today in certain circles of scholarship, particularly among
religious scholars, for considerably more than that single
achievement. For fuller biographies of Anselm, see Eadmer's Vita
Sancti Anselmi/ The Life of St. Anselm: Archbishop of Canterbury, and
Alexander's Liber ex dictis beati Anselmi.
2. Influences

With the exception of St. Augustine, and to a lesser extent Boethius,
it is difficult to definitively ascribe the influence of other
thinkers to the development of St. Anselm's thought. To be sure,
Anselm studied under Lanfranc, but Lanfranc does not appear to have
been a significant influence on the actual content or expression of
Anselm's thought, and he largely ignored Lanfranc's misgivings about
the method of theMonologion. Anselm cites Boethius, but does not draw
upon him extensively. Other figures have been proposed as influences
on Anselm, for instance John Scotus Eriugena and Pseudo-Dionysus, but
any such proposals are set in the proper framework by these remarks
from Koyré: "The influence of these two great thinkers is not at all
lacking in verisimilitude a priori." (Koyré 1923, 109). It is possible
that either one of them, or other thinkers, influenced Anselm, but
going beyond mere possibility given the texts we possess is
controversial.

Discerning influences on Anselm's work is for the most part
conjectural, precisely because Anselm makes so few references to
previous thinkers in his work. In the preface to the Monologion he
writes: "Reexamining the work often myself, I have been able to find
nothing that I have said in it, that would not agree [cohaereat] with
the writings of the Catholic Fathers and especially with those of the
blessed Augustine." (S. v. 1, p.8)

[All citations of Anselm's texts (except for the Fragments) are the
author's translations from S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archepiscopi Opera
Omnia, abbreviated here as S., followed by (when needed) the volume
and the page numbers. Latin terms in brackets or parentheses have been
romanized to current orthography. All citations of the Fragments are
the author's translations from the Ein neues unvollendetes Werk des
heilige Anselm von Canterbury, henceforth abbreviated as u.W.]

Anselm references Augustine's On the Holy Trinity, but as a whole
work, giving no specific references. Clearly, Augustine was a major
influence on Anselm's thought, but that is in itself rather
unremarkable, since practically all of his contemporaries fit in one
way or another into the broad stream of the Augustinian tradition. As
Southern summarizes the issues: "[T]he ambivalence of Anselm's
relations to St. Augustine remains one of the mysteries of his mind
and personality. Augustine's thought was the pervading atmosphere in
which Anselm moved; but he was never content merely to reproduce
Augustine." (1963, 32)

In fact, one of the most important features of Anselm's work is its
originality. As Southern has also pointed out, this originality was
not confined to the treatises and dialogues. In his more devotional
prayers and meditations, Anselm adapted traditional forms to new
content, (1963, 34-47) "open[ing] the way which led to the Dies Irae,
the Imitatio Christi, and the masterpieces of later medieval piety."
(1963, 47) Although clearly indebted to an Augustinian (neo)-Platonic
tradition often termed "Christian philosophy," Anselm's originality
clearly furthered and expanded that tradition, and prepared the way
for later Scholasticism. The term "Christian philosophy" was used in a
variety of senses, particularly within and to denote the Augustinian
tradition, and was applied to Anselm's work by numerous interpreters.
A set of debates, which gave rise to a sizable literature, and which
are still to some extent being continued today, took place in
Francophone circles (spreading to German, Italian, Spanish, and
English-speaking circles in later years) in the early 1930s, about the
nature and possibility of "Christian philosophy." One of the main
participants, Etienne Gilson, in fact used Anselm's formula fides
quaerens intellectum several times as one of the definitions of
Christian philosophy.

Anselm's work was influential for some of his contemporaries, and has
continued to exercise influence in varying ways on philosophers and
theologians to the present day. The so-called "ontological argument"
has had numerous critics, defenders, and adaptors philosophically or
theologically notable in their own right, among them St. Bonaventure,
St. Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Gassendi, Spinoza, Malebranche, Locke,
Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, and an even greater number in the last century,
not least of which were Charles Hartshorne, Etienne Gilson, Maurice
Blondel, Martin Heidegger, Karl Barth, Norman Malcolm, and Alvin
Plantinga. However, the "argument"(s) discussed in this literature are
frequently not precisely what is found in Anselm's texts, and a
sizable literature has developed addressing that very issue.

Argument(s) for God's being or existence form only a small portion of
Anselm's considerable and complex work, and his influence has been
much wider and deeper than originating one perennial line of
philosophical investigation and discussion. In his own time, he had
several gifted students, among them Anselm of Laon, Gilbert Crispin,
Eadmer (writer of the Vita Anselmi), Alexander (writer of the Dicta
Anselmi), and Honorius Augustodunensis. His works were copied and
disseminated in his lifetime, and exercised an influence on later
Scholastics, among them Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus,
and William of Ockham. For further discussion of Anselm's influence,
cf. Châtillon, 1959, Southern, 1963, Rovighi, 1964, Hopkins, 1972, and
Fortin, 2001.
3. Methodology: Faith and Reason

The extent to which Anselm's work, and which portions of it, ought to
be considered to be philosophy or theology (or "philosophical
theology," "Christian philosophy," and so forth) is a long debated
question. The answers (and their rationales) depend considerably on
one's conceptions of philosophy and theology and their distinction and
interaction. These admittedly important issues are set aside here in
order to focus on three key features of Anselm's work: Anselm's
pedagogical motivation and his intended audience; the notion of faith
seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum); and Anselm's
stylistics and dialectic.

Anselm provides a paradigmatic account of the pedagogical motive
structuring his works in theMonologion's Prologue.

Some of the brothers have often and earnestly entreated me to set
down in writing for them some of the matters I have brought to light
for them when we spoke together in our accustomed discourses, about
how the divine essence ought to be meditated upon and certain other
things pertaining to that sort of meditation, as a kind of model for
meditation…. They prescribed this form for me: nothing whatsoever in
these matters should be made convincing [persuaderetur] by the
authority of Scripture, but whatsoever the conclusion [finis], through
individual investigations, should assert…the necessity of reason would
concisely prove [cogeret], and the clarity of truth would evidently
show that this is the case. They also wished that I not disdain to
meet and address [obviare] simpleminded and almost foolish objections
that occurred to me. (S. v. 1, p.7)

The original audience for his writings was fellow Benedictine monks
seeking a fuller understanding of the Christian faith and asking that
Anselm provide an articulation of it in a form quite different than
those typical and traditional of their time, namely, where such
theological discussions were carried out primarily through citation
and interpretation of Scripture and patristic authorities. Anselm
expresses this pedagogical motive again in the Cur Deus Homo: "I have
often and most earnestly been asked by many, in speech and in writing,
to commit in writing to posterity [memoriae. . commendem] reasonable
answers [rationes] I am accustomed to give to those asking about a
certain question of our faith." (S. v. 2, p.47)

The goal of Anselm's treatises is not to provide a philosophical
substitute for the Christian faith, nor to rationalize or systematize
it solely in the light of natural reason. Rather, in the cases of the
Monologionand Proslogion, he aims to treat meditatively, by reason's
resources, central aspects of the Christian faith, namely, as he puts
it in the Proslogion's Prologue: "that God truly is, and that he is
the supreme good needing no other, and that he is what all things need
so that they are and so that they are well, and whatever else we
believe about the divine substance." (S., v. 1, p. 93) In the other
treatises (excepting theDe Grammatico, which he explicitly states to
be for "beginners in dialectic," and that it "pertains to a different
subject matter than [Sacred Scripture]," S., v.1, p. 173), Anselm
concerns himself with other important, and often interrelated, aspects
of the Christian faith, developing the arguments through reasoning,
rather than through explicit reliance on Scriptural or patristic
authority in the course of argumentation. Over the course of his
career, Anselm's intended audience expands considerably, however,
particularly as he became involved in controversy over the Trinity
that culminated in hisEpistola de Incarnatione Verbi and Cur Deus
Homo.

The Proslogion's Prologue provides a somewhat different, but clearly
related motive for its production. After the Monologion, Anselm
writes: "considering that that work was constructed from an
interlinking [concatenatione] of many arguments, I began to wonder if
perhaps a single argument [unum argumentum] that needed nothing other
than itself alone for proving itself." (S., v. 1, p. 93) Once he had
uncovered this unum argumentum ("single argument") after great effort
and difficulty, Anselm wrote about it and several other related
topics, in the interest of sharing the joy it had brought him, or at
least pleasing another who would read it (alicui legenti placiturum).

Precisely what this single argument consists of has been a subject of
considerable scholarly debate. A fairly common but clearly incorrect
interpretation of the "single argument" takes it as referring only to
the proof for God's existence or being in Chapter 2, or at most
Chapters 2-4. At the other extreme, some commentators take the single
argument to be the entirety of the Proslogion. A third, intermediary
position argues that the unum argumentum is the entirety of the
Proslogion, minus the last three chapters, for two reasons: 1) Anselm
calls the last three chapters coniectationes; 2) Anselm says in the
prooemium that he wrote the Proslogion about the argument itself (de
hoc ipso) and about several other things (et de quibusdam aliis).

As Anselm explains to his interlocutor Boso, his writing the De
Conceptu Virginali is motivated by a purpose similar to that of the
Proslogion, reexamining and rearticulating topics previously addressed
in other works.

For I am certain that when you read in the Cur Deus Homo. . .
that, besides the one I set down there, another reason can be glimpsed
[posse uideri], how God took on humanity without sin from the sinful
mass of the human race, your most studious mind will be driven not a
little to asking what this reason is. Accordingly, I feared that I
would appear unjust to you if I conceal what I think on this [quod
inde mihi videtur] from your enjoyment [dilectioni tuae]. (S., v. 2,
p. 139)

The prologue to the three connected dialogues (De Veritate, De
Libertate Arbitrii, De Casu Diaboli) does not indicate conclusively
whether they were written to answer specific requests of the monks.
Clearly, however, they treat matters of both theological and
philosophical interest arising out of reflection and discussion on
Christian faith, life, and thought.

Fides quaerens intellectum, "faith seeking understanding" was the
Proslogion's original title and is an apt designation for Anselm's
philosophical and theological projects as a whole. Anselm begins from,
and never leaves the standpoint of a committed and practicing Catholic
Christian, but this does not mean that his philosophical work is
thereby vitiated as philosophy by operating on the basis of and within
the confines of theological presuppositions. Rather, Anselm engages in
philosophy, employing reasoning rather than appeal to Scriptural or
patristic authority in order to establish the doctrines of the
Christian faith (which, as a faithful and practicing believer, he
takes as already established) in a different, but possible way,
through the employment of reason. Faith seeking understanding goes
beyond simply establishing faith's doctrines, however, precisely
because it seeks understanding, the rational intelligibility (as far
as is possible) of the doctrines.

Anselm does cite Scripture at certain points in his work, as well as
"what we believe" (quod credimus), but attention to his texts
indicates that he does not rely on scriptural or doctrinal authority
directly to resolve problems or to provide starting points for his
reasoning. In some cases, he has the student or his own questioning
voice (as in Proslogion, Chapter 8) bring up Scriptural passages of
truths of Christian doctrine in order to raise problems that require a
rational resolution. In other cases (as in De Concordia, Book 1
Chapter 5), he does use Scriptural passages as starting points for
arguments, but for erroneous arguments that he then criticizes. In yet
other cases, Anselm brings up Scripture precisely to explain how
certain passages or expressions should be rightly understood (as in
the De Casu Diaboli, explaining how God causing evil should be
understood). Lastly, Anselm cites Scripture after the course of his
argument in order to reconnect the rational argumentation with
Christian revelation (as in Proslogion, Chapter 16, where Anselm's
previous reasoning culminates in God "inhabiting" an "inaccessible
light"). For discussion of Anselm and Scripture, cf. Barth, 1960,
Tonini, 1970, and Henry, 1962.

In his actual exercise of reason, Anselm displays both confidence in
reason's capacity for providing understanding to faith, and awareness
of the limitations human reason's exercise eventually runs into and
becomes aware of. For instance, in Proslogion, Chapter 15, he
concludes that God is not only that than which nothing greater can be
thought, but something greater than can be thought. Another important
aspect of Anselm's fides quaerens intellectum is that, in the
Monologion, reason is employed by one who "disputes and investigates
with himself things he had not previously taken notice of [non
animadvertisset]," (S., v. 1, p. 8) and in the Proslogion, one
"striving to raise his mind to the contemplation of God, and seeking
to understand what he believes." (S., v. 1, p. 94)

Despite Anselm's deliberate employment of reason as a means to the
truth about both the natural and the supernatural order, his
rationalism is a mitigated one. Monologion Chapter 1 exemplifies this.
Anselm's assessment is that one could persuade oneself of the truths
argued for in the Monologion by the use of one's reason, but Anselm
hastens to add: "I wish it to be understood [accipi] that, even if a
conclusion is reached [concludatur] seemingly as necessary [quasi
necessarium] from reasons that seem good to me, it is not that it is
entirely [omnino] necessary, but only that for the current time
[interim] it be said to be able to appear necessary." (S., v. 1, p.14)

Chapter 64 of the Monologion provides another important discussion of
the use of reason and argument. Anselm distinguishes between being
able to understand or explain that something is true or that something
exists, and being able to understand or explain how something is true.
Since the divine substance, the triune God is ultimately beyond the
capacities of human understanding, reason, or more precisely the
reasoning human subject, must recognize both the limits and the
capacities of reason.

I think that for someone investigating an incomprehensible matter
it ought to be sufficient, if by reasoning towards it, he arrives at
knowing that it most certainly does exist, even if he is unable to go
further by use of the intellect [penetrare. . . intellectu] into how
it is this way. Nor for that reason should we withhold the certainty
of faith from those things that are asserted through necessary proofs
[probationibus], and that are inconsistent with no other reason, if
because of the incomprehensibility of their natural sublimity they do
not allow themselves [non patiuntur] to be explained. (S., v. 1, p.
75)

Anselm is not skeptically questioning or undermining the capacities of
reason and argumentation. Not every possible object the intellect
attempts to engage with presents such problems, but only God.
Accordingly, although a completely full and exhaustively systematic
account cannot be provided of the divine substance, this does not
undermine the certainty of what reason has been able to determine.

Stylistically, Anselm's treatises take two basic forms, dialogues and
sustained meditations. The former represent pedagogical discussions
between a fairly gifted and inquisitive pupil and a teacher. In the
latter, Anselm provides, as noted earlier, models of meditation, but
the model differs considerably from theMonologion to the Proslogion,
for in the first treatise, Anselm aims to provide a model of a person
meditating, or (using Aristotle's conception) engaging in dialectic
with himself, while in the second case, the person addresses himself
to the very God that he is attempting to comprehend as best as human
capacities allow.

In the dialogue Cur Deus Homo, a student, Boso, "my brother and most
beloved son" (S., v. 2, p. 139) is called by name. In the majority of
the dialogues, the student and teacher are not named; it is clear,
however, that the teacher represents Anselm and presents Anselm's
doctrines. The De Conceptu Virginali and the De Concordia are not
written in the same dialogue form as the other treatises, but they are
dialogical in their narrative voice(s), since Anselm addresses himself
to another person (in the De Conceptu Virginali to Boso), articulating
possible problems and objections his reader might make in order to
address them.

The dialogue form serves a pedagogical purpose and reflects the
project of fides quaerens intellectum, exemplified well by this
passage from the De Casu Diaboli: "[L]et it not weary you to briefly
reply to my silly questioning [fatuae interrogationi], so that I might
know how I should respond to someone asking me the very same thing.
Indeed, it is not always easy to respond wisely [sapienter] to someone
who is asking foolishly [insipienter]." (S., v. 1, p. 275)

Interestingly, it appears that a recurring problem for Anselm was his
treatises being copied and circulated without his authorization and
before their final and finished state. He asserts this to be the case
with the three connected dialogues and the Cur Deus Homo.

The following sections provide discussions of, and excerpts from, many
of Anselm's key works. With the exception of the Proslogion,
Monologion, and Cur Deus Homo, the works are examined in chronological
order (as best as we know it). These three works are discussed first
and in this order because the Proslogion has garnered the most
attention from philosophers (more than the earlierMonologion, with
which it shares similar aims and content) and the Cur Deus Homo
likewise has garnered more attention from theologians than the earlier
three dialogues "pertaining to study of Sacred Scripture" (S., v.1, p.
173) (the De Veritate, De Libertate Arbitrii, and De Casu Diaboli).
4. The Proslogion

In the Proslogion, Anselm intended to replace the many interconnected
arguments from his previous and much longer work, the Monologion, with
a single argument. Since the unum argumentum is supposed to prove not
only that God exists, but other matters about God as well, as noted
above, there is some scholarly controversy as to exactly what the
argument is in the Proslogion's text. Clearly, the so-called
"ontological argument" for God's existence in Chapter 2 plays a
central role. It must be pointed out that Anselm nowhere uses the term
"ontological argument," nor in fact do the critics or proponents of
the argument until Kant's time. It has unfortunately become so
ingrained in our philosophical vocabulary, especially in Anglophone
Anselm scholarship, however, that it would be pedantic to insist on
not using it at all. An interesting and sizable recent literature has
developed explicitly contesting the appellation "ontological" applied
to Anselm's Proslogion proof(s) of God's being or existence, a partial
bibliography of which is provided in McEvoy, 1994.

Noting that God is believed to be something than which nothing greater
can be thought (quo maius cogitari non potest), Anselm asks whether
such a thing exists, since the Fool of the Psalms has said in his
heart that there is no God.

But certainly that very same Fool, when he hears this very
expression I say [hoc ipsum quod dico]: "something than which nothing
greater can be thought," understands what he hears; and what he
understands is in his understanding [in intellectu], even if he does
not understand that thing to exist. For it is one thing to be in the
understanding, and another to understand a thing to exist. . . . .
Therefore even the fool is compelled to admit [convincitur] that there
is in his understanding something than which nothing greater can be
thought, since when he hears this he understands it, and whatever is
understood is in the understanding. And certainly that than which a
greater cannot be thought cannot exist in the understanding alone. For
if it is in the intellect alone [in solo intellectu], it can be
thought to also be in reality [in re], which is something greater. If,
therefore, that than which a greater cannot be thought is in the
intellect alone, that very thing than which a greater cannot be
thought is that than which a greater can be thought. But surely that
cannot be. Therefore, without a doubt, something than which a greater
cannot be thought exists [exsistit] both in the understanding and in
reality. (S., v. 1, p. 101-2)

In Chapter 3, Anselm continues the argumentation, providing what some
commentators take to be a second ontological argument.

And, it so truly exists that it cannot be thought not to be. For,
a thing, which cannot be thought not to be (which is greater than what
cannot be thought not to be), can be thought to be. So, if that than
which a greater cannot be thought can be thought not to be, that very
thing than which a greater cannot be thought is not that than which a
greater cannot be thought, which cannot be compatible [convenire, i.e.
with the thing being such]. Therefore, there truly is something than
which a greater cannot be thought, and it cannot be thought not to be.
(S., p. 102-3)

Addressing himself to God, Anselm explains why God cannot be thought
not to exist, indicating why God uniquely has this status. "[I]f some
mind could think something better than you, the creature would ascend
over the Creator, and would engage in judgment about the Creator,
which is quite absurd. And anything else whatsoever other than
yourself can be thought not to exist. For you alone are the most true
of all things, and thus you have being to the greatest degree
[maxime], for anything else is not so truly [as God], and for this
reason has less of being." (S., p. 103) This raises a puzzle, however.
Why does the Fool not only doubt whether God exists, but assert that
there is no God? One possible, but rather circular answer is provided
at the end of Chapter 3. "Why else, except because he is stupid and a
fool?" (S., p. 103) As Anselm knows, however, that does not really
answer the question. Chapter 4 provides an answer. The Fool both does
and does not think [cogitare] that God does not exist, since there are
two senses of "think":

A thing is thought of in one way when one thinks of the word [vox]
signifying it, in another way when what the thing itself is is
understood. Therefore, in the first way it can be thought that God
does not exist, but in the second way not at all. Indeed no one who
understands that which God is can think that God is not, even though
he says these words in his heart, either without any signification or
with some other signification not properly applying to God [aliqua
extranea significatione]. (S., p. 103-104)

Proslogion Chapters 5-26 deal progressively with the divine
attributes, 5-23 either continuing or building off of the argument,
and 24-26 being connected conjectures about God's goodness. In Chapter
5, Anselm deduces attributes of God from the same "than which nothing
greater can be thought" he used in Chapters 2-4.

What then are you, Lord God, that than which nothing greater can
be thought? But what are you if not that which is the greatest of all
things, who alone exists through himself, who made everything else
from nothing? For whatever is not this, is less than what can be
thought. But this cannot be thought about you. For what good is
lacking to the supreme good, through which every good thing is? And
so, you are just, truthful, happy, and whatever it is better to be
than not to be. (S., p. 104)

These attributes of God, what it is better to be than not to be, are
filled out in Chapter 6 (percipient, omnipotent, merciful,
impassible), Chapter 11 (living, wise, good, happy, eternal), and
Chapter 18 (an unity).

In Chapter 18, Anselm argues from God's superlative unity to the unity
of his attributes. "[Y]ou are so much a kind of unity [unum quiddam]
and identical to yourself, that you are dissimilar to yourself in no
way; indeed, you are that very unity, divisible by no understanding.
Therefore, life and wisdom and the other [attributes] are not parts of
you but all of them are one, and each of them is entirely what you
are, and what the other [attributes] are." (S., p. 115)

In Chapter 23, he employs this notion of superlative unity to explain
how God can be a Trinity, indicating that all of the persons of the
Trinity share equally and completely in the divine attributes. In the
divine unity, the second person of the Trinity, the Son, or the Word
is coequal to the first person, "Truly, there cannot be anything other
than what you are, or anything greater or lesser than you in the Word
by which you speak yourself; for your Word is true [verum] in the same
way that you are truthful [quomodo tu verax], and for that reason he
is the very same truth as you, not other than you." (S., p. 117) The
same holds for the third person of the Trinity, which is "the one
love, common to you and your Son, that is, the Holy Spirit who
proceeds from both." (S., p. 117) Accordingly, for each of the persons
of the Trinity, "what any of them is individually is at the same time
the entire Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; for,
any one of them individually is not something other than the supremely
simple unity and the supremely one simplicity, which cannot be
multiplied or be one thing different from another." (S., p. 117)

There are five other main matters that Anselm addresses in the
Proslogion, the first three of which are sets of problems stemming
from seeming incompatibilities in the divine attributes. Anselm puts
these questions in Chapter 6. "How can you be perceptive [es
sensibilis] if you are not a body? How can you be omnipotent, if you
cannot do everything? How can you be merciful and impassible at the
same time?" (S., p. 104) Anselm deals with the first briefly in
Chapter 6, proposing that perceiving is knowing (cognoscere) or aimed
at knowing (ad cognoscendum), so that God is supremely perceptive
without knowing things through the type of sensibility human beings
and animals have.

The argumentation of Chapter 7 is particularly important. There are
things that God cannot do, for instance lying, being corrupted, making
what is true to be false or what has been done to not be done. It
seems that a truly omnipotent being ought to be able to do these
things. To be able to do such things, Anselm suggests, is not really
to have a power (potentia), but really a kind of powerlessness
(impotentia). "For one who can do these things, can do what is not
advantageous to oneself and what one ought not do. The more a person
can do these things, the more adversity and perversity can do against
that person, and the less that person can do against these." (S., p.
105) So, one who does these things does them through powerlessness,
through having one's agency subjected to that of something other,
rather than through one's power. This, as Anselm explains, relies on
an inexact manner of speaking, where one expresses powerlessness or
inability as a kind of power or ability

In Chapters 8-11, through a longer and more sustained argument, Anselm
answers the third question explaining how God can be both merciful and
just at the same time. The explanation rests on God's mercy stemming
from his goodness, which is not ultimately something different from
God's justice, and which can be reconciled with it. Anselm concludes
in Chapter 12: "But certainly, whatever you are, you are not through
another but through yourself. Accordingly, you are the very life by
which you live, and the wisdom by which you are wise, and the goodness
by which you are good to good people and bad people; and likewise with
similar attributes." (S., p. 110) For God to be merciful to, forgive,
and therefore not render justice to all transgressors, or likewise for
God to not extend mercy, forgive, and therefore render justice to all
transgressors would be for God to be something lesser than He is. It
is, in effect, greater to be able to be just and merciful at the same
time, which is possible for God precisely because justice and goodness
coincide only in God. At the same time, Anselm concedes that when it
comes to understanding precisely why God mercifully forgives of justly
rendered judgment in a particular case is beyond our human capacities.
For further discussion of Chapters 8-11, cf. Bayart, 1937, Corbin,
1988, and Sadler, 2006.

The fourth main issue, discussed in Chapters 14-17, has to do with our
limited knowledge of God, which stems both from human sinfulness and
God's dazzling splendor. Again, as in Chapter 4, one can say that
something is and is not the case at the same time, because it is being
said in different and distinguishable ways. "If [my soul] did not see
you [God], then it did not see the light or the truth. But, is not the
truth and the light what it saw and yet did it still not yet see you,
since it saw you only in a certain way [aliquatenus] but did not see
you exactly as you are [sicuti es]?" (S., p. 111)

The reason the human soul does not see God directly is twofold,
stemming both from finite human nature and from infinite divine
nature. "But certainly [the human mind] is darkened in itself, and it
is dazzled [reverbetur] by you. It is obscured by its own shortness of
view [sua brevitate], and it is overwhelmed by your immensity. Truly
it is restricted [contrahitur] in by its own narrowness, and it is
overcome [vincitur] by your grandeur." (S., p. 112) For this reason,
in Chapter 15, Anselm concludes that God is in fact "greater than can
be thought" (maior quam cogitari potest).

Finally, in Chapters 18-21, Anselm discusses God's eternity. Anselm
first indicates that God's eternity is such that God is entirely
present whenever and wherever God is, which is to say everywhere and
at all times. Then, in Chapter 19, he begins to articulate the
implications of God's eternity more fully, ultimately leading into a
transformation of perspective. Just as it is not the case that there
is eternity and God happens to be in and is therefore eternal, since
the reality is that God is eternity itself, God is not in every time
or place, but rather everything, all times and places, is in God, that
is, in God's eternity.
5. Gaunilo's Reply and Anselm's Response

Gaunilo, a monk from the Abbey of Marmoutier, while noting the value
of the remainder of theProslogion, attacked its argument for God's
existence on several counts. His arguments prefigure many arguments
made by later philosophers against ontological arguments for God's
existence, and Anselm's responses provide additional insight into the
Proslogion argument. Gaunilo makes four main objections, and in each
case, Gaunilo transposes Anselm's "that than which nothing greater can
be thought" into "that which is greater than everything else that can
be thought."

Gaunilo asserts that an additional argument is needed to move from
this being having been thought to it being impossible for it not to
be. "It needs to be proven to me by some other undoubtable argument
that this being is of such a sort that as soon as it is thought its
undoubtable existence is perceived with certainty by the
understanding." (S., v. 1, p. 126) He brings up this need for a
further, unsupplied, argument twice more in his Reply, and in the last
instance discusses what is really at issue. The Fool can say: "[W]hen
did I say that in the truth of the matter [rei veritate] there was
such a thing that is 'greater than everything?' For first, by some
other completely certain argument, some superior nature must be proven
to exist, that is, one greater or better than everything that exists,
so that from this we could prove all the other things that cannot be
lacking to what is greater or better than everything else." (S., p.
129)

A second problem is whether one can actually understand what is
supposed to be understood in order for the argument to work because
God is unlike any creature, anything that we have knowledge or a
conception of . "When I hear 'that which is greater than everything
that can be thought,' which cannot be said to be anything other than
God himself, I cannot think it or have it in the intellect on the
basis of something I know from its species or genus. . . . For I
neither know the thing itself, nor can I form an idea of it from
something similar." (S., p. 126-7)

Gaunilo continues along this line, arguing that the verbal formula
employed in the argument is merely that, a verbal formula. The formula
cannot really be understood, so it does not then really exist in the
understanding. The signification or meaning of the terms can be
thought, "but not as by a person who knows what is typically signified
by this expression [voce], i.e. by one who thinks it on the basis of a
thing that is true at least in thought alone." (S., p. 127) Instead,
what is actually being thought, according to Gaunilo, is vague. The
signification or meaning of the terms is grasped only in a groping
manner. "[I]t is thought as by one who does not know the thing and
simply thinks on the basis of a movement of the mind produced by
hearing this expression, trying to picture to himself the meaning of
the expression perceived." (S., p. 127) From this, Gaunilo concludes
what he takes to be a denial of one of the premises of the argument:
"So much then for the notion that that supreme nature is said to
already exist in my understanding." (S., p. 127)

A third problem that Gaunilo raises is that the argument could be
applied to things other than God, things that are clearly imaginary,
so that, if the argument were valid, it could be used to prove much
more than Anselm intended, namely falsities. Here, the example of the
Lost Island is introduced. "You can no longer doubt that this island
excelling [praestantiorem] all other lands truly exists somewhere in
reality, this island that you do not doubt to exist in your
understanding; and since it is more excellent not to be in the
understanding alone but also to be in reality, so it is necessary that
it exists, since, if it did not, any other land that exists in reality
would be more excellent than it." (S., p. 128)

Anselm's responses are long, detailed, and dense. Anselm notes
Gaunillo's alteration of the terms of the argument, and that this
affects the force of the argument.

You repeat often that I say that, because what is greater than
everything else [maius omnibus] is in the understanding, if it is the
understanding it is in reality – for otherwise what is greater than
everything else would not be greater than everything else – but such a
proof [probatio] is found nowhere in all of the things I have said.
For, saying "that which is greater than all" and "that than which
nothing greater can be thought" do not have the same value for proving
that what is being talked about is in reality. (S., p. 134)Therefore
if, from what is said to be "greater than everything," what "that than
which nothing greater can be thought" proves of itself through itself
[de se per seipsum] cannot be proved in a similar way, you have
unjustly criticized me for having said what I did not say, when this
differs so much from what I did say. (S., p. 135)

In Anselm's view, Gaunilo demands a further argument precisely because
he has not understood the argument as Anselm presented it. Anselm also
affirms that we can understand the meaning of the term, "that than
which nothing greater can be thought," and that it is not simply a
verbal formula.

Again, that you say that, when you hear it, you are not able to
think or have in your mind "that than which a greater cannot be
thought" on the basis of something known from its species or genus, so
that you neither know the thing itself, nor can you form an idea of it
from something similar. But quite evidently the matter is and remains
otherwise [aliter sese habere]. For, every lesser good, insofar as it
is good, is similar to a greater good. It is apparent to any
reasonable mind that by ascending from lesser goods to greater ones,
from those than which something greater can be thought, we are able to
infer much [multum. . .conjicere] about that than which nothing
greater can be thought. (S., p. 138)

Anselm notes a similarity between the terms "ineffable,"
"unthinkable," and "that than which nothing greater can be thought,"
for in each case, it can be impossible for us to think or understand
the thing referred to by the expression, but the expression can be
thought and understood. Earlier on, Anselm makes a distinction that
sheds additional light on this distinction between thinking and
understanding the expression, and thinking and understanding the thing
referred to by the expression. He also employs a useful metaphor.
"[I]f you say that what is not entirely understood is not understood
and is not in the understanding: say, then, that since someone is not
able to gaze upon the purest light of the sun does not see light that
is nothing but sunlight." (S., p. 132) We do not have to fully and
exhaustively understand what a term refers to in order for us to
understand the term, and that applies to this case. "Certainly 'that
than which a greater cannot be thought' is understood and is in the
understanding at least to the extent [hactenus] that these things are
understood of it." (S., p. 132)

Anselm also clarifies the scope of his argument, indicating that it
applies only to God: "I say confidently that if someone should find
for me something existing either in reality or solely in thought,
besides 'that than which a greater cannot be thought,' to which the
schematic framework [conexionem] of my argument could rightly be
adapted [aptare valeat], I will find and give him this lost island,
nevermore to be lost." (S., p. 134)
6. The Monologion

This earlier and considerably longer work includes an argument for
God's existence, but also much more discussion of the divine
attributes and economy, and some discussion of the human mind. The
proof Anselm provides in Chapter 1 is one he considers easiest for a
person

who, either because of not hearing or because of not believing,
does not know of the one nature, greatest of all things that are,
alone sufficient to itself in its eternal beatitude, and who by his
omnipotent goodness gives to and makes for all other things that they
are something or that in some way they are well [aliquomodo bene
sunt], and of the great many other things that we necessarily believe
about God or about what he has created. (S., v. 1, p. 13)

The Monologion proof argues from the existence of many good things to
a unity of goodness, a one thing through which all other things are
good. Anselm first asks whether the diversity of good we experience
through our senses and through our mind's reasoning are all good
through one single good thing, or whether there are different and
multiple good things through which they are good. He recognizes, of
course, that there are a variety of ways for things to be good things,
and he also recognizes that many things are in fact good through other
things. But, he is pushing the question further, since for every good
thing B through which another good thing A is good, one can still ask
what that good thing B is good through. If goods can even be
comparable as goods, there must be some more general and unified way
of regarding their goodness, or that through which they are good.
Anselm argues: "you are not accustomed to considering something good
except on an account of some usefulness, as health and those things
that conduce to health are said to be good [propter aliquam
utilitatem], or because of being of intrinsic value in some way
[propter quamlibet honestatem], just as beauty and things that
contribute to beauty are esteemed to be a good." (S., p. 14)

This being granted, usefulness and intrinsic values can be brought to
a more general unity. "It is necessary, for all useful or
intrinsically valuable things, if they are indeed good things, that
they are good through this very thing, through which all goods
altogether [cuncta bona] must exist, whatever this thing might be."
(S., p. 14-5) This good alone is good through itself. All other good
things are ultimately good through this thing, which is the
superlative or supreme good. Certain corollaries can be drawn from
this. One is that all good things are not only good through this
Supreme Good; they are good, that is to say they have their being from
the Supreme Good. Another is that "what is supremely good [summe
bonum] is also supremely great [summe magnum]. Accordingly, there is
one thing that is supremely good and supremely great, i.e. the highest
[summum] of all things that are." (S., p. 15) In Chapter 2, Anselm
clarifies what he means by "great," making a point that will assume
greater importance in Chapter 15: "But, I am speaking about 'great'
not with respect to physical space [spatio], as if it is some body,
but rather about things that are greater [maius] to the degree that
they are better [melius] or more worthy [dignus], for instance
wisdom." (S., p. 15)

Chapter 3 provides further discussion of the ontological dependence of
all beings on this being. For any thing that is or exists, there must
be something through which it is or exists. "For, everything that is,
either is through [per] something or through nothing. But nothing is
through nothing. For, it cannot be thought [non. . .cogitari potest]
that something should be but not through something. So, whatever is,
only is through something." (S., p. 15-6) Anselm considers and rejects
several possible ways of explaining how it is that all things are.
There could be one single being through which all things have their
being. Or there could be a plurality of beings through which other
beings have their being. The second possibility allows three cases:
"[I]f they are multiple, then either: 1) they are referred to some
single thing through which they are, or 2) they are, individually
[singula], through themselves [per se], or 3) they are mutually
through each other [per se invicem]." (S., p. 16)

In the first case, they are all through one single being. In the
second case, there is still some single power or nature of existing
through oneself [existendi per se], common to all of them. Saying that
they exist through themselves really means that they exist through
this power or nature which they share. Again, they have one single
ontological ground upon which they are dependent. One can propose the
third case, but it is upon closer consideration absurd. "Reason does
not allow that there would be many things [that have their being]
mutually through each other, since it is an irrational thought that
some thing should be through another thing, to which the first thing
gives its being." (S., p. 16)

For Anselm three things follow from this. First, there is a single
being through which all other beings have their being. Second, this
being must have its being through itself. Third, in the gradations of
being, this being is to the greatest degree.

Whatever is through something else is less than that through which
everything else together is, and that which alone is through itself. .
. . So, there is one thing that alone, of all things, is, to the
greatest degree and supremely [maxime et summe]. For, what of all
things is to the greatest degree, and through which anything else is
good or great, and through which anything else is something,
necessarily that thing is supremely good and supremely great and the
highest of all things that are. (S., p. 16)

Chapter 4 continues this discussion of degrees. In the nature of
things, there are varying degrees (gradus) of dignity or worth
(dignitas). The example Anselm uses is humorous and indicates an
important feature of the human rational mind, namely its capacity to
grasp these different degrees of worth. "For, one who doubts whether a
horse in its nature is better than a piece of wood, and that a human
being is superior to a horse, that person assuredly does not deserve
to be called a human being." (S., p. 17) Anselm argues that there must
be a highest nature, or rather a nature that does not have a superior,
otherwise the gradations would be infinite and unbounded, which he
considers absurd. By argumentation similar to that of the previous
chapters, he adduces that there can only be one such highest nature.
The scale of gradations comes up again later in Chapter 31, where he
indicates that creatures' degrees of being, and being superior to
other creatures, depends on their degree of likeness to God
(specifically to the divine Word).

[E]very understanding judges natures in any way living to be
superior to non-living ones, sentient natures to be superior to
non-sentient ones, rational ones to be superior to irrational ones.
For since the Supreme Nature, in its own unique manner, not only is
but also lives and perceives and is rational, it is clear that. . .
what in any way is living is more alike to the Supreme Nature than
that which does not in any way live; and, what in any way, even by
bodily sense, knows something is more like the Supreme Nature than
what does not perceive at all; and, what is rational is more like the
Supreme Nature than what is not capable of reason. (S., p. 49)

Through something akin to what analytic philosophers might term a
thought-experiment and phenomenologists an eidetic variation, Anselm
considers a being gradually stripped of reason, sentience, life, and
then the "bare being" (nudum esse) that would be left: "[T]his
substance would be in this way bit by bit destroyed, led by degrees
(gradatim) to less and less being, and finally to non-being. And,
those things that, when they are taken away [absumpta] one by one from
some essence, reduce it to less and less being, when they are
reassumed [assumpta] . . . lead it to greater and greater being." (S.,
p. 49-50)

In the chapters that follow, Anselm indicates that the Supreme Nature
derives its existence only from itself, meaning that it was never
brought into existence by something else. Anselm uses an analogy to
suggest how the being of the Supreme Being can be understood.

Therefore in what way it should be understood [intelligenda est]
to be through itself and from itself [per se et ex se], if it does not
make itself, not arise as its own matter, nor in any way help itself
to be what it was not before?. . . .In the way "light" [lux] and "to
light" [lucere] and "lighting" [lucens] are related to each other
[sese habent ad invicem], so are "essence" [essentia] and "to be"
[esse] and "being," i.e. supremely existing or supremely subsisting.
(S., p. 20)

This Supreme Nature is that through which all things have their being
precisely because it is the Creator, which creates all beings
(including the matter of created beings) ex nihilo.

In Chapters 8-14, the argument shifts direction, leading ultimately to
a restatement of the traditional Christian doctrine of the Logos (the
"Word" of God, the Son of the Father and Creator). The argumentation
starts by examination of the meaning of "nothing," distinguishing
different senses and uses of the term. Creation ex nihilo could be
interpreted three different ways. According to the first way, "what is
said to have been made from nothing has not been made at all." (S., p.
23) In another way, "something was said to be made from nothing in
this way, that it was made from this very nothing, that is from that
which is not; as if this nothing were something existing, from which
something could be made." (S., p. 23) Finally, there is a "third
interpretation. . . when we understand something to be made but that
there is not something from which it has been made." (S., p. 23)

The first way, Anselm says, cannot be properly applied to anything
that actually has been made, and the second way is simply false, so
the third way or sense is the correct interpretation. In Chapter 9, an
important implication of creation ex nihilo is drawn out "There is no
way that something could come to be rationally from another, unless
something preceded the thing to be made in the maker's reason as a
model, or to put it better a form, or a likeness, or a rule." (S., p.
24) This, in turn implies another important doctrine: "what things
were going to be, or what kinds of things or how the things would be,
were in the supreme nature's reason before everything came to be."
(S., p. 24) In subsequent chapters, the doctrine is further
elaborated, culminating in this pattern being the utterance (locutio)
of the supreme essence and the supreme essence, that is to say the
Word (verbum) of the Father, while being of the same substance as the
Father.

Chapter 15-28 examine, discuss, and argue for particular attributes of
God, 15-17 and 28 being of particular interest. Chapter 15 is devoted
to the matter of what can be said about the divine substance. Relative
terms do not really communicate the essence of the divine being, even
including expressions such as "the highest of all" (summa omnium) or
"greater than everything that has been created by it" (maior omnibus .
. .) "For if none of those things ever existed, in relation to which
[God] is called "the highest" and "greater," it would be understood to
be neither the highest nor greater. But still, it would be no less
good on that account, nor would it suffer any loss of the greatness of
its essence. And this is obvious, for this reason: whatever may be
good or great, this thing is not such through another but by its very
self." (S., p. 28)

There are still other ways of talking about the divine substance. One
way is to say that the divine substance is "whatever is in general
[omnino] better that what is not it. For, it alone is that than which
nothing is better, and that which is better than everything else that
is not what it is." (S., p. 29) Given that explanation, while there
are some things that it is better for certain beings to be rather than
not to be, God will not be those things, but only what it is
absolutely better to be than not to be. So, for instance, God will not
be a body, but God will be wise or just. Anselm provides a partial
listing of the qualities or attributes that do express the divine
essence: "living, wise, powerful and all-powerful, true, just, happy,
eternal, and whatever in like wise it is absolutely better to be than
not to be." (S., p. 29)

Anselm raises a problem in Chapter 16. Granted that God has these
attributes, one might think that all that is being signified is that
God is a being that has these attributes to a greater degree than
other beings, not what God is. Anselm uses justice as the example,
which is fitting since it is usually conceived of as something
relational. Anselm first sets out the problem in terms of
participation in qualities. "[E]verything that is just is just through
justice, and similarly for other things of this sort. Accordingly,
that very supreme nature is not just unless through justice. So, it
appears that by participation in the quality, namely justice, the
supremely good substance can be called just." (S., p. 30) And this
reasoning leads to the conclusion that the supremely good substance
"is just through another, and not through itself." (S., p. 30)

The problem is that God is what he is through himself, while other
things are what they are through him. In the case of each divine
attribute, as in the later Proslogion, God having that attribute is
precisely that attribute itself, so that for instance, God is not just
by some standard or idea of justice extrinsic to God himself, but
rather God is God's own justice, and justice in the superlative sense.
Everything else canhave the attribute of justice, whereas God is
justice. This argument can be extended to all of God's attributes What
is perceived to have been settled in the case of justice, the
intellect is constrained by reason to judge [sentire] to be the case
about everything that is said in a similar way about that supreme
nature. Whichever of them, then, is said about the supreme nature, it
is not how [qualis] nor how much [quanta] [the supreme nature has
quality] that is shown [monstratur] but rather what it is. . . .Thus,
it is the supreme essence, supreme life, supreme reason, supreme
salvation [salus], supreme justice, supreme wisdom, supreme truth,
supreme goodness, supreme greatness, supreme beauty, supreme
immortality, supreme incorruptibility, supreme immutability, supreme
happiness, supreme eternity, supreme power [potestas], supreme unity,
which is nothing other than supreme being, supremely living, and other
things in like wise [similiter]. (S., p. 30-1)

This immediately raises yet another problem, however, because this
seems like a multiplicity of supreme attributes, implying that each is
a particularly superlative way of being for God, suggesting that God
is in some manner a composite. Instead, in God (not in any other
being) each of these is all of the others. God's being alone, as
Chapter 28 argues, is being in an unqualified sense. All other beings,
since they are mutable, or because they can be understood to have come
from non-being, "barely (vix) exist or almost (fere) do not exist."
(S., p. 46)

Chapters 29-48 continue the investigation of the generation of the
"utterance" or Word, the Son, from the Father in the divine economy,
and 49-63 expand this to discussion of the love between the Father and
the Son, namely the Holy Spirit, equally God as the Father and Son.
64-80 discuss the human creature's grasp and understanding of God.
Chapter 31 is of particular interest, and discusses the relationship
between words or thoughts in human minds and the Word or Son by which
all things were created by the Father. A human mind contains images or
likenesses of things that are thought of or talked about, and a
likeness is true to the degree that it imitates more or less the thing
of which it is likeness, so that the thing has a priority in truth and
in being over the human subject apprehending it, or more properly
speaking, over the image, idea, or likeness by which the human subject
apprehends the thing. In the Word, however, there are not likenesses
or images of the created things, but instead, the created things are
themselves imitations of their true essences in the Word.

The discussion in Chapters 64-80, which concludes the Monologion,
makes three central points. First, the triune God is ineffable, and
except in certain respects incomprehensible, but we can arrive at this
conclusion and understand it to some degree through reason. This is
because our arguments and investigations do not attain the distinctive
character (proprietatem) of God. That does not present an
insurmountable problem, however.

For often we talk about many things that we do not express
properly, exactly as they really are, but we signify through another
thing what we will not or can not bring forth properly, as for
instance when we speak in riddles. And often we see something, not
properly, exactly how the thing is, but through some likeness or
image, for instance when we look upon somebody's face in a mirror.
Indeed, in this way we talk about and do not talk about, see and do
not see, the same thing. We talk about it and see it through something
else; we do not talk about it and see it through its distinctive
character [proprietatem]Now, whatever names seem to be able to be said
of this nature, they do not so much reveal it to me through its
distinctive character as signify it [innuunt] to me through some
likeness. (S., v. 1, p. 76)

Anselm uses the example of the divine attribute of wisdom. "For the
name 'wisdom' is not sufficient to reveal to me that being through
which all things were made from nothing and preserved from [falling
into] nothing." (S., p. 76)

The outcome of this is that all human thought and knowledge about God
is mediated through something. Likenesses are never the thing of which
they are a likeness, but there are greater and lesser degrees of
likeness. This leads to the second point. Human beings come closer to
knowing God through investigating what is closer to him, namely the
rational mind, which is a mirror both of itself and, albeit in a
diminished way, of God.

[J]ust as the rational mind alone among all other creatures is
able to rise to the investigation of this Being, likewise it is no
less alone that through which the rational mind itself can make
progress towards investigation of that Being. For we have already come
to know [jam cognitum est] that the rational mind, through the
likeness of natural essence, most approaches that Being. What then is
more evident than that the more assiduously the rational mind directs
itself to learning about itself, the more effectively it ascends to
the knowledge [cognitionem] of that Being, and that the more
carelessly it looks upon itself, the more it descends from the
exploration [speculatione] of that Being? (S., v. 1, p. 77)

Third, to be truly rational involves loving and seeking God, which in
fact requires an effort to remember and understand God. "[I]t is clear
that the rational creature ought to expend all of its capacity and
willing [suum posse et velle] on remembering and understanding and
loving the Supreme Good, for which purpose it knows itself to have its
own being." (S., p. 79)
7. Cur Deus Homo

The Monologion and Proslogion (although often only Chapters 2-4 of the
latter) are typically studied by philosophers. The Cur Deus Homo (Why
God Became Man) is more frequently studied by theologians,
particularly since Anselm's interpretation of the Atonement has been
influential in Christian theology. The method, however, as in his
other works, is primarily a philosophical one, attempting to
understand truths of the Christian faith through the use of reasoning,
granted of course, that this reasoning is applied to theological
concepts. Anselm provides a twofold justification for the treatise,
both responding to requests "by speech and by letter." The first is
for those asking Anselm to discuss the Incarnation, providing rational
accounts (rationes) "not so that through reason they attain to faith,
but so that they may delight in the understanding and contemplation of
those things they believe, and so that they might be, as much as
possible, 'always ready to satisfy all those asking with an account
[rationem] for those things for which' we 'hope.'" (S., v. 2, p. 48)

The second is for those same people, but so that they can engage in
argument with non-Christians. As Anselm says, non-believers make the
question of the Incarnation a crux in their arguments against
Christianity, "ridiculing Christian simplicity as foolishness, and
many faithful are accustomed to turn it over in their hearts." (S., p.
48) The question simply stated is this: "by what reason or necessity
was God made man, and by his death, as we believe and confess, gave
back life to the world, when he could have done this either through
another person, either human or angelic, or through his will alone?"
(S., p. 48)

In Chapter 3, Anselm's interlocutor, his fellow monk and student Boso,
raises several specific objections made by non-Christians to the
Christian doctrine of the Incarnation: "we do injustice and show
contempt [contumeliam] to God when we affirm that he descended into a
woman's womb, and that he was born of woman, that he grew nourished by
milk and human food, and – so that I can pass over many other things
that do not seem befitting to God– that he endured weariness, hunger,
thirst, lashes, and the cross and death between thieves." (S., v. 2,
p. 51)

Anselm's immediate response mirrors the structure of the Cur Deus
Homo. Each of the points he makes are argued in fuller detail later in
the work.

For it was fitting that, just as death entered into the human race
by man's disobedience, so should life be restored by man's obedience.
And, that, just as the sin that was the cause of our damnation had its
beginning from woman, so the author of our justice and salvation
should be born from woman. And, that the devil conquered man through
persuading him to taste from the tree [ligni], should be conquered by
man through the passion he endured on the tree [ligni]. (S., p. 51)

The first book (Chapters 1-25), produces a lengthy argument, involving
a number of distinctions, discussions about the propriety of certain
expressions and the entailments of willing certain things. Chapters
16-19 represent a lengthy digression involving questions about the
number of angels who fell or rebelled against God, whether their
number is to be made up of good humans, and related questions. The
three most important parts of the argument take the form of these
discussions: the justice and injustice of God, humans, and the devil;
the entailments of the Father and the Son willing the redemption of
humanity; the inability of humans to repay God for their sins.

Anselm distinguishes, as he does in the earlier treatise De Veritate,
different ways in which an action or state can be just or unjust,
specifically just and unjust at the same time, but not in the same way
of looking at the matter. "For, it happens sometimes [contingit] that
the same thing is just and unjust considered from different viewpoints
[diversis considerationibus], and for this reason it is adjudged to be
entirely just or entirely unjust by those who do not look at it
carefully." (S., p. 57) Humans are justly punished by God for sin, and
they are justly tormented by the devil, but the devil unjustly
torments humans, even though it is just for God to allow this to take
place."In this way, the devil is said to torment a man justly, because
God justly permits this and the man justly suffers it. But, because a
man is said to justly suffer, one does not mean that he justly suffers
because of his own justice, but because he is punished by God's just
judgment." (S., p. 57)

Not only distinguishing between different ways of looking at the same
matter is needed, but also distinguishing between what is directly
willed and what is entailed in willing certain things. On first
glance, it could seem that God the Father directly wills the death of
Jesus Christ, God the Son, or that the latter wills his own death.
Indeed something like this has to be the case, because God does will
the redemption of humanity, and this comes through the Incarnation and
through Christ's death and resurrection. According to Anselm, Christ
dies as an entailment of what it is that God wills. "For, if we intend
to do something, but propose to do something else first through which
the other thing will be done, when what we chose to be first is done,
if what we intend comes to be, it is correctly said to be done on
account of the other…" (S., p. 62-3) Accordingly, what God willed (as
both Father and Son) was the redemption of the human race, which
required the death of Christ, and required this "not because the
Father preferred the death of the Son over his life, but because the
Father was not willing to restore the human race unless man did
something as great as that death of Christ was." (S., p. 63) As Anselm
goes on to explain, the determination of the Son's will then takes
place within the structure of the Father's will. "Since reason did not
demand that another person do what he could not, for that reason the
Son says that he wills his own death, which he preferred to suffer
rather than that the human race not be saved." (S., p. 63-4) What was
involved in Christ's death, therefore, was actually obedience on the
part of the Son, following out precisely what was entailed by God's
willing to redeem humanity. The central point of the argument is then
making clear why the redemption of humanity would have to involve the
death of Christ. Articulating this, Anselm begins by discussing sin in
terms of what is due or owed to (quod debet) God.

Sin is precisely not giving God what is due to him, namely: "[e]very
willing [voluntas] of a rational creature should [debet] be subject to
God's will." (S., p. 68) Doing this is justice or rightness of will,
and is the "sole and complete debt of honor" (solus et totus honor),
which is owed to God. Now, sin, understood as disobedience and
contempt or dishonor, is not as simple, nor as simple to remedy, as it
first appears. In the sinful act or volition, which already requires
its own compensation, there is an added sin against God's honor, which
requires additional compensation. "But, so long as he does not pay for
[solvit] what he has wrongly taken [rapuit], he remains in fault. Nor
does it suffice simply to give back what was taken away, but for the
contempt shown [pro contumelia illata] he ought to give back more than
he took away." (S., p. 68)

Anselm provides analogous examples: one endangering another's safety
ought to restore the safety, but also compensate for the anguish
(illata doloris iniuria recompenset); violating somebody's honor
requires not only honoring the person again, but also making
recompense in some other way; unjust gains should be recompensed not
only by returning the unjust gain, but also by something that could
not have otherwise been demanded.

The question then is whether it would be right for God to simply
forgive humans sins out of mercy (misericordia), and the answer is
that this would be unbefitting to God, precisely because it would
contravene justice. It is really impossible, however, for humans to
make recompense or satisfaction, that is to say, satisfy the demands
of justice, for their sins. One reason for this is that one already
owes whatever one would give God at any given moment. Boso suggests
numerous possible recompenses: "[p]enitence, a contrite and humbled
heart, abstinence and bodily labors of many kinds, and mercy in giving
and forgiving, and obedience." (S., p. 68)

Anselm responds, however: "When you give to God something that you owe
him, even if you do not sin, you ought not reckon this as the debt
that you own him for sin. For, you owe all of these things you mention
to God." (S., p. 68) Strict justice requires that a human being make
satisfaction for sin, satisfaction that is humanly impossible. Absent
this satisfaction, God forgiving the sin would violate strict justice,
in the process contravening the supreme justice that is God. A human
being is doubly bound by the guilt of sin, and is therefore
"inexcusable" having "freely [sponte] obligated himself by that debt
that he cannot pay off, and by his fault cast himself down into this
impotency, so that neither can he pay back what he owed before
sinning, namely not sinning, nor can he pay back what he owes because
he sinned." (S., p. 92)

Accordingly, humans must be redeemed through Jesus Christ, who is both
man and God, the argument for which comes in Book II, starting in
Chapter 6, and elaborated through the remainder of the treatise, which
also treats subsidiary problems. The argument at its core is that only
a human being can make recompense for human sin against God, but this
being impossible for any human being, such recompense could only be
made by God. This is only possible for Jesus Christ, the Son, who is
both God and man, with (following the Chalcedonian doctrine) two
natures united but distinct in the same person (Chapter7). The
atonement is brought about by Christ's death, which is of infinite
value, greater than all created being (Chapter 14), and even redeems
the sins of those who killed Christ (Chapter 15). Ultimately, in
Anselm's interpretation of the atonement, divine justice and divine
mercy in the fullest senses are shown to be entirely compatible.
8. De Grammatico

This dialogue stands on its own in the Anselmian corpus, and focuses
on untangling some puzzles about language, qualities, and substances.
Anselm's solutions to the puzzles involve making needed distinctions
at proper points, and making explicit what particular expressions are
meant to express. The dialogue ends with the puzzles resolved, but
also with Anselm signaling the provisional status of the conclusions
reached in the course of investigation. He cautions the student:
"Since I know how much the dialecticians in our times dispute about
the question you brought forth, I do not want you to stick to the
points we made so that you would hold them obstinately if someone were
to be able to destroy them by more powerful arguments and set up
others." (S., v. 1, p.168)

The student begins by asking whether "expert in grammar" (grammaticus)
is a substance or a quality. The question, and the discussion, has a
wider scope, however, since once that is known, "I will recognize what
I ought to think about other things that are similarly spoken of
through derivation [denominative]." (S., p.144)

There is a puzzle about the term "expert in grammar," and other like
terms, because a case, or rather an argument, can be made for either
option, meaning it can be construed to be a substance or a quality.
The student brings forth the argument.

That every expert in grammar is a man, and that every man is a
substance, suffice to prove that expert in grammar is a substance.
For, whatever the expert in grammar has that substance would follow
from, he has only from the fact that he is a man. So, once it is
conceded that he is a man, whatever follows from being a man follows
from being an expert in grammar. (S., v. 1, p.144-5)

At the same time, philosophers who have dealt with the subject have
maintained that it is a quality, and their authority is not to be
lightly disregarded. So, there is a serious and genuine problem. The
term must signify either a substance or a quality, and cannot do both.
One option must be true and the other false, but since there are
arguments to be made for either side, it is difficult to tell which
one is false.

The teacher responds by pointing out that the options are not
necessarily incompatible with each other. Before explaining how this
can be so, he asks the student to lay out the objections against both
options. The student begins by attacking the premise "expert in
grammar is a man" (grammaticum esse hominem) with two arguments

No expert in grammar can be understood [intelligi] without
reference to grammar, and every man can be understood without
reference to grammar.Every expert in grammar admits of [being] more
and less, and No man admits of [being] more or less From either one of
these linkings [contextione] of two propositions one conclusion
follows, i.e. no expert in grammar is a man. (S., p.146)

The teacher states, however, that this conclusion does not follow from
the premises, and uses a similar argument to illustrate his point. The
term "animal" signifies "animate substance capable of perception,"
which can be understood without reference to rationality. The teacher
then gets the student to admit to a further proposition, "every animal
can be understood without reference to rationality, and no animal is
from necessity rational," to which he adds: "But no man can be
understood without reference to rationality, and it is necessary that
every man be rational." (S., p.147) The implication, which the student
sees and would like to avoid, is the clearly false conclusion, "no man
is an animal." On the other hand, the student does not want to give up
the connection between man and rationality.

The teacher indicates a way out of the predicament by noting that the
false conclusions are arrived at by inferring from the premises in a
mechanical way, without examining what is in fact being expressed by
the premises, without making proper distinctions based on what is
being expressed, and without restating the premises as propositions
more adequately expressing what the premises are supposed to assert.
The teacher begins by asking the student to make explicit what the
man, and the expert in grammar, are being understood as with or
without reference to grammar. This allows the premises in the
student's arguments to be more adequately restated.

Every man can be understood as man without reference to grammar.
No expert in grammar can be understood as expert in grammar without
reference to grammar.No man is more or less man, and Every expert in
grammar is more or less an expert in grammar. (S., v. 1, p.148-9)

In both cases, it is now apparent that where it seemed previously
there was a common term, and therefore a valid syllogism, there is in
fact no common term. This does not mean that nothing can be validly
inferred from them. But, in order for something to be validly
inferred, a common term must be found. The teacher advises: "The
common term of a syllogism should be not so much in the expression
brought forward [in prolatione] as in meaning [in sententia]." (S.,
p.149) The reasoning behind this is that what "binds the syllogism
together" is the meaning of the terms used, not the mere words, "For
just as nothing is accomplished if the term is common in language [in
voce] but not in meaning [in sensu], likewise nothing impedes us if it
is in our understanding [in intellectu] but not in the expression
brought forward [in prolatione]." (S., p.149)

The first set of premises of the of the student's double argument can
be reformulated then as the following new premises.

To be a man does not require grammar, and
To be an expert in grammar requires grammar. (S., p.149)

Thus restated, the premises do have a common term, and a conclusion
can be inferred from them namely: "To be an expert in grammar is not
to be a man, i.e., there is not the same definition for both of them."
(S., p.149) What this conclusion means is not that an expert in
grammar is not a man, but rather that they are not identical, they do
not have the same definition. Other syllogisms, appearing at first
glance valid but terminating in false conclusions, can similarly be
transformed. One that deals directly with the student's initial
question runs:

Every expert in grammar is spoken of as a quality [in eo quod quale].
No man is spoken of as a quality.
Thus, no man is an expert in grammar. (S., p.150)

The premises can be reformulated according to their meaning:

Every expert in grammar is spoken of as expert in grammar as a quality.
No man is spoken of as man as a quality. (S., p.150)

It is now apparent that again there is no middle term, and the
conclusion does not validly follow. The student explores various
possible syllogisms that might be constructed before the teacher
indicates that the student, who ends with the conclusion, "the essence
of man is not the essence of expert in grammar," (S., p.150) has not
fully grasped the lesson. The teacher brings in a further distinction,
that of respect or manner (modo). This requires attention to what is
actually being signified by the expressions "man," and "expert in
grammar." An expert in grammar, who is a man, can be understood as a
man without reference to grammar, so in some respect an expert in
grammar can be understood without reference to grammar (that is,
understood as man, not as an expert in grammar, which he nonetheless
still is). And, a man, who is an expert in grammar, who is to be
understood as an expert in grammar, cannot be so understood without
reference to grammar.

Another puzzle can be raised about man and expert in grammar, bearing
on being present in a subject. An argument clearly going against
Aristotle's intentions can be derived by using one of his statements
as a premise.

Expert in grammar is among those things that are in a subject.
And, no man is in a subject.
So, no expert in grammar is a man. (S., p.154)

The teacher again directs the student to pay close attention to the
meaning of what is being said. When one speaks about an "expert in
grammar," the things that are signified are "man" and "grammar." Man
is a substance, and is not present in a subject, but grammar is a
quality and is present in a subject. So, depending on what way one
looks at it, someone can say that expert in grammar is a substance and
is not in a subject, if they mean "expert in grammar" insofar as the
expert in grammar is a man (secundum hominem). Alternately, one can
say that expert in grammar is a quality and is in a subject, if they
mean "expert in grammar" with respect to grammar (secundum
grammaticam). Similarly, "expert in grammar" can be regarded, from
different points of view, as being primary or secondary substance, or
as neither.

"Expert in grammar" has been shown to be able to be both a substance
and a quality, so that there is no inconsistency between them. The
student then raises a related problem, asking why "man" cannot
similarly be a substance and a quality. "For man signifies a substance
along with all those differentia that are in man, such as sensibility
and mortality." (S., p.156) The teacher points out that the case of
"man" is not similar to that of "expert in grammar." "[Y]ou do not
consider how dissimilarly the name 'man' signifies those things of
which a man consists, and how expert in grammar [signifies] man and
grammar. Truly, the name 'man' signifies by itself and as one thing
those things of which the entire man consists." (S., p.156)

"Expert in grammar," however, signifies "man" and "grammar" in
different ways. It signifies "grammar" by itself (per se); it
signifies "man" by something else (per aliud). Expertise in grammar is
an accident of man, so "expert in grammar" cannot signify "man" in any
unconditioned sense, but rather is something said of man (appellative
hominis). The man is the underlying substance in which there can be
grammar, and the underlying substance can be expert in grammar.

So, "expert in grammar" can rightly be understood in accordance with
Aristotle's Categories as a quality, because it signifies a quality.
At the same time, "expert in grammar" is said of a substance, that is
to say, man. This still raises some problems in the mind of the
student, who suggests "expert in grammar" could be a having, or under
the category of having, and asks whether a single thing can be of
several categories. The teacher, conceding that the issue requires
further study, maintains, directing the student through several
examples, that a single expression that signifies more than one thing
can be in more than one category, provided the things that are
signified are not signified as actually one thing.
9. The De Veritate

This dialogue, which Anselm describes in its preface as one of "three
treatises pertaining to the study of Sacred Scripture," dealing with
"what truth is, in what things [quibus rebus] truth is customarily
said to be, and what justice is" (S., v. 1, p. 173), begins with a
student asking for a definition of truth. The dialogical lesson takes
the truth of statements as a starting point. A statement is true
"[w]hen what it states [quod enuntiat], whether in affirming or in
negating, is so [est]." (S., v. 1, p. 177) Given this, Anselm's theory
of truth appears at first glance a simple correspondence theory, where
truth consists in the correspondence between statements and states of
affairs signified by those statements.

His theory is more complex, however, and relies on a Platonic notion
of participation, or more accurately stated, weds together a
correspondence theory with a Platonic participational view. "[N]othing
is true except by participating in truth; and so the truth of the true
thing is in the true thing itself. But truly the thing stated is not
in the true statement. So, it [the thing stated] should not be called
its truth, but the cause of its truth. For this reason it seems to me
that the truth of the statement should be sought only in the language
itself [ipsa oratione]." (S., v. 1, p. 177) It is very important at
this point to keep in mind that Anselm is not saying that all truth is
simply in language, but rather that the truth of statements, truth of
signification, lies in the language used. The truth of the statement
cannot be the statement itself, nor can it be the statement's
signifying, nor the statement's "definition," for in any of these
cases, the statement would always be true. Instead, statements are
true when they signify correctly or rightly, and Anselm provides the
key term for his larger theory of truth, "rectitude" or "rightness."
"Therefore its [an affirmation's] truth is not something different
than rightness [rectitudo]." (S., p. 178)

Anselm notes, however, that even when a statement affirms that
what-is-not is, or vice versa, there is stillsome truth or correctness
to the statement. This is so because there are two kinds of truth in
signifying, for a statement can signify that what is the case is the
case, and it does signify what it signifies. "There is one rightness
and truth of the statement because it signifies what it was made to
signify [ad quod significandum facta est]; and, there is another, when
it signifies that which it received the capacity to signify [quod
accepit significare]." (S., p. 179)

Accordingly, for Anselm, the truth of statements consists in part in
the correspondence of the statement to the state of affairs signified,
but also in the signification itself, the sense or meaning of the
statement. "It always possesses the latter kind of truth, but does not
always possess the former. For, it has the latter kind naturally, but
the former kind accidentally and according to usage." (S., p.179) For
example, the expression "it is day" always possesses the second kind
of truth, since the expression can always signify what it does
signify; in other words, it can convey a meaning. But, whether or not
it possesses the first kind of truth depends on whether in fact it is
day. According to Anselm, in certain statements, the two kinds of
truth or correctness are inseparable from each other, examples of
these being universal statements, such as "man is an animal."

He goes on to discuss truth of other kinds, in thought, in the will,
in action, in the senses, and in the being of things. Truth in thought
is analogous to truth in signification, but Anselm discusses only the
first kind of truth, where thoughts correspond to actual states of
affairs, this being "rightness" of thought. Truth in the will likewise
consists in rightness, in other words, willing what it is that one
ought to will. With respect to actions, again truth is rightness, in
this case goodness. "To do good [bene facere] and to do evil [male
facere] are contraries. For this reason, if to do the truth [veritatem
facere] and to do good are the same in opposition, they are not
different in their signification. . . . [T]o do what is right
[rectitudinem facere] is to do the truth… Nothing is more apparent
then than that the truth of an action is its rightness." (S., p. 182)

But Anselm distinguishes between natural actions, such as a fire
heating, which are non-rational and necessary, and non-natural
actions, such as giving alms, which are rational and non-necessary.
The natural type is always true, like the second kind of truth in
signification. The non-natural type is sometimes true, sometimes
false, like the first kind of truth in signification. Truth of the
senses, Anselm argues, is a misnomer, as the truth or falsity
involving the senses is not in the senses but in the "judgment" (in
opinione). "The inner sense itself makes an error [se fallit], rather
than the exterior sense lying to it." (S., p. 183)

Speaking of the second kind of truth in signification, and of the
truth of natural actions involves reference to a "Supreme Truth,"
namely, God. Everything that is, insofar as it is receives its being
[quod est] from the Supreme Truth. An argument, placed in the mouth of
the dialogue's teacher, follows from this: 1) "If all things are this,
i.e. what they are there [in the Supreme Truth], without a doubt they
are what they ought to be." 2) "But whatever is what it ought to be is
rightly [recte est]. "Thus, everything that is, is rightly." (S, p.
185)

This, however, seems to present a genuine and serious problem, given
the existence and experience of evil, specifically, "many deeds done
evilly" (multa opera male), in the world as we know it. In order to
address this, Anselm resorts to the traditional distinction between
God causing and God permitting evil. Evil actions and evil willing
ought not to be, but what happens when God permits it, because He
permits it, ought to be. The solution to this puzzle lies in further
distinction. "For in many ways the same matter [eadem res] supports
opposites when considered from different perspectives [diversis
considerationibus]. This often happens to be the case for an action. .
. ." (S., p. 187)

Anselm uses the example of a "beating" (percussio), which can be
regarded both as an action, on the part of the agent, and as a
passion, on the part of the passive sufferer. Both the active and the
passive are necessarily connected. "For a beating is of the one acting
and of the one suffering, whence it can be said of either the action
[giving a beating] and the passion [getting a beating]." (S., p. 187)
While these two are necessarily connected, the same is not true of the
judgments that can be made regarding each side of the action, for
instance the rightness of the action or the suffering. A person might
be rightly beaten, but it may be wrong for this or that person to give
the beating. The implication of this is that "it can happen that
according to nature an action or a passion should be, but in respect
to the person acting or the person suffering should not be, since
neither should the former do it nor the latter suffer it." (S., p.
188) In this case, and other similar cases, it is possible for the
same thing to have seemingly contradictory determinations. The key
here, however, is that the same thing is being "considered from
different perspectives [diversis considerationibus]" (S., p. 188)

Anselm then brings all of the other kinds of truth back to the truth
of signification, not reducing them all to signification, but rather
indicating how they are connected to each other. "For, there is true
or false signification not only in those things we are accustomed to
call signs but also in all of the other things that we have spoken of.
For, since something should not be done by someone unless it is
something that someone should do, by the very fact that someone does
something, he says and he signifies that he ought to do that thing."
(S., p. 189) In every action, according to this doctrine, there is an
implicit assertion of truth being made (rightly or wrongly) by the
agent. For example, an expert tells a non-expert that certain herbs
are non-poisonous, but avoids eating them, his action's (true)
signification being more trustworthy than his (false) signification in
his statement. This applies even further.

So likewise, if you did not know that one ought not to lie and
somebody lied in your presence, then even if he were to tell you that
he himself ought not to lie, he would himself tell you more by his
deed [opere] that he ought to lie than by his words that he ought not
[to lie]. Similarly, when somebody thinks of or wills something, if
you did not know whether he ought to will or think of that thing, and
if you could see his willing or his thought, he would signify to you
by that very action [ipso opere] that he ought to think about and will
that thing. And, if he did ought to do so, he would speak the truth.
But if not, he would lie. (S., p. 189)

In Anselm's parlance, it is possible for action, willing, and thinking
to be false, in other words, to be lies on the part of the acting,
willing, or thinking subject. This involves a reference, noted
earlier, to the Supreme Truth, God, more specifically to the truth of
the being of things as they are in the Supreme Truth. All of the types
of truth or rightness are ultimately determined or conditioned by the
Supreme Truth, which is "the cause of all other truths and
rightnesses." Some of these other truths are themselves in turn causes
as well as effects, while others are simply effects. "Since the truth
that is in the existence of things is an effect of the Supreme Truth,
this is also the cause of the truth belonging to thoughts and the
truth that is in propositions; but these two truths are not the cause
of any truth." (S., p. 189)

After having carried out these dialogic investigations of the various
kinds of truth, Anselm is now ready to provide a definition:
"Accordingly, unless I am mistaken, we can establish the definition
that [definire quia] truth is rightness perceptible only to the mind."
(S., p. 191) This introduces the final discussion of the dialogue, the
student asking: "But since you have taught me that all truth is
rightness, and since rightness seems to me to be the same thing as
justice, teach me also what I might understand justice to be." (S., p.
191) The teacher's first response is that justice, truth, and
rightness are convertible with each other. "[W]hen we are speaking of
rightness perceptible only to the mind, truth and rightness and
justice are mutually defined in relation to each other [invicem sese
definiunt]." (S., p. 192) This relationship allows the rational
investigating human being to use one of these terms, or rather their
understanding of the meaning of the terms, to arrive at understanding
of the others (which is in fact what is going on in the dialogue
itself) "[I]f somebody knows one of them and does not know the others,
he can extend his knowledge [scientiam pertingere] though the known to
the unknown. Verily, whoever knows one cannot not know the other two."
(S., p. 192)

Justice, however, has a sense more specific and appropriate to humans,
"the justice to which praise is owed, just as to its contrary, namely
injustice, condemnation is owed." (S., p. 192) This sort of justice,
Anselm argues, resides only in beings that know rightness, and
therefore can will it. Accordingly, this kind of justice is present
only in rational beings, and in human beings, it is not in knowledge
or action but in the will. Justice is then defined as "rightness of
will," and as this could allow instances where one wills rightly, in
other words what he or she ought to will, without wanting to be in
such a situation, or instances where one does so want, but wills the
right object for a bad motive, the definition of justice is further
specified as "rightness of will kept for its own sake" (propter se
servata). Anselm makes clear that this uprightness is received from
God prior to the human being having it, willing it, or keeping it.
And, it is in a certain way radically dependent on God's own justice.
"If we say that [God's] uprightness is kept for its own sake, we do
not seem to be able to suitably [conuenienter] speak likewise about
any other rightness. For just as [God's uprightness] itself and not
some other thing, preserves itself, it is not through another but
through itself, and likewise not on account of another thing but on
account of itself." (S., p. 196)

This leads to the final topic of the De Veritate, the unity of truth.
According to Anselm, although there is a multiplicity of true things,
and multiple and different ways for things to be truth, there is
ultimately only one truth, prior to all of these, and in which they
participate. From the discussions in earlier treatises, it is clear
that this single and ultimate truth is, of course, God.
10. The De Libertate Arbitrii

This treatise is the second of the three treatises pertaining to the
study of Sacred Scripture, and it deals primarily with the nature of
the human will and its relation to the justice or rightness of will
discussed at the end of the De Veritate. The student begins by asking
the central questions:

Since free choice [liberum arbitrium] seems to be opposed to God's
grace, and predestination, and foreknowledge, I desire to know what
this free choice is and whether we always have it. For if free choice
is "to be able to sin and not sin," just as it is customarily said by
some people, and we always have it, in what way can we be in need of
any grace? For if we do not always have it, why is sin imputed to us
when we would sin without free choice. (S., v. 1, p. 207)

The immediate response is the denial that freedom of choice is or
includes the ability to sin, for this would mean that God and the good
angels, who cannot sin, would not have free choice. Anselm is
unwilling even to entirely distinguish free choice of God and good
angels from that of humans. "Although the free choice of humans
differs from the free choice of God and the good angels, still the
definition of this freedom, in accordance with this name, ought to be
the same in either case." (S., p. 208)

It appears at first that a will which can turn towards sinning or not
sinning is more free, but this is to be able to lose what befits and
what is useful or advantageous for (quod decet et quod expedit) the
one willing. To be able to sin is actually an ability to become more
unfree. Key to the argument is that not sinning is understood as a
positive condition of maintaining uprightness or righteousness
(rectitudo). Anselm makes two key points in support of this. "The will
that cannot turn away from the righteousness of not sinning is thereby
freer than one that can desert it [righteousness]." (S., p. 208) The
analysis of the conceptions of freedom, sin, and power are similar to
those in Proslogion Chapter 7: "The ability to sin, therefore, which
when added to the will decreases its freedom and when taken away
increases it, is neither freedom nor a part of freedom." (S., v. 1, p.
209)

This raises two problems, however. Both the fallen angels and the
first human were able to sin and did sin. Given the argument just
made, being able to sin and freedom seem foreign (aliena) to each
other, but if one does not sin from free choice, it seems one must sin
of necessity. In addition, the notion of being a "servant of sin"
requires clarification, specifically explaining how a free being can
be mastered by sin, and thereby become a servant. Anselm makes a
subtle distinction. In the case of the first man or the fallen angel,
the Devil:

He sinned by his choice which was free, but not through that from
which [unde] it was free, i.e. by the ability through which he was
able to [per potestatem qua poterat] not sin and to not serve sin, but
rather by the ability of sinning that he had [per potestatem quam
habebat peccandi], by which he was neither aided toward the freedom of
not sinning nor compelled to the service of sinning. (S., v. 1, p.
210)

Analogously to this, if somebody is able to be the servant of sin,
this does not mean that sin is able to master him, so that his choice
to sin, to become a servant of sin, is not free. Another question
arises then, how a person, after becoming a servant of sin, would
still be free, to which the answer is that one still retains some
natural freedom of choice, but is unable to use one's freedom of
choice in exactly the same way as one could prior to choosing to sin.
(Later in Chapter 12, Anselm clarifies that being a "servant of sin"
is precisely "an inability to avoid sinning.")

The difference, however, is all important. The freedom of choice which
they originally possessed was oriented towards an end, that of
"willing what they ought to will and what is advantageous for them to
will," (S., p. 211) in other words, uprightness or righteousness
(rectitudo) of will. Anselm then considers four different possible
ways in which they had this freedom oriented towards righteousness or
uprightness of will:

1. whether for acquiring it without anyone giving it, since they
did not yet have it
2. whether for receiving it when they did not yet have it, if
someone were to give it to them so that they might have it
3. whether for deserting what they received and for recovering by
themselves what they had deserted
4. whether for always keeping it once it was received (S., v. 1, p. 211)

The first three possibilities are rejected, leaving only the fourth.
Rational creatures were originally given uprightness of will, which
they were obliged to keep, but free (in one sense) to keep or lose.
Freedom of choice, however, has a reason, namely, keeping this
original uprightness-of-will for its own sake.

There are then two different possible states. So long as one keeps
uprightness-of-will for its own sake, one does so freely. Once one
loses uprightness-of-will through use of one's free choice, one no
longer has the ability to keep uprightness-of-will, really by
definition, since one has after all lost it. Here, Anselm clarifies:
"Even if uprightness of will is lacking, still [a] rational nature
does not possess less than what belongs to it. For, as I view it, we
have no ability that by itself suffices unto itself for its action;
and still, when those things are lacking without which our abilities
can hardly be brought to action, we still no less say that we have
those abilities that are in us." (S., p. 212-3)

He employs two analogies, one general, and one more specific. One can
have an ability or an instrument that can accomplish something, but
when the conditions for its employment are lacking, it cannot by
itself bring anything about. Likewise, seeing a mountain requires not
only sight, but also light and a mountain actually being there to be
seen. When uprightness of will is lacking, having been lost, one still
has theability to keep it, but the conditions for having and keeping
it are lacking. "What prevents us from having the power of keeping
uprightness of will for sake of that very uprightness, even if this
very uprightness is absent, so long as within us there is reason, by
which we are able to recognize it, and will, by which we are able to
hold onto it? For the freedom of choice spoken of here consists in
both of these [ex his enim constat]." (S., p. 214)

Chapters 5-9 discuss temptation, specifically how the will can be
overcome by temptation, thereby turning away from or losing
uprightness-of-will, by willing an action (for example, lying, murder,
theft, adultery) contrary to God's will. Anselm concedes that a person
can be placed in a situation where options are constrained, and where
unwelcome consequences follow from every option, for instance, when a
person is constrained to choose between lying and thereby avoiding
death (for a while), and dying. The will is stronger than any
temptation, or even the Devil himself, but both temptation and the
Devil can create difficulties for the resisting person, and can
constrain the situations of choice. In these cases, the will can allow
itself to be overcome. This still involves free choice of the will,
but this is a free choice for one sort of unfreedom or another. Anselm
argues that "a rational nature always possesses free choice, since it
always possesses the ability of keeping uprightness of will for the
sake of this rightness itself, even though with difficulty at some
times." (S., p. 222)

Once this uprightness has been lost, or rather abandoned freely, the
free human being becomes a servant of sin because it cannot by itself
regain that uprightness on its own. "Indeed, just as no will, before
it possessed uprightness, was able to acquire it unless God gave it,
so, after it deserted what it had received, it is not able to regain
it unless God gives it back." (S., p. 222) In such a condition, a
human being remains free in the sense that they could keep
uprightness-of-will, in other words, not sin, precisely by freely
choosing to keep it, if they had it, which they do not. Once God gives
it again, a human being is then once again free to keep it or to lose
it. Freedom in the full sense for Anselm, therefore, consists in the
ability to keep uprightness-of-will for its own sake, that is to say,
choosing and acting in such a way as to keep oneself from losing it,
even when faced with temptation.
11. The De Casu Diaboli

This dialogue, considerably longer than the preceding De Veritate and
De Libertate, further develops certain themes they raised, and
addresses several other philosophical issues of major importance,
including the nature of evil and negation, and the complexities of the
will. The dialogue begins in an attempt to understand the implications
of all created beings having nothing that they have not received from
God. "No creature has anything [aliud] from itself. For what does not
even have itself from itself, in what way could it have anything from
itself?" (S., v. 1, p. 233) Only God, the Creator, alone has anything
(quidquid) from himself. All other beings, as dependent on God for
their being, have what they have from him. The student raises an
initial problem in Chapter 1, having to do with divine causation. It
seems then that God is the cause not only of created beings having
something, and for their being, but also that God is then the cause
for their passing into non-being. This would then mean that God is the
cause not only for whatever is, but also for whatever is not.

The teacher makes a needed distinction here. A thing is said to cause
another thing to be in several different cases. One who actually
causes something else to be is properly said to cause it. When one
able to cause something not to be does not so cause it, and then the
thing is (because the first thing does not interfere with the second
thing being or coming to be), the first thing is improperly said to
cause the second. Accordingly, God is said to cause things in both
ways. God is also improperly said to cause what is not not to be, when
what is actually meant by this is that God simply does not cause it to
be. Likewise, when things pass from being to not-being, God does not
cause this, even though he does not conserve them in being, because
they simply return to their original state of non-being.

This has a bearing on the question of divine responsibility for evil,
setting up the other problems of the dialogue.

Just as nothing that is not good comes from the Supreme Good, and
every good is from the Supreme Good, likewise nothing that is not
being [essentia] comes from the Supreme Being [essentia], and all
being is from the Supreme Being. Since the Supreme Good is the Supreme
Being, it follows that every being is a good thing and every good
thing is a being. Therefore, just as nothing and non-being [non esse]
are not being [essentia], likewise they are not good. So, nothing and
non-being are not from He from whom nothing is unless it is good and
being. (S., p. 235)

The central problem is that of understanding how the Devil could be
responsible for his own sin, given that what he has he has from God,
and the lengthy argumentation in Chapter 3 sets in clear light the
problem's complex nature. It seems that there is an inconsistency
between God's goodness and the justness of his judgment, on the one
hand, and the Devil not receiving perseverance from God who did not
give it to him, on the other hand. The student is making the global
assumption, however, that since giving X is the cause of X being
received, not giving X is the cause of X not being received.

In some cases this does not hold, however, and the teacher supplies an
example. "If I offer [porrigo] you something, and you accept it
[accipis], I do not therefore give it because you receive it
[accipis], but you therefore receive it because I give it, and the
giving is the cause of the receiving." (S., p. 236) In that positive
case, the giving is the cause of the receiving, but, if the case is
made negative the order of causing what takes place (or rather what
does not take place) is the opposite. "What if I offer that very thing
to someone else and he does not accept it? Does he therefore not
accept it because I do not give it?" The student realizes that the
proper way of looking at matters is "rather that you do not give it
because he does not accept it." (S., p. 236) In cases like these,
where not-giving X is not the cause of X not being received, if one
does not give X, it can still be inferred that X is not received. This
answer does not quell the student's initial misgivings, however, for
it simply pushes the fundamental problem back further. "If you wish to
assert that God did not give to him because he did not receive, I ask:
why did he not receive? Was it because he was not able to, or because
he did not will to? For if he did not have the ability or the will to
receive [potestatem aut uoluntatem accipiendi], God did not give it."
(S., p. 237) This seems to place the responsibility for the Devil's
lack back on God, and the student asks: "[I]f he was not able to have
the ability or the will to receive perseverance unless God gives it,
in what did he sin, by not accepting what God did not give him to be
able or to will to receive [posse aut uelle accipere]?" (S., p. 237)

The answer is that God in fact did give this ability and will, and the
student concludes that the Devil did receive perseverance from God.
The teacher makes two important clarifications. The first is that "I
did not say that God gave him the receiving of perseverance [accipere
perseuerantiam], but rather to be able or to will to [posse aut uelle]
receive perseverance." (S., p. 237) The student then concludes that
since the Devil willed to and was able to (voluit et potuit) receive
perseverance, he did in fact receive it.

This leads to the second, much more involved clarification. There are
cases where one is able to and wills to do something, but does not
finish it or bring it about completely or perfectly, cases where one's
initial will is changed before the thing is entirely finished.

T: Then, you willed and you were able to persevere in what you did
not persevere.
S: Certainly I willed to, but I did not persevere in willing [in
voluntate], and so I did not persevere in the action.
T: Why did you not persevere in willing?
S: Because I did not will to.
T: But, so long as you willed to persevere in the action, you
willed to persevere in that willing [in voluntate]? (S., p. 238)

The will is marked by a reflexivity, as the student recognizes when
the teacher asks why he did not persevere in willing. One can answer
that he did not persevere in willing (which is the reason he did not
then continue to will) because he did not will to. This type of
explanation could be iterated infinitely, and would not really explain
anything thereby. Instead, the explanation for failure of will
(defectus. . . uoluntatis) requires reference to something else, and
this requires coining a new expression. As the teacher says: "Let us
say. . . . that to persevere in willing is to 'will completely'
[peruelle]."(S., p. 238) And, he asks his student: "When, therefore,
you did not complete what you willed to and were able to, why did you
not complete it?" In response, the student supplies the conclusion:
"Because I did not will it completely." (S., p. 238) This allows a
partial resolution to the problem: even though the Devil received the
will and the ability to receive perseverance and the will and the
ability to persevere, he did not actually receive the perseverance
because he did not will it completely. Again, this answer simply
pushes the problem to yet another level, leading the student to ask:

Again I ask why he did not will completely. For when you say that
what he willed he did not completely will, you are saying something
like: What he willed at first, he did not will later. So, when he did
not will what he willed before, why did he not will it unless because
he did not have the will to? And by this latter I do not mean the will
that he had previously when he willed it but the one that he did not
have when he did not will it. But why did he not have this will,
unless because he did not receive it? And, why did he not receive it,
unless because God did not give it? (S., p. 239)

The teacher reminds the student of the point established earlier, that
God did not give to the Devil because the Devil did not receive. Again
the failure is on the side of the creature, and at this point, the
teacher asserts that the Devil could have received keeping (tenere)
what he had but instead abandoned or deserted it (deseruit). The
relation between not-receiving and desertion has a parallel structure
to not-giving and not-receiving: the Devil did not receive because he
deserted, and God did not give to the Devilbecause the Devil did not
receive.

Once again, this is only a partial solution, and it still seems that
God could be responsible for the fall of the Devil, because God did
not give something to the Devil, namely the will to keep, not to
desert, what he had. The cause for someone deserting something, the
student claims, is because that person does not will to keep it. The
teacher's response here is similar to the previous responses, since he
distinguishes cases where the causal relation the student asserts to
hold does not hold. It is dissimilar, however, and brings the complex
argumentation of Chapter 3 to a close, because it introduces the key
notion of conflicting objects of the will. Using the example of a
miser who would will both to keep his money and to have bread, which
requires him to spend money, the teacher notes that in this case,
willing to desert is prior to not willing to keep some good, precisely
because one wills to desert the thing in order to have something that
one prefers to have. In the case of the Devil then:

the reason he did not will when he should have and what he should
have was not that his will was deficient [defecit] because God failed
[deo . . .deficiente] to give, but rather that the Devil himself, by
willing what he should not have, expelled his good will because of an
evil will arising. Accordingly, it was not because he did not have a
good persevering will or he did not receive it, because God did not
give it, but rather that God did not give it because the Devil, by
willing what he should not have, deserted the good will, and by
deserting it did not keep it. (S., p. 240)

In Chapters 4-28, issues raised by this solution to the problem are
explored: the complex nature of the will, and the ontological status
of evil, nothing, and injustice. Chapter 4 introduces a key
distinction in objects of the will, between justice (justitia) and
what is beneficial, useful, or agreeable (commodum). The case of the
Devil is the case for rational, willing creatures generally. The
teacher notes: "He could not have willed anything except for justice
or what is beneficial. For, happiness, which all rational natures
will, consists of beneficial things." And, the student confirms this:
"We can recognize this in ourselves, who will nothing except what we
deem to be just or beneficial." (S., p. 241)

The Devil went wrong by willing something beneficial, but which he did
not have and was not supposed to have at the time he willed it; this
was to will in a disordered manner (inordinate), and hereby to will
the beneficial thing in such a way as to thereby not keep justice,
precisely because willing the beneficial thing in a disordered way
required abandoning justice. The Devil willed to be both like God and
above God, by willing in such a way as to reject the order God
introduced into things (including wills), or put in another way, using
a term that somewhat resists translation: "he willed something by his
very own will alone [propria voluntate], which was subject [subdita]
to nobody. For it should be for God alone to so will something by his
very own will alone, so that he does not follow a will superior [to
his own]." (S., p. 242)

The will, in both angels and human beings, is complex, and can be
regarded from different though complementary points of view, and in
terms of its objects, which may differ or coincide. Chapters 12-14
discuss the relationships between the will, happiness, and justice.
There are two fundamental kinds of good and two kinds of evil: justice
(justitia) and what is beneficial, useful, or agreeable (commodum);
injustice, and what is harmful or unpleasant (incommodum). Rational
beings, as well as other beings that can perceive, have a natural will
for avoiding what is harmful or unpleasant (incommodum) and for
possessing what is beneficial, useful, or agreeable (commodum), and by
this natural will, which is for happiness, they move themselves to
willing other things, such as means by which to achieve the good they
will.

In contrast, rational beings can be just or unjust, and can will
justice or injustice. While all rational beings will happiness, not
all of them will justice. It is possible for the two wills to
conflict, and for one to will happiness inordinately, and in this way
desert justice. Alternately, it is possible for one to will justice,
which affects how happiness is willed.

Justice, when it is added, would so temper the will for happiness,
that it would both curb the will's excess and not cut off its ability
of exceeding. So, because one would will to be happy, one could go to
excess [excedere], but because one would will justly, one would not
will to go to excess [excedere], and so having a just will for
happiness one could and should be happy. And, by not willing what one
ought not will, even though one could, one would merit being able to
never will what should not be willed, and by always keeping justice
through a restrained [moderatam] will, one would in no way be in need;
but, if one were to desert justice through an unrestrained
[immoderatam] will, one would be in need in every way. (S., p. 258)

Chapters 15-16 show that the relation between justice and injustice is
one of a good and its privation, or put another way, justice is
something, meaning it has goodness and it has being, while injustice
is nothing but the absence or privation of the justice that should
exist, namely in a will. The priority of justice over injustice means
that the will retains traces (vestigia) of the justice it abandoned,
namely that it ought to have justice. Injustice, or the state of being
unjust, does not have any being, meaning it is nothing.

The relationships between evil, injustice, nothing, and the will are
explained in Chapters 7-11, 19-20, and 26. First, as the teacher
explains, the will itself, considered as will is not nothing. "Now,
even if [the will, and the turning of the will] are not substances,
still it cannot be proven that they are not beings [essentias], for
there are many beings other than those which are properly called
'substances.' So then, a good will is not more something than an evil
will is, nor is the latter more evil than the former is good." (S., p.
245) The conclusion of this is not that the evil will is not in fact
evil, but rather that "the evil will is not that very evil that makes
evil people evil." (S., p. 245)

The evil that makes people evil is instead injustice, the privation of
justice, which is nothing. Saying that injustice and evil are in fact
nothing raises a problem, however, for it does seem as if injustice
and evil aresomething. For one, it seems that good and evil are both
correlative to each other. "[E]vil is a privation of the good, I
concede, but I see that good is no less the privation of evil. (S., p.
247) Posing a second difficulty, it seems that "evil" must signify
something, since "evil" is a name. Lastly, the effects of evil seem in
our experience to be something, so it seems paradoxical to insist that
their cause is "nothing."

These difficulties are resolved in several ways. First, as noted
earlier, the relationship between evil or injustice as a privation,
and its opposite, justice, is not a reciprocal one. Injustice is the
privation of justice, justice is not the privation of injustice, but
that which injustice is a privation of. Put another way, justice is
something positive, and has being, and its being is not dependent upon
or conditioned by its opposite and privation, injustice.

A second resolution lies in noting that "nothing" does signify, but
signifies by negation. As the teacher says, making an important
distinction:

"[E]vil" and "nothing" do signify something; still though what
they signify is not evil or nothing. But, there is another way in
which they signify something and what is signified is something; not
truly something, though, but as-if something [quasi aliquid]. For
indeed, many things are said in accordance with the form [of language]
[secundum formam], which are not said in accordance with the reality
[secundum rem]. (S., p. 250)So, in this way, "evil" and "nothing"
signify something, and what is signified is something not in
accordance with the reality but in accordance with the form of
speaking. (S., p. 251)

A third resolution resides in explaining the relationship between the
evil and nothing(ness) of injustice and the seeming positivity and
being of things that get called evil. The will itself, as something,
is good; in-itself, willing objects of the will, from the basest
pleasures to being-like God, is good. Even the base and unclean useful
or pleasurable things that irrational animals take pleasure in
(commoda infima et immunda quibusirrationalia animalia delectantur,
S., p. 257) are in themselves good. What allows some positive existing
thing to be an evil is the disorder it is involved in, and this has to
do with the will, and with injustice as such, which are the source of
any positivity evil has. "[S]ince no thing is called "evil" except for
an evil will or on account of an evil will – like an evil man and an
evil action – nothing is clearer than that no thing is evil, nor is
evil anything but the absence of the justice that has been deserted in
the will, or in some thing because of an evil will." (S., p. 264)The
absence of justice in the will, or injustice, is always strictly
speaking nothing, the absence or lack of what ought to be. However,
"sometimes the evil that is harmful or unpleasant (incommodum) is
clearly nothing, like blindness, other times it is something, like
sadness or pain." (S., p. 274) What we typically focus on in thinking
about evil are the latter cases. "When, then, we hear the word 'evil,'
we do not fear the evil that is nothing, but the evil that is
something, which follows from the absence of the good. For, from
injustice and blindness, which are evil and which are nothing, follow
many harmful or unpleasant things (incommoda) that are evil and are
something, and these are what we dread when we hear the word 'evil.'"
(S., p. 274)

Accordingly, returning to the original issue, what creatures have that
is good, they have from God, and what they have of evil derives from
them (or from other creatures), but ultimately from nothing, that is
to say, from a lack of what ought to be (or of what ought to have
been). In any given case, of course, for instance the Devil's case, it
may take considerable analysis to see how what God gave permitted evil
to take place.
12. The De Concordia

This late work is of particular interest for several reasons. In its
content, it deals with matters examined by Anselm's previous works,
developing his doctrines further. The De Concordia refers to earlier
works by name, specifically De Veritate, De Libertate Arbitrii, De
Casu Diaboli, and De Conceptu Virginali et de Originali Peccato.
Stylistically, its form is intermediary between those of the treatises
and those of the dialogues, for Anselm addresses the possible
objections and responses of an interlocutor in the first book, but
does so within one continuous discourse. By the second and third
books, Anselm no longer addresses an interlocutor. The three main
topics or "questions" of the title unevenly divide the books of the
work.

The first question, or problem, is how free choice (liberum arbitrium)
and God's foreknowledge could be compatible. This is really a clash
between freedom and necessity. "[I]t is necessary [necesse est] that
those things that God foreknows be going to happen [esse futura], and
those that come to be through free choice do not arrive through any
necessity." (S., v. 2, p. 245) Anselm's procedure is to assume both
free choice and God's foreknowledge in order to see whether they do in
fact contradict each other, reasoning that, if they are genuinely
incompatible, some other impossibility will arise from them. The
assumption does not in fact generate a contradiction.

[I]f something is going to happen without necessity [sine
necessitate], God, who foreknows all future things foreknows this very
thing. So, what God foreknows necessarily [necessitate] is going to
happen, just as it is foreknown. Accordingly, it is necessary [necesse
est] for something to be going to happen without necessity. Therefore,
for one who rightly understands this, the foreknowledge upon which
necessity follows and the free choice from which necessity is removed
do not seem contradictory at all, since it is necessary that God
foreknows what is going to happen, and God foreknows something to be
going to happen without any necessity. (S., p. 245)

The interlocutor raises several objections. The first is easily
resolved, since it consists in simply shifting the ground from actions
in general to sinning. Since God foreknows whether a person will sin
or not, it seems that it is then necessary that a person sins or does
not sin. Anselm simply makes explicit the full significance of what is
being asserted, after which it is clear that framing the issue in
terms of sin simply generates the same structure. "You should not say
just: 'God foreknows that I am going to sin or I am not going to sin,'
but rather: 'God foreknows that without necessity I am going to sin or
I am not going to sin.'" (S., p. 246)

The second objection raises a puzzle that stems from the sense of
"necessity." "Necessity seems to mean [sonare] compulsion or restraint
[coactionem uel prohibitionem]. So, if it is necessary that I sin from
my willing, I understand myself to be compelled by some hidden force
to the will to sin; and if I do not sin, I am restrained from the will
to sin." (S., p. 246-7) In response, Anselm notes that some things are
said to necessarily be or not be, even when there is no compulsion or
restraint. In the case of voluntary actions, God foreknows them, but
this foreknowledge does not produce any compulsion or restraint. To
the contrary, God foreknows them precisely as voluntary actions. There
is a necessity involved, but one that "follows," rather than
"precedes," or determines, the thing or event.

Anselm provides examples of these two modalities of necessity. An
uprising that is going to take place tomorrow does not occur by
necessity. It could happen otherwise, although it will not. The sun
rising tomorrow will happen by necessity. It must happen that way.

The uprising, which will not be from necessity, is asserted to be
going to happen only by a following necessity [sequenti necessitate],
since what is going to happen is being said of what is going to
happen. For, if it is going to happen tomorrow, by necessity it is
going to happen. The sunrise, however, is understood to be going to
happen by both kinds of necessity, namely the preceding [praecedenti]
necessity that makes the thing be – so it will be, since it is
necessary [necesse est] that it be – and the following necessity that
does not compel it to be. (S., p. 250)

When one says that it is necessary for what God foreknows to happen,
care is needed lest these different modalities of necessity get mixed
up. In the case of human willing, the necessity is of the following,
not the preceding kind. There is a temporality involved in the
necessity of human will.

What the free will wills, the free will can and cannot not-will
[non velle], and it is necessary that it will. For, it can not-will
before it wills, since it is free, and once it wills, it cannot
not-will, but rather it is necessary that it will, since it is
impossible for it to will and not will the same thing at the same
time. . . . there is a twofold necessity, because [what the will
freely wills] is compelled to be by the will, and what happens cannot
at the same time not happen. But the free will makes these
necessities, which can avoid them [coming to be] before they are. (S.,
p. 251)

Far from free will being incompatible with necessity and with God's
foreknowledge, free will is in fact productive of some necessity.
Anselm employs a line of reasoning similar to that used in earlier
works, most notably in the De Veritate. "Why then is it something
astonishing if in this way something is from freedom and from
necessity, when there are many things that are grasped in opposite
ways by changing the point of view [diverse ratione]?" (S., p. 253)
Employing this technique of distinction allows him the conclude that
they are in fact compatible: "No inconsistency arises if, in
accordance with the reasons given earlier, we assert one and the same
thing to be necessarily going to be, since it is going to be, and that
it is by no necessity compelled to be going to be, unless by that
necessity that was said earlier to come to be from free will." (S., p.
253)

In Chapter 5, ultimately in order to be able to provide a hermeneutic
for seemingly problematic Scriptural passages, Anselm provides readers
with an intellectual glimpse of eternity. Within eternity, there is no
past or future, but only present; not the fleeting present of our
temporal experience, but an eternal present, one that has an
ontological priority over time as we experience it. "Although nothing
is there except what is present, it is not the temporal present, like
ours, but rather the eternal, within which all times altogether are
contained. If in a certain way the present time contains every place
and all the things that are in any place, likewise, every time is
encompassed [clauditur] in the eternal present, and everything that is
in any time." (S., p. 254)

The nature of temporal things is that, insofar as they are in time,
they do not always exist, and they change from time to time, whereas,
as they exist in eternity, they always exist and are unchangeable.
Anselm again frames this in terms of different points of view.
Something can be able to be changed in time and still be unchangeable
in eternity "For things that are changeable in time and unchangeable
in eternity are not more opposed than not being in some time is to
always being in eternity, or having been or going to be in accordance
with time and not having been or not going to be in eternity." (S., p.
255) This allows a fuller understanding of the relation between God's
foreknowledge and free choice. Before (in the temporal sequence)
something is willed by a being existing in time, such as sinning or
not sinning, it can be otherwise. It already exists in eternity,
however, which is how God knows (or from our point of view, foreknows)
it.

Anselm deals briefly with the second question or problem, reconciling
predestination with free choice. This question seems to present a more
problematic issue than divine foreknowledge. One can, as Anselm does,
reconcile divine foreknowledge with free human choices by taking the
position that God knows the free human choices as free, but from a
vantage point of eternity, in which the free, uncompelled or
restrained human actions have already happened, or more properly
expressed are already happening. Predestination, however, seems to
involve God making things happen the way they do. There is a possible
resolution, however; we can say: "God predestines evil people and
their evil works when he does not correct them and their evil works.
But he is said to foreknow and predestine good things, because he
causes [facit] that they be and that they be good; but for evil
things, he only causes them to be what they are essentially, not that
they are evil." (S., p. 261) That is, (in accordance with the
positions developed in Anselm's earlier works), God never directly
causes something evil, but rather provides the basis, in being and
goodness, for what is then turned to evil, turned away from how it
ought to be.

God does predestine human actions, according to Anselm, but he
predestines them precisely as free or voluntary actions, which does
not impose a necessity upon them that does not come from the choosing
person's willing, by the sort of following necessity discussed in
relation to foreknowledge.

For God – even though He predestines – does not cause [facit]
these things by compelling or restraining the will, but rather by
committing [dimittendo] it to its own power. But even though the will
uses its own power, it does nothing that God does not do in good
things by his grace, in bad things not by fault of his own will but
the will of the person. . . And just as foreknowledge, which does not
err, only foreknows what is true, just as it will be, whether it is
necessary or spontaneous, likewise, predestination . . . predestines a
thing only as it is in foreknowledge. (S., p. 261)

The third question or problem is reconciling God's grace and human
free choice. In the course of showing that there is no real
contradiction between these, Anselm's treatment ranges over a number
of issues. There are a variety of different viewpoints to be
considered. Some, supporting themselves by appeal to Scripture,
maintain that only divine grace leads to salvation; others, likewise
appealing to other Scriptural passages, maintain that salvation
depends on our will. Furthering the first position, some cite passages
that seem to have good works and salvation depend on grace, and others
point to the common enough experience of people who, despite their
efforts, fail. In addition to Scriptural passages that teach that
humans have free choice, or that urge people to do good and that
condemn evil, there is a line of reasoning supporting free choice,
namely: "If nobody were to do good or evil through free choice, then
there would be no reason why [nec ullo modo esset cur] God justly
gives what they deserve [retribueret] to good people and bad people on
account of the merits of each one." (S., p. 264)

The position that Anselm develops can be summarized as the following:
Grace and free choice are not only compatible, but they in fact
cooperate with each other. So, setting aside the exception of baptized
infants, grace and free choice are both required for one to be saved.
The ways in which grace and free choice cooperate with each other, as
well as the ways in which free choice fails to cooperate with grace,
are complex. Four main features of this are: the relationship between
uprightness or righteousness (rectitudo) and grace; the need for
cooperation with grace through one's will; Anselm's threefold
distinction about the will; and the will for happiness and the will
for justice.

Uprightness of will was discussed at length in Anselm's earlier works,
but it receives a more sophisticated and nuanced treatment in the De
Concordia. As before: "There is no doubt that the will only wills
rightly [recte] when it is upright [recta]. . . the will is not
upright because it wills rightly, but it wills rightly because it is
upright." (S., p. 265-6) When the will wills uprightness for its own
sake, it quite clearly wills rightly, and as in the earlier works, the
will thereby wills to remain in this uprightness. In the De Concordia
treatment, however, it is possible for one to will more uprightness.
"I do not deny that an upright will wills an uprightness it does not
yet have, when it wills to have a greater uprightness than it has; but
I say that no will can will uprightness, if it does not have the
uprightness by which it wills it." (S., p. 266)

Later, Anselm says something very similar:

It is said to those already converted [i.e. turned towards God,
conservis]: "be converted," either so that they are further converted
or so that they keep themselves converted. For, those who say:
"convert us, God," are already in some way converted, since they have
an upright will when they will to be converted. But they pray through
what they have received so that their conversion be augmented, just
like those who were believers and said: "increase our faith." It is as
if both of these groups said: "increase in us what you gave us, bring
to fruition [perfice] what you began. (S., p. 272)

When one has uprightness, one can will to preserve it, but lacking it,
one cannot simply will oneself to have it, and then thereby have it.
In addition, a creature cannot have uprightness from itself, nor can
it have it from another creature. Instead, it can only have it through
God's grace.

Grace, as Anselm states clearly, is not something simple to pin down.
For one, there are many different ways in which grace is bestowed. As
Anselm says, he is "not up to the task [non. . .valeam] – for it does
this in many ways – of enumerating the ways in which, after this
uprightness has been received, grace aids free choice to keep what it
received." (S., p. 267) For another, graces follow on graces, and this
takes place in more than one way as well. For instance: "If the will,
by free choice keeping what it received, merits either an augmentation
of the justice it has received, or even the power for a good will, or
some sort of reward, all of these are fruits of the first grace, and
"grace for grace," and therefore all of this is to be imputed to
grace. . ." (S., p. 266-7)

Free choice can cooperate with grace, grace that is first given, that
is to say, the giving of the uprightness that the will receives by
free choice, and then, in keeping this righteousness, cooperates with
grace again. The grace can only be lost by the choices made to abandon
uprightness in favor of something else. Worthy of note, in this
treatise, Anselm gives a concrete example of this sort of grace. "This
uprightness is never separated from the will except when it wills
something else that is not in harmony with this uprightness. Just as
when somebody receives the uprightness of willing sobriety, and they
reject it by wiling an immoderate pleasure of drinking. (S., p. 267)

In Anselm's view, graces are offered in many ways, even at the moments
when one is deciding. He give several examples of how grace assists
the free choice of the will when one is tempted to abandon the
uprightness one has received, "by mitigating or even entirely
cancelling the force of the besieging temptation, or by augmenting the
affection of that same uprightness." (S., p. 268) Anselm supplies a
principle of interpretation in these matters: "In short, since
everything is subject to God's ordination, whatever happens to a
person that aids the free choice to receiving or keeping that
uprightness of which I speak, is to be imputed entirely to grace."
(S., p. 268)

In his explanation of the extended metaphor of cultivation in Book 3,
Chapter 6, Anselm provides further examples of grace, showing grace
coming from grace and the involvement of free choice at each point.
The metaphor is:

[J]ust as the earth, without any cultivation by humans, brings
forth innumerable herbs and trees without which human nature is
nourished or by which it is even destroyed, those that most necessary
to us for nourishing life [are not brought forth] without great labor
and cultivation, and not without seeds. Likewise the human hearth,
without teaching, without application [studio] spontaneously
germinates thoughts and willings [voluntates] that are of no use for
salvation or are even harmful, whereas those, without which we make no
progress to salvation of the soul, never conceive and germinate
without a seed of their own sort and laborious cultivation. (S., p.
270)

Grace, the seed, involves, even requires human participation and
effort, and at the same time aids the human effort at nearly every
turn. Grace and human willing constantly interact.

That [preachers] are sent, is a grace. And for this reason,
preaching is a grace, since what comes down from grace is grace; and
hearing [the Word preached] is grace, and understanding what is heard
is grace, and uprightness of wiling is grace. Truly sending,
preaching, hearing, understanding are nothing unless the will wills
what the mind understands. . . So, what the mind conceives from
hearing the Word is the seed of preaching and uprightness is the
"growth" [incrementum] that God gives, without which "neither he who
plants nor he who waters is anything, but rather God who gives the
growth." (S., p. 271)

Anselm's discussion of the will in the De Concordia revisits some of
the same doctrines developed in earlier works. A person is not forced
by temptation or oppression to abandon uprightness of will, but rather
fails to will to keep it because he or she wills something else. What
a person wills, they either will on account of uprightness or some
benefit. These motives can, and in some cases do, clash with each
other. There is a finer analysis of the will, one used later as the
starting point in the De Moribus attributed to Anselm.

Since particular instruments have what they are [hoc quod sunt],
and their aptitudes, and their uses, let us distinguish in the will
that on account of which we call it an instrument, its aptitudes, and
its uses. These aptitudes in the will we can call "affections," since
the instrument of willing is affected by its aptitudes.The will is
spoken of equivocally, and in three ways. For, the instrument of
willing is one thing, the affection of the instrument is another, and
the use of this same instrument is yet another. The instrument of
willing is that power [vis] of the soul that it uses for willing . . .
The affection of this instrument is that by which this instrument
itself is affected to willing something even when it does not think
about what it wills . . . . The use of this very instrument is what we
have only when we think about the thing that we will. (S., p. 280)

There is only one instrument of willing, and the instrument itself
does not admit of degrees. There are many uses of the will, that is,
actual willings in concrete situations, using the instrument of the
will. There are multiple affections or aptitudes of the will, and they
do admit of greater and lesser degrees. Anselm states that all of
these can be regarded as different wills, since they are not identical
(they are distinguishable without being separable). The distinction
also allows clarification of the agency of the will: "The will as
instrument moves all of the other instruments that we freely [sponte]
use, both those that are part of us – like hand, tongue, sight – and
those external to us – like pen, hatchet – and causes [facit] all of
our voluntary motions. Indeed, it moves itself through its own
affection, whence it can be called an instrument that moves its very
self." (S., p. 283-4)

Two affections are of particular importance, and allow clarification
of how one deserts justice or uprightness of will. "From these two
affections, which we still call 'wills,' all the merit of a person
comes, whether good or bad. These two wills differ, however, because
the one which is to willing benefit is inseparable, but the one for
willing uprightness is separable." (S., p. 284) This means that the
will to benefit, which Anselm also calls "will to happiness" (uoluntas
beatitudinis) is always part of the human being, whereas the will to
justice is not. A person can will justice or uprightness (if they have
it), in which case they do have it, or a person can not. It is by
deserting justice, or by not willing the will to justice, in order to
will something else, meaning happiness of such a sort that it is
incompatible with justice, that the will as a whole, and a person as a
whole goes astray. This then happens by the use of the person's free
choice.
13. The Fragments

Anselm left behind fragments of an unfinished work that is of some
philosophical interest. Stylistically, they appear to have been
intended to be a full dialogue, and the portions that we possess are
written in polished Latin style. Their content consists in analyses of
concepts and terminology central to certain parts of Anselm's work,
and although the theme of uncritical acceptance of ordinary linguistic
usage obscuring the real matters at hand is not a new one, the
analyses are carried out to a degree of sophistication unparalleled by
the extant works. The student begins the dialogue: "There are many
matters regarding which I have for some time wished your response,
among which are ability [potestas] and inability [impotentia],
possibility and impossibility, necessity and freedom. I enumerate all
of these together at the same time, because the knowledge of them
seems to me to be mixed up together." (u.W, p. 23)

The student is led to several absurd conclusions in reasoning about
these matters, which Anselm treated in earlier works, for example
reconciling God being omnipotent with God being unable to do certain
things, or it being impossible for God to do those things. The teacher
indicates that what is needed is an understanding of the meaning of
the verb "to do" (facere), and of what is, properly speaking (proprie)
"one's own" (suum alicuius). "To do" (later, Anselm will indicate that
agere, "to act" does this as well) has an interesting and unique
status, since it is used colloquially as substitute for many other
expressions, even including those involving "not doing" (non facere).
The expressions which it may substitute for can be the proper
responses to the question: "what is he/she doing?"

The teacher then introduces several discussions about causes.
"[E]verything of which any verb is said [i.e. any subject of which a
verb is predicated], is some cause for what is signified by that verb
being the case. And, every cause, in ordinary linguistic usage [usu
loquendi] is said to "make" or do" [facere] what it is the cause of."
(u.W, p. 26) Some of these are straightforward, such as a person
running causes that there is running. Some of these are not quite so
straightforward. "For, in this way, one who sits, makes there to be
sitting, and one who suffers, makes there to be suffering, because if
the one who suffers were not to be, there would not be a suffering."
(u.W, p. 26) In addition, the being or nature of a thing is a cause
for what can be said of it. "If, for example, we say: '(a) human being
is an animal,' (a) human being is a cause that there be an animal and
that it be said that 'there is animal.' I do not mean that (a) human
being is the cause for animal existing, but rather that (a) human
being is the cause that it be and be called (an) animal. For by this
name the entire human being is signified and conceived, in which whole
animal is as a part." (u.W, p. 27-8)

Next, the teacher notes that there are different ways (modis usus
loquendi) of using the verb "to do," "to make," or "to cause"
(facere), and although he concedes that their division is numerous and
quite complicated (multiplex et nimis implicata), he advances a
sixfold division of causing things to be or not to be.

Two ways, when:

1. it causes what it is said to cause, or
2. it does not cause what it is said to cause not to be

Four ways, when it causes or does not cause something else to be
or not to be. For we say something to cause another thing to be,
because. . . .

1. it causes something else to be, or
2. it does not cause something else to be, or
3. because it causes something else not to be, or
4. because it does not cause something else not to be. (u.W, p. 29)

He provides examples of each of these:

1. . . . when somebody is said to cause another person to be
dead by slaying him or her with a sword.
2. The only example . . . I have is if I posit someone who
could resuscitate a dead person, but does not will to do so. . . . In
other matters, examples are abundant, as when we say that somebody
causes an evil to be, one that, when he or she is able to, that
somebody does not cause it not to be.
3. . . . when it is asserted that someone killed another . . .
because he or she ordered that the other be killed, or because he or
she caused the killer to have a sword, or because he or she accused
the one who was killed . . . . These people do not cause per se what
is said to be caused . . . .but by doing something else . . . they act
through an intermediary.
4. . . .when we pronounce someone to have killed another, who
did not provide arms to the one who was killed before he or she was
killed, or who did not retrain the killer, or who did not do something
that, had he or she done it, the person would not have been killed
5. . . . by taking away the arms, one causes the one who is
about to be killed to be disarmed, or by opening a door one causes the
killer not to be closed up where he or she had been detained
6. . . . when by not disarming the killer, one does not cause
them not to be armed, or by not leading the one who would be killed
away, so that they would not be in the killer's presence. (u.W, p.
29-30)

The same six modes also hold for "to cause not to be" (facere non
esse), and Anselm provides examples for them as well. In all but the
first mode, the one who is supposed to cause something does not cause
it directly. Likewise, the modes hold for "not to cause to be" (non
facere esse) and "not to cause not to be" (non facere non esse). These
tools for analysis, the teacher suggests, can be used for other verbs,
for "is" (esse), and for "ought" or "owes" (debere), allowing
restatement of the expressions in forms better signifying what is
really meant by the expressions.

Willing, or "to will" (velle) presents an interesting set of
conditions, for it parallels "to do" or "to cause." "We say 'to will'
in the same six modes as 'to cause to be.' Likewise, we say 'to will
not to be' in all of the different ways as 'to cause not to be.'"
(u.W, p. 37) This expression can also be dealt with under a fourfold
division. In the first, "efficient will" (efficiens), "we will in such
a way that [ut], if we are able to, we cause to be what we will."
(u.W, p. 38) In another type of willing, "approving will" (approbans),
"[w]e will something that we are able to cause to be but we do not
cause to be, but still, if it happens, it pleases us, and we approve
of it." (u.W, p. 38) In yet another type of willing, "conceding will"
(concedens), "we will something. . . like a creditor who, being
indulgent, wills to accept from a debtor barley in place of the wheat
[the debtor owes]." (u.W, p. 38) In the last kind, "someone is said to
will what one neither approves nor concedes, but rather permits, when
one could prohibit it." (u.W, p. 38)

There is an order of implication to these wills as well:

[T]he one that I have called "efficient will," when it wills, so
far as it is able, it causes it, and it also approves it, concedes it,
and permits it. The "approving" will does not cause what it wills, but
it does approve it, concede it, and permit it. The "conceding" will
does not cause or approve what it wills, unless on account of
something else, but it does concede and permit it. The "permitting"
will does not cause, or approve, or concede what it wills, but only
permits it even though it disapproves of it. (u.W, p. 38-9)

These categories of analysis can be extended not simply to human
willing, but also to the divine will, addressing some of the issues
about the divine will and its compatibility with evil human or angelic
acts raised and dealt with in the earlier works.

Anselm also provides further classification of causes. Some causes are
efficient causes, for instance the maker of an object, or the wisdom
that makes somebody wise. Other causes are not efficient causes,
including the matter from which something is made, or space and time,
within which spatial and temporal things (localia et temporalia) come
to be. All of these are causes in some sense, since they all have some
role in what is, or is not, being so.

Anselm also distinguishes between proximate, or immediate causes and
distant, or mediated causes. "Proximate causes are those that by
themselves (per se) cause what they are said to cause, with no other
mediate cause standing in between them and the effect that they cause,
and distant [longinquae] causes are those that do not by themselves
(per se) cause what they are said to cause, unless there is either one
or more other mediating cause(s)." (u.W, p. 40) The first two modes of
"to cause" discussed earlier apply to proximate causes, the other four
to distant causes. Both efficient causes and non-efficient causes can
be proximate or distant causes, although, as Anselm points out,
strictly speaking, distant causes are themselves proximate causes of
something at least: "Although very often causes are said to causes not
by themselves (per se), but by another (per aliud), i.e. by a medium –
whence they can be called distant causes – still every cause has its
proximate effect that it causes by itself (per se) and whose proximate
cause it is." (u.W, p. 41) All causes are involved in a linking or
network of causes and effects whose ultimate origin is God. "Every
cause has causes going back all the way to the supreme cause of all,
God, who since He is the cause of everything that is something, does
not himself have a cause. Every effect whatsoever has many causes of
diverse types, except for the first effect, since the supreme cause
alone created everything." (u.W, p. 41)

Anselm also discusses the meaning of "something" (aliquid) and
"ability" (potestas) in the fragments, largely reiterating points made
in earlier works.
14. Other Writings

Anselm produced other works beyond those summarized and excerpted from
here, including theEpistola de Incarnatione Verbi (on the Incarnation
of the Word), De Conceptu Virginali et de Originali Peccato (on the
Virgin Conception and Original Sin), De Processione Spiritus Sancti
(on the Procession of the Holy Spirit), all of which contain some
philosophical reasoning as well as theological.

The last century has seen several other Anselmian texts made available
to scholars. As noted earlier, theFragments come from an unfinished
work edited and established by Dom F .S. Schmitt, O.S.B. Arguably of
greater significance is the De Moribus (on Human Morals), edited and
established by R. W. Southern and Dom Schmitt in Memorials of St.
Anselm, which discusses the affections of the will at great length, in
great detail, and through the use of many illuminating metaphors
(similtudines). As Southern and Dom Schmitt note, this work was added
to considerably and edited by an unknown redactor, then circulated and
attributed to Anselm as the De Simultudinibus. Also included in that
volume are the Dicta Anselmi (Anselm's Sayings), assembled and
redacted most likely by Anselm's companion, the monk Alexander.

In addition, Anselm left behind numerous letters, prayers, and
meditations, many of very high literary and spiritual quality.
15. References and Further Readings

Several readily accessible research bibliographies on Anselm exist.
Two particularly useful ones are:

* Kienzler, Klaus. International Bibliography: Anselm of
Canterbury (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. 1999)
* Miethe, T.L. "The Ontological Argument: A Research
Bibliography," The Modern Schoolman v. 54 (1977)

a. Primary Sources

The standard scholarly version of Anselm's collected works is the
edition by Dom F. S. Schmitt, O.S.B.S. Anselmi Cantuariensis
Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia. 6 vols. (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons.
1940-1961). It was reprinted in 1968 by F. Fromann Verlag
(Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt), and is available currently on CD-ROM from
Past Masters.

Additional Latin writings may be found in Memorials of St. Anselm. R.
W. Southern and F. S. Schmitt, O.S.B. eds. (Oxford University Press.
1969), and in Ein neues unvollendetes Werk des heilige Anselem von
Canterbury, F. S. Schmitt, O.S.B., ed. (Munster: Aschendorf. 1936)

There are numerous English translations of Anselm's works. Below are
several of the most common:

* St. Anselm's Proslogion. Trans. M.J. Charlesworth. (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1965)
* Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works. Trans. Brian Davies and
Gillian Evans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)
* St. Anselm: Basic Writings. Trans. S. N. Deane (La Salle,
Illinois: Open Court Press, 1962)
* The Letters of Saint Anselm of Canterbury. 3 vols. Trans. Walter
Frohlich. (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications. 1990-1994)
* Truth, Freedom, and Evil: Three Philosophical Dialogues. Trans.
Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson (New York. 1967)
* Anselm of Canterbury. Trans. Jasper Hopkins and Herbert
Richardson (Toronto: Edwin Mellen. 1976). Includes, as v. 4, Jasper
Hopkin's Hermeneutical and Textual Problems in the Complete Treatises
of St. Anselm.
* A New Interpretive Translation of St. Anselm's Monologion and
Proslogion. Trans. Jasper Hopkins (Minneapolis: Arthur J. Banning.
1980)
* The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm. Trans. Benedicta
Ward (New York: Penguin Books. 1973)
* Anselm: Monologion and Proslogion. Trans. Thomas Williams.
(Indianapolis: Hackett. 1995)
* Anselm: Three Philosophical Dialogues. Trans. Thomas Williams.
(Indianapolis: Hackett. 2002)

b. Secondary Sources

In addition to the works referenced below, the entirety of the
occasional volumes comprising Analecta Anselmiana, Spicilegium
Beccense, and Anselm Studies are all to be highly recommended, as is
The Saint Anselm Journal, which is online and affiliated with the
Institute for Saint Anselm Studies.

* Adams, Marilyn McCord. "Fides Quaerens Intellectum: St. Anselm's
Method In Philosophical Theology," Faith and Philosophy, vol. 9, n. 4
(1992)
* Barth, Karl. Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum. Trans. Ian
Robertson (Richmond: John Knox Press. 1960)
* Baumstein, Dom Paschal, O.S.B. "Anselm Agonistes: The Dilemma of
a Benedictine Made Bishop,"Faith and Reason, v. 13 (1997-8)
* Baumstein, Dom Paschal, O.S.B. "Revisiting Anselm: Current
Historical Studies and Controversies,"Cistercian Studies Quarterly, v.
28 (1993)
* Baumstein, Dom Paschal, O.S.B. "St. Anselm and the Prospect of
Perfection," Faith and Reason, v. 29 (2004)
* Bayert, J, S.J. "The Concept of Mystery According to St. Anselm
of Canterbury," Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale, v. 9
(1937)
* Châtillon, Jean. "De Guillaume d'Auxerre à S. Thomas d'Aquin:
l'argument de S. Anselme chez les premiers scholastiques du XIIIe
siècle," Spicilegium Beccense, v. 1. (Paris: Vrin. 1959)
* Cohen, Nicholas. "Feudal Imagery or Christian Tradition? A
Defense of the Rationale for Anselm's Cur Deus Homo," The Saint Anselm
Journal, v. 2, n. 1 (2004)
* Corbin, Michel, S.J. "La significations de l'unum argumentum du
Proslogion," Anselm Studies, vol. 2 (1988)
* Corbin, Michel, S.J. Prière et raison de la foi: introduction à
l'œuvre de S. Anselme de Cantorbéry(Paris: Cerf. 1992)
* Davies, Brian and Brian Leftow, eds. The Cambridge Companion to
Anselm (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2004)
* Eadmer. Vita Sancti Anselmi, translated by R.W. Southern as The
Life of St. Anselm: Archbishop of Canterbury (London: Thomas Nelson
and Sons, Ltd. 1962).
* Evans, Gillian Rosemary. A Concordance to the Works of St.
Anselm (Millwood, New York: Kraus International Publications. 1984)
* Evans, Gillian Rosemary. Anselm. (Wilton, Connecticut:
Morehouse-Barlow. 1989)
* Evans, Gillian Rosemary. Anselm and a New Generation (Oxford:
Clarendon. 1980)
* Evans, Gillian Rosemary. Anselm and Talking about God (New York:
Oxford University Press. 1978)
* Evans, Gillian Rosemary. "The 'Secure Technician': Varieties of
Paradox in the Writings of Saint Anselm," Vivarium, vol. 13 (1975)
* Fortin, John, O.S.B., ed. Saint Anselm: His Origins and
Influence (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. 2001)
* Gilson, Etienne. "Sens et nature de l'argument de saint
Anselme," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age,
v. 9 (1934)
* Hartshorne, Charles. Anselm's Discovery (La Salle, Illinois:
Open Court.1965)
* Henry, D.P. "St Anselm on Scriptural Analysis," Sophia, v. 1 (1962)
* Herrera, R.A. Anselm's Proslogion: An Introduction. (Washington
D.C.: University Press of America. 1979)
* Herrera, R.A. "St. Anselm's Proslogion: A Hermeneutical Task,"
Analecta Anselmiana, vol. 3 (1972)
* Hick, John and Arthur C. McGill. The Many-faced Argument: Recent
Studies on the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God (New
York: MacMillan. 1967)
* Hoegen, Maternus, ed. L'attualità filosofica di Anselmo d'Aosta
(Rome: Pontifico Ateno S. Anselemo. 1990)
* Hopkins, Jasper. A Companion to the Study of St. Anselm
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1972).
* Koyré, Alexandre. L'idée de Dieu dans la philosophie de St.
Anselme (Paris: Editions Ernest Leroux. 1923)
* Matthews, Scott. Reason, Community and Religious Tradition:
Anselm's Argument and the Friars.(Aldershot: Ashgate: 2001)
* McEvoy, James "La preuve anselmienne de l'existence de Dieu
est-elle ontologique?," Revue philosophique de Louvain, v. 92, n. 2-3
(1994).
* McIntyre, J. St. Anselm and His Critics: A Reinterpretation of
Cur Deus Homo (London. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. 1954)
* Paliard, Jacques "Prière et dialectique: Méditation sur le
Proslogion de saint Anselme," Dieu Vivant, v. 6 (1946)
* Plantinga, Alvin. The Ontological Argument, from St. Anselm to
Contemporary Philosophers(Garden City, New York: Anchor Books. 1965)
* Pouchet, Dom Jean Robert, O.S.B. "Existe-t-il une 'synthèse'
anselmienne," Analecta Anselmiana, vol. 1 (1969)
* Pouchet, Dom Jean Robert, O.S.B. La rectitudo chez saint
Anselme: un itinéraire augustinien de l'ame à Dieu (Paris: Etudes
Augustiniennes. 1964)
* Recktenwald, Engelbert. Die ethische Struktur des Denkens von
Anselm von Canterbury(Heidelberg: Universitäts Verlag. 1998)
* Rogers, Katherine. "Can Christianity be Proven? Saint Anselm on
Faith and Reason," Anselm Studies,vol. 2 (1998)
* Rogers, Katherine. The Anselmian Approach to God and Creation
(Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. 1997)
* Rogers, Katherine. The Neoplatonic Metaphysics and Epistemology
of Anselm of Canterbury(Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. 1997)
* Rovighi, S. Vanni. "Notes sur l'influence de saint Anselme au
XIIe siècle," Cahiers de Civilization Médiévale, v. 7, n. 4 and v. 8,
n. 1 (1964)
* Sadler, Gregory. "Mercy and Justice in St. Anselm's Proslogion,"
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 80, no. 1 (2006)
* Sontag, F. "The Meaning of 'Argument' in Anselm's Ontological
Proof," Journal of Philosophy, v. 64, (1968)
* Southern, R.W. Saint Anselm: A Portrait In Landscape (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. 1990)
* Southern, R.W. Saint Anselm and His Biographer (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. 1963)
* Sweeney, Eileen. "Anselm's Proslogion: The Desire for the Word,"
The Saint Anselm Journal, vol. 1 no. 1 (2003)
* Thonnard François-Joseph, A.A., "Caractères augustiniens de la
méthode philosophique de saint Anselme," Spicilegium Beccense, v. 1.
(Paris: Vrin. 1959)
* Tonini, Simone. "La scrittura nelle opere sistematische di S.
Anselmo: Concetto, Posizione, Significato,"Analecta Anselmiana, vol. 2
(1970), p. 57-116.
* Van Fletern, Frederick and Joseph C. Schnaubelt, eds.
Twenty-Five Years (1969-1994) of Anselm Studies: Review and Critique
of Recent Scholarly Views.(Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press.
1996).
* Viola, Coloman and Frederick van Fleteren, eds. Saint Anselm – A
Thinker for Yesterday and Today (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen
Press. 1990).