New Readings of Anselm of Canterbury's Intellectual Methods (Anselm Studies and Texts, 6) 2021058074, 9789004503960, 9789004506480, 900450396X

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New Readings of Anselm of Canterbury’s Intellectual Methods

Anselm Studies and Texts Managing Editor Giles E.M. Gasper (University of Durham)

Editorial Board Marcia Colish (Yale University) Jay Diehl (Long Island University) Bernd Goebel (University of Fulda) Ian Logan (University of Oxford) Lauren Mancia (Brooklyn College, cuny) Eileen C. Sweeney (Boston College)

volume 6

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/as

St. Anselm of Canterbury, from The Babst Library at Boston College, designed by Earl Edward Sanborn in 1952, reproduced with permission.

New Readings of Anselm of Canterbury’s Intellectual Methods Edited by

John T. Slotemaker Eileen C. Sweeney

leiden | boston

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at https://catalog.loc.gov lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021058074

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill‑typeface. issn 2468-4333 isbn 978-90-04-50396-0 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-50648-0 (e-book) Copyright 2022 by John T. Slotemaker and Eileen C. Sweeney. Published by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress. Koninklijke Brill nv reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Acknowledgements xi Conventions and Abbreviations Notes on Contributors xiii Introduction

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part 1 Anselm Reading Augustine Theological Starting Points: On the Opening Chapters of Augustine’s Confessions, Anselm’s Proslogion, and Robert Sokolowski’s The God of Faith and Reason 9 Kevin White Augustine’s De Libero Arbitrio and Anselm’s Argument in Proslogion 1–4 Michael Vendsel

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A Faithful Reading?: The Divine Trinity and the Trinitarian Image in Anselm’s Monologion and Augustine’s De Trinitate 47 Kyle Hubbard

part 2 Re-reading Anselm’s Proof and Its Method The Harmony of Faith and Reason in Anselm’s Theological Epistemology Gavin Ortlund For a New Interpretation of Saint Anselm’s Proslogion Luca Vettorello Per rationalem mentem: Anselm’s “Turn to the Subject” Ian Logan

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Proslogion ii and iii: Anselm, Hartshorne, and the Dialectic of Classical and Neo-classical Theism 118 Kevin Staley False, Doubtful, and Uncertain Things: Fictions of Lancelot and Anselm’s Proof of the Existence of God 130 Karen Sullivan

part 3 Anselm Reading Humanity Divine Justice, Mercy, and Intercession in Anselm’s Prayers Gregory Sadler Anselm and the Place of Happiness in Ethics Tomas Ekenberg Anselm on Evil and Eudaimonism Eileen C. Sweeney

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Omnis volens ipsum suum velle vult: On a Theory of Incontinentia in Anselm’s Thought 192 Riccardo Fedriga and Roberto Limonta

part 4 New Readings / New Perspectives The Rediscovery of Anselmian Thought in the Nineteenth Century: A Portrayal of Johann Adam Möhler’s Reading of Anselm 213 Emery de Gaál Remoto Christo: Anselm’s Experiment in Cur Deus homo and an Augustinian Aside 235 James Wetzel Pondus Dei: Anselm’s Minimalism M. Burcht Pranger

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But Is It Abuse? Feminist Readings of Sadomasochism in Cur Deus homo 257 Maggie Ann Labinski Bibliography Index 299

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Acknowledgements We are grateful to the Institute for Liberal Arts, Boston College, for its generous support of the conference, and for the support and shared sponsorship from Fairfield University, the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Durham University, and the Philosophy and Theology Departments at Boston College. We also benefitted from the administrative help of Paula Perry and Judith Canty at Boston College. We are grateful to the co-organizers of the conference: Giles E.M. Gaspar, Margaret Healy-Varley, and Ian Logan, as well as the International Association for Anselm Studies for its publicity and support of the conference. We also wish to thank Abbey Murphy, Zachary Taylor, and Austin Williams, graduate research assistants at Boston College, who helped in the preparation of the volume.

Conventions and Abbreviations The standard critical edition of Anselm’s works remains Dom. F.S. Schmitt, ed., S. Anselmi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi opera omnia, ad fidem codicum recensuit, 6 vols. (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1946–1961). This edition was reprinted with new editorial content as: S. Anselmi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi opera omnia, ad fidem codicum recensuit, 2 vols. (Stuttgart-Bad-Constatt: F. Frommann, 1968–1984). Various translations have been used as indicated in a given author’s paper. The present volume provides a full citation for primary and secondary sources the first time a work is referenced within a given essay. The only exception is Anselm’s works which have been abbreviated throughout (see below). Works included in the Schmitt’s edition of Anselm’s Opera omnia are cited by the book, chapter, section number, and, as individual authors see fit, (in parentheses) the volume, pagination, and line numbers for Schmitt’s edition; e.g., Anselm, Pros. 1 (i.98.16–19). Citations from the Lambeth Fragments are cited from F.S. Schmitt’s edition in Ein neues unvollendetes Werk des hl. Anselm von Canterbury, in Beiträge Zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, 33.3 (Münster, 1936), 22–43. Other miscellaneous writings are collected in the volume, Memorials of St. Anselm, edited by R.W. Southern and F.S. Schmitt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969) and are cited from the pagination in this volume. cdh Cur Deus homo De casu. De casu diaboli De conc. vir. De conceptu virginali et de originali peccato De gramm. De grammatico De lib. arb. De libertate arbitrii De ver. De veritate Ep. Epistola Ep. de incar. Epistola de incarnatione Verbi Lam. Frag. Lambeth Fragments Med. Meditatio Mem. Memorials of St. Anselm Mono. Monologion Or. Oratio Pro insip. Quid ad haec respondeat quidam pro insipiente Pros. Proslogion Resp. Quid ad haec respondeat editor ipsius libelli

Notes on Contributors Fr. Emery de Gaál is Chairman and Professor of dogmatic theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein. He published The Art of Equanimity: a Study on the Theological Hermeneutics of St. Anselm of Canterbury (2000) and most recently O Lord, I Seek Your Countenance: Explorations and Discoveries in Pope Benedict xvi’s Theology (2018). Tomas Ekenberg is a Docent of theoretical philosophy from Uppsala University and a lecturer at the Newman Institute, Uppsala. He specializes in late ancient and early medieval ethics, moral psychology, philosophical anthropology, and social thought. He has published several studies on Anselm of Canterbury’s and Augustine’s philosophy and co-edited the anthology Subjectivity and Selfhood in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy (2016). Riccardo Fedriga is Associate Professor in the History of Reading and in the History of Medieval Philosophy at Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna. He has published, with Roberto Limonta, Il Trattato sulla predestinazione e prescienza divina riguardo ai futuri contingenti di Guglielmo di Ockham (2020); “Mental Acts, Externalism and Fiat Objects: an Ockhamist Solution,” in Natural and Artifactual Objects in Contemporary Metaphysics (2019); and “Penuria nominum and Language rectitudo. Linguistic Economy in Saint Anselm of Canterbury,” in Studia Anselmiana (2019). Kyle Hubbard is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH. His research focuses mainly on love and friendship. His published articles include “Idolatrous Friendship in Augustine’s Confessions” in Philosophy and Theology, “Augustine and Jean-Luc Marion” in Philosophy and Theology, “Augustine on Human Love for God: Eros, Agape, or Philia?,” in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, and “The Unity of Eros and Agape: On Jean-Luc Marion’s Erotic Phenomenon,” in Essays in Philosophy. Maggie Ann Labinski is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Fairfield University. She is the current director of Peace and Justice Studies and is also active with the Women,

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Gender and Sexuality Studies program. Her research focuses primarily on the intersection of feminist and medieval philosophy, with a special emphasis on sex/sexuality. She has published several chapters and articles, including pieces in Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy, Porn Studies, and the Journal of Philosophy of Education. Roberto Limonta is Honorary Fellow (Cultore della materia) at the University of Bologna and member of the siepm and iaas. He has published “Metter le brache al mondo. Compatibilismo, conoscenza e libertà” (2016, coauthor Riccardo Fedriga) and he has recently edited the first Italian translation of William of Ockham’s Tractatus de praedestinatione et de praescientia Dei (“Il trattato sulla predestinazione e prescienza divina rispetto ai futuri contingenti di Guglielmo di Ockham,” 2019, coauthor Riccardo Fedriga). His most recent article on akrasia is “Vivo ego iam non ego. Un caso singolare d’ incontinentia in Tommaso d’Aquino e le sue fonti” (2019). Ian Logan is a Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall and the Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University. He is author of Reading Anselm’s Proslogion: The History of Anselm’s Argument and its Significance Today (2009, 2016), and is currently Secretary of the International Association for Anselm Studies. Gavin Ortlund serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai in Ojai, California. He is the author of Anselm’s Pursuit of Joy (2020), Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals (2019), and Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation (2020). Burt Pranger was lecturer in early-Christian and medieval Latin at the University of Amsterdam. His publications focus mainly on medieval monasticism, in particular Anselm of Canterbury and Bernard of Clairvaux [Bernard of Clairvaux and the Shape of Monastic Thought (1994)]. In his book, The Artificiality of Christianity (2003), he establishes links between modern poetics and medieval texts. This line of research has been further explored in his Eternity’s Ennui: Temporality, Perseverance and Voice in Augustine and Western Literature (2010), which deals with the broad theme of Augustinian temporality, both in the work of Augustine himself and in modern, literary texts.

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Gregory Sadler is Adjunct Professor of humanities at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. He is the author of Reason Fulfilled by Revelation: The 1930s Christian Philosophy Debates in France (2011) as well as around two-dozen academic articles and book chapters. He is editor of Stoicism Today, president of ReasonIO, the producer of the Half Hour Hegel series, and an appa-certified philosophical counselor. John T. Slotemaker is Associate Professor of Medieval Christianity in the Religious Studies Department at Fairfield University. His previous books include: Trinitarian Theology in Medieval and Reformation Thought (2020); Anselm of Canterbury and the Search for God (2018); and with Jeffrey C. Witt: Politics and Society: The Patristic Legacy in the Middle Ages (2021); Augustine in Late Medieval Philosophy and Theology (2017); Robert Holcot (2016), and A Companion to the Theology of John Mair (2015). Kevin Staley is Professor of Philosophy at Saint Anselm College who specializes in systematic metaphysics, the history of metaphysics, medieval philosophy, Islamic philosophy, and environmental ethics. He has published on Aquinas, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, al-Kindi and Mohammad Iqbal, among others. He is especially interested in the relationship between and the potential synthesis of classical and neo-classical theism as championed by Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. He has taught at Saint Anselm College since 1986. Karen Sullivan is Irma Brandeis Professor of Romance Culture and Literature at Bard College. She is the author of The Interrogation of Joan of Arc (1999); Truth and the Heretic: Crises of Knowledge in Medieval French Literature (2005); The Inner Lives of Medieval Inquisitors (2011); and The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions (2018); as well as numerous essays on Old French and Occitan literature and history. She is the recipient of the Modern Language Association’s Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Literature and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is currently writing a book about Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eileen C. Sweeney is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. She is the author of Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word (2012) and Words in the Absence of Things:

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Logic, Theology and Poetry in Boethius Abelard and Alan of Lille (2006) and numerous articles on Thomas Aquinas and other figures of the twelfth and thirteenth century. She is working on projects on the history of science from the twelfth to the thirteenth century, and a history of theories of the passions from the Medieval to the Modern era. Michael Vendsel is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Tarrant County College and Adjunct Professor of philosophy at the University of Dallas. His research interests include medieval philosophy, early modern philosophy, and philosophy of religion. His published work includes articles in the Saint Anselm Journal, the Southwest Philosophy Review, and elsewhere. Luca Vettorello is Assistant Professor in Medieval Philosophy, Ontology, and Theology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. His publications include essays entitled: “Saint Anselm and a New Perspective on the Doctrine of the Incarnation” (2019); and “La rilevanza dell’Onnipotenza divina nel dibattito filosofico contemporaneo” (2010); and several monographs, including: Metafisica e antimetafisica (2018); La critica ontoteologica kantiana. Kant e le contraddizioni non analitiche (2017); and L’unum argumentum di Sant’Anselmo (2015). James Wetzel is Professor of Philosophy and Augustinian Endowed Chair at Villanova University. His books include Augustine and the Limits of Virtue (1992), Augustine: A Guide for the Perplexed (2010), and Parting Knowledge: Essays After Augustine (2013). He is the editor of Augustine’s City of God: A Critical Guide (2012). Kevin White is Associate Professor in the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America, and a member of the Leonine Commission. He has studied the manuscript tradition of Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s Meteora, and has published an edition of three previously unpublished chapters of this commentary. He has also published a translation of Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s De sensu et sensato, and a study of Aquinas’s quodlibetal questions.

Introduction The papers in this volume were originally presented at the conference Reading Anselm: Context and Criticism at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, MA July 27– 30, 2015. The conference took as its theme the wide variety of responses to Anselm’s life, and work, across many different periods, and in many different fields, grounding the reception of Anselm’s work with consideration of the context in which he lived, wrote, and acted. This volume, one of two from the conference, focusses on the interpretation of Anselm’s speculative and spiritual writings. The papers in the volume all keep their promise of offering new ‘readings’ of Anselm, brought into a new light by juxtaposition to questions and thinkers from the Middle Ages to today. The first group of papers, “Anselm reading Augustine,” takes a new look at Anselm’s relationship to Augustine through three important influences on Anselm: the problematic of God’s presence and absence which opens the Confessions; the argument for God’s existence in De libero arbitrio, and the account of the Trinity from De Trinitate. Kevin’s White’s “Theological Starting Points: On the Opening Chapters of Augustine’s Confessions, Anselm’s Proslogion, and Robert Sokolowski’s The God of Faith and Reason” finds in Sokolowski’s point of departure—the Christian sense of the divine presence and absence as expressed through spatial metaphors—a link between the first chapter of Anselm’s Proslogion and the beginning of Augustine’s Confessions, where Augustine raises so profoundly the paradoxes of God’s absence and presence. White’s paper examines this way of making a beginning shared by these three authors so widely separated in time and circumstance, revealing how Anselm’s most famous inquiry is framed by this problem and paradox. Michael Vendsel’s essay treats the relationship between Augustine’s De libero arbitrio and Anselm’s argument in Proslogion 1–4. Vendsel observes that in philosophical literature on Anselm’s Proslogion it is typical to claim that the theistic proof of chapters 1–4 is the first of its kind. His paper, however, argues that something structurally tantamount to Anselm’s argument is already present in Augustine’s De libero arbitrio. To support that claim he argues that each step echoes a point that Augustine argues in De libero, book 1; that Augustine brings all those steps together in the theistic proof of book 2; and that Augustine’s arrangement of his proof is structurally comparable to the Proslogion argument. In his essay, “A Faithful Reading? The Divine Trinity and the Trinitarian Image in Anselm’s Monologion and Augustine’s De Trinitate,” Kyle Hubbard takes up Anselm’s well-known claim that his discussion of the Trinity in the

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Monologion says nothing that differs from Augustine’s De Trinitate. Hubbard argues that Anselm believes his assertions about the Trinity are consistent with Augustine’s but that the method by which he arrives at those assertions is different from Augustine’s method due to their different approach to faith and reason. Augustine begins De Trinitate with scriptural exegesis, while Anselm proceeds from reason alone. Hubbard argues that though Anselm draws heavily on Augustine, Anselm has a more robust view of what human reason may say and think about the Trinity, even as Augustine ends up claiming more for the Trinitarian image he has developed. Section ii, “Re-reading Anselm’s Proof and its Method,” consists of five essays reconsidering Anselm’s most famous argument, showing how Anselm’s Proslogion proof continues to generate new questions and to benefit from new interpretations and approaches. These essays throw new light on the most vexed questions about Anselm’s argument—its method, its (supposed) inference from existence in thought to reality, existence and/or necessary existence as perfections, and whether the structure of Anselm’s argument can also prove the existence of perfect islands and the like—in dialogue with Anselm’s most famous interlocutors: Gaunilo, Aquinas, Kant, and Hartshorne. Gavin Ortlund takes up Anselm’s claims to proceed by “reason alone (sola ratione)” even as he describes his path as “faith seeking understanding ( fides quaerens intellectum).” Ortlund finds a way between the fideism and rationalism that have both been attributed to Anselm on the basis of these comments. For Ortlund, Anselm’s sola ratione was not intended to exclude faith, but just the citation of authority: it was not a statement of epistemology, but of method. Luca Vettorello’s new interpretation of the Proslogion argument dives straight into the argument itself by reconsidering the objections of Gaunilo, Aquinas, and Kant to Anselm’s demonstration. While these thinkers objected that the argument makes an unfair comparison between two very different kinds of existence—mental vs. real existence—Vettorello carefully reads Anselm and his reply to Gaunilo to show that Anselm rejects Gaunilo’s attribution to him of arguing from existence in thought to existence in reality. Vettorello argues that what Anselm compares in the argument are two different concepts of God, not existence in reality vs. in thought. In “Per rationalem mentem: Anselm’s Turn to the Subject,” Ian Logan examines the imagery of sight/light and the epistemological function of the imago Dei in the Proslogion and Monologion. Logan contends that the argument of the Proslogion represents the application of, and provides the justification for, the philosophical “turn to the subject,” which Anselm articulates in Monologion 66. Thus, Logan contends, the argument of the Proslogion grounds the Trinitarian argument of the Monologion.

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Kevin Staley’s “Proslogion ii and iii: Anselm, Hartshorne, and the Dialectic of Classical and Neo-Classical Theism” thoughtfully re-examines the deeper issues underlying Charles Hartshorne’s famous interpretation of Anselm’s argument in the clash between classical and neo-classical theism. Staley argues that Hartshorne’s distinction between actuality and existence is the specific and most fundamental point of divergence between his and Anselm’s accounts of God, concluding that any dialectic aimed at some conciliation between Anselm’s and Hartshorne’s accounts of God must address whether existence as such, and not simply necessary existence, is a perfection; and whether negative, mystical theology represents a failure for philosophical theology or is its innermost aim. Karen Sullivan’s essay, “False, Doubtful, and Uncertain Things: Fictions of Lancelot and Anselm’s Proof of God,” flips our perspective on Anselm’s argument by examining the way in which the thirteenth-century Prose Lancelot makes use of its distinction between what exists in the mind and what exists in reality. The text presents an objection mirroring Gaunilo’s objection, that just because one can conceive of a knight than whom no knight can be greater does not mean that that knight exists in the world, it would seem. Yet the author of the Prose Lancelot demonstrates, time and again, that the perfect knight who exists in our minds also exists in reality and that his name is Lancelot. Sullivan concludes that by defending the truth value of mental conceptions, Anselm constructs a defense of the truth value of what we now perceive as literary fictions. In doing so, Anselm prepares the way for the Arthurian romances of the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries. In section iii, the focus turns from divinity to humanity. Though not as well-known for his philosophical/theological anthropology, the problem of the human being and how he/she can reach God is a wrenching existential question. This group of papers examines this issue as well as a set of complex theoretical ones touching on our finite being as human about the will, free choice and the passions, the nature of evil, justice and happiness, laid out in Anselm’s meditations and letters, and the trilogy of dialogues De veritate, De libertate arbitrio and De casu diabolo. Anselm’s affective spirituality and account of the will have had almost as significant an influence as his ontological argument and the topics explored in this set of essays—the possibility (and necessity) for grace, the relationship between justice and happiness, the problem of evil, choice amid a conflicted will—bring out Anselm’s contributions to these issues, put in dialogue with Aristotelian and Kantian ethics, but also Augustine, St. Paul, Gregory the Great and Neoplatonism. Gregory Sadler’s essay, “Divine Justice, Mercy, and Intercession in Anselm’s Prayers,” begins the section by introducing Anselm’s earliest writings, his

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prayers, laying out what is for Anselm the central problem of human life expressed in its most anguished and urgent form: how can an unjust human being be repatriated to the wholly just God? Divine justice and human injustice seem to rightly cut off a human being from any assistance, grace, or reformation, since human beings have put themselves in a condition of injustice from which they cannot extricate themselves. Mercy, then, seems the only solution, but appears not only unjust, but also to trump divine justice. So how are justice and mercy rendered compatible, even complementary with each other? In Anselm’s prayers, Sadler shows, human beings are brought into integral roles for each other as intercessors in a divine economy of justice offering mercy within the scope of that very justice. Anselm’s rhetorically and dramatically structured prayers perform a pedagogical as well as petitionary function in assisting the human being to locate, understand, and exert themselves within that divine economy of justice and mercy. The next three papers, Tomas Ekenberg’s “Anselm and the Place of Happiness in Ethics,” Eileen Sweeney’s “Anselm on Evil and Eudaimonism,” and Riccardo Fedriga and Roberto Limonta’s “Omnis volens ipsum suum velle vult: On a Theory of incontinentia in Anselm’s Thought,” all consider Anselm’s distinction between the affectio commodi and affectio iustitiae to consider what it means for Anselm’s ethics and moral psychology. Ekenberg situates his paper in the debate over Anselm’s fundamental ethical stance as eudaimonist or deontological. He argues that Anselm is a kind of eudaimonist but he rejects the ancient view that happiness either requires or consists in an appropriate configuration of activities over the course of a complete life. Anselm, however, retains ancient eudaimonism’s insistence on the connection between the Right and the Good. Eileen Sweeney puts together Anselm’s distinction between the two wills or affectiones with Anselm’s claim that “evil both ought and ought not to be,” arguing that for Anselm neither can be reduced to a single perspective. Sweeney explains these distinctions as linked to a moral psychology distinct from Aristotle’s and a view of evil which adds nuance to Augustine and Boethius’ notion of evil as non-being. Both claims are linked to what she calls the “metaphysics of creatures”—fragmented and separated from the divine, itself a perfect unity of goodness, happiness and justice. Fedriga and Limonta look at the specific problem of incontinentia/weakness of will, finding an original Anselmian theory of incontinentia, different from Ancient Greek accounts (those proposed by Socrates, Plato, and especially by Aristotle in his examination of akrasia in Nicomachean Ethics vii) as well as from the theories of incontinentia put forth by St. Paul and Augustine in late antiquity, and later by patristic writers such as Gregory the Great and Lanfranc of Canterbury. They argue that Anselm’s notion of rectitudo sets his view apart from these others, giving him what might be

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called a “modal theory of will” expressed at both a linguistic and a semantic level through the use of adverbial terms. The last section of the volume consists of a collection of new readings and perspectives, pushing the edges of standard lines of inquiry in Anselm scholarship in a way that bears fruitful results, showing Anselm’s continued participation in the ongoing conversation on the major questions he explored. Emery de Gaál takes up the rediscovery of Anselm in the nineteenth century by the pathbreaking Tübingen theologian Johann Adam Möhler (1796–1838), allowing us to see a new Anselm who could speak to the yearning of the Romantic Age and German Idealism. For Möhler Anselm is a champion for both ecclesiastical freedom vis-à-vis an overbearing state and human freedom: by “erect[ing] this Trinity in himself.” James Wetzel gives us yet another new way to read Anselm, inspired by the work of Burcht Pranger and Jean-Luc Marion. Wetzel exposes the troubling limits of the standard reading of remoto Christo and compares the two economies of exchange at work in Anselm’s Christological experiment: one between God and Christ (the economy of justice); the other between Christ and sinners (the economy of forgiveness). The perfectionism whose script is sola ratio necessitates unity, and the two economies of Cur Deus homo are indeed one, including the difference between them. But this is a difference, Wetzel shows, that speaks less to the limits of reason than to its seemingly boundless possibilities for drama. Pranger himself in “Pondus Dei: Anselm’s Minimalism” weighs in with an essay that draws insightful connections between Anselm and modern art, music and literature. Pranger presents Anselm himself as reading in a new way by experimenting with and modelling “private reading,” a new kind of meditative reading. Pranger’s examination of Anselm’s methods in the prayers and letters as well as in the unum argumentum of the Proslogion, and sola ratione and Christo remoto in Cur Deus homo makes striking connections between Anselm and Seurat’s pointillism, Anselm and the music of Webern and Schoenberg, and Anselm and the writing of Samuel Beckett. Maggie Labinski re-reads the problematic of Cur Deus homo’s theory of atonement with a feminist lens. She connects Anselm’s account of atonment with the debate in feminist theory over sadomasochism, traditionally rejected as a form of sexual abuse but seen by other theorists as able to serve to empower individuals and effect positive sexual change in our communities. Insofar as Anselm’s theory of atonement encourages human beings to take pleasure in pain, he would appear to promote sadomasochism. Attending especially to the value Anselm gives to both agency and desire, Labinski explores the benefits and the risks of the version of sadomasochism suggested by Anselm’s theory of atonement.

part 1 Anselm Reading Augustine

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Theological Starting Points: On the Opening Chapters of Augustine’s Confessions, Anselm’s Proslogion, and Robert Sokolowski’s The God of Faith and Reason Kevin White

Robert Sokolowski’s The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology opens with a chapter, titled ‘Beginning with St. Anselm,’ that discusses Anselm’s well-known argument for the existence of God in the second chapter of the Proslogion.1 Sokolowski points out that Anselm begins something new with his argument by raising in it the issue of unbelief, and thereby making thematic the distinction of belief from unbelief.2 Before discussing the argument, however, he comments on the Proslogion’s first chapter, a prologue to the argument in which Anselm does not so much begin something new, as give new expression to something he had received from Christian tradition, namely, the understanding of God distinctive of Christian faith.3 Sokolowski describes this understanding in terms reminiscent of the title and theme of his Presence and Absence: A Philosophical Investigation of Language and Being.4 “God himself, as God,” he says, does not appear in the world or in human experience. He is not the kind of being that can be present as a thing in the world. And yet, despite this necessary absence, he is believed to be that which gives the definitive sense to 1 Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology (Notre Dame-London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982); reprint, with a new preface (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), “Chapter 1: Beginning with St. Anselm,” 1–11. 2 Ibid., 4–6. 3 Ibid., 2–4. 4 Robert Sokolowski, Presence and Absence: A Philosophical Investigation of Language and Being (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978; reprint, Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2017). At the end of this work, Sokolowski says that “Presence/absence, or presentability, belongs to being as being” (170). Armand Maurer quotes this remark in “Reflections on Thomas Aquinas’ Notion of Presence,” Philosophy and the God of Abraham: Essays in Memory of James A. Weisheipl, op, ed. R. James Long (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1991), 126, n. 61. As Maurer notes, “Thomas does not include presence among the general modes of being in De veritate 1.1.”

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everything that does appear in the world …. He is not a part of the world, and yet the world has its being and definitive sense from him.5 Sokolowski draws attention to the way in which the first chapter of the Proslogion expresses this “sense of God as necessarily hidden and yet somehow pervasive in the world” by means of spatial metaphors.6 If The God of Faith and Reason explicitly takes its point of departure—the Christian sense of the divine presence and absence as expressed in spatial metaphors—from the first chapter of the Proslogion, the latter in turn seems to take this same point of departure, without acknowledgement, from the introduction of Augustine’s Confessions (1.1.1–1.5.6), another prologue in which theologically transferred spatial terms, expressive of the Christian understanding of God, set the scene for everything that follows. What follows here is an examination of this way of making a beginning in theology shared by these three authors so widely separated from one another by time and circumstance, Augustine, Anselm, and Sokolowski. With reference to Sokolowski’s comments on Anselm’s prologue in Proslogion 1, I first make some comparisons between this prologue and the prologue of the Confessions, concentrating on the opening and closing parts of the two prologues, and paying particular attention to the selection, composition, and placement of words in each (sections 1–5). I then briefly discuss the view that the prologue of the Confessio theologica of John of Fécamp (d. 1079) is a sort of bridge between Augustine’s prologue and Anselm’s (section 6). I close with some reflections on Sokolowski’s remarks on spatial metaphors and the language of theology (section 7).

1 The prologues of the Confessions and Proslogion are of comparable length, the former consisting of 891 words, the latter of 787. They open with statements of nearly identical length, sixty-eight words in the case of the Confessions, sixtyseven in the case of the Proslogion:7

5 Sokolowski, Presence and Absence, 1. 6 Ibid., 2. 7 Quotations of, and line references to, Confessions 1.1.1–1.5.6, are from Confessionum Libri xiii, ed. L. Verheijen, in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Volume 27 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981), 1–3. Quotations of, and page and line references to, Proslogion 1, are from S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia (5 volumes), ed. F.S. Schmitt (Edinburg: Thomas Nelson,

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Confessions

Proslogion

Magnus es, domine, et laudabilis valde: magna virtus tua et sapientiae tuae non est numerus (cf. Ps. 47:2, 144:3, 146:5). Et laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae, et homo circumferens mortalitatem suam, circumferens testimonium peccati sui et testimonium, quia superbis resistis: et tamen laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae. Tu excitas ut laudare te delectet, quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te.8 (1: 1–7)

Eia nunc, homuncio, (1) fuge paululum occupationes tuas, (2) absconde te modicum a tumultuosis cogitationibus tuis. (3) Abice nunc onerosas curas, (4) et postpone laboriosas distentiones tuas. (5) Vaca aliquantulum deo, (6) et requiesce aliquantulum in eo. (7) “Intra in cubiculum” mentis tuae, (8) exclude omnia praeter Deum et quae te iuvent ad quaerendum eum, (9) et “clauso ostio” (Mtt.6:6) quaere eum. (10) Dic nunc, totum “cor meum,” dic nunc deo: “Quaero vultum tuum, vultum tuum, domine, requiro.” (Ps. 26:8)9 (97: 4–10)

Augustine begins by addressing God with phrases that echo verses of the Psalms: “You are great, Lord, and greatly to be praised. Great is your power, and of your wisdom there is no numerus—no ‘number’ or ‘numbering,’ i.e., no ‘measure’” (cf. Ps. 47:2, 144:3, 146:5). As Thomas Prufer says, the Psalms are “the origin of the rhetoric of the Confessions,” but the influence of the classical art of rhetoric on the rhetoric of the Confessions is as pronounced as that of the Psalms.10 Augustine moves easily between these two sources of his rhetoric. Thus, on the basis of the Psalmist’s phrase “greatly to be praised,” he begins to elaborate on the theme of praise, in the manner of a public speaker delivering a speech in the genre classical rhetoricians called epideictic rhetoric, the object of which is to praise. “Man,” he says—apparently meaning both man in general and himself in particular—“man, a portion of your creation, wishes to

8 9 10

1946), Volume 1, 97–100. Unless otherwise indicated, English translations are mine. Verheijen spells v as u in words such as ueritas and inuenire, where Schmitt uses v (veritas, invenire); in such cases, I have adjusted Verheijen’s spelling to make it conform to Schmitt’s. I have also highlighted verbal coincidences between the two prologues by means of bold type. Augustine, Conf. 1.1.1 (1: 1–7). Anselm, Pros. 1 (i 97: 4–10). Thomas Prufer, Recapitulations: Essays in Philosophy (Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy 26) (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1993), “Chapter 5: A Reading of Augustine’s Confessions, Book x,” 27–31, at 29.

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praise you, even man, who carries about him his mortality, and evidence of his sin, and evidence that you resist the proud.” Augustine’s explanation of why man wishes to praise God is probably his most often quoted remark: “You have made us towards you, ad te, and our heart is restless until it should rest in you, in te.” But what could it mean to be made toward God, or to rest in him? The spatial prepositions ad and in evidently take on transformed and theologically charged meanings here. Anselm’s opening statement contrasts with Augustine’s in several ways. Instead of starting with a forthright assertion like Magnus es (“You are great”), he starts with an interjection, a cry of emotion, Eia nunc (“Ah, now”). Instead of addressing God, he addresses homuncio, “little man,” which, as in the case of Augustine’s homo, apparently means both man in general and the author in particular.11 Instead of adopting the tone of a public speaker, he soliloquizes. He puts ten imperatives to himself, telling himself, in short, to seek solitude and look for God there. Like Augustine, he speaks of “resting in” God, using the verb requiescere with the preposition in, but with a difference. Augustine uses a subjunctive form of the verb, to refer to a remote, longed for repose: “Our heart is restless until it should rest (requiescat) in you.” Anselm uses an imperative form, to refer to a repose apparently available at once: “(5) Devote yourself to God for a little while,” he says, “(6) and rest (requiesce) in him for a little while.” With his final imperative, say (dic), twice repeated, he tells his “whole heart” to recite a verse from the Psalms: “(10) Say now to God, ‘I seek your countenance (vultum), Lord, your countenance I seek’ (Ps. 26:8).” The Psalms are at the origin of the rhetoric of the Proslogion as well as that of the Confessions, but Anselm is also influenced by the rhetoric of Augustine’s writings, and his echoing of the Psalms echoes Augustine’s echoing of them.

2 Immediately after their opening statements, just before the seventieth word of their respective prologues, Augustine and Anselm begin to make their first petitions to God, and in both cases these are requests to be taught:

11

On the use of homuncio and homunculus in Anselm’s prayers, see René Roques, “Structure et caractères de la prière Anselmienne,” in Sola ratione: Anselm-Studien für Pater Dr. h. c. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt osb zum 75. Geburtstag am 20. Dez. 1969, ed. Helmut K. Kohlenberger (Stuttgart: Fromann-Holzboog, 1970), 138 ff.

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Confessions

Proslogion

Da mihi, domine, scire et intellegere utrum sit prius invocare te an laudare te et scire te prius sit an invocare te. Sed quis te invocat nesciens te? Aliud enim pro alio potest invocare nesciens. An potius invocaris ut sciaris? Quomodo autem invocabunt, in quem non crediderunt? Aut quomodo credunt sine praedicante? Et laudabunt dominum qui requirunt eum (Ps. 21:27). Quaerentes enim inveniunt eum et invenientes laudabunt eum. Quaeram te, domine, invocans te et invocem te credens in te: praedicatus enim es nobis. Invocat te, domine, fides mea, quam dedisti mihi, quam inspirasti mihi per humanitatem filii tui, per ministerium praedicatoris tui.12 (1: 7–17)

Eia nunc ergo tu, domine deus meus, doce cor meum ubi et quomodo quaerat, ubi et quomodo te inveniat. Domine, si hic non es, ubi te quaeram absentem? Si autem ubique es, cur non video praesentem? Sed certe habitas “lucem inaccessibilem” (iTim. 6:16). Et ubi est lux inaccessibilis?13 (98: 1–4)

Augustine asks, “Grant me, Lord, to know and understand whether invoking you is prior to praising you, and whether knowing you is prior to invoking you.” After wondering further about the right order of praise, invocation, and knowledge, he quotes another verse of the Psalms: “They will praise the Lord that seek him” (Ps. 21:27). He explains this verse as follows: “They that seek him will find him, and finding him, they will praise him.” Then he says, “Let me seek you by invoking you, and let me invoke you by believing in you …. My faith, which you have given to me … invokes you ….” His faith, given to him by God, performs the oratorical act of invoking God. Anselm’s first petition also refers to seeking and finding. He begins by repeating the interjection Eia nunc. “Ah, now, Lord, my God,” he says, “teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you.” Like Sokolowski, Anselm speaks of presence and absence, saying: “Lord, if you are not here (hic), where (ubi) will I seek you, who are absent (absentem)? But if you are everywhere (ubique), why do I not see you, who are present (praesentem)?” Commenting on the adverbs hic, ubi, and ubique, and the adjectives absentem and praesentem, Sokolowski says that the meanings of these words “are to be determined by the argument in the rest of the work; the adverbs are not simply

12 13

Augustine, Conf. 1.1.1 (1: 7–17). Anselm, Pros. 1 (i 98: 1–4).

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spatial terms but have a transformed theological sense, and the presence and absence are not the kind we are accustomed to when we look for a lost object, try to remember a name, or anticipate visiting a city we have never seen.”14 Still, Anselm cannot help thinking and speaking with reference to the spaces we are accustomed to, and his question is, in effect, Where are you? He finds a sort of answer in St. Paul’s remark that, until he will appear again, Christ dwells in unapproachable light (iTim. 6:16): “To be sure,” he says, “you dwell in unapproachable light.” But this only raises the further question, “And where is the unapproachable light?” The double occurrence of Eia nunc at the beginning of Anselm’s prologue turns out to be an instance of a recurring feature of the prologue, which later uses two other interjections, three times each. “O misera sors hominis …. O durus et dirus casus ille …. Et o l‘tu, Domine, usquequo?’ ”15 “Heu, quid perdidit et quid invenit …. Heu publicus luctus hominum …. et heu, vacui remanemus.”16 These and other emotional repetitions of words, as well as many insistent parallelisms of phrase and sentence, tend to make his prologue less like a public address than Augustine’s, and more like lyric verse, more like a song, a hymn. Augustine’s speech-like prologue suggests a public event, Anselm’s song-like prologue something more private. As R.W. Southern says: “Anselm’s words tend to be neater, more personal, more modest, than Augustine’s. In Augustine there is a greater recognition of the grand scene of history, more sense of the outside world.”17

3 In their respective petitions to be taught, Augustine and Anselm each use the word quomodo, “how,” twice. Augustine asks, “How will they invoke Him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe without a preacher?” Anselm asks, “Teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you.” Now, in a remarkable further coincidence, they both use the word quomodo a third time, in both cases by way of introducing a rhetorical question, one that uses the verb in the first person singular, and makes a word play on the verb.

14 15 16 17

Sokolowski, The God of Faith, 2. Anselm, Pros. 1 (i 98: 16–17; 99: 15). Anselm, Pros. 1 (i 98: 17, 22, 25). Richard W. Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 81.

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Confessions

Proslogion

Et quomodo invocabo deum meum, deum et dominum meum, quoniam utique in me ipsum eum vocabo, cum invocabo eum?18 (1: 1–3)

Aut quomodo accedam ad lucem inaccessibilem?19 (98: 4–5)

Augustine’s question and wordplay focus on the rhetorical term of art he has been using, which is also the name of what he wishes to do, even as he is already doing it, the verb invocare. He plays on the ambiguity of the word’s prefix, in-, which can mean either upon or into, allowing the verb to mean either to call upon or to call into. His exploitation of the ambiguity cannot easily be conveyed by English translation. “How will I invoke my God,” he asks, quoniam utique in me ipsum vocabo, cum invocabo eum? The English translator is driven to adopt either a strategy like that of William Watts: “when I invoke him, I call him into myself” (which at least repeats the syllable in-); or one like that of John K. Ryan: “when I call upon him, I call him into myself?” (which at least repeats the word call).20 But neither strategy shows the intricacy of Augustine’s nimble pun. Anselm’s question and wordplay are simpler. Focusing on the Pauline term “unapproachable light,” he stresses the privative sense of the prefix in- in the adjective inaccessibilem, in a question the gist of which is easily conveyed in English: “How am I to approach the unapproachable light?” At this point, Anselm begins, as Sokolowski says, to expand the use of spatial expressions and join them to “terms which express the need to go “somewhere else” to find the God that he desires.”21 Augustine’s question presents rather the prospect of God coming from “somewhere else” into him.

4 One of the spatial terms used by Anselm and noted by Sokolowski is locus, which of course means place. The word also occurs in Augustine’s prologue,

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21

Augustine, Conf. 1.2.2 (1: 1–3). Anselm, Pros. 1 (i 98: 4–5). St. Augustine’s Confessions, with an English translation by William Watts, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951), vol. 1, 5; The Confessions of Saint Augustine, tr. John K. Ryan (New York: Random House, 1960), 2. Sokolowski, The God of Faith, 2.

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and in both prologues, it occurs exactly once—and at almost exactly the same place! In Augustine’s prologue, it is the hundred and ninetieth word. In Anselm’s prologue, it is the hundred and ninety-fifth.

Confessions

Proslogion

Et quis locus est in me, quo veniat in me deus meus? Quo deus veniat in me, deus, qui fecit caelum et terram?22 (1: 3–4)

Aut quis me ducet et inducet in illam, ut videam te in illa? Deinde quibus signis, qua facie te quaeram? Numquam te vidi, domine deus meus, non novi faciem tuam. Quid faciet, altissime Domine, quid faciet iste tuus longinquus exsul? Quid faciet servus tuus anxius amore tui et longe proiectus “a facie tua?” (Psalm 31:22) (1) Anhelat videre te, et nimis abest illi facies tua. (2) Accedere ad te desiderat, et inaccessibilis est habitatio tua. (3) Invenire te cupit, et nescit locum tuum. (4) Quaerere te affectat, et ignorant vultum tuum. (5) Domine, deus meus es, et dominus meus es, et numquam te vidi. (6) Tu me fecisti et refecisti, et omnia mea bona tu mihi contulisti, et nondum novi te. (7) Denique ad te videndum factus sum et nondum feci propter quod factus sum.23 (98: 5–15)

Immediately after his rhetorical question—“How can I call upon God, since, when I call upon him, I call him into myself?”—Augustine asks: “What locus, what place, is there in me into which my God might come, God, who made heaven and earth?” Immediately after his rhetorical question—“How am I to approach the unapproachable light?”—Anselm asks, “Who will lead me to it, and into it, so that I may see you in it? By what signs, by what face (qua facie), should I seek you?” Anselm is evidently remembering the verse of the Psalms he quoted earlier, “I seek your countenance (vultum tuum), Lord (Ps. 26:8).” Then he interrupts his questioning to say, “I have never seen you; I do not know your face ( faciem tuam).” Sokolowski comments that Anselm’s “medley of places and spatial motions is accented by terms expressing vision and “face,” the object of vision …. Be-

22 23

Augustine, Conf. 1.2.2 (1: 3–4). Anselm, Pros. 1 (i 98: 5–15).

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cause sight is a sense that covers spatial distances, the image of vision reinforces the spatial terms of location and motion in this paragraph.”24 This comment alerts us to an interesting general difference between the two prologues. Anselm’s prologue contains many terms referring to vision and the visible, terms such as light, sight, face, and illumination, as well as darkness, blindness, and obfuscation. Augustine’s prologue, in keeping with its display of and allusions to the rhetorical art, is rather marked by words such as praise and invocation, words that refer to the sound and hearing of speech. Augustine’s prologue contains hardly any words referring to vision or the visible. His imagination is moving in the element of sound and silence, Anselm’s in the element of light and darkness. The one passage of Augustine’s prologue that does refer to sight reminds us of Anselm. The passage begins with an interjection—Ei mihi!—that recalls the two occurrences of Eia at the beginning of Anselm’s prologue. Augustine asks God to speak to him, and says he will run after the divine voice and “lay hold of” God: Ei mihi! Dic mihi per miserationes tuas, domine deus meus, quid sis mihi. Dic animae meae: Salus tua ego sum. Sic dic, ut audiam. Ecce aures cordis mei ante te, domine; aperi eas et dic animae meae: Salus tua ego sum. Curram post vocem hanc et apprehendam te. But then he shifts attention from the divine voice to the divine face: Noli abscondere a me faciem tuam: moriar, ne moriar, ut eam videam.25 This cry to be allowed to see the face of God is of course reminiscent of Anselm’s more sustained prayer for the same vision. After saying, “I have never seen you; I do not know your face,” Anselm asks, “What is your far-off exile, your servant, to do?” There follow seven increasingly paradoxical statements describing his unsatisfactory situation. Your servant “(1) longs to see you,” he says, “and your face is too far off. (2) He desires to approach you, and your dwelling is unapproachable. (3) He wants to find you, and he does not know your locum, your place.” Augustine does not know what place there is in him that God could enter into. Anselm does not know the place of God, God’s usual or natural place, as it were. Anselm further complains that he (4)

24 25

Sokolowski, The God of Faith, 2–3. Augustine, Conf. 1.5.5 (3: 6–11).

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does not know God’s face (vultum tuum) and has never (5) seen or (6) known God, and then he concludes, “(7) Finally, I was made to see you, and I have not yet done that for which I was made.” This statement harmonizes with Augustine’s remark that God has made us towards him, and our heart is restless until it should rest in him:

Confessions

Proslogion

Tu excitas ut laudare te delectet, quia fecisti nos (7) Denique ad te videndum factus sum et ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requi- nondum feci propter quod factus sum.27 (98: escat in te.26 (1: 6–7) 14–15)

If Anselm is thinking along the same lines as Augustine here, he is also making a bit of wordplay of his own in saying, “nondum feci propter quod factus sum,” that is, “I have not yet brought about that for which I myself was brought about.” But both Augustine and Anselm are saying to the creator that they, his creatures, are unfinished. Augustine’s question—“What place is there in me into which my God might come, God, who made heaven and earth?”—serves as a springboard for an extended meditation that constitutes the central part of his prologue. The meditation moves from the question of a place within him into which God might come to immensely far-ranging questions of how God can be in the world or the world in God, and then to the tremendous question of the divine nature. “What, then, are you, my God?” he asks, and he answers with a long catalogue of vocative epithets, including several oxymoronic pairs, notably secretissime et praesentissime, “You who are most hidden and most present.”28 It would be hard to find a more concise invocation of God as he is taken to be by Augustine and Anselm, and indeed, as Sokolowski points out, by Christian thought as such. Anselm’s final statement concerning his situation—“I was made to see you, and I have not yet done that for which I was made”—likewise serves as a springboard for an extended meditation that constitutes the central part of his prologue. In contrast to the focus of Augustine’s meditation on the divine nature, Anselm’s meditation focuses on man’s fallen state. Sokolowski notes

26 27 28

Augustine, Conf. 1.1.1 (1: 6–7). Anselm, Pros. 1 (i 98: 14–15). Augustine, Conf. 1.4.4 (2: 1, 4).

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that Anselm’s meditation adds temporal distance to the spatial distance he spoke of earlier: … terms signifying time are introduced as Anselm describes an earlier condition in which man enjoyed the presence of God, only to lose it and leave us all without it …. Anselm contrasts “then” and “now” and ille and nos, and while adding these temporal elements, he continues the earlier theme of spatial distances and motions to express the separation we suffer from the divine presence ….29 The two meditations, Augustine’s on the eternally exalted divine nature and Anselm’s on the now changed and sad human condition, complement one another very well.

5 The conclusions of the two meditations, and of the two prologues, each divide into two parts. In each of his two parts, Anselm seems to reverse the procedure of Augustine in the corresponding parts of the conclusion to his prologue. (1) In the first part, each returns to the springboard with which the meditation began: to Augustine’s question about the place in him into which God might come, and to Anselm’s remark that he has not yet done that for which he was made. Augustine makes a petition and then a confession, Anselm a confession and then a petition.

Confessions

Proslogion

(i) Angusta est domus animae meae quo venias ad eam: dilatetur abs te. Ruinosa est: refice eam. (ii) Habet quae offendant oculos tuos: fateor et scio. Sed quis mundabit eam? Aut cui alteri praeter te clamabo: ab occultis meis munda me, domine, et ab alienis parce servo tuo?30 (Ps. 19:12) (3: 12–16)

(ii) Fateor, domine, et gratias ago, quia creasti in me hanc imaginem tuam, ut tui memor te cogitem, te amem. (i) Sed sic est abolita attritione vitiorum, sic offuscata fumo peccatorum, ut non possit facere, ad quod facta est, nisi tu renoves et reformes eam.31 (100: 12–15)

29 30 31

Sokolowski, The God of Faith, 3. Augustine, Conf. 1.5.6 (3: 12–16). Anselm, Pros. 1 (i 100: 12–15).

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It is as if both Augustine and Anselm were dilapidated artifacts, and God an artisan skilled at making renovations. In Augustine’s case, the artifact is what he calls “the house of my soul,” thereby giving a local habitation and a name to the “place” in him into which he wonders whether God might come. “(i) The house of my soul,” he says, “is too narrow for you to come into it; let it be enlarged by you. It is ruined; rebuild it. (ii) It has what offends your eyes; I confess ( fateor) and I know this, but who will clean it? Or to whom else but you will I cry, ‘Cleanse me from what is hidden in me, Lord, and spare your servant from what is foreign?’” Anselm, on the other hand, begins with confession, then asks for renovation and reformation. “(ii) I confess ( fateor), Lord, and I give thanks, that you have created in me this your image, by which I can remember you, think of you, and love you. (i) But the image is so destroyed by the attrition of vices, so darkened by the smoke of sins, that it cannot do what it was made to do, unless you renovate and reform it.” The figure of “the image of God” derives from Genesis 1:26, but Anselm elaborates it in an Augustinian way, making the threesome of the human powers of memory, thought, and love the image of the Trinity in man, as Augustine does in, for instance, De Trinitate 14.8. (2) After their respective prayers for renewal and confessions of lowliness, both conclusions end with remarks on belief, truth, and understanding:

Confessions

Proslogion

(i) Credo, propter quod et loquor. Domine, tu scis. Nonne tibi prolocutus sum aduersum me delicta mea, deus meus, et tu dimisisti impietatem cordis mei? (ii) Non iudicio contendo tecum, qui veritas es; et ego nolo fallere me ipsum, ne mentiatur iniquitas mea sibi. Non ergo iudicio contendo tecum, quia, si iniquitates observaueris, domine, domine, quis sustinebit?32 (3: 16–21)

(ii) Non tento, domine, penetrare altitudinem tuam, quia nullatenus comparo illi intellectum meum; sed desidero aliquatenus intelligere veritatem tuam, quam credit et amat cor meum. (i) Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam. Nam et hoc credo: quia “nisi credidero, non intelligam.”33 (100: 15–19)

Augustine makes a declaration of belief, then a protestation that he is not being presumptuous. “(i) I believe, which is why I speak …. (ii) I do not contend in

32 33

Augustine, Conf. 1.5.6 (3: 16–21). Anselm, Pros. 1 (i 100: 15–19).

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judgment with you, you who are truth …” Once again reversing Augustine’s order, Anselm first protests that he is not being presumptuous, then makes a declaration of belief: “(ii) I do not attempt, Lord, to penetrate your depth … but I desire to understand your truth to some extent …. (i) For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe, but I believe so that I may understand ….” In both prologues, the crucial word truth occurs here for the first and only time, near the prologue’s end: veritas is the twenty-sixth last word of Confessions 1.5.6, veritatem the twenty-fifth last word of Proslogion 1.34

6 I have drawn attention to a few resemblances between Augustine’s prologue and Anselm’s with respect to number and placement of words. Are these resemblances merely coincidences, or might they be the result of deliberate choices Anselm made to imitate Augustine’s prologue when composing his own? Anselm scholars sometimes acknowledge resemblances between the prologues of the Confessions and the Proslogion in a general way, but usually without getting into the details of the two prologues.35 In “Proslogion 1: Form

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One might object that this appearance of near-identity of the positioning of the word veritas is slightly misleading, as follows. The conventional division of the books of the Confessions into chapters and paragraphs leads the modern reader into thinking that the prologue ends at the end of 1.5.6, after which the narrative part begins immediately, in 1.6.7. But it might be claimed that the divide between prologue and narrative actually occurs a bit later, at 1.6.7, line 4 (ed. Verheijen, 4), where Augustine says Quid enim est quod volo dicere, thus setting in motion the narrationes referred to in 11.1.1, line 3 (ed. Verheijen), some thirty-six words after the end of 1.5.6. But even if this is granted, a notable similarity of placement of the word veritas, so close to the end in both prologues, remains. For comparisons between the Proslogion and Augustine’s writings in general, see: Klaus Kienzler, “Zur philosophisch-theologischen Denkform bei Augustinus und bei Anselm von Canterbury,” in Anselm Studies: An Occasional Journal 2 (1988) (Proceedings of the Fifth International Saint Anselm Conference: St. Anselm and St. Augustine—Episcopi ad saecula, ed. J.C. Schnaubelt, Thomas A. Losoncy, Frederick Van Fleteren, and Jill A. Frederick), 353–388; id., “Das Proslogion-Argument Anselms und die Confessiones des Augustinus,” in The European Dimension of St. Anselm’s Thinking: Proceedings of the Conference Organized by the Anselm-Society and the Institute of Philosophy of Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Prague, April 27–30, 1992, ed. Josef Zumr and Vilém Herold (Prag, 1993), 137–161; and Frederick Van Fleteren, “Augustine’s Influence on Anselm’s Proslogion,” in Anselm, Aosta, Bec and Canterbury: Papers in Commemoration of Anselm’s Enthronement as Archbishop, 25 September 1093, ed. D.E. Luscombe and G.R. Evans (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic

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und Gestalt,” Klaus Kienzler does get into the details.36 Against the background of the content and structure of the prologue of the Confessions, Kienzler helpfully divides Anselm’s prologue into four parts: invocation, theme of creation, theme of eschatology, and aporiae concerning faith and knowledge. With reference to this division, he makes many valuable comparisons of Proslogion 1 with the prologue of the Confessions, as well as with other passages of the Confessions. He notes, for example, that, as also noted above, Anselm’s prologue, like Augustine’s, uses the words quaerere, invenire, intelligere, and locum.37 Kienzler mentions that scholars have identified the Confessio theologica of John of Fécamp as a sort of bridge between Augustine’s prologue and Anselm’s.38 Fécamp must be counted among theological authors whose point of departure is the theme of the divine presence and absence. Evoking Augustine’s and Anselm’s way of addressing God, he opens with three petitions that begin Adesto mihi (“Be present to me”). Then, evidently in imitation of the prologue of the Confessions, he says: Te quidem invoco in animam meam, “I call you into my soul.” After that, he transcribes, without providing references, passages from several other works: a long passage from Augustine’s prologue that includes most of Confessions 1.2.2–1.4.4; a passage from Gregory the Great that continues the theme of the divine presence and absence; a favorite scriptural verse of Augustine’s, Wisdom 8:1; and the verse that would become the crucial text of the Proslogion’s prologue, 1Timothy 6:16.39 Fécamp presum-

36

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Press, 1996), 55–69. For a still more wide-ranging comparison between the styles of the two authors, see “The Influence of St. Augustine,” in Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape, 71–87. Klaus Kienzler, “Proslogion 1: Form und Gestalt,” in Anselm, Aosta, Bec and Canterbury: Papers in Commemoration of Anselm’s Enthronement as Archbishop, 25 September 1093, eds. D.E. Luscombe and G.R. Evans (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 38–55. Ibid., 46, 47–48, 49–50, 51, 54. See Keinzler, “Proslogion 1: Form und Gestalt,” 38, n. 1, which refers to Sofia Vanni Rovighi, S. Anselmo e la filosofia del secolo xi (Milano: Fratelli Bocca, 1949), 19ff. See also Paul Gilbert, S.J., Le Proslogion de s. Anselme: Silence de Dieu et joie de l’homme (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1990), 34 ff. For the text of Fécamp’s Confessio theologica, see Dom Jean Leclerq and Jean-Paul Bonnes (ed.), Un maître de la vie spirituelle au xi siècle: Jean de Fécamp (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1946), 109–183. Confessio theologica (ed. Leclerg and Bonnes), 110, lines 1–112, line 90. Fécamp’s long quotation from Augustine’s prologue (110, lines 14–112, line 65) includes Confessions 1.2.2 (except for the opening word, Et, for which John substitutes Sed), all of 1.3.3, and most of 1.4.4 (up to donas debita nihil perdens [ed. Verheijen, line 15]). The quotation begins with Augustine’s punning question quomodo invocabo deum meum, deum et dominum meum, quoniam utique in me ipsum eum vocabo, cum invocabo eum?

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ably expected his readers to recognize the source of these verses. Did he also expect them to recognize the sources of his extracts from Augustine and Gregory? In any case, his prologue has every appearance of being in some sense a “bridge” between the prologue of the Confessions and that of the Proslogion, and it would have provided Anselm with much of Augustine’s prologue, whether or not he would have recognized Augustine as the author behind Fécamp’s extract. From Fécamp’s extract, Anselm could have learned of Augustine’s punning question (Et quomodo invocabo deum meum, deum et dominum meum, quoniam utique in me ipsum eum vocabo, cum invocabo eum?), which could have suggested his own playful question (Aut quomodo accedam ad lucem inaccessibilem?). But he could not have used Fécamp’s extract as a basis for imitating Augustine’s prologue in any of the following ways: by making his opening statement almost exactly as long as Augustine’s opening statement; by, immediately after his opening statement, making his first petition to God, a request to be taught; by using the word quomodo just three times, and making the third use of it introduce his playful question; by using the words locus and veritas each just once, in positions very similar to those they have in Augustine’s prologue; or by concluding with a reversal of Augustine’s order of petition and confession, and then a reversal of Augustine’s order of credo and protestation of humility. Perhaps, of course, Anselm did not imitate Augustine in any of these ways, and the resemblances between his prologue and Augustine’s in these cases are, after all, merely striking coincidences. Still, perhaps we should not underestimate the deliberateness and calculation with which Anselm, and pre-modern authors in general—and not only the poets among them—composed their written work. My suggestion that Anselm may have imitated Augustine in such detail, down to the very choice and position of words in his text, will perhaps have left some readers feeling skeptical and impatient. In addition, my focus on Augustine’s Confessions and John of Fécamp’s Confessio theologica will perhaps have left some readers under the impression that I am maintaining these are the only possible sources of Anselm’s prologue. In closing this section, then, allow me to reiterate emphatically my admission that the similarities I have identified may be nothing more than a series of coincidences. I submit, however, that the accumulation of what may be nothing more than a series of coincidences can acquire the character of accumulating evidence, and that even the appearance of accumulating evidence is worth considering. I would also note that my comparisons can be related to two interesting points of classical rhetorical doctrine, namely, the imitation of authors and the placement of words; and that the learned world of the eleventh century was aware of clas-

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sical rhetorical doctrine through familiarity with Cicero’s De inventione and the Pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium, and Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana.40

7 The comparisons I have presented between Augustine’s and Anselm’s prologues at least make clear that what Sokolowski has to say about the spatial metaphors at the beginning of the Proslogion can be applied, mutatis mutandis, to the spatial metaphors at the beginning of the Confessions. I close by returning to the opening pages of The God of Faith and Reason. At the end of his review of the spatial terms in Anselm’s first chapter, Sokolowski says: “These expressions of separation and motion and place clearly involve metaphor. The original spatial sense of these words has been theologically transformed. However, spatial terms are metaphorically transformed to express many other things that are not theological ….”41 With this comment he again recalls Presence and Absence, in particular a section of that work in which he describes a series of metaphorical transformations of prepositions.42 Prepositions, he says there, begin by referring to spatial relationships, but then are metaphorically extended to temporal and causal relationships. Next they are put to reflective uses, when a speaker has “looked upon the objects and facts he is concerned with as objects and facts that he has articulated,” and says that an attribute is in a subject.43 Beyond that, prepositions take on philosophical senses, as when Plato says that the forms are outside things, or when phenomenology says that appearances are synthesized in an object. Finally, prepositions can take on meta-philosophical senses, when it is asked, for example, how philosophy can be in the world. In The God of Faith and Reason, Sokolowski asks, “What other kind of transformation is necessary to make the spatial terms serve theologically? How do we go ‘from’ and ‘toward’, how do we ‘approach’ the presence of God?”44 40

41 42 43 44

The following items may be of interest: Gillian R. Evans, “St. Anselm’s Technical Terms of Rhetoric,” Latomus 36 (1977), 171–179; and Jan Ziolkowski, “The Highest Form of Compliment: Imitatio in Medieval Latin Culture,” in Poetry and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: A Festschrift for Peter Dronke, ed. John Marenbon (Mittellateinische Studien und Texte 29, 2000), 293–307. Sokolowski, The God of Faith, 3 (italics mine). Sokolowski, Presence and Absence, 122–128. Ibid., 124. Sokolowski, The God of Faith, 3.

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This further kind of metaphorical transformation is not just one more addition in the sequence of metaphorical developments described in Presence and Absence. Theological metaphor takes a new direction; it stands apart from all of the metaphorical transformations described in Presence and Absence; and it stands apart from the original sense of spatial terms more radically than any of them do. Let us illustrate by uses of the word in:45

Original spatial sense (The dog is in the house.)

Theological metaphor (cf. The God of Faith and Reason, 3–4)46

↓

… inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te …. Et quis locus est in me, quo veniat in me deus meus?48 (1: 7, 1: 3)

“Natural” metaphors (cf. Presence and Absence, 122–128):47 → 1] Pre-reflective Temporal (It happened in 1922.) Causal (In going too fast, he caused an accident.) 2] Reflective (An attribute is in a subject)

… hoc praeloquatur nobis vox libri tui, quod et nos post opera nostra ideo bona valde, quia tu nobis ea donasti, sabbato vitae aeternae requiescamus in te. Etiam tunc enim sic requiesces in nobis, quemadmodum nunc operaris in nobis ….49 (272: 1–6)

3] Philosophical (A series of appearances is synthesized in an object.) 4] Metaphilosophical (How does philosophy occur in the world?)

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46 47 48 49

The examples of reflective, philosophical, and metaphilosophical metaphors are from Presence and Absence; the examples of theological metaphors are from the beginning and end of the Confessions. On Augustine’s uses of the preposition in, see Clement Louis Hrdlicka, A Study of the Late Latin Vocabulary and of the Prepositions and Demonstrative Pronouns in the Confessions of St. Augustine (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1931) [dissertation], 193–221. Of particular interest is the section on “The phrase in Christo Iesu and allied expressions” (208–212). Sokolowski, The God of Faith, 3–4. Sokolowski, Presence and Absence, 122–128. Augustine, Conf. 1.1.1–1.2.2 (1: 7, 1: 3). Augustine, Conf. 13.36.51–37.52 (272: 1–6).

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Sokolowski indicates that the role of metaphor in theology is not merely “ratifying,” but, more importantly, “disclosive:” ⟨B⟩y insisting that the terms are to be taken metaphorically, we turn our minds and the minds of our listeners to the new dimension we wish to speak about. The metaphors help disclose the new dimension; they do not merely ratify it. The disclosive function of metaphors helps engender and sustain our appreciation of God in the course of Christian life and faith.50 In explicitly drawing attention to the metaphorical character of its language at the very outset, Sokolowski’s theology, which he calls “theology of disclosure,”51 agrees with the scholastic theology of Aquinas, who, at the beginning of two of his greatest works, similarly argues that the language of sacred doctrine must be metaphoric. At the beginning of his Sentences commentary, he says that poetic knowledge concerns what reason cannot grasp, because it falls short of fullness of truth; theology concerns what is above reason. Both poetry and theology use metaphor, because both are concerned with what, in different ways, is not proportioned to human reason.52 At the beginning of the Summa theologiae, he says that a poet uses metaphors for the sake of representation, which is naturally delightful to man, whereas sacred doctrine uses metaphors not for the sake of delight, but for the sake of necessity and utility, the necessity and utility of leading the mind of man from what is perceptible to what is intelligible.53

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Sokolowski, The God of Faith, 3–4. Sokolowski, The God of Faith, 88–103. Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super primum librum Sententiarum, Prologi questiones, a.5, ad 4, ed. Adriano Oliva, in his Les débuts de l’ enseignement de Thomas d’Aquin et sa conception de la sacra doctrina, avec l’ édition du prologue de son commentaire des Sentences (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2006), 331–332: 62–66: Ad tertiam dicendum quod poetica sciencia est de his que propter defectum ueritatis non possunt a ratione capi, unde oportet quod quasi quibusdam similitudinibus ratio seducatur. Theologia autem est de his que sunt supra rationem. Et ideo modus symbolicus utrique communis est, cum neutra rationi proportionetur. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae 1, q. 1, a.9 (Ottawa: Collège Dominicain, 1941–1945 [5 volumes]) i, 9a: Dicendum quod conveniens est Sacrae Scriptura divina et spiritualia sub similitudine corporalium tradere. Deus enim omnibus providet secundum quod competit eorum naturae. Est autem naturale homini ut per sensibilia ad intelligibilia veniat, quia omnis nostra cognitio a sensu initium habet. Unde convenienter in Sacra Scriptura traduntur nobis spiritualia sub metaphoris corporalium. Et hoc est quod dicit Dionysius, I cap. De Cael. Hier.: “Impossibile est nobis aliter lucere divinum radium, nisi varietate sacro-

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These observations on theological language by Aquinas and Sokolowski suggest that one of the first qualifications for practicing theology is possession of a good understanding of the nature of metaphor. As the prologues of the Confessions and the Proslogion indicate that theology suitably begins with spatial metaphors in particular, it would also seem that a theologian should be equipped with a lively sense, both of the spaces, distances, and containments of our ordinary experience, and of the way in which theology goes beyond them, even while remembering them, in its metaphors. rum velaminum circumvelatum.” …. Ad primum ergo. Dicendum quod poeta utitur metaphoris propter repraesentationem; repraesentatio enim naturaliter homini delectabilis est. Sed sacra doctrina utitur metaphoris propter necessitatem et utilitatem, ut dictum est. Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric 1.11.1371b7–8, and Poetics 4.1148b8–9.

Augustine’s De libero arbitrio and Anselm’s Argument in Proslogion 1–4 Michael Vendsel

In the secondary literature on Anselm’s Proslogion it is often said that the argument in chapters 1 to 4 is the first of its kind. In what follows, however, I claim that the elements of that argument are already present in Augustine’s De libero and that its structure is anticipated by the theistic proof in book 2.1 To show this, part 1 offers an overview of Proslogion 1–4, part 2 demonstrates that each step of Anselm’s argument in those chapters has a precedent somewhere in De libero as a whole, and part 3 compares the structure of the two proofs.2 I end by suggesting ways that this connection with De libero might influence our interpretation of Proslogion.

1 The secondary literature comparing Proslogion 1–4 and De libero is extensive, and within it there are various suggestions about how to understand their relationship. To cite a few examples: in The Christian Philosophy of St Augustine Etienné Gilson suggests that Augustine prepares the way for Anselm but that Anselm is the true originator of the Proslogion argument (see The Christian Philosophy of St. Augustine (New York, NY: Random House, 1960), 21). In a 1978 article Lawrence Roberts suggests that Augustine’s proof has the essential characteristics of an ontological argument but that it is more like the arguments Anselm makes in the reply to Gaunilo than the one(s) he makes in Proslogion 1–4 (see “Augustine’s Version of the Ontological Argument and Platonism,” Augustinian Studies, 9 (1978), 93–101). In a 1981 article Lloyd Gerson maintains that Augustine’s argument depends on Neoplatonic principles he eventually rejected as inconsistent with trinitarianism and that this marks a significant disjunction between De libero and Proslogion (see “Saint Augustine’s Neoplatonic Argument,” The Thomist, 43 (1981), 571–584). And in a 2004 article Barry David suggests that the argument of the Proslogion owes an enormous debt to Augustine, but primarily to De Trinitate and especially to Augustine’s analysis of the Trinitarian image within the mind (see “Anselm’s Argument: The Augustinian Inheritance—Continuity and Development,” Augustinian Studies 35:1 (2004), 95–118). As diverse as these suggestions are, however, they agree in the final analysis that there is a significant gap between the shape of the argument in De libero and the one in Proslogion. My claim is that this gap is narrower than has been previously suggested. Specifically, I claim that the premises of Anselm’s argument are found in various places throughout De libero and that the structure of his argument echoes that of the proof in De libero 2, so that Anselm’s innovation was to place Augustinian premises in an Augustinian argument in a way that Augustine himself never did. 2 Citations from Anselm’s writings will be referred to S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, vols 1–6, ed. F.S. Schmitt (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1946–1961), by volume, page, and line numbers. All translations are taken from Anselm: Basic Writings, edited and translated by Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2007).

© Michael Vendsel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004506480_004

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1 Proslogion 1 begins with Anselm exhorting himself to seek God and praying “teach my heart where and how to seek You, where and how to find You.”3 As his prayer continues, however, he realizes that he cannot seek God because God dwells in inaccessible light while he is blinded by sin. That leads him to pray that God would renew and reform him, and he continues that prayer for the remainder of the chapter. He closes with the statement “I do not seek to understand in order to believe, I believe in order to understand. For I also believe that unless I believe, I shall not understand.”4 Proslogion 2 turns to this task of seeking to understand what is believed, and it opens with the statement “we believe that You are something than which nothing greater can be thought.”5 Yet having said that, Anselm remembers that the Fool says in his heart that there is no God and he wonders whether the Fool may be right. He observes, however, that if the Fool has understood the words that than which nothing greater can be thought, then that than which nothing greater can be thought exists in the Fool’s mind. Yet it is impossible for such a being to exist merely in the mind, because in that case it would be possible to think of something even greater—namely, an identical being that exists both in the mind and reality. At that point that than which nothing greater can be thought would be that than which something greater can be thought, and that would be a clear contradiction. Therefore, it must be the case that that than which nothing greater can be thought exists in reality as well as the mind. In chapter 3 Anselm goes on to note that this being does not merely exist but exists in such a way that its non-existence is unthinkable. Among things that exist there are those that can be thought not to exist and those that cannot, and it is greater to be something of the latter sort. It follows, therefore, that if God is that than which nothing greater can thought, then God must something of that latter sort. But if God cannot be thought not to exist, how is the Fool is able to think that very thing? Anselm’s explanation in chapter 4 is that there is more than one way to think something, that “in one way, to think a thing is to think the word that signifies that thing, but in another way it is to understand what the thing is.”6 He claims that since “there is no God” is ultimately incoherent, the Fool may think those words in the former sense but not in the latter. Thus, while the 3 4 5 6

Proslogion 1 (i.98.1–2). Proslogion 1 (i.100.18–19). Proslogion 2 (i.101.4–5). Proslogion 4 (i.103.18–19).

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Fool can say the words “there is no God” he cannot truly understand them—as Anselm puts it at the end of the chapter “no one … understanding what God is can think that God does not exist ….”7 All told, therefore, the movement from chapter 1 to the end of chapter 4 can be read as having six steps: i) an opening prayer; ii) a statement that God is believed to be that than which nothing greater can be thought; iii) a claim that, as soon as that statement is articulated to the Fool, that than which nothing greater can be thought is in the Fool’s mind; iv) a claim that, on pain of contradiction, that than which nothing greater can be thought must also exist in reality; v) a claim that, for the same reason, that than which nothing greater can be thought must be incapable of being thought not to exist; and vi) an ascription of the Fool’s ability to deny the existence of God to the Fool’s failure to understand what he is saying. With that crystallization in place, then, I will proceed to show that each of these six steps has a precedent somewhere in De libero as a whole. I do not mean to suggest that each of Anselm’s formulations is taken directly from the text, but I do mean to suggest that each of them can be read as an expansion or development of at least one of its themes.

2 The first of the six steps in Proslogion 1–4 was the opening prayer, and there is a clear anticipation of the language of that prayer as De libero gets underway. In 1.2 Evodius begins the investigation by asking, “please explain to me … the source of our evildoing,”8 and Augustine replies: you have hit upon the very question that worried me greatly when I was still young, a question that wore me out, drove me into the company of heretics, and knocked me flat on my face.9 To save Evodius the same trouble Augustine offers to guide him down the path that finally eliminated those difficulties. Before they start, however, he expresses the need for divine help and the importance of coming from a place of faith, and in doing so he uses language that explicitly recurs in the prayers of Proslogion 1: 7 Proslogion 4 (i.104.4). 8 De libero arbitrio, 1.2. All translations are taken from On Free Choice of the Will, translated by Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993). 9 Ibid.

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God will be with us, and he will make us understand what we have believed. For we are well aware that we are at the stage described by the prophet, who says ‘unless you believe, you will not understand’.10 In the case of Anselm’s first step, then, there is a very clear echo of the early parts of De Libero. The second step was the claim that God is believed to be that than which nothing greater can be thought. Here the connection is more tentative—unlike the language of the opening prayer, this phrase does not occur in De libero. A few lines after the passage just quoted, however, Augustine says “the truest beginning of piety demands that we think of God as highly as possible,”11 and as De libero progresses it hints that Anselm’s formula is an implication of this principle.12 This implication begins to become clear in the paragraph that immediately follows where Augustine explores the theological ramifications of the effort to think of God in the way he has just prescribed.13 One of those ramifications is

10 11 12

13

Ibid. Ibid. Much of the secondary literature emphasizes the distinction between these two concepts and suggests a corresponding distinction between the two arguments. For example, Lawrence Roberts argues that “Augustine says that God is superior to all other existing things, whereas Anselm says that God is that than which no greater can be thought …. To put this distinction briefly, we may say that Augustine’s conception puts God at the top of existing things whereas Anselm’s conception ranks God at the top of possible things …. [And] the different concepts of God used by Augustine and Anselm lead them to very different types of arguments.” (“Augustine’s Version of the Ontological Argument and Platonism,” 100) However, the claim that Augustine’s formula anticipates Anselm’s has some precedent. For example, Theodore Kondoleon argues “if all Augustine understood here by ‘God’ was ‘the highest being in reality’ then given a gradation in being, a gradation which Augustine himself recognizes at the outset of the argument, a highest being (or grade of being) would necessarily exist thus making any proof of God’s existence seemingly superfluous. It would appear, then, that Augustine intended ‘God’ to mean not merely ‘that to which nothing in reality is superior’, the definition he actually accepts, but also ‘that being which (if it exists) is supreme and to which no other being could be superior.’ (“Augustine’s Argument For God’s Existence: De Libero Arbitrio Book ii” Augustinian Studies 14 (1983), 108). My claim, however, is even stronger than Kondoleon’s—as will become clear in the paragraphs that follow, I am not simply suggesting that Augustine has something like Anselm’s formula in mind behind the scenes. I am suggesting that the formula he offers, when combined with the other things he says in De libero, actually implies the formula we find in Anselm. There is a sense in which the entire Proslogion is prefigured in the paragraph just cited. Augustine has said that piety requires that we think of God as highly as possible and he goes on to offer a list of things that such piety would require us to think. That list includes

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that “one must believe that … he is the creator of all good things, but is himself more excellent than all of them ….”14 This is a significant step toward Anselm’s formula—it tells us that God is that than which nothing greater has been made. But even so, it is still not the same as saying that God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. For that to follow from what has been said thus far, the act of conceiving would have to be limited to what has been made. In that case God being more excellent than created things would imply that he is also more excellent than anything we might conceive of. In 1.2 Augustine does not give us any argument for limiting human conceiving to what has been made, but he does provide such an argument in 3.5. It comes as he attempts to refute the claim that the world would be better if souls had not been given the possibility of sinning: I must … warn you not to say that they [souls] ought to have been created differently. Whatever might rightly occur to you as being better, you may be sure that God, as the Creator of all good things, has made that too …. It is possible for something to exist in the universe that you do not conceive with your reason, but it is not possible for something that you conceive by right reason not to exist. For you cannot conceive anything better in creation that has slipped the mind of the Creator. Indeed, the human soul is naturally connected with the divine reasons on which it depends …. If, therefore, it knows by right reason that God ought to have made something, let it believe that God has in fact done so, even if it does not see the thing among those that God has made.15 The point here is that if the human mind can think of something that genuinely ought to have been made, then that thought occurred to the divine mind as well, because the human mind is only able to grasp that which is already contained in the divine reasons. But if God understood that something ought to

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“that he is omnipotent, not changeable in the smallest respect; that he is the creator of all good things, but is himself more excellent than all of them; that he is the supremely just ruler of everything that he created; and that he was not aided in creating by any other being, as if he were not sufficiently powerful by himself.” (De libero, 1.2) He even uses this logic to make claims about the Trinity—he says that “He created all things from nothing [and that] He did not create from Himself, but generated one who is equal to Himself, whom we call the only Son of God.” (De libero, 1.2) This is deeply resonant with the Proslogion’s derivation of the divine attributes and even the Trinity itself from the fact that God is that than which nothing greater can be thought. De libero, 1.2. De libero, 3.5.

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have been made, he made it—to say otherwise is not to think of God as highly as possible. Thus, if we have rightly conceived of a good thing that ought to have been made, that thing must already exist in some part of the created order. For Augustine, therefore, it is impossible for the human mind to rightly conceive of a good thing that does not already exist. There may be good things within creation that we cannot rightly conceive of, but there is no good thing that we can rightly conceive of that is not already within creation. If that is the case, then when Augustine says God is the creator of all good things, but more excellent than all of them he is also saying that God is more excellent that the greatest thing of which we can conceive. As we have seen, the realm of created things circumscribes the good things we can conceive of, so when God’s excellence transcends created things it also transcends our powers of conception. But to say that is no different than saying that he is that than which nothing greater can be conceived. When it comes to the second step, therefore, it is true that Augustine does not give us the Anselmian formula itself, but the prescription he makes early in book 1 and the analysis he provides in book 3 appear to strongly imply it.16 That brings us to the third step, which was the claim that as soon as that than which nothing greater can be conceived is mentioned to the Fool it is in the Fool’s mind. Once again, language like this never occurs in De libero— Augustine never claims that anyone who hears God described and understands the description automatically has God in mind. But on reflection this discrepancy does not seem so sharp. The overall point Anselm is making is that whoever his auditor may be, that person has the idea of a maximally great being in his or her mind. And understood that way, Anselm’s claim has a strong precedent in De libero. In 2.12, for example, Augustine reflects on the nature of truth and emphasizes the fact that truth is present to all rational minds: so you cannot deny the existence of an unchangeable truth that contains everything that is unchangeably true. And you cannot claim that this truth is yours or mine or anyone else’s; it is present and reveals itself in common to all who discern what is unchangeably true, like a light that 16

I can imagine someone objecting that if the cognitive powers of the human mind are bounded by the created order in this way, it would create problems for Augustine and Anselm because there would be no way to think or speak of God. But to speak of God as the creator of all good things yet more excellent than them or as that than which nothing greater can be conceived is not a way of trying to conceive of God directly. It is a way of referring to him indirectly by means of created things. In Monologion Anselm will compare this to looking at something in a mirror or referring to something without using its name as one does in a riddle.

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is public and yet strangely hidden. But if it is present in common to all who reason and understand, who could think that it belongs exclusively to the nature of any one of them?17 He goes on to claim that this unchangeable and universally present truth is God: “this is our freedom, when we are subject to the truth, and the truth is God himself ….”18 It is God as truth, then, that is present everywhere and reveals itself to everyone like a light that is public. And in 2.15 Evodius adds that this God who is truth is also the highest good: I cry out inwardly, hoping to be heard by the truth itself and to cleave to it. For I recognize that it is not merely one good among others; it is the highest good, the good that makes us happy.19 So not only is God present as the truth to all rational minds, but he is also present as the highest good to all rational minds (a point that Augustine makes just as clearly in Confessions 10). At that point, Augustine appears to saying something nearly identical to Anselm: Anselm believes that anyone who encounters his argument will have the idea of a maximally perfect being, and Augustine thinks that God as the highest good is intimately present to every rational mind. When it comes to the third step, therefore, I would argue that the discrepancy between Augustine and Anselm is superficial at best. The fourth and fifth steps were the claim that, on pain of contradiction, that than which nothing greater can be thought must exist in reality as well as the mind and the claim that, for the same reason, that than which nothing greater can be thought must be incapable of being thought not to exist. Again, neither of these claims appear in De libero explicitly. Augustine does say, however, that “all things that exist deserve praise simply in virtue of the fact that they exist, for they are good simply in virtue of the fact that they exist.”20 He accepts, therefore, that there is a goodness bound up with existence. Paired with his claim that we must think of God as highly as possible, this would logically require us to think of God as existing. Thus, the fourth step seems to be implied by De libero. And as for the fifth step, one of the major themes of De libero is that eternal, unchanging, and incorruptible things are superior to those that are temporal, mutable, and corruptible. If that is the case, then in order to think 17 18 19 20

De libero, 2.12. De libero, 2.13. De libero, 2.15. De libero, 3.7.

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only to a part of the sentence: that is, “to exist in reality”: “For, suppose it [God] exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which [to exist in reality] is greater. [Si enim vel in solo intellectu est, potest cogitari esse et in re, quod [esse et in re] maius est].” If we read the sentence in this way, we obtain the traditional interpretation of the argument. This is the common way to read this sentence (e.g., we see it in manuals4); and apparently, its significance seems to be quite clear and unequivocal: it seems to be the only way to interpret it. This classical interpretation shows, as we can see, a particular comparison: to exist in reality is greater than to exist in the understanding alone. This comparison is well-known in scientific articles and books as the “Principle of Superiority of Existence”5 (pse): two different kinds of existence (real and ideal) are compared, and the pse establishes that one is superior in respect to the other (or, some say that to possess both kinds of existence is superior than simply possessing the first one). The important point of this interpretation is that the comparison is ontological: it is made between two modes of existence of God. Actually, in the traditional exposition of the argument real existence is considered a perfection; it is described as a positive attribute, that must be given to God, otherwise, God would not be perfect, God would not be God. Yet, the pse is unfortunately the weak point of the argument interpreted in this traditional way: in effect, the validity of the pse is often attacked by those authors that do not accept the possibility of comparing abstract objects and real objects. Some philosophical positions claim that there is a radical gap between the sphere of thought and the sphere of reality, so it would be unfair to compare one with the other. This is the case of a nominalist position, such as Ockham’s: he claims that abstract objects are only flatus voces, so it makes no sense to compare a flatus vocis and a real object. And this is just an example, because there are, in fact, many other philosophical positions that do not

4 See, for example: Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. ii, Mediaeval Philosophy. Augustine to Scotus (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne ltd., 1950), 161–164; P.J. Aspell, Medieval Western Philosophy: the European Emergence (Washington DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1999), 78; A.H. Armstrong, The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 626–627. 5 For a very interesting recent debate about the pse between Millican and Nagasawa; see: Peter Millican, “The One Fatal Flaw in Anselm’s Argument,” Mind 113 (2004), 437–476; Yujin Nagasawa, “Millican on the Ontological Argument,” Mind 116 (2007), 1027–1039; Peter Millican, “Ontological Arguments and the Superiority of Existence: Reply to Nagasawa,” Mind 116 (2007), 1041–1053; Yujin Nagasawa, “A New Defence of Anselmian Theism,” The Philosophical Quarterly 58 (2008), 577–596; Yujin Nagasawa, “Is There a Shallow Logical Refutation of the Ontological Argument?,” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (2012), 87–99.

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accept this comparison. By contrast, of course, the pse is not a problem in a platonic or in a neo-platonic perspective, because with platonic authors the ideas have a proper consistency, and they are in relation with the material world, so there can be a comparison. But for all the other authors that do not share this assumption, the pse is very problematic. Therefore, if they reject the validity of the pse, then the whole proof is rejected as well. This is one of the most common criticisms levied against the argument.6 Yet, the question is: does Saint Anselm really use this principle? When he wrote that sentence, was he actually employing the pse? In what follows I will attempt to demonstrate that the Anselmian argument is not based on the pse: it is present only in the traditional interpretation, but if we read the key-phrase in a different way, we can see that there is no more trace of it. What is the other possible interpretation of the text? We have seen that the crucial word is the “quod”, the “which”: the sense of the sentence depends on it, and switches from one interpretation (the traditional) to the other (the new) according to it. So, this is the great change: we discover that the meaning of the key-phrase changes deeply if we refer the “quod” not only as a part of the sentence (“to exist in reality”), but within the entire (“to conceive it exists in reality”). Let’s visit the key phrase again, and how it can be read in what I believe to be, a more fitting way: “For, suppose it [God] exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which [to conceive it exists in reality] is greater. [Si enim vel in solo intellectu est, potest cogitari esse et in re, quod [cogitari esse et in re] maius est].”7 If we read the sentence in this new way, we can see that the Principle of Superiority of Existence is no longer present, because the comparison, in this case, is no longer ontological: there is not one kind of existence that is superior to the other and that makes God greater. If we read the argument in this new way, including the verb “to conceive” (“to conceive it exists in reality”), we obtain a totally different proof: a proof without the pse. I take this to be the proper interpretation of the text: grammatically, the quod should be referring to the entire sentence, without any amputations: there is no reason to cut any part of it. Moreover, it is Saint Anselm himself who defends this way of reading his text, during his famous dialectic dialogue with Gaunilo, where he declares that the introduction of the comparison between different modes of existence (the pse) was not made by him, but, rather, that it is a misunderstanding made by Gaunilo in his awkward reconstruction of the reasoning. Therefore, the confir-

6 It was explicitly made by Gaunilo and by Kant, for example. 7 Pros. 2 (i.101.16–17).

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mation of the total absence of the pse in Anselmian reasoning can be found in Anselm’s own Reply to Gaunilo’s answer in behalf of the fool, chapter 5: You [Gaunilo] often repeat that I assert that what is greater than all other beings is in the understanding; and if it is in the understanding, it exists also in reality, for otherwise, the being which is greater than all would not be greater than all. Nowhere in all my writings is such a demonstration found.8 Here Anselm is fairly straightforward in saying that his argument does not use the pse: real existence is not added to the Being of God to make Him more perfect. It is Gaunilo who interpreted the Anselmian proof in this way (the way that has become the common, traditional interpretation). But, as we can see, it’s Anselm himself who strongly rejects this way to read his proof. Some commentators maintain that Anselm, in this passage, is responding to Gaunilo’s poor expression “maius in omnibus” instead of the original and correct definition “aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari potest,” referring to God: The real existence of a being which is said to be greater than all other beings [maius in omnibus] cannot be demonstrated in the same way with the real existence of one that is said to be a being than which a greater cannot be conceived [quo maius cogitari nequit].9 This is surely true: Anselm wants to correct Gaunilo even about his incorrect formula too (“greater than all,” instead of “nothing greater can be conceived”) but, in my opinion, his correction is not only about this. As we can see, the Anselmian criticism of Gaunilo is responding not only to the inaccurate definition of God, but also to Gaunilo’s entire reconstruction of the argument, especially the logical passage in which the old monk unduly introduces the comparison between the two kinds of existence (and the pse). Yet, Anselm’s words are stronger: in fact, he does not say that: “Nowhere in all my writings is such a definition found” (mistaken formula); but, rather, he says: “Nowhere in all my writings is such a demonstration found” (mistaken proof ) [“nusquam in omnibus dictis meis invenitur talis probatio”]. Of course, Gau-

8 Resp., 5 (i.134.24–27): Primum, quod saepe repetis me dicere, quia quod est maius in omnibus est in intellectu, si est in intellectu est et in re—aliter enim omnibus maius non esset omnibus maius—: nusquam in omnibus dictis meis invenitur talis probatio. 9 Resp., 5 (i.134.27–28): Non enim idem valet quod dicitur ‘maius omnibus’ et ‘quo maius cogitari nequit’, ad probandum quia est in re quod dicitur.

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nilo’s mistaken proof includes the mistaken formula too. In fact, in the previous sentences, Anselm re-writes all of Gaunilo’s proof, the entire probatio (included incorrect formula, the pse, and so on …), not just the incorrect formula. Here is the Latin: Saepe repetis me dicere, quia quod est maius in omnibus [wrong formula] est in intellectu, si est in intellectu est et in re [passage from the sphere of thought to the sphere of reality], aliter enim omnibus maius non esset omnibus maius [application of the pse].10 (my emphasis) And, after making that addition, Anselm explicitly rejects it entirely: “Nusquam in omnibus dictis meis invenitur talis probatio.”11 Until now, every translator or commentator of the text usually has read this Anselm’s reply as only rejecting the incorrect formula. But it is not enough, in my opinion: a careful reading of the text demonstrates that Anselm is rejecting Gaunilo’s entire reconstruction. Therefore, Anselm is explicitly and clearly rejecting the use of the pse too. This means that the way we have always interpreted the unum argumentum (with the traditional comparison between ideal existence and real existence) is a misunderstanding: it is due to the inaccurate interpretation given by Gaunilo; but it is not the true and original unum argumentum, as it was thought and written by Saint Anselm. Moreover, it’s important to notice that the two criticisms are strictly related: actually, why should Anselm only criticize Gaunilo’s formula (“maius in omnibus”), and not the pse? If the comparison was thought to be ontological— between the two modes of existence and with the use of pse—it surely would not be mistaken to use an ontological definition of God (“maius in omnibus”). And consequently, why should Anselm affirm so strongly that his argument can work only with the correct gnoseological definition of God (“aliquid quo maius nihil cogitari potest”)? He underlines the necessity of the use of this gnoseological definition because he needs it for a comparison that is not ontological at all, but gnoseological. Therefore, Anselm is saying that the comparison is not ontological: he does not intend to confront—neither explicitly nor implicitly—two kinds of existence; and he does not intend to use the pse to establish the superiority of one over the other, to give it to God. His argument is not structured in this way, he asserts: “Nowhere in all my writings is such a demonstration found.”

10 11

Resp., 5 (i.134.24–27). Ibid.

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If the unum argumentum is not structured in this way—as we usually have read it—it means that the problem of the gap between the sphere of thought and the sphere of reality (and of their two kinds of existence), does not exist anymore. Because, now, it is no longer an idea (an object in the mind) which is compared with a thing (an object in reality). Now, we must abandon the traditional way of thinking about the argument—which is derived from the mistaken reconstruction by Gaunilo—and we must begin to re-think the argument in a new way, closely following Anselm’s words and reasoning. If the comparison is not ontological and is not based on the pse—as we have demonstrated—it is structured in another way. Let’s re-visit the crucial passage again: For, suppose it [God] exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which [to conceive it exists in reality] is greater.12 Anselm is actually arguing that we have two ideas, two different conceptions of God, that, in the mind, are conceptually compared: one idea is the atheist conception of God (which refuses to think about God as really existent); whereas the other idea is the theist conception of God (which, instead, accepts thinking about God as really existent). As we can see, the comparison is gnoseological: it takes place in the mind of the man who thinks about these two different ideas, comparing these two possible conceptions of God with an intellectual act. Anselm’s reasoning is hypothetical, beginning his sentence with the expression: “For, suppose ….” Thus, he is saying, “hypothetically, in the mind, every man can try to think to God as non-existent, as well as every man can try to think to God as existent.” If we think of God in the first way, we will obtain a particular conception of God (the atheist conception); whereas, if we think of God in the second way, we will have a different conception of God (the theist conception). Both of these ideas can be thought in the mind (in fact, even a theist can suppose that God does not exist, just as an atheist can suppose that God exists). Hence, both the ideas can be thought: and if they can be thought (if they are ideas that we can have in the mind), then they can be conceptually compared (purely as ideas, of course). It’s important to underline again that the comparison is gnoseological: in the mind, there are two different ideas about God, and these two ideas are compared from a gnoseological perspective; that is to say, the comparison is made between their conceptual properties. Each

12

Pros. 2 (i.101.16–17).

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idea contains various properties: and the comparison is between these different aspects (concepts) they have; let’s call them ‘thinkable properties’. Hence, comparing them in the mind, the question arises: which idea is, conceptually speaking, the greatest, the richest? In other words: what is the idea that in and of itself contains the greatest number of thinkable properties? And that is the point: in refusing to think God as existent, the atheist idea of God lacks of a property (an aspect, a concept) compared to the theist idea of God. Conceptually speaking, the atheistic position refuses to include a thinkable property in its idea of God, that is, the property “to be existent in reality”. This property, however, is conceptually included in the idea thought by the theistic position. Consequently, one idea (the theist conception of God) is clearly greater, richer, than the other idea (the atheist conception of God), because this second idea lacks a thinkable property that the first idea has. Therefore, we can compare two different ideas of God: we can count the number of concepts included in the first idea of God (theist idea) compared to the number of concepts included in the second idea of God (atheist idea). ⟨God⟩ Theist idea = ⟨Omni-power; Summum bonum; Highest beauty; Infinite; Necessary being; etc …; Really existing⟩ The atheist removes from his idea of God the concept of “Really existing”; so, his new idea of God—compared to the previous one—lacks that specific concept: ⟨God⟩ Atheist idea = ⟨Omni-power; Summum bonum; Highest beauty; Infinite; Necessary being; etc …;⟩ It’s interesting to note that we are not saying that one God (the theist one) is superior to the other God (the atheist one) because “the first God” has one more property (“Really existing”), and this property makes Him more perfect than “the second God”: this kind of reasoning would be the same than the previous and classical interpretation of the argument (with the use of pse, and the ontological comparison, and so on …). Here, instead, we are speaking just about thinkable properties that can be hypothetically included or excluded in an idea by means of a simple act of thought: and the fact that one thinkable property is included or excluded in an idea does not immediately have any ontological implication, but only a gnoseological implication; that is, the theist idea of God is conceptually greater and richer than the other idea, because it is thought with a thinkable property more (a property that the atheist idea refuses to include). Someone could ask what point Anselm wanted to make by means of this simple, and apparently useless, consideration. In other words: what is the

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philosophical problem, in saying that the first idea is conceptually greater than the second idea? Why should this simple consideration be problematic for the atheistic position, and in what way it could help Anselm in demonstrating the real existence of God? The problem is that, at the beginning of the argument, the atheist has voluntarily accepted to define God as “Something than which nothing greater can be thought” (in Latin: “Aliquid quo maius nihil cogitari potest”, or: “Id quo maius nihil cogitari potest”, in the acronym iqm). And clearly, the atheist idea of God does not fit this definition, because it is possible to think about God in a greater way (as we have just seen, the theist conception is conceptually greater, since it contains a thinkable property more). As a result, there is an evident contradiction, in atheist’s own mind, between the definition of God he had previously accepted, and the declaration about God he subsequently made. This is exactly the contradiction that Saint Anselm is denouncing; this is the reason why the atheist is called “insipiens”: he is called a “fool” because it is his own thought about God that is found illogical. The mind of the atheist contains a contradiction because he claims both the definition of God (iqm) and its negation (¬iqm). In his mind, he is saying: “I accept the definition that God is Something than which nothing greater can be thought, but at the same time I don’t accept this definition, because I refuse to think of God with all of the thinkable properties I could. So I must admit that I’m incoherent.” In the traditional interpretation, the contradiction was ontological: the Supreme Being with all the attributes cannot be missing an attribute. Here, instead, the reasoning is more subtle, and, in my opinion, is more ingenious, because it goes deep in the atheist mind. The Anselmian argument is actually a reductio ad absurdum, because it reveals a contradiction that the atheist makes in himself: at the beginning, the atheist has voluntarily accepted that definition of God (iqm), and therefore he should respect it: if he accepts defining God as something that nothing greater can be conceived, he cannot avoid including a thinkable property that could be included (and that is included by the theist). This means that he has to think that God exists in reality, otherwise he would be contemporarily thinking that God is iqm and that God is not iqm. Let’s read the Anselmian words: ‘Therefore, if that than which a greater cannot be thought were only in the understanding, then that than which a greater cannot be thought would be that than which a greater can be thought! But surely this is impossible.’13 The theist conception of God is conceptually greater 13

Pros. 2 (i.101.17–18): Si ergo id quo maius cogitari non potest, est in solo intellectu: id ipsum quo maius cogitari non potest, est quo maius cogitari potest. Sed certe hoc esse non potest.

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than the atheist one (because the theist thinks of God with one more property than the atheist): so, the atheist cannot maintain both the definition and its negation. He has to admit that only the theistic concept fulfills the definition of God as “aliquid quo maius nihil cogitari potest.” Therefore, he must choose: either he keeps the original definition of God (which is the only one that Anselm intends to defend here) and abandons his atheistic declaration, or he changes the definition of God, but in this case, its negation of God’s existence (whatever “god” now means) is no more a problem for Anselm. Here I offer a table with a schematic comparison of the two interpretations of the argument.

Here I offer a possible schematic version, in five logical passages, of the Ontological Argument (the traditional interpretation of the unum argumentum).

Here, instead, I offer a possible schematic version of the new interpretation of the unum argumentum (no more “Ontological Argument”). We can see the differences that are introduced in the new interpretation.

Traditional interpretation14

New interpretation15

(1) The phrase “that than which no greater can be thought” [iqm] is clearly understood (thought) by the Fool in his mind. (2) To exist in reality is greater than to exist only in the mind. (pse) (3) If “that than which no greater can be thought” did not exist in reality, then there would be possible to think to something greater.

(1) The phrase “that than which no greater can be thought” [iqm] is clearly understood (thought) by the Fool in his mind. (2′) In the mind, to think about “that than which no greater can be thought” as existing in reality too, is a greater way to think about it than to think of “that than which no greater can be thought” as existing only in the mind. (because “existence” is a thinkable property, and in effect it is thought by the theist in his idea of God) (3′) If we think of “that than which no greater can be thought” as not existing in reality, then it should be possible to think about it in a greater way. (In effect, it is the thought of “that than which no greater can be thought” as existing in reality too, which is exactly the thought of the theist.)

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Gaunilo’s Interpretation: (1) The phrase “that than which is greater than all” is clearly understood by the Fool in his mind. (2) To exist in reality is greater than to exist only in the mind. (pse) (3) If “that than which is greater than all” did not exist in reality, then there would be something greater. (4) But this would be a contradiction, since it is obviously impossible that there is something that is greater than “that than which is greater than all”. (5) Therefore, “that than which is greater than all” must indeed exist in reality. As we can see, the traditional interpretation is strongly influenced by the Gaunilo inter-

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(4) But this would be a contradiction since it (4) But this would be a contradiction since it is obviis obviously impossible to think someously impossible to think about something that thing that is greater than “that than is greater than “that than which no greater can be which no greater can be thought”. thought”. (5) Therefore, “that than which no greater (5′) Therefore, “that than which no greater can be can be thought” must indeed exist in thought” must be thought as existing in reality too. reality.

There are two main possible criticisms of this thesis. The first is based on the possibility of thinking a negative property: why does the theistic concept fulfill the definition, while the atheistic concept does not? If “real existence” is a thinkable property, “not really existing” is a conceptual property as well: therefore, the atheist and the theistic conception would include the same number of properties. Hence, it seems that we must come back to the traditional interpretation, with the use of the pse: that is, “real existence” is a property whereas “not really existing” is not a property just because “real existence” is a “greatmaking property” (a property, in Anselm’s terms, which is better to have than not to have) so that iqm must have that property. But then, the criticism is that the new interpretation is based on the same principle (pse) that was criticized in the traditional interpretation: namely, that “real existing” is a greatermaking property, i.e. that something that really exists is greater than something that exists only in the understanding (that does not exist). The only difference would then be that, in this case, the principle is used in order to justify one of the premises, while the traditional interpretation uses it explicitly as one step of the argument. This is a very interesting objection because it seems that “really existing” and “not-really existing” are both properties, or better yet, are both concepts (thinkable properties); it seems they are on the same conceptual level (I can add or exclude the one, and I can add or exclude the other as well); therefore, it seems that the exclusion of one would imply the positive inclusion of the other. However, I want to maintain, “not-really existing” is not a concept, not a true thinkable property. When I think that something does not exist in reality, in my mind I do not add the ‘concept’ of “not really existing” to the set of concepts of such an idea I’m thinking about. Instead, I simply avoid including the concept of “really existing” into such an idea. pretation: in effect, it appears to be a mix of Anselmian words and Gaunilo’s words. It is important to notice that the pse (which is the crucial point of the traditional interpretation) was introduced by Gaunilo: it is not explicitly present in Anselmian text. pse is the most significant difference between Anselm’s argument (which is not ontological) and Gaunilo’s argument (which is ontological).

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We, of course, can think positively about the concept of “existence,” but can we do the same with the concept of “not-existence”? Our minds can positively think about the concept of “existence”, but it seems can we not think positively to the ‘concept’ of “not-existence”; they are not on the same conceptual level. Our minds cannot think of pure “inexistence” as a positive and autonomous concept: in our minds we have the concept of “existence”, and if we exclude it, we can speak (in a secondary and negative way) about “not-existence”. Thus, “not-existence” is like “not-to-think of existence” (namely, it would be quite like the mental action of excluding the concept of “existence” from the set of concepts of something). When we think about “non-existence” we are simply thinking about “not-existence;” thus, it is not a concept (it is not a positive concept, an autonomous concept in itself), but it is rather the negation of a concept (in strict relation to it, as its mental negation): it is just the mental action (we’ll call it) of excluding the positive concept of “existence” from an idea. When we think about something, in our minds we can include the concept of “existence” in its idea (and so we say that “I think that it exists”), or we can exclude/avoid including the concept of “existence” (and so we say that “I think that it doesn’t exist”); but we cannot positively include in the idea the concept of “not-existence.” At most, it would be only an emphatic way to underline the fact that we have excluded the concept of “existence,” but it doesn’t actually contribute anything positive to that idea. And, in general, we can see that this fact is valid for every negative ‘concept’. For example, what is the concept of “not-red”? Can we truly and positively think in our minds of “not-red” as an effective concept? Do we include the “not-red” concept in every idea we think about (when we don’t think it as red), or do we simply avoid including the “red” concept in it? For example, when we want to give a general definition of “cat”, we don’t fill that idea with numberless negative concepts: “Cat” = ⟨not-sky; not-sea; not-car; not-omnipotent; not-violet; not-cement; not-petrol; not-dog; etc …⟩. Rather, we simply only think about the positive concepts regarding cats, and clearly, we don’t think about the negation of all the positive concepts regarding all the other different things or properties. In the idea of “cat” we include only positive concepts regarding cats, and we simply avoid including all the indefinite number of other positive-concepts (sky, sea, car, dog …). Thus, conceptually speaking, “to avoid including” (or “to exclude”) a concept from an idea isn’t adding anything positive to that idea, and so we cannot say that to exclude a concept from an idea means “to include positively” a real effective ‘concept’ (e.g. “not-dog”) into that idea.16 16

Someone could say that I do not distinguish between falling under a concept and thinking

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Moreover, what about reiterated negation? Let’s take the concept of “red” again. If we accept that we can have the ‘concept’ of “not-red” (on the same thinkable level as “red”), why shouldn’t we also have the ‘concept’ of “not-notred”? And the concept of “not-not-not-red”? And so on, in a potentially infinite process. If a negation of a concept became an autonomous concept in itself [x; (¬x) = y; (¬y) = ¬(¬x); …], then it could be negated again, and again, and again; we would obtain a potentially infinite number of (pretty useless) ‘concepts’, representing nothing more than the negation (of the negation, of the negation, …) of the first, original, positive-concept. And thus, when we think to an idea, we should positively include in it all of these ‘concepts’ (e.g. that car is blue: so it is “not-yellow”, and “not-red”, and “not-not-not-yellow”, and “not-not-not-not … -red”, and even “not-cloud”, and “not-dog”; and “not-not-pen”; and “not-not-not …”), if we consider them on the same thinkable level of positive-concepts. Therefore, we don’t have to consider the not-concepts as if they were positively thinkable concepts in themselves, on the same level as all the concepts, but rather as the simple negation of a concept (that is, the subtraction of a concept from one idea). We cannot think positively about a negative concept: negative-concepts are not true concepts, but they represent only the absence of a concept. In effect, we cannot truly realize what “not-red” is: it is undetermined (what is “not-red”?), it doesn’t have a precise definition, it is not endowed with an autonomous significance, and we cannot truly think about it, as we do with the concept of “red”. Can we think exactly what “not-red” is? Do we have the concept of “not-red” in our minds? No, of course we don’t. We can surely think about “red,” that is, a specific kind of color, but we cannot do the same with the indefinite expression of “not-red” that is not referred to anything, not even a color. So, “red” and “not-red” are not on the same thinkable level: the expression “not-red” can be considered as just a linguistic way to emphasize the absence of the “red” concept in an idea: but it adds absolutely nothing pos-

a concept. Namely, maybe it’s right that we do not think “not-sea” when we think “cat”, but someone could say that the concept of “cat” falls under the concept of “not-sea”. However, in my view, the concept of “non-sea” is rather undetermined (as I will explain further), and it is not on the same level of the concept of “sea”: thus, there is not a precise concept of “not-sea” that can contain the concept of “cat”, and the “cat” cannot fall under the indefinite and vague ‘concept’ of “not-sea”. Moreover, I don’t see the necessity to distinguish between falling under a concept and thinking a concept, for the simple reason that this distinction is not present in Anselm: he just talks about “thinking” a concept. He just talks about the way thinking (“cogitari” is the mental act, the process with whom in our mind we think) the idea of God, the modality in which our mind must correctly conceive the idea of the Divinity: and so, if he focussed just on this point, this is probably enough for his argument to work.

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itive to that idea. In the same way, I don’t think that “not-real existence” adds something more to an idea (and, in this case, to the idea of God). It’s just a way to specify that the atheist has excluded from his idea of God the concept of “real existence.” The second criticism regards the case of an infinite set of possible properties. Specifically, if God is infinite, He must have a set of infinite properties, so it would be impossible to compare the atheist idea of God (the atheist set of thinkable properties referred to God) and the theist idea because they are both infinite sets (no matter if one has got a property more or a property less). However, this kind of objection is still based on an ontological perspective (how God is), whereas the new interpretation is based on a gnoseological perspective (how God is thought). In this perspective—as we have explained—a theist and an atheist can think the same idea about God regarding all the thinkable concepts (in relation 1:1), except for one concept (i.e., “really existing”), because it is lacking explicitly and voluntarily in the atheist’s idea of God. The point is not “how great God is” (ontological perspective), but rather “in which way do I think about God in my mind” (gnoseological perspective). It’s interesting to notice that, in this perspective, the idea of God we have in mind cannot be infinite, because our mind is not infinite, and, therefore, it cannot contain an infinite idea, namely, an idea composed with an infinite number of concepts. Instead, for the purpose of the argument, it’s enough that the idea of God is the greatest idea that we can think at all, the richest idea that our minds can conceive, conceptually superior with respect to every other thinkable idea. Anselm is saying that when we think about God, we must strive to think of an idea which is the greatest possible thinkable in the human mind: “Aliquid quo maius nihil cogitari potest”. It’s a gnoseological prescription; it regards the most correct idea of God that our limited brain can and must think, and it does not regard God himself in a direct ontological way. Moreover, it’s important to note that I’m not saying that in the unum argumentum there is no relation between the gnoseological aspect and the ontological aspect; otherwise, Anselm would be an idealist, or a sceptic, which, of course, he is not. Hence, if someone wants to express a strong value judgment (e.g. “existing is better than non-existing”; or “to be omnipotent is better than to be impotent”; “infinity is a positive attribute”; etc …), he can surely do that; on that both Anselm and I would agree. For example, the concept of “omnipotence” is conceptually greater than “impotence” because in the idea of “omnipotence” are included a vast variety of other concepts, that is, the list of all the single powers and abilities we can think; whereas the “impotence” ‘idea’ is only a non-concept, that is, the exclusion of all the concepts of single powers and

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abilities that we could think. This conceptual greatness—in a gnoseological perspective—of an idea with respect to another idea (or non-idea), reflects an effective positive greatness, a positive value, with an ontological foundation: to have a power or an ability is better, ontologically speaking, than not to have that power or ability. But the point is that in the unum argumentum, when Anselm is talking with the insipiens, he is reasoning from a supposition that even the atheist could hypothetically share; it is based only on the gnoseological perspective. Thus, the atheist could think about an idea (e.g. “omnipotence”) and could notice that this idea indubitably contains more and more concepts in itself than another idea (e.g. “human-potence”, “dog-potence”, “plant-potence”, and other limited concepts of creaturely powers), or than an empty idea (e.g. the non-concept of “impotence”). This conceptual and gnoseological comparison is simpler, easier, less problematic, and more shareable (methodologically, you just have to count the number of concepts you could think of) than the stronger and more challenging comparison made directly in an ontological perspective (where you must explain and justify what a positive attribute is, or why something is ontologically greater and more valuable than something else). In his unum argumentum (at least, in §2), Anselm chooses a simpler way to convince the atheist, that is, the gnoseological perspective and conceptual comparison. The gnoseological does not exclude the ontological, and the two could also be connected. But at this stage of the reasoning in the unum argumentum there is neither necessity nor convenience in doing so. The first way already works, and for Anselm, it is enough.17

2 This new interpretation has many valuable consequences, and now we will see briefly just how the logical structure of the argument changes in this new perspective. We will examine the most interesting passages.18 The first passage is the definition of God as iqm: Anselm explains how he obtained this definition: and, as we have seen, it is a gnoseological definition, not an ontological one. The acceptance of this definition is a crucial point for Anselm: he insists that everybody can accept this definition, and he wants to talk only with those who accept it:

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I wish to thank Christian Tapp for some valuable suggestions given about this topic. At the end of this paper there is a flow chart which summarizes the main logical passages.

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But surely when this very same Fool hears my words “something than which nothing greater can be thought,” he understands what he hears. And what he understands is in his understanding, even if he does not understand it to exist.19 Must everybody accept this Anselmian definition? Of course not: each of us can give to the word “God” whatever meaning we want, or even no meaning at all. But, if we give another definition (for example, “God” is “Zeus, the anthropomorphic lord of the sky”; or “God” is “Ra, the Egyptian divinity of sun”; or “Gaia”, in a pantheistic vision of the universe; and so on …), then we obtain a different conception of the divinity, and so we are no longer speaking about the same God that was thought and defended by Anselm. The consequence is that in front of the atheist negation “There is no God” (namely, “There is no Zeus”; “There is no Ra”; …), well, even Anselm himself could agree! If we change the original Anselmian definition, then the atheist denial of God’s existence misses its target, because it is no longer addressed against the same God that Anselm is talking about. What happens if, instead, the atheist claims that the word “God” has no meaning at all? Then the problem for the atheist is even worse, because if the insipiens refuses to give any meaning to the word “God”, then he cannot use it in any way: he falls into a position I’ve called “absolute agnosticism”.20 In other words: he can affirm that the expression “God” is meaningless and does not have a definition (it’s an “empty word”) but in this case his entire sentence “God does not exist” becomes meaningless: as a matter of fact, every sentence which contains “God” becomes meaningless for him, because he has no idea of what a “g-o-d” is. For him, the word “god” has the same semantical value of the word “kzomil”—What is a Kzomil? We haven’t the slightest clue—so it makes no sense to say “kzomil exists” or “kzomil does not exist”, “kzomil is red” or “kzomil is not red”, “kzomil is nice” or “kzomil is not nice”, because the word “kzomil” is an empty word, it has no meaning at all. The same is true with the word “God”: if we refuse to give it a meaning, it will remain an empty word, and nothing can be said about it (it then makes no sense to say either “There

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Pros. 2 (i.101.7–9): Sed certe ipse idem insipiens, cum audit hoc ipsum quod dico: ‘aliquid quo maius nihil cogitari potest’, intelligit quod audit; et quod intelligit in intellectu eius est, etiam si non intelligat illud esse. A full explanation of my new interpretation and its consequences can be found in: Luca Vettorello, L’ unum argumentum di Sant’Anselmo. Alla ricerca dell’interpretazione autentica della prova anselmiana dell’esistenza di Dio (Pisa: Edizioni ets, 2015).

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is a God”, or “There is no God”). And if we cannot say anything about “g-o-d”, then we are not theists, but we are not atheists either: we are in the position of an “absolute agnosticism”, and we cannot speak about God at all. Thus, these two options are possible, but they don’t lead the atheist towards his aim, that is, the meaningful rejection of the existence of that God that Anselm intends to affirm. Let’s assume, instead, that the atheist accepts the Anselmian definition of God. In this case, there are two other options. Since the Anselmian argument is a reductio ad absurdum, a proof by contradiction, it is valid only in classical logic. Or, to put it more precisely, it can express its full validity in classical logic; in other kinds of logic, instead, it maintains a partial validity. The argument proves that the atheist’s position is incoherent: it’s impossible to maintain the Anselmian definition of God, and also to maintain that this God does not exist. In classical logic, if a thesis is proved to be contradictory, it can be rejected, and we obtain the opposite thesis: in this case, since the atheistic position is shown to be incoherent, we gain the theistic position, and so we can affirm the existence of God. In a different logic, such as intuitionistic logic, the rejection of an incoherent thesis does not imply the positive affirmation of the opposite thesis (e.g. the fact I’m wrong doesn’t imply that you’re right). Nonetheless, even in intuitionism, the Anselmian argument is still valid, and, moreover, the atheistic position is still incoherent. But from the negation of atheism, we cannot deduce positively the affirmation of theism. I’ve called this possibility “Weak agnosticism”: the insipiens can no longer be an atheist but is not a theist yet. He is “in the middle of the way ….” The argument still works, because it achieves its aim to defeat the atheistic position but, unfortunately, it doesn’t succeed in obtaining a total conversion to the theistic position. However, this is not a real problem for Saint Anselm, because in his period there weren’t any other kinds of logic, so he can conclude his argument with a total victory: he has exposed the contradiction in the atheistic thought, and has gained the validity of the theistic position. He concludes, “Hence, without doubt, something than which a greater cannot be thought exists both in the understanding and in reality.”21 In conclusion, the unum argumentum is a proof by contradiction; it finds a logical inconsistency in the atheistic position: namely, it is incoherent both to accept the Anselmian definition of God (“Aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari

21

Pros. 2 (i.102.2–3): Existit ergo procul dubio aliquid quo maius cogitari non valet, et in intellectu et in re.

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potest”) and, at the same time, to refuse to include in this idea of God a thinkable property (namely, the thinkable property “existing in reality”), because this conceptual exclusion violates the definition of God previously accepted. It is possible to give it another meaning (or no meaning at all) but, in this case, the negation of “g-o-d’s” existence is no longer a problem for a classical theist like Anselm.

Appendix: Unum Argumentum An Algorithm (1) Experiential path (from mundane reality to divine reality) (2) Ontological definitions of God (3) Gnoseological definition of God: {i.q.m.} (4) question: Do we have this definition of God {i.q.m.}? (5) answer: if yes else go to (12); if no else go to (6) (6) question: Do we want to apprehend this idea? (7) answer: if yes else go to (1); if no else go to (8) (8) question: Do we have other ideas? (9) answer: if yes else go to (10); if no else go to (11) (10) conclusion: Different conceptions of divinity. (11) conclusion: Absolute Agnosticism. (12) (Ha) Absurd Hypothesis: Negation of God’s existence (13) {atheistic idea} < {theistic idea} (14) {atheistic idea} ≠ {i.q.m.} (15) The denial of God’s existence {i.q.m.} is not thinkable (⊥) (16) question: Do we accept classical logic? (17) answer: if no else go to (18); if yes else go to (19) (18) conclusion: Weak Agnosticism. (19) conclusion: Theism.

Per rationalem mentem: Anselm’s “Turn to the Subject” Ian Logan

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Introduction

The relationship between the Monologion and the Proslogion is complex.12 In both works, Anselm addresses the existence and nature of God and considers how it is that rational investigation of the ineffable is possible.3 However, the methods of investigation are different. In his criticism of Paul Gilbert’s reading of the Monologion, Coloman Viola highlights this difference and the consequent complexity. According to Gilbert, the two works are very similar, except that the Proslogion avoids the “chain of arguments” concerning the word and the image in the Monologion.4 But, as Viola points out, the ascent to the summum in the opening chapters of the Monologion is a neo-platonic ascent and not a reflection on word and image.5 What is to be gleaned from the process of ascent concerns only that which is common, rather than relational, to the persons of the Trinity, i.e., the one substance.6 Since his Monologion proof of God is independent of his reflection on word and image, it fails to function as a proof that man is made in God’s image, the establishing of which notion is pivotal for his trinitarian argument. According to Anselm, the rational mind must turn away from external and temporal things and reflect on itself, to prove itself

1 All translations in this paper are my own. 2 See, for example, Gene Fendt, “The Relation of Monologion and Proslogion,” Heythrop Journal 46 (2005), 149–166; Toivo Holopainen, “The Proslogion in Relation to the Monologion,” Heythrop Journal 50 (2009), 590–602; and Stephen Gersh, “Anselm of Canterbury,” in A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, ed. Peter Dronke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1988), 255–278. 3 See Mono. 64–67 and Pros. 14–16. 4 Paul Gilbert, Dire l’ ineffable: lecture du Monologion de S. Anselme (Paris: Lethielleux, 1984), 18 ff. 5 Coloman Viola, “Le Monologion face à la philosophie réflexive,” Recherche de théologie ancienne et médiévale 59 (1992), 97–110, 107. 6 Anselm discusses this distinction in his response to Roscelin in Ep. de incar. 2: “Therefore, in these two persons one thing is common, that is, God—and two things are proper, that is, Father and Son …. For the Father and the Son are not two things in such a way that in these two things their substance is understood, but their relations.”

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God’s image.7 Such a proof involves showing that the rational mind, in so far as it acts rationally, remembers and cannot deny the existence and attributes of God—the point and purpose of the argument of the Proslogion. My contention is that the argument of the Proslogion represents the application of, and, if successful, provides the justification for, the philosophical “turn to the subject” that Anselm articulates in Mono. 66: “That it is through the rational mind that one comes closest to knowing the supreme essence.” By the phrase, “turn to the subject,” I am invoking an “introspective” rather than “extraspective” reading, which understands Anselm to be concerned specifically with the rational mind’s reflection on itself as image, rather than on things external to itself. Though articulated in the Monologion, this introspective approach is not systematically employed there, nor is it given a demonstrative or dialectical foundation. It is the “reflective” argument of the Proslogion that grounds the epistemological role that Anselm gives to the imago dei in the Monologion. Furthermore, having established the undeniability of God’s existence and attributes by his unum argumentum in the Proslogion,8 Anselm does not need to rehearse the trinitarian argument of the Monologion there, precisely because the Proslogion has provided the foundation and justification for the argument of the Monologion.9 Anselm’s account of the imago is clearly dependent on that of Augustine’s De Trinitate, and Anselm draws the attention of his critics to this fact.10 Because of the importance of Anselm’s reading of the De Trinitate, I will proceed by firstly outlining the Augustinian account of the imago dei in the De Trinitate. Secondly, I will suggest that, in spite of his dependence on Augustine, Anselm moves beyond him in his account of faith seeking understanding. Thirdly, I will trace the development of Anselm’s “turn to the subject,” which is articulated in terms of both the imago dei and the language of sight and light. Finally, I will address the relationship of the Monologion and the Proslogion, concluding that it is in the Proslogion that the rational mind proves itself to be the imago dei and that it is this proof (the unum argumentum) that vindicates the argument of the Monologion.

7 8

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Mono. 67: se probat imaginem. For an account of the unum argumentum, see my Reading Anselm’s Proslogion: The History of Anselm’s Argument and its Significance Today (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009; London: Routledge, 2016), esp. 125–127. I am not saying that Anselm made this move consciously—perhaps he did, but we simply don’t know. Mono. Preface.

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Imago dei in Augustine’s De Trinitate

In this section, I will concentrate on Augustine’s account of the imago, since it informs that of Anselm in the Monologion.11 In the De Trinitate, Augustine makes three important moves in his discussion: (i) in Book ix, he identifies a trinity of mind, self-knowledge, and self-love; (ii) in Book x, he identifies in the mind a trinity of memory, understanding and will focused on the self; and (iii) in Book xiv, he identifies another trinity in the mind, in which the mind remembers, understands and loves God. It is this latter trinity that is really to be called the imago dei.12 At the beginning of De Trinitate, Augustine writes that man’s ultimate happiness lies in enjoying “God the Trinity in whose image we are made.”13 We are to look within ourselves for the trinitarian imago dei.14 The mind, in knowing itself, begets a word—just as in the divine Trinity the Father begets his Word, the Son.15 However, the mind itself is not begotten but created.16 As created and not begotten the human mind is the unequal image of God, but it is an image nevertheless. This mind reflecting the Trinity, remembers itself, understands itself and loves itself, “although it does not always think about itself as distinct from those things that are not what it is.”17 Unlike the eyes of the body, the mind does not know itself by looking in a mirror.18 (To anticipate: as the image of God, it is the mirror in which God can be seen.) The mind has an immediate knowledge of itself, which it possesses, even when it is not thinking of itself.19 It does not need to look elsewhere, even in a mirror, for itself, because it is already with itself, present to itself.20 For “nothing is more present to it than itself.”21 When it thinks of itself, the mind engages in “an incorporeal turn [con-

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21

Though “modern scholars have curiously tended to ignore this fact,” according to Gersh, “Anselm of Canterbury,” 265. See Augustine’s summary in De Trinitate (= dt), xv, 3, 5. Ibid., i, 8, 18. Ibid., ix, 2, 2: “let us see in ourselves to the extent we are permitted the image of God.” See Ibid., ix, 11, 16. Cf. Mono. 33, when the rational mind thinks of itself an image of the mind is begotten in the mind’s thought or better the mind’s thought of itself is its own image. Ibid., ix, 12, 17. Ibid., x, 12, 19; see also Ibid., xiv, 7, 10. Ibid., x, 3, 5. Ibid., x, 5, 7. Ibid., x, 9, 12. See also Ibid., xiv, 5, 8 f. Ibid., x, 10, 16. This point is epistemological rather than ontological. The discussion of image and mirror does not provide the last word on the ontological relationship of Creator to creature.

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versio],” in which it understands that it already knew itself before it turned its attention on itself.22 According to Augustine: “We are reminded that in a hidden area of the mind there is some kind of knowledge of certain things, which, when they are thought of, proceed into the open and are placed more clearly in the mind’s vision. For, it is then that the mind discovers that it remembers and understands and loves itself too, though it was not thinking about itself when it was thinking about something else.”23 It is the higher part of the mind, contemplating eternal rather than temporal things, which, in addition to being a trinity, constitutes the image of God.24 Thus, “the true honour of man is God’s image and likeness in him, which can only be preserved in relation to him by whom it is impressed.”25 The image of God, the nature than which no nature is better, is to be found “in that in us than which our nature also has nothing better …. Behold then the mind remembers itself, understands itself, loves itself. If we see this we see a trinity, not yet God indeed, but already the image of God.”26 It is in Book xiv of the De Trinitate that we come to the crux of the matter. It is with reference to the soul’s ability “to use reason and understanding in order to understand and gaze upon God” that it was made to God’s image.27 Moreover, this “trinity of the mind is not the image of God because the mind remembers and understands and loves itself, but because it can also remember and understand and love him by whom it was made.”28 Therein lies wisdom. To fail to see that this trinity is also focused on God is foolish (stulta). Those who do not believe or understand this trinity to be the image of God are so far from seeing him in the mirror “that they do not even know that the mirror they see is a mirror, that is, an image.”29 The rational mind is the image of God and it acts as a mirror in which we can “see” God.30 The mind turns inwards rather than outwards to see this mirror.31 The term “mirror” indicates that we are looking at an image, but this image is seen “in an enigma,” 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Ibid., xiv, 6, 8. Ibid., xiv, 7, 9; cf. Ibid, xiv, 11, 14: memory can be understood as “that by which the mind is present to itself.” As J. Sullivan, puts it: “It finally becomes clear what Augustine means by memoria sui, the perpetual and habitual trinity at the ‘back’ of the mind.” The Image Of God: The Doctrine of St. Augustine and Its Influence (Dubuque: The Priory Press, 1963), 132. Ibid., xii, 4, 4 & 7, 12. Ibid., xii, 11, 16. Ibid., xiv, 8, 11. Ibid., xiv, 4, 6. Ibid., xiv, 12, 15. Ibid., xv, 24, 44. Ibid., xv, 8, 14. Ibid., xv, 8, 14: “By speculantes he means looking in a mirror [per speculum], not out from an observatory [de specula].”

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which indicates that it can only be seen with difficulty.32 This enigmatic image is not similar in every respect to God. There is also a great dissimilarity. The enigmatic nature of the image means that some may not recognize it. Even though they see the mirror, they do not recognize it as a mirror. They remain foolish. The mirror and the image are found within. And it is in turning inwards that the mind discovers that it already remembers, understands and loves God.

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Anselm and Augustine

In the Prologue to the Monologion, Anselm, who has clearly encountered some negative responses to his text, points out what he believes to be its consistency with the teaching of “the Catholic fathers.”33 Those who suspect the Monologion’s novelty or heterodoxy are asked to make a careful study of Augustine’s De Trinitate before criticizing him.34 As for Augustine in the De Trinitate, central to the Monologion is the notion of a trinity in the soul of man, which is an image of the divine Trinity. For Anselm, as well as Augustine, it is the psychological trinity of memory, understanding, and will that provides the methodological foundation on which to develop and justify an understanding of the divine Trinity. Unsurprisingly, then, we can see in Augustine’s De Trinitate texts that anticipate Anselm’s thinking about this trinity as he developed the argument of the Monologion. Of course, Anselm’s originality should make us beware of seeing his words as involving a claim that he is simply reproducing Augustine’s arguments and conclusions, if in an abbreviated form. His claim is one of consistency rather than repetition. We need only look at their shared commitment to the principle of “faith seeking understanding” to see a difference. Anselm believed that he could rationally prove the fundamental doctrines of the Catholic faith. In his later work, De Incarnatione Verbi, he says that he wrote the Monologion and Proslogion to prove, by necessary reasons and without appeal to authority, what Catholics hold by faith concerning the divine nature and its persons apart from the incarnation. What he writes is not just for Christians, but constitutes a defence of the faith “against those who, not wanting to believe what they do not understand,

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Ibid., xv, 9, 16. Ep. 83 (iii. 208–209): “For I have already suffered the hasty censure of some people.” In addition, Lanfranc clearly had problems with its sola ratione method—see Ep. 77 (iii. 200– 201). Mono. Preface.

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deride those who do believe.”35 He adds that he may have said things that he has not read elsewhere, but that where he has said something not found in the doctors of the church, it is intended to be consistent with them. In De trinitate, Augustine writes: “Faith seeks, understanding finds; on account of which the prophet says, ‘Unless you believe you shall not understand’.”36 Anselm borrows this principle of “faith seeking understanding” from Augustine—it was the original title of the Proslogion. However, for Anselm, it has a correlate: understanding seeking to remove unbelief. In Letter 136, to Fulk, Bishop of Beauvais, Anselm makes it clear that though belief cannot be built on understanding, understanding can undermine unbelief: “For our faith is to be defended by reason against the impious, not against those who confess to rejoicing in the honour of being called Christians.”37 Christians are required to hold to their baptismal commitment, but unbelievers are to be shown by reason how irrational their disdain for Christians is. In the Preface to Cur Deus homo, he states that his intention in the first book will be to address the objections of unbelievers who think that the Christian faith is opposed to reason and to “prove by necessary reasons” and “without reference to Christ” that no one can be saved without him. Anselm appears to be going beyond Augustine here in his claim concerning the effectiveness of rational argument in such matters, but he would at least claim consistency with Augustine in his conclusions.38 As E. Fortnam pointed out, although Anselm was theologically “in the direct line of descent from Augustine … he applied dialectics to Augustinian premises and thereby drew conclusions for which St. Augustine had not looked.”39 Interestingly, Fortnam cites the entry on Anselm in the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, in which J. Bainvel pointed out that Augustine had sketched the outline of the method that Anselm employed, but that Anselm had pushed it further with a logical force and a consciousness of what he was doing, that were unique to him: “Perhaps nowhere else amongst the scholastics does one find arguments applied so thoroughly, or deductions wielded so consistently, to draw out the rational implications of principles or revealed truths.”40 35 36 37 38

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Ep. de incar. 6. dt, xv, 2, 2. Ep. 136 (iii. 280–282). There is some controversy over what Anselm means by terms such as “rationes necessariae” and “convenientia.” I cannot go into this here, other than to note that I take the former to equate to “logical validity” and the latter to “consistency/non-contradiction.” Edmund Fortnam, The Triune God: A Historical Study of the Doctrine of the Trinity (London: Hutchinson, 1972), 173. J. Bainvel, “Anselme de Cantorbéry (Saint)” in A. Vacant et al. (edd.), Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, Vol, 1:2, Paris: Librarie Letouzey et Ané 1923, coll. 1327–1360, col. 1343.

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The Rational Mind as imago dei in the Monologion

In the Monologion, Anselm, following Augustine, identifies human ratio with the imago dei.41 Anselm here does not simply show himself as an Augustinian in his use of the image of God as Trinity in man, but also, significantly, as a representative of the approach to dialectic, of which Lanfranc’s contemporary and opponent, Berengar, was a notable exponent. In response to Lanfranc’s claim that he had abandoned the sacred authorities and had sought refuge in dialectic,42 Berengar argued that “to take refuge in [dialectic] is to take refuge in reason. Whoever does not take such refuge, given that it is in reason that he is made to the image of God, abandons his honour, and cannot be renewed day by day to the image of God.”43 He also points out that according to Augustine, “dialectic is the art of arts and the discipline of disciplines.”44 Kurt Flasch has suggested that in the Monologion Anselm works out the implications of the view he shared with Berengar that man is God’s image in his reason and that dialectic is a participation in God’s thought.45 We can take Flasch’s claim as involving either an “introspective” reading, in which per rationalem mentem refers to reflection on the rational mind itself or an “extraspective” reading, in which it refers to the use of dialectic by the rational mind. I take Anselm to be advocating the former in the Monologion, although, in practice, he may be closer to the latter, particularly in his ascent to the summum omnium. Thus, in Monologion 66, Anselm writes that the rational mind “alone is that through which it itself is most able to advance to the discovery of [the supreme essence].” The more studiously it endeavours to learn about itself, the more able it is to ascend to knowledge of the supreme essence; and the more it neglects to reflect on (intueri) itself, the further it departs from speculation on the supreme essence.46 Anselm is concerned here with the rational mind’s reflection on itself—the turn to the subject47—rather than with the rational mind’s reflecting on other things. This chapter, entitled “That it is through the rational mind that one comes closest to

41 42 43

44 45 46 47

Mono. 67. Lanfranc, De Corpore et Sanguine Dominum Adversus Berengarium Turonensem Liber, pl150: 407A–442D, 416D. Beringerius Turonensis, Rescriptum Contra Lanfrannum, ed. by R. Huygens, (Turnholt: Brepols, 1988), 85. See Augustine dt, xii, 11, 16: “For man’s true honour is the image and likeness of God.” Beringerius, 86. He is quoting from Augustine, De Ordine, ii, 13, 38. Kurt Flasch, Das philosophische Denken im Mittelalter: von Augustin zu Machiavelli, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000), 206. Mono. 66. See also Mono. 68. Or as Vignaux calls it “the method of the image.” See Paul Vignaux, “Structure et sens du

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knowing the supreme essence,” follows on directly from the discussion of how anything can be rationally postulated concerning the ineffable in Monologion 65, where Anselm is engaged in addressing the same problem as in Proslogion 14. At one point the language is very close to that of the Proslogion: “We say and do not say, we see and do not see one and the same thing. We speak and we see through another [per aliud]; we do not speak, we do not see it properly [per suam proprietatem].”48 Just as when we look at a face in a mirror, we see not the face itself but its image or likeness, so when we speak of the ineffable God, we do so through another, “per aliquam similitudinem aut imaginem.”49 The mind is the mirror and image of God, in which it sees him, whom it cannot see directly.50 This similarity of language and purpose brings us to the question of the relation of the Monologion and Proslogion.

5

The Monologion and Proslogion: Dissatisfaction and Difference

In his preface to the Proslogion, Anselm expresses his dissatisfaction with the “chain of arguments”51 of the Monologion. At first sight, it might seem that this dissatisfaction is based on the fact that it is good dialectical practice to minimize the number of steps in an argument, but as we see elsewhere in his writings, Anselm is happy enough with chains of argument. It is not a question here of a general dialectical principle, but of a specific issue concerning the Monologion. The Monologion fails to exhibit the methodological implications of Anselm’s Augustinian view of the image of God in the human soul. Yes, Anselm can show by a series of arguments that the act of “discerning” good from not-good, more good from less good, etc., requires that we acknowledge a “summum omnium quae sunt.”52 And he can identify the ability to discern as that of a rational nature.53 But, Anselm’s account of the immediate relation of mind to God as his image requires something more direct—a single argumentative move from the unthematic/tacit to the thematic/explicit, which itself requires no more justification than does one’s remembrance or awareness of oneself. One ought to be able to make a similar move in relation to God—if, as

48 49 50 51 52 53

Monologion,” Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques 31 (1947), 192–212, especially 206 and 210. Mono. 65. Ibid. See Ibid., 67. Cf. Augustine, De quantitate animae, vii, 12: multi et longi circuitus. Mono. 1–4. Ibid., 68.

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the image of God, one has a remembrance and understanding of God as well as oneself. To understand more fully the significance of Anselm’s dissatisfaction, it is helpful to note how the argument of the Monologion proceeds. It moves from the “summum omnium quae sunt,” whose existence is established in the first few chapters, to the trinitarian God of Catholic faith. Anselm’s series of arguments proceed steadily until he “hits the buffers” in Monologion 64–65. For how can he say all he says about the supreme nature or essence, given that God is ineffable? If we have expounded it rationally, how can it be ineffable, and, if it is ineffable, how can we have expounded it rationally? Anselm’s argument at this point reflects that of Augustine in De Trinitate, xv, 2, 2. Anselm develops his response to this problem in a different direction to that of Augustine, in terms of proper and improper linguistic usage (as we noted at the end of section 4). Anselm suggests that in one sense something was discovered about an incomprehensible thing, whilst in another nothing was. He continues: “For we often say many things which we do not express properly, as they are. Rather, we signify through another [per aliud] that which we do not wish to, or are not able to, express properly—as when we speak through an enigma. And often we see something, not properly as the thing itself is, but through a likeness or image—as when we look at someone’s face in a mirror.”54 Thus, Anselm explains in terms of speaking per aliud, how we can say something true about the ineffable, whilst it remains ineffable. The supreme nature “is ineffable, because words can in no way express it as it is. But if, taught by reason, some judgment concerning it can be made through another [per aliud] as in an enigma, it is not false.”55 In our case, since we have rational minds, we have the ultimate in per aliud means. We can come to God “per rationalem mentem,” through a turn to the subject which is a turn to God’s image.56 The discussion of the rational mind in Monologion 66–67 is intended to justify the approach taken in the Monologion. However, it only tells us how to provide such a justification. It does not actually provide it. That requires Anselm to establish that the rational mind is the image of God by demonstrating that it remembers and understands God. The demonstration that the rational mind is a trinity focused on God is lacking in the Monologion. It is what the argument of the Proslogion gives Anselm. Reflection on the rational mind does indeed constitute the means for recognising that we do in fact remember and understand God (which is the pre54 55 56

Ibid., 65. Ibid. Ibid. 66.

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condition for loving him). As Anselm says in Proslogion 1: “Lord, I confess and give thanks that you have created your image in me, so that in remembering you, I might think of you and love you.” Whilst recognizing the methodological principle underlying the argument of the Monologion, the Proslogion moves beyond it, removing the chain of arguments and replacing it with the more direct insight of the unum argumentum. God is to be found in a turn to the subject of rational reflection, the rational mind. Or better, God’s image is to be found in this turn.57 The rational mind immediately and ineluctably affirms God, in so far as it is rational. When we remember God, it is not God we “see,” but God’s image. “We apprehend God in ourselves and not in himself.”58 The Proslogion argument is the uncovering of this affirmation of God, which is a “note” or mark of God’s image in man, a memoria of God. In the Monologion, Anselm proceeds to develop a trinitarian doctrine based around this Augustinian psychological trinity. What he does not do is what he says we should be able to do. Reflection on the rational mind should allow us to establish the remembrance and understanding of God, but God’s existence is established at the beginning without such a reflection. In fact, the method employed is an extraspective account of the kind that Augustine would assign to the “lower function” of the rational mind, which is not in its own right to be identified with the image of God.59 Anselm, like Augustine, expressed his epistemological views using two distinct, modes of discourse: image/remembrance theory and illumination theory.60 And, whilst Anselm employs the language of both in the Monologion, he restricts himself to the language of illumination in the Proslogion, apart from the reference to the image in Proslogion 1. Such a difference is significant, since the language of sight and light provides us with additional ways of understanding what Anselm thinks is going on in his turn to the subject. And it is this language I shall consider next.

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58 59 60

Aimé Forest, “St Anselm’s argument in reflexive philosophy,” in The Many-faced Argument: Recent Studies on the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God, eds. J. Hick and A. McGill (London: Macmillan, 1968), 275–300, 294: “one can say that the ontological argument reveals man rather than God.” Ibid., 281. See dt, xv, 10, 17 and ix, 12, 17. See R.A. Markus, “St. Augustine,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. P. Edwards, New York 1967, Vo. 1, 198a–207a, 201b: “Memoria and divine illumination are alternative ways of expressing the basis of Augustine’s theory of knowledge.”

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Anselm’s Extramissionary Theory of Vision

Following Augustine,6162 Anselm articulates an extramissionary theory of vision. The instrument of vision is a ray that proceeds through the eyes, enabling us to sense light and objects that are in the light.63 Sight is an active operation of the one who sees and not a passive reception of light.64 In De libero arbitrio, Anselm makes a distinction between the possession of a power or instrument and its use. He employs the example of sight to clarify this distinction.65 The use of sight, the seeing of an object, is dependent on the presence of four conditions or powers: (1) a power in the one who sees; (2) a power in the object to be seen; a mediating power (3) which aids sight, or (4) which does not hinder sight (although it could do so).66 If any one of these conditions is lacking, no seeing takes place. When light becomes the object of sight, then the second and third distinctions merge since then the thing seen is the means by which it is seen.67 Thus, sight is dependent not only on a subject who can see and an object that can be seen, but also on a mediating power (light) which can itself be the object of sight. Whilst it may not involve good ophthalmic theory, Anselm’s language of sight constitutes a determining metaphor for an epistemology in which the subject actively knows and understands and is never

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65 66 67

It might be expected that Anselm’s use of the imagery of sight and light would reflect that of Augustine, and especially of Augustine’s theory of divine illumination. See Katherin Rogers, The Neoplatonic Metaphysics and Epistemology of Anselm of Canterbury (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997). See also Marylin McCord Adams, “Romancing the Good: God and Self according to St. Anselm of Canterbury,” in The Augustinian Tradition, ed. Garreth Matthews (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 91–109, at 102. However, it may be doubted that there is a philosophical doctrine of divine illumination to be found in Augustine. See, for example, Garreth Matthews, Thought’s Ego in Augustine and Descartes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), at 173. My assumption here is that, nevertheless, it is meaningful to talk of a theory or doctrine of divine illumination in Augustine. But, it would appear that it is the psychological trinity, rather than divine illumination, that plays the central role in the Monologion. See dt, ix, 3, 3: “For we see corporeal things with corporeal eyes, because the rays which leap forth through them touch whatever we perceive.” De lib. arb. 7. See David C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 88–90. We should note the epistemological implications of taking such a view. Note De concordia 3, 3: “Just as sight is not acute because it sees acutely, but rather it sees acutely because it is acute.” The use is dependent on the active instrument. De lib. arb. 3. The fourth distinction is only called a power “improperly.” See De lib. arb. 4.

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simply enlightened from without. The subject brings something with it in the act of knowing and does not simply receive what is to be known.

7

The Light of Reason

Helmut Kohlenberger notes that Anselm identifies “light” with the subject of “vision” in his account of ratio.68 Whatever his view of optics, Anselm understands the epistemological subject as emitting a light.69 Anselm explicitly uses the phrase, lux rationis in this sense in Monologion 6. The conclusions about the supreme substance to which his argument has so far brought him are said to have been observed by the light of reason. It is reason’s task to lead us (ratione ducente70) in the search for the supreme good, which it is able to do once the eye of the mind (mentis oculus71) is turned to investigate the matter. The light of reason is that which enables us to advance rationally (rationabiliter proficere72). The language of light applied to the reason possesses certain limitations given Anselm’s ophthalmic theory: light, whilst it can be the medium and object of sight, cannot be its subject. When Anselm does speak occasionally of light in relation to the subject, he departs from the “rules” of the imagery he is employing. This may explain why it is not encountered more frequently in his work. It is in identifying the instrument of sight and its medium (the first and third distinctions) that he is able to apply this language to reason, which is understood to illuminate its objects. Anselm prefers to employ the language of sight in the case of the activity of ratio. In De concordia, he says that ratio is the instrument of reasoning which we use when we reason and visus the instrument of seeing

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H. Kohlenberger, “Zur Metaphorik des Visuellen bei Anselm von Canterbury,” in F.S. Schmitt et al. (edd.), Analecta Anselmiana, Vol. i, ed. F.S. Schmitt et al. (Frankfurt: MinervaVerlag, 1969), 11–37, at 18. Schmitt also remarks on Anselm’s metaphorical use of “light” for the human mind as well as for God. F.S. Schmitt, “Anselm und der (Neu-)Platonismus,” in Analecta Anselmiana 1, 39–71, especially 62. Such language can be found in Plato and Aristotle. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, i, 6: “as sight is in the body, so reason is in the soul” (J. Barnes, The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1995, 1733). See also Plato, Republic, Book 7. Mono. 1. A phrase reminiscent of Augustine in his De quantitate animae, vii, 12: agat ac ducat ratio qua vult. Ibid., 1. See also Pros. 18: “Lift me up from myself to you. Cleanse, heal, sharpen, illuminate the eye of my mind, so that it may gaze on you.” Note that in the Proslogion, Anselm recognises the effects of sin. Ibid., 1. In Mono. 19, Anselm asserts that the supreme good has been sought and found by the light or lamp of truth, lucerna veritatis, which has the same referent as the lux rationis.

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which we use when we see. Reason, like sight, is possessed by man even when he is not using it.73

8

The Inaccessible Light

In Proslogion 1, Anselm states that God dwells in inaccessible light. In his search for God, he is faced with the problem of where and how this inaccessible light is to be found. In Proslogion 9, he makes a connection between God’s incomprehensibility and the inaccessible light, and in Proslogion 16, identifies God’s incomprehensibility with the inaccessible light.74 In Proslogion 14, Anselm raises the question of why he does not experience God if he has found him by means of his argument. He understands what his argument has revealed and yet he still does not understand God, for God is “more than can be understood by a creature.”75 It is the greatness of God, the brilliance of “the light from which springs forth every truth that gives light to the rational mind,” coupled with the limited understanding of the soul, the weakness of the eye dazzled by God’s brilliance, that explains why God cannot be fully understood.76 We “see” God’s light reflected in other “things.”77 Here again, we find Anselm departing from the structure of his theory of vision in his use of light imagery. In the account of the lux inaccessibilis, we have an instance where the mediating power, which aids sight (third condition), cannot be the object of sight (second condition), because it hinders sight (fourth condition), and because of a weakness in the power of sight of the one who sees (first condition). According to Anselm’s theory of vision, there can be no use of the power of sight in this set of circumstances. Yet, although the medium of sight cannot be the object of vision here, it is still visible in so far as it is seen reflected in every other object of sight, as one of the conditions governing the possibility of seeing any object at all. This use of light language, found in the Proslogion, explains the sense in which God is and is not understood in terms of light, and in doing so it provides a justification of the rationality and validity of the unum argumentum in the face of God’s incomprehensibility. In Proslogion 14, Anselm 73 74 75 76 77

De concordia 3, 11. Pros. 9, 16. It is in this identification that the role of the imagery of light in the unum argumentum becomes clear. Yet God is seen to some extent (aliquatenus), although not as he is, for to understand anything at all about God is to see his light, and, in some sense, to see him. Pros. 16. In De Genesi ad litteram, xii, 31, 59, Augustine refers to God as a light, which the soul cannot see, but is the source of all understanding.

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writes: “For if you have not found your God, how is he this which you have found?” And he asks whether his soul “has not found him, whom it found to be the light and the truth.”78 In answering these questions, Anselm provides an indication of how one proceeds in order to acquire such knowledge. The presence of light is one of the conditions governing the possibility of seeing, and, when anything is seen, it is seen through light, and light is seen indirectly as the medium of sight. In a similar way, when anything is understood, God’s light is the medium by which it is understood, God’s light is seen indirectly. All rational activity is made possible by God’s light, and this light is seen indirectly in such rational activity. It follows that we can only know or understand anything about God by means of God’s light. If we focus our mental vision on God, no seeing takes place. Where, then, must we focus our attention, if we are to gain some vision, knowledge or understanding of God? The answer is—where God’s light is to be found, i.e., in the rational mind, which is God’s image.79 To see God, we must turn from God’s inaccessible light to ourselves, and, when we do that, we “see” ourselves turned towards God:80 an immediate (since we already possess it), though indirect (since we require reflection to recognise it), awareness or memoria of God. Anselm’s language of sight and light points us to the imago dei.

9

The Vindication of the Monologion in the Proslogion

In my analysis of Anselm’s use of the language of light, I noted the role of the phrase, the “light of reason” in the Monologion. Given Anselm’s theory of vision, this metaphor has a strictly limited application. Nevertheless, one might have expected to find it in the Proslogion, which is shot through with light language. Why don’t we? The answer to this question lies, I am suggesting, in the different approaches taken in the two works. The Monologion starts from a position of methodological ignorance and by a complex chain of rational arguments and an exposition of the image of God builds up in the final chapter to the God of Christian faith. The Proslogion, on the other hand, starting from belief

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Pros. 14. See dt, vii, 3, 5: “For we also are the image of God, not [His] equal indeed, but created by the Father through the Son; not born of the Father like that [image]. We are an image, because we are illuminated with light, but that [image], because it is the light that illuminates. So, that which has no exemplar, is our exemplar.” See Vignaux, “Structure et sens,” 196: “No sooner do we turn from God to ourselves [notre esprit], than we see the latter turned towards God.”

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in God as “that than which nothing greater can be thought,” moves immediately to a rational acknowledgement of God’s existence and attributes. In the Proslogion, Anselm is not concerned to expound the method for thinking about and knowing God, which would require him to talk of the light of reason.81 Rather, he seeks to demonstrate that we do think about and know God. By means of a self-sufficient argument, he justifies the trinitarian argument of the Monologion, based as it is upon the notion of the image of God in man. In the Monologion this image is assumed; it is not demonstrated. The first eight chapters provide an “extraspective” proof of what will turn out to be God, without an “introspective” turn to the rational mind itself.82 The Monologion states the method but does not apply it. The Proslogion applies the method but does not state it. In the Monologion Anselm develops the notion of image to further his trinitarian argument. If the human mind can remember and understand itself and God, then a fortiori God remembers himself and understands himself, and does so eternally.83 The necessity of the mind’s “remembrance and understanding” of God and self is not established in the Monologion. On the other hand, the notion is not arbitrarily introduced there either, for it is based on the likeness of creatures to the Creator’s Word, which is the “truth of existing.”84 And, since the act of creating involves reason, the rational mind must possess a greater likeness to the Word than that which is not rational. That there could be a “remembrance” of God follows from the idea that the rational mind, possessing to a high degree the “imitation of truth,” operates in a way similar to this “truth of existing.” For, having stated that the supreme spirit remembers and understands itself similarly to the rational mind, Anselm adds that it is not that God is like us, but rather that we are like God.85 If God “remembers” him-

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Although in Pros. 14, he talks of God’s light giving light to the rational mind. In the Proslogion, Anselm focuses on the notion of God as the “inaccessible light.” God is both the medium and the dazzling, inaccessible “object” of sight. In the notion of the “inaccessible light” two elements are drawn together: the possibility of thinking anything (God as “light” is the source of human understanding); and the impossibility of capturing God in thought (God as “inaccessible” is incomprehensible and ineffable). The human subject as emitting a light of its own has no role to play in the particular discussion of the Proslogion. As we have already seen, the imagery of the inaccessible light is characteristic of the Proslogion and not the Monologion. And the proof of God’s attributes takes place as an excursus in the actual argument. See Mono. 32. Ibid., 31. Ibid., 32.

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self, this has a twofold implication for us—our “remembrance” is not just a remembrance of self, but also of God. It is this duality that makes it truly the imago dei.86 This is a thoroughly Augustinian position. As we have seen, in the De Trinitate, Augustine asserts that the trinity of the mind is not the image of God simply because it remembers, understands and loves itself, but because it also remembers, understands and loves God. In fact, according to Augustine, it would be foolish [stulta] for it to remember, understand and love itself and not God. That this is the case for Augustine and Anselm is not surprising, since when God remembers, understands, and loves himself, it is God he remembers, understands and loves, and therefore so must his (i.e., God’s) image remember, understand, and love God. Anselm fails in the Monologion to demonstrate the necessity of the “remembrance” in us, which constitutes the imago, although his argument requires such a foundation, if it is to avoid the charge of circularity, i.e., that he simply derives such a “remembrance” from the theological assumption of the imago dei.

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Conclusion

For Anselm, if it is true that man is made in God’s image, then by reflecting on himself, man ought to be able to uncover the image of God in himself. This is “the method of the image”87 advocated in the Monologion and employed in the Proslogion to justify the argument of the Monologion. The argument of the Proslogion is a dialectical vindication of the claim that the rational mind possesses the image of God, for it reveals that God is to be discovered as an ineluctable “remembrance” in the rational mind—God cannot even be thought not to exist.88 For Anselm, it is this image in us, clouded though it is by sin, which allows us to know God. In the Proslogion Anselm does not simply turn his attention to the importance of the rational mind, but in this turn finds a vindication of the epistemological assumptions of his thinking about God in the Monologion. In the Proslogion, Anselm does what he talks about doing in the Monologion, where he states: “by the fact that [the mind] can remember, understand and love the supreme being, it proves more truly that it is the image [se probat imaginem].”89 The proof that the mind remembers God is the proof

86 87 88 89

See Ibid., 67. Vignaux, “Structure et sens,” 206 and 210. Pros. 3. Mono. 67.

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that the mind is the imago dei. Thus, the unbeliever of the Proslogion is not only insipiens, because he denies God, but also stultus, because he denies the image of God within.90 90

See Pros. 3: “Why then has the fool said in his heart, ‘There is no God,’ when it is so obvious to a rational mind that you exist most greatly of all? Why, except that he is stultus and insipiens?” Cf. Augustine, dt, xiv, 12, 15: The “Trinity of the mind is not the image of God because the mind remembers and understands and loves itself, but because it can also remember and understand and love him by whom it was made. When it does this, it becomes sapiens. But if it does not do this, even though it remembers and understands and loves itself, it is stulta. So let it remember, understand and love its God in whose image it is made.” The fact that Anselm can demonstrate God’s existence through direct reflection on the thinking self, is a demonstration that God is remembered and that no-one is impervious to being reminded of him, unless they are unreasoning—stultus et insipiens. Note Augustine, dt xiv, 12, 16: “if someone has completely forgotten something, there is no way that he can be reminded of it.”

Proslogion ii and iii: Anselm, Hartshorne, and the Dialectic of Classical and Neo-classical Theism Kevin Staley

Hartshorne was perhaps the most avid, eloquent, and effective defender of the ontological argument in the twentieth century. He was an equally avid, eloquent and effective critic of the theism that Anselm had intended the argument to support. Anselm, a classical theist, argues that God exists necessarily and is contingent in no respect. Hartshorne, a neo-classical theist, contends that God is necessary in some respects and contingent in others.1 Is any conciliation possible? This essay: 1) examines Hartshorne’s interpretation and defense of Anselm’s argument;2 2) outlines the major differences between classical and neo-classical theism in general; and 3) argues that Hartshorne’s distinction between actuality and existence is the specific and most fundamental point of divergence between his and Anselm’s accounts of God. Hartshorne uses this distinction 1 For an insightful and succinct account of Hartshorne’s neo-classical theism and its relevance to Hartshorne’s work on the ontological argument, see Donald Wayne Viney, Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), Chapters 3 and 4. 2 Hartshorne contends that Anselm gives two arguments for the existence of God, the first in Proslogion ii and the second in Proslogion iii. Following Norman Malcolm, he argues that Proslogion ii fails in the face of Kant’s objection that existence is not a perfection; but Proslogion iii succeeds because Anselm there employs the concept of necessary existence which is a perfection. See Norman Malcolm, “Anselm’s Ontological Arguments,” The Philosophical Review, 69 (1960) pp. 41–62 and Charles Hartshorne, Anselm’s Discovery (Chicago: Open Court, 1991), 3–18. The two-argument hypothesis faced early criticism. See, for example, J. Brenton Stearns, “Anselm and the Two-Argument Hypothesis,” The Monist 54, no. 2 (1970), 221–233. It continues face criticism. Recently, Richard Campbell has argued that Anselm present only one argument for the existence of God that spans Proslogion ii through iv. See Richard Campbell, Rethinking Anselm’s Arguments: A Vindication of his Proof for the Existence of God (Leiden: Brill, 2018). A.D. Smith, on the other hand, accepts that the Proslogion iii argument is different from the argument in Proslogion ii; but he contends that Hartshorne and others have misinterpreted Proslogion iii by failing to take into account metaphysical commitments about God that serve to ground the argument, commitments that are absent in the modal interpretation of the proof that relies upon the concepts of possibility, necessity, actuality, and the principles of modal logic alone. See A.D. Smith, Anselm’s Other Argument (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2014). My purpose in this essay is to explore the relationship between classical theism as advocated by Anselm and the neo-classical theism as advocated by Hartshorne. Methodologically speaking, I assume that Hartshorne’s reading of

© Kevin Staley, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004506480_009

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to argue for a thesis that Anselm explicitly denies, namely, that sentences of the form S is P can ultimately say something about what God is. The essay concludes that 4) any dialectic aimed at some conciliation between Anselm’s and Hartshorne’s accounts of God must address the questions: a) whether existence as such, and not simply necessary existence, is a perfection; b) whether using sentences of the form “S is P” does violence to the divine mode of being; and c) whether negative, mystical theology represents a failure for philosophical theology or is its innermost aim.

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Proslogion iii and ii

Having established that God exists in Proslogion ii, Anselm argues in Proslogion iii that since it is better to exist necessarily than contingently, one must conclude that “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” must exist necessarily. According to Hartshorne, this argument is successful, but its success has been obscured because it follows Proslogion ii. This placement suggests that Anselm intended first to show that God exists (Proslogion ii) and then show that God’s exists necessarily (Proslogion iii). This pattern mirrors what often occurs in the context of cosmological arguments. One proves that some first cause exists and then shows that this cause enjoys necessary existence because it is first. This pattern suggests that the question whether God exists is like questions about the existence of other things: one begins with the assumption that God may or may not exist, that is, with a conception of God as a contingent being and ends up showing not only that God exists but exists necessarily. Hartshorne argues that Anselm’s point in Proslogion iii is that God’s existence is either necessary or impossible. At no point is God conceived as something that may or may not exist. God either exists necessarily, or it is impossible that there ever be a God. The only matter that need be determined is whether the notion of a necessary being is coherent, that is, expresses some meaningful content free from intrinsic contradictions. The burden of proof lies with those who deny the existence of a necessary being; they must show that the very notion of a necessary being is incoherent, that is self-contradictory or impossible. Otherwise, if a necessary being is possible, then it must exist. Hartshorne Proslogion iii is a fair rendering of the text, one that—though it may not be the rather elusive version of the argument that the historical Anselm may actually have had in mind—is close enough to serve as a point of departure for exploring dialectically the relationship between their respective theisms.

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contends that the Proslogion iii stands alone; it does not presuppose the soundness of Proslogion ii. In fact, assuming that it does obscures the success of the Proslogion iii argument. For Hartshorne, as for many others, the Proslogion ii argument is flawed. Its success depends on the premise that it is better or greater to exist in reality than in the mind alone. But the notion of existence in question is contingent existence—as Anselm’s explication makes clear. He contrasts the existence of a painting in the mind of the artisan and its existence in reality. Paintings are the sorts of things that can or cannot exist; they are contingent entities. So, common criticisms of the argument in Proslogion ii are right. If the entity under consideration can exist and can not-exist, a question to be settled by further evidence, then to argue from the conceivability of a contingent entity to its actual existence is a logical blunder. Proslogion iii does not make this mistake, according to Hartshorne. It begins with the notion of a necessary being. If such a being is conceivable, it must exist. If it is inconceivable (contains an intrinsic contradiction), then it must not exist.

2

The Scope of the Disagreement and the Difficulty of Its Resolution

Anselm and Hartshorne agree that God exists necessarily. But Anselm holds, with other classical theists, that God is necessary in every respect. Hartshorne holds, with other neo-classicists, that God is necessary in some respects but contingent in others. This is no small difference since—at least on the face of it—the meanings of many, if not all, other divine attributes are altered. For example, theists agree that God is omniscient. But classical theists maintain that God must know the future in a fully determinate fashion. If God were to learn something about some future event when it happens, his knowledge would be contingent upon the event’s happening. But God is contingent in no respect. Neo-classical theists maintain that God knows the future only indeterminately. God comes to know the future fully only when it actually happens. Since the future is in itself indeterminate, the notion of a fully determinate knowledge of the future is incoherent. A fully determinate knowledge of something that is not fully determinate is a contradiction in terms. So, it is impossible that God possess such knowledge. God’s knowledge must be contingent upon things that happen. Again, God must be contingent in some respect. Still, classicists and neo-classicists agree, God is omniscient since He knows all that can be known to the extent that it can be known.3 3 For an instructive rehearsal of the classical neo-classical debate for the property of omnipo-

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Since the meanings of other traditional divine attributes change as they transit between classical to neo-classical contexts, any dialectical resolution of the classical/neo-classical debate becomes enormously complex. Dialectic requires that the disputants agree upon something. But different answers to the necessity-contingency question change the meanings of standard claims about God. Thus, disputants must either argue past one another or make petitions to some other court of appeal. Where might such courts lie? Scripture? The apparent metaphysical indeterminacy of the Scriptures in which God is both changeless and capable of changing his mind, for example, steepens the dialectical challenge. Few biblical scholars would argue that the Scripture’s Greek or Hebrew terms for “forever” or “eternity” need refer to the “eternal, a-temporal now” of classical theism; those who do seem come to scripture already having embraced some form of classical theism.4 So appeals to Scripture are largely ineffective. Tradition? One can appeal to the constancy of the tradition of Scriptural interpretation in this matter. Many other historical heavyweights belong to the classical camp: Augustine, Boethius, and Aquinas, for example. But this is only to beg the question since the tradition is just what neo-classicists challenge. Might some other matter become decisive? In the dispute over divine omniscience, for example, the nature of time and the nature of knowledge came into play. Other matters to which one often finds appeals include: the nature of both divine and creaturely freedom, the possibility of novelty, the nature of causality, the scope of the principle of sufficient reason, the ontological status of indeterminacy (is it ontological or only epistemological), the nature and reality of time, and the relationship between being and becoming.5 In effect, the question whether God is necessary in only some or in all respects puts dozens of other metaphysical, epistemological, and cosmological questions on the table, for which reason the classical/neo-classical debate is maximally complex.

tence, see Keith Ward, Divine Action: Examining God’s Role in an Open and Emergent Universe (West Conshohocken: Templeton Foundation Press, 2007), 18–37. 4 See Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Unqualified Divine Temporality,” in God and Time: Four Views, ed. Gregory E. Ganssle (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2001), 187–213. 5 All of these issues are fundamentally metaphysical ones. Hartshorne’s neo-classical theism emerged within the larger context of process metaphysics, especially the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead. For an account of this larger metaphysical context and how it informs Hartshorne’s neo-classical theism and his treatment of Anselm’s argument, see George L. Goodwin, The Ontological Argument of Charles Hartshorne (Missoula: The American Academy of Religion and Scholars Press, 1978), Chapters ii and iii.

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Hartshorne’s analysis of Proslogion iii offers an interesting opportunity amid such complexity. Let us first assume that Hartshorne’s exposition is sufficiently close to what Anselm had in mind that it is reasonable to consider it the same argument as Anselm’s or some slight variation of it. Only a handful of concepts are at play. So any slight variation that leads to the large scale divergence between classical and neo-classical theism will be easier to spot because fewer concepts will be on the table. The variation must be slight since the argument itself is simple and exceedingly abstract. “Possible,” “necessary,” “exists,” “not,” “being,” and the indefinite article “a” are the only concepts, and noncontradiction the only principle at play: A necessary being either necessarily exists or necessarily does not exist. The notion of necessary existence is not impossible; so a necessary being exists. The burden of proof rests on the shoulders of the atheist who must show, in some non-arbitrary fashion (such as restricting the notion of necessity to logical necessity), that the notion of necessary being is inconsistent. This abstract argument is indifferent to any other claim about the ways things are, whether it be the nature of time, knowledge, freedom, or whatever. This is the strength of the argument. The argument remains indifferent to the way anything else actually is. It works whatever else one holds about the nature and existence of the creatures that actually exist. In fact, for both Anselm and Hartshorne, necessity itself is just this indifference to actuality. The connection between divine necessity and indifference to actuality is evident in Anselm’s treatment of divine attributes in Proslogion v entitled, “That God is whatever it is better to be than not to be and that, existing through himself alone, He makes all other beings from nothing.” Anselm argues that since God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived, no goodness can be wanting to God. He concludes: “Thus you are just, truthful, happy, and whatever it is better to be than not to be—for it is better to be just than unjust, and happy rather than unhappy.”6 Noticeably absent is the claim that “to create” is better than “not to create.” As it turns out, what is noticeably absent must be 6 The entire text of the chapter reads, Pros. v (i. 104. 9–17): Quid igitur es, domine deus, quo nil maius valet cogitari? Sed quid es nisi id quod summum omnium solum existens per seipsum, omnia alia fecit de nihilo? Quidquid enim hoc non est, minus est quam cogitari possit. Sed hoc de te cogitari non potest. Quod ergo bonum deest summon bono, per quod est omne bonum? Tu es itaque iustus, verax, beatus, et quidquid melius est esse quam non esse. Melius namque est esse iustum quam non iustum, beatum quam non beatum. Note that the claim about creation found in the chapter’s title, et solus existens per se omnia alia faciat de nihilo, is left without a supporting argument.

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absent; for were it better to create than not create, then God must create. Since it is impossible to be a creator without a creation, God would no longer be what he is through himself alone.7 Divine necessity, as is the case with divine perfections in general, is what it is regardless of whatever else is the case. Hartshorne also defines necessity in terms of its indifference to actuality. He does so explicitly. The existence of perfection is necessary because it “is compatible with any other sort of existence whatever. The perfect shows its superiority precisely in this, that it can maintain itself regardless of what else does, or does not, maintain itself. It can tolerate or endure any [actual] state of affairs whatsoever.”8 The mark of necessity is thus “universal existential tolerance” or inclusiveness with respect to the actualization of any other possibility. Hartshorne and Anselm also agree that necessary existence is perfection; it is good to exist necessarily. For Hartshorne all perfections, whatever they may be, share a common characteristic, namely, inclusiveness with respect to the actualization of other possibilities. As Hartshorne has it, contingency is imperfect because it excludes the actualization of other possibilities and thus “inheres in all specific or exclusive predicates.”9 “All contingent concepts are specific, exclusive, or restrictive with respect to the possible, in that their being exemplified is incompatible with some positive possibility (e.g., that men exist is incompatible with the world’s having certain positively describable characteristics which would make it uninhabitable by human beings).”10 Perfection, on the other hand, is “non-specific, non-exclusive, non-restrictive, its exemplification being compatible with the existence of any positively conceivable state of affairs.”11 One finds a similar distinction in Anselm in Monologion xv entitled “What can and cannot be stated concerning the substance of this Being (i.e., God).” Anselm notes that in general, to be is better than not to be; yet “in some cases, not to be a certain thing is better than to be it.” For example, not to be gold is in some instances better than to be gold since to be gold is inferior to being

7

8 9 10 11

Thus, Anselm denies that all relational predicates (creature, supreme, etc.) refer to the divine substance, Mono. xv (i. 29.10–15): Patet autem ex eo quod summa natura sic intelligi potest non summa, ut nec summum omnino melius sit quam non summum, nec non summum alicui melius quam summum: multa relativa esse, quae nequaquam hac contineantur divisione. Utrum vero aliqua contineantur, inquirere supersedeo, cum ad propositum sufficiat, quod de illis notum est: nullum scilicet eorum designare simplicem summa natura substantiam. Charles Hartshorne, The Logic of Perfection (Chicago: Open Court, 1962), 68. Ibid., 69. Ibid., 70. Ibid.

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human and excludes being human. In Hartshorne’s terminology, being gold excludes the actualization of certain possibilities that being human does not. Thus, though it is good to be gold and it is good to be human, being human is better than being gold because being human is inclusive of other goods (friendship, love, watching movies) that being gold excludes. Neither being gold nor being human is the sort of perfection that belongs to the divine since each is exclusive of other goods.12 To summarize thus far: Both Hartshorne and Anselm seem to share a conception of necessity—that which is necessary is indifferent to actuality. Indifference to what is actual is a mark of perfection. They share a notion of contingency: contingents are those things that can be and can not-be. They agree that absolute perfections must be non-specific or general since specific perfections (being gold or being human) are exclusive of other perfections. Anselm and Hartshorne also share a conception of possibility: to be possible is to be conceivable, that is, to lack intrinsic contradiction. All possibilities are selfconsistent. They agree too that the actualization of some possibilities is restrictive and exclusive: actually being gold excludes being human and vice versa. How is it that such agreement can lead to positions as divergent as classical and neo-classical theism? The point from which divergence expands is not what it means to be necessary, possible, or contingent; in these matters, we have found agreement. Rather, the point of divergence is what it means to exist and to be actual. Hartshorne contends that both the concept of existence and the concepts of various perfect-making properties are abstract or indeterminate as opposed to concrete and determinate. To exist actually, that is, concretely and determinately is to exist in some way rather than another.13 He also contends that all 12

13

Mono. xv (i. 28.6–29.9): Equidem si quis. singula diligenter intueatur: quidquid est praeter relativa, aut tale est ut ipsum omnino melius sit quam non ipsum, aut tale ut non ipsum aliquo melius sit quam ipsum …. Similiter omnino melius est verum quam non ipsum, id est quam non verum; et iustum quam non iustum; et vivit quam non vivit. Melius autem est in aliquo non ipsum quam ipsum, ut non aurum quam aurum. Nam melius est homini esse non aurum quam aurum, quamvis forsitan alicui melius esset aurum esse quam non aurum, ut plumbo. Cum enim utrumque, scilicet homo et plumbum, sit non aurum: tanto melius aliquid est homo quam aurum, quanto inferioris esset naturce, si esset aurum; et plumbum tanto villus est, quanta pretiosius esset, si aurum esset. The distinction between existence and actuality is as fundamental to Hartshorne’s metaphysics as is the distinction between existence per se and per alius is to Anselm’s or the distinction between essence and existence is to Aquinas—though the distinctions are by no means the same. Hartshorne, The Logic of Perfection, 63–64, understands existence to be an abstract or indeterminate notion: “That I shall (at least probably) exist tomorrow is one thing; that I shall exist hearing a blue jay call at noon is another. The latter is the more

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entities, including God, are actual. God’s existence, unlike creaturely existence, is necessary; but the concrete state of His existence is not. God must exist somehow; but the precise details as to how he exists concretely, determinately, and actually depend upon those possibilities that have been actualized by creatures that, however partially, freely determine themselves. Thus, some of God’s properties (the abstract properties) are necessary; and some of God’s properties are contingent (the determinately actual instances of the abstract properties). Anselm, on the other hand, argues that God has no properties at all. In this matter, the arguments of the Monologion are the more illuminating ones. Anselm’s objective is to demonstrate “the existence of one nature, the highest of all existing beings which is sufficient unto itself in its eternal blessedness.” The driving principle is that should any two things possess a common property (such as goodness), then there must exist a cause of that property that possesses that property through or from itself rather than through or from another.14 This is not to say that God causes himself. Rather it is to say that God

14

specific or concrete statement … There are thus three levels of existence: the occurrence of certain actual states of individuals; the existence of certain kinds of individuals or of certain class properties. True enough, the kinds cannot exist save in individuals, nor the individuals save in states; still in which individuals or which states they exist remains a further, contingent determination. It follows from this that to conceive existence is necessary we need not deny all distinction between abstract and concrete, or between property and instance.” Thus, Hartshorne in effect adds another element to Anselm’s distinction between per se (or necessary) existence and per aliud (or contingent) existence a third modality: to exist in some determinate state or other. To say that God exists necessarily is to say that the divine attributes cannot fail of exemplification in any possible world. How they are exemplified will differ; thus God necessarily exists but is contingently actual. As Modesto M. Gomez Alonso puts it: “Hartshorne distinguishes between existence and actuality, between the fact that there is a concrete reality instantiating a property or predicate (existence as scope-word) and the way in which a logical function is exemplified, in which a predicate is embodied (existence as particularly given, in the full richness of an individual or event). This is a transcendental or transversal distinction, valid for any kind of existence. This means that the universal is always given in a particular fashion, in actuality (for instance: mankind is only given in concrete human beings). The distinction between God and creatures is not that the latter, but not the first, exist as concrete; rather that, while in the case of creatures that a predicate is instantiated and how that predicate is instantiated are both contingent features (there could have been no rational animal, there could have been rational animals which wouldn’t be humans), in the case of God there is an asymmetry between the that and the how: how God is in actuality is always contingent, but that He must be somehow is the necessary feature which makes God of Him.” Modesto M. Gomez Alonso, “Existence and actuality: Hartshorne on the ontological proof and immanent causality,” Logos: Anales del Seminario de Metafísica 46 (2013), 125–147, at 134. Anselm’s most explicit and general formulation of this principle can be found in Monolo-

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is what He is in Himself apart from a relationship to anything other than himself. To say that God exists is analogous to claiming that light lights and, one should add, does not require any object or perceiver to enlighten.15 Anselm presses further: God cannot be good in the sense that he possesses the property of goodness (even if God were the only good thing) since the possession of a property other than oneself is to exist in a certain way through another. That is, God is not good; God does not have goodness, God is Goodness itself. And finally, whatever other perfection characterizes God—justice, mercy, wisdom, benevolence, or whatever—they too are identical with God and thus identical with one another.16 Consequently, when talking about God, subjectpredicate logic of whatever sort ultimately fails—a matter with which Anselm was consciously aware and towards the realization of which he patiently leads his readers in both Monologion and the Proslogion: that than which nothing greater can be conceived must be inconceivable; for if it were conceivable, it would not be what it is.17

4

Conclusion: Proslogion ii and iii Revisited

Thus, a very strong case can be made for the thesis that the explicit and intentional trajectory of Anselm’s theism is towards negative, mystical theology.18 But if it is correct, then the assumption that Hartshorne’s repackaging of Proslo-

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gion iii (i.16.6–10): Si vero ipsa plura singula sunt per se, utique est una aliqua vis vel natura existendi per se, quam habent, ut per se sunt. Non est autem dubium quod per id ipsum unum sint, per quod habent, ut sint per se. Verius ergo per ipsum unum cuncta sunt, quam per plura, quae sine eo uno esse non possunt. Note that even if several things were to exist through themselves, Anselm contends that they would possess a common power or property of per-se existence; and on the basis of the fact that they share this property, there must be one thing through which they possess that property. Mono. vi (i.20.11–19): Quomodo ergo tandem esse intelligenda est per se et ex se, si nec ipsa se fecit, nec ipsa sibi materia extitit, nec ipsa se quolibet modo, ut quod non erat esset, adiuvit? Nisi forte eo modo intelligendum videtur, quo dicitur quia lux lucet vel lucens est per seipsam et ex seipsa. Quemadmodum enim sese habent ad invicem lux et lucere et lucens, sic sunt ad se invicem essentia et esse et ens, hoc est existens sive subsistens. Ergo summa essentia et summe esse et summe ens, id est summe existens sive summe subsistens, non dissimiliter sibi convenient, quam lux et lucere et lucens. See Mono. xvi. The claim is not simply that God is not subject to those accidents that imply change (Mono. xxv); rather, the very distinction between subject and predicate is inapplicable to the divine. Mono. lxv and Pros. xvi. See Eileen C. Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury and The Desire for the Word (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012). See especially Chapters 3 and 4.

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gion iii contains the same goods is doubtful. Hartshorne structures the argument in such a way that the most relevant question regarding the success of the proof is whether the notion of a necessary being is coherent, that is, whether it implicitly contains self-contradictory predicates. Attention immediately turns from the question “whether God is” to the question about “what God is.” If the notion of God turns out to be coherent, God must exist. Anselm’s reasoning, on the other hand, leads to the conclusion that we cannot know what God is. Anselm insists that even the phrase “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” cannot express what God is. Its utility (perhaps its brilliance) is that it allows one to refer to that about which one cannot speak. But if we cannot know what God is, then any question about the coherence of the notion of “God” is undecidable. My intent is not, however, to argue that Hartshorne has misinterpreted a text. Rather, I had hoped to abstract as much as possible from the complexity and multiplicity of issues that one encounters in the dialogue between classical and neo-classical theists. I hope to have shown, however inadequately, that the divergence between the two begins at a very abstract level, a level at which the categorical meaning of such fundamental terms as “necessary,” “possible,” “not,” “contingent,” “actual,” and “exist” are at play. The most ultimate differences are of two kinds: logical-metaphysical differences, on the one hand, and certain practical or (for lack of a better term) psychological differences on the other. The first logical-metaphysical issue is whether one can consider contingent existence a perfection. Hartshorne denies it. Anselm asserts that it is: it is greater even for contingent entities like paintings to exist in reality rather than in the mind alone. If existence as such and not simply necessary existence is a perfection, then Proslogion ii stands. To utter “that than which nothing greater can be conceived does not exist in reality” is self-refuting as it implies that one can think of something greater than that than which nothing greater can be conceived. It must be false; its contradictory is necessarily true. But the necessity here encountered remains within the logical-linguistic horizons of human thinking; it is not an insight into the divine nature or into the coherence of some notion of the divine, which remains ineffable. One must say that God exists, but without understanding what one means when one says it; for should God share any name (even being) with other beings, that name must be very different from that applied to them. The second logical-metaphysical issue is whether or not the very syntax of sentences of the form “S is P” is applicable to the divine reality. Anselm denies it is. Anselm’s denial has deep roots going back most directly to Augustine and Boethius. It is also inevitable given the loosely platonic principle that undergirds his reasoning in the Monologion: if something has a property or has a

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property common to others, then there must be something that does not have but just is that property. Hartshorne, on the other hand, affirms that “S is P” sentences are applicable to the divine; and their applicability is grounded in one of the most basic distinctions in his metaphysics—the distinction between existence and actuality: to exist is to exist as somehow actualized. To be is for Hartshorne is to be determinate, and just as species are more determinate than genera, and individuals are more determinate than species, individuals in a given state are more determinate than the individual as such.19 God is no exception. Though his perfections are necessary and in themselves indifferent to actuality (a point on which he and Anselm agree), they must always be somehow actualized. The psychological question is: if a) one cannot understand the meaning of terms as they apply to God and b) “S is P” sentences are not ultimately applicable to God, what is the point of doing philosophical theology? It has a point (it seems to me) only if the ultimate end or purpose of philosophical theology is the practice of negative, mystical theology. Hartshorne thought mystical theology pointless: Simply denying finitude of God does not exalt deity; rather, it makes God less than the world, with the latter’s immense, and by us mostly unknown treasures of beautiful finitudes. Sheer infinity all by itself is nothing recognizable as good or beautiful in any positive sense … And how can the supreme idea by which we are to live and die by be so indefinite as all that?20 Anselm, to the contrary, considered it step towards, or at least the appropriate place of darkness within which, to await God’s salvation: Still You hide away, Lord, from my soul in your light and blessedness, and so it still dwells in its darkness and misery. For it looks all about, and does not see Your beauty. It listens, and does not hear Your harmony. It smells, and does not sense Your fragrance. It tastes and does not recognize Your savour. It feels, and does not sense Your softness. For You have those within Yourself in your own ineffable manner, which you have given

19 20

See Charles Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method (La Salle: Open Court Publishing, 1970), 174–175. Charles Hartshorne, “Why Classical Theism Has Been Believed by So Many for So Long,” in The Zero Fallacy and Other Essays in Neoclassical Philosophy, ed. Mohammad Valady (La Salle: Open Court Publishing, 1997), 86.

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to created things in a sensible mode. But the senses of my soul, because of the ancient weakness of sin, have become hardened and dulled and obstructed.21 21

Pros. xvii. Translated by M.J. Charlesworth in Saint Anselm’s Proslogion (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1979), 139. I have altered Charlesworth’s translation of “habes enim haec, domine, in te tuo ineffabli modo, quae dedisti rebus a te creatis” in order to avoid Charlesworth’s (felicitous or infelicitous) rendering of the text as “For you have in Yourself, Lord, in Your Own ineffable manner, those [qualities] You have given to the things created by You.”

False, Doubtful, and Uncertain Things: Fictions of Lancelot and Anselm’s Proof of the Existence of God Karen Sullivan

At one point in the vast thirteenth-century compendium of Arthurian literature known as the Vulgate Cycle, the Lady of the Lake is giving the young Lancelot a lesson about chivalry. According to this tutor, a knight should be strong and gentle, pitiless and tender, severe and compassionate. He should assail thieves and murderers, and he should protect clerics, widows, and orphans. Overwhelmed by the number of contradictory qualities a knight should possess, Lancelot asks, “My lady, … since knighthood began, has there ever been a knight who had all these virtues in himself?”1 He wonders, in other words, if the knight the Lady is describing could exist, not just as an idea in one’s mind, but as a reality in the world. The Lady replies that, in the time before Jesus Christ, John the Hyrcanian and Judas Maccabeus possessed all these virtues and that, and in the time since Christ’s Passion, Joseph of Arimathea, King Pelles of Listenois, and Helain the Fat have achieved a similar feat. She affirms, “All of them were true, courtly knights and true, worthy men, who honorably upheld knighthood before the world and before God.”2 She indicates that there have been knights in the past who exemplified the virtues of knighthood and that there will be knights in the future—including, she clearly expects, her pupil—who will do so once again. The exchange between the Lady of the Lake and Lancelot in the Vulgate Cycle recalls, I would like to propose here, that between Anselm of Canterbury and Gaunilo of Marmoutier one hundred and fifty years earlier in Anselm’s Proslogion and the debate that followed it.3 Like the Lady of the Lake, Anselm 1 Lancelot: Roman en prose du xiiie siècle, ed. Alexandre Micha, 9 vols. (Geneva: Droz, 1978– 1982), vol. 7, p. 255: Dame, … puis que chevalerie commencha, fu il onques nus chevaliers qui toutes ches bontés eust en soi? 2 Ibid., vol. 7, p. 256: Tout chil en furent, des vrais chevaliers cortois et des vrais preudommes qui maintindrent honerablement chevalerie au siecle et a Dame Dieu. 3 Most discussions of Anselm’s debate with Gaunilo focus upon the logic of these individuals’ points. See, for example, William E. Mann, “Locating the Lost Island,” The Review of Metaphysics 66 (December 2012), 295–316; Lynne Rudder Baker and Gareth B. Matthews, “Anselm’s Argument Reconsidered,” The Review of Metaphysics 64.1 (September 2010), 31–54; Graham Oppy, Ontological Arguments and Belief in God (Cambridge: Cambridge University

© Karen Sullivan, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004506480_010

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describes a being in lofty terms: “God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.”4 Like Lancelot, Gaunilo expresses doubt that, just because one can conceive of this Being as an idea in one’s mind, it also exists as a reality in the world. Anselm explains that, if one understands God properly, one understands that he is, not only something that one can think of, but something that must exist. While Gaunilo and Anselm belong to a monastic, Latinate world and the authors of the Vulgate Cycle to a courtly, vernacular setting, the problem that these two sets of authors are addressing is the same. Is it possible that the perfection one conceives in one’s mind, be it that of God or that of a perfect knight, also exists in the world? What is the relation between the thought process that leads one to conceive of God and the thought process that leads one to conceive of a literary character, including an exemplary literary character like Lancelot? Insofar as the Vulgate Cycle affirms that the chivalric virtues are embodied in this one knight, it echoes, even as it transforms, Anselm’s contention that a mental concept can and, at times, must correspond to a physical reality.

1

The Lost Island

In arguing for the truth value of mental concepts, Anselm is setting himself up against a certain Augustinian tradition. In the late fourth century, Augustine had spoken critically of fictitious images. In a letter to his friend Nebridius, he addresses “images, which you, with many others, call phantasms.”5 He contrasts the images in his mind that derive from people or places he has seen with the images that derive from the people or places he has not seen—people and places, he suggests, that may not even exist. Though all of us have seen white swans, he alleges, none of us has seen a black swan.6 Yet, through what he Press, 1995); and the collection of articles (by Karl Barth et al.) in The Many-Faced Argument: Recent Studies on the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God, ed. John Hick and Arthur C. McGill (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967). For the general philosophical context of this argument, see also Maria Reicher, “Nonexistent Objects,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nonexistent‑objects. For recent discussions of Gaunilo and Anselm’s debate which inhabit the text more than critique it, see Virginie Greene, Logical Fictions in Medieval Literature and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 105–117 and Eileen C. Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), pp. 147–169. 4 Anselm, Pros. 4 (i.104.2): Deus enim est id quo maius cogitari non potest. 5 Augustine, Epistula vii, in Epistulae i–lv, ed. K.D. Daur, Corpus Christianorum series Latina, vol. 31, at pp. 15–19, at ch. 7, p. 17: has imagines, quas phantasias cum multis vocas. 6 There is, of course, a black swan (Cygnus atratus). Its existence was only known in Europe

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calls “a certain faculty, innate to the mind, of diminution and augmentation,”7 he observes, we can combine the swanishness we have seen in this bird with the blackness we have seen in other creatures to imagine such a creature. In performing such an operation, he warns, we produce, not something true, but “something that is called false,”8 because it is the image of something that does not exist. While that which exists in the world is created by God ex nihilo, that which exists in our minds alone is created by human beings, who gather different phenomena that God has created and recombine their characteristics “as is pleasing to and as it occurs to our minds”9 and therefore “arbitrarily and fancifully.”10 If Augustine finds our capacity to create false images at will to be disturbing, it is because he assumes that truth is something we find in the world, and not something we fabricate in our minds. As a onetime reader of poetry and frequenter of the theatre, he is aware of the power of such manmade images, such as Terence’s Chremes or Seneca’s Medea, with her team of wingèd dragons. In his Confessiones, he recalls how the wanderings of Aeneas were more real to him in his youth than his own errant ways and the suicide of Dido more distressing to him than his own spiritual death, and he regards his attachment to these fictions, in retrospect, as a kind of “madness [dementia].”11 Though he acknowledges that he never believed these dramatic and poetic inventions to be true, in the way in which, for a time, he believed certain heretical doctrines to be true, he blames these fictions for having distracted him from what is with their beautiful illusions of what is not. In his response to Anselm’s Proslogion, Gaunilo echoes the suspicion Augustine voices toward mental images. He concedes that there are concepts that we hold “in understanding” (in intellectu), once we hear the word that signifies them. When Anselm speaks of “God” or of “that than which nothing greater exists,” for example, the concept of such beings comes to our minds. By the same token, when people speak of a “lost … island”12 in the ocean, which is superior even to the Fortunate Isles in its inestimable riches and delicacies, the

7 8 9 10 11 12

after Willem de Vlamingh discovered the bird during his exploration of Western Australia in 1697. Augustine, Epistula vii, ed. Daur, ch. 6, p. 18: vim quamdam minuendi et augendi animae insitam. Augustine, De Trinitate, ed. W.J. Mountain, Corpus Christianorum series Latina, vol. 50– 50A, 2 vols., vol. 1, xi, 10, p. 17: aliquid quod ideo falsum dicatur. Augustine, Epistula vii, ch. 4, p. 17: ut libet atque ut occurrit animo. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram, ed. Joseph Zycha, Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 28 (Prague: F. Tempsky, 1894), xii, 23, p. 415: pro arbitrio vel opinatione. Augustine, ed. Lucas Verheijen, Corpus Christianorum series Latina, vol. 27, i, 13: dementia. Anselm, Pro insip. 6 (i.128.14–16): insulam … perditam.

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concept of such an island comes to their minds. Yet, Gaunilo asserts, the fact that we can hold a concept “in understanding” (in intellectu) does not mean that the being corresponding to that concept exists “in the thing” (in re). The fact that he can easily conceive, in his understanding, of the lost island does not mean that he should then hold this island to exist. If he were to believe that this lost island existed in the world simply because he is able to envision this lost island in his understanding, he maintains, he would have to believe all sorts of “uncertain and even false things [incerta vel etiam falsa]”13 just because someone had mentioned them, and he would thus often be deceived. Should someone wish to persuade him that the lost island, in all of its splendor, exists, he writes, that person should first demonstrate to him that the island exists “as a true and indubitable thing [sicut rem vere atque indubie] and not as something false and uncertain [sicut falsum aut incertum aliquid], in his understanding,”14 and then ascribe qualities to it; he should not first ascribe qualities to it and then claim that, because of these qualities, it must exist. Just as his capacity to conceive of the lost island, in his understanding, does not require him to believe that that island exists, as a thing, Gaunilo concludes, his capacity to conceive of “that than which nothing greater can be conceived,” in his understanding, does not require him to believe that the superlative Being designated by this phrase exists, as a thing. Though he makes clear that he believes Christian doctrines about God to be true, in a way in which he does not believe pagan teachings about the Fortunate Isles to be true, he finds Anselm’s argument for God’s existence troubling because it could be used to justify a pagan legend. Even as Anselm opposes a certain Augustinian tradition, in arguing for the truth value of mental concepts, he aligns himself with an alternate, Boethian tradition. In De consolatione Philosophiae, Lady Philosophy acknowledges that it is a possible that “an empty image of thought … may deceive us.”15 At the same time, she maintains of the perfect good that “It cannot be denied that it exists and that it is, so to speak, the font of all good things. Everything that is said to be imperfect is held to be imperfect through an impairment of its perfection. If something in any category seems to be imperfect, it is necessary that there be in this category something that is perfect. If this perfection were to be removed, it

13 14 15

Ibid., 2 (i.126.11): quaecumque alia incerta vel etiam falsa. Ibid., 6 (i.128.31–32): sicut rem vere atque indubie existentem nec ullatenus sicut falsum aut incertum aliquid in intellectu meo esse docuerit. Boethius, Philosophiae consolatio, ed. Ludovicus Bieber, Corpus Christianorum series Latina, vol. 94 (Turnholti: Brepols, 1957), iii, 10: cassa cogitationis imago decipiat.

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cannot be imagined how that which is imperfect should exist.”16 Insofar as one apprehends that which is imperfect, Lady Philosophy argues, one necessarily also apprehends, even indirectly, that which is perfect. It is only through the standard established by that which is perfect that one is able to measure that which is imperfect and, indeed, that that which is imperfect is able to exist at all. Just as that which is imperfect is measured by that which is perfect, all creatures—which are, by definition, imperfect—are measured by the Creator, who, in his perfection, made them. Lady Philosophy declares, “The common conception of human beings establishes that God, the foremost of all things, is good, for, when nothing better can be thought out [excogitari] than God— than whom there is nothing better—who can doubt that he is good?”17 Insofar as one apprehends that which is imperfect, she contends, one necessarily also apprehends, even indirectly, God himself because his is the name we give to that which is perfect. While Augustine is troubled by the fact that we can proceed from a mental concept of a white swan (which we have seen and which exist) to the mental concept of a black swan (which we have not seen and which does not exist), Boethius is delighted by the fact that we can move from a mental concept of the imperfect (which we have seen and which exists) to a mental concept of the perfect (which we have not seen, yet which, he contends, also exists). Whereas Augustine sees human beings as using the traits of God’s real creatures to fashion a man-made, unreal being, Boethius sees them as using these traits, in their varying degrees of potentiality, to come to know God himself, in his absolute actuality. In a text which relies upon concrete images, like that of Lady Philosophy herself, to convey abstract truths, mental concepts of phenomena we have never seen become ways in which we can gain access to reality. In his response to Gaunilo, Anselm echoes the confidence Boethius expresses in mental concepts. When someone utters the phrase “that than which nothing greater can be conceived,” we hold this concept “in the understanding.” Yet Anselm argues that, if this phrase is meaningful, it must exist, not only “in the understanding,” but also “in the thing.” He writes, “If it were in the understanding alone, it could be conceived to be in the thing as well, which would be 16

17

Ibid: Sed quin exsistat sitque hoc ueluti quidam omnium fons bonorum, negari nequit; omne enim quod imperfectum esse dicitur id imminutione perfecti imperfectum esse perhibetur. Quo fit ut, si in quolibet genere imperfectum quid esse uideatur, in eo perfectum quoque aliquid esse necesse sit; etenim perfectione sublata unde illud quod imperfectum perhibetur exstiterit ne fingi quidem potest. Ibid: Deum, rerum omnium principem, bonum esse communis humanorum conceptio probat animorum; nam cum nihil deo melius excogitari queat, id quo melius nihil est bonum esse quis dubitet?

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greater. Therefore, if ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived’ is in the understanding alone, ‘that than which nothing is greater can be conceived’ is that than which something greater can be conceived. But certainly this cannot be. Therefore, there exists without doubt something that ‘than which something greater’ cannot be, both in the understanding and in the thing.”18 As Anselm sees it, it is self-evident that that which exists in the thing as well as in the understanding is greater than that which exists in the understanding alone because it is self-evident that being is greater than non-being. Thus, if “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” existed only in understanding, it would not be “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” because one could conceive of something still greater, namely, that which existed, in the thing as well. For that reason, “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” must exist, not only in the mind, but in reality. While Gaunilo imagines the process by which people conceive of an island they have never seen as a capricious fancy, resulting only in something false, doubtful, and uncertain, Anselm represents the process by which they conceive of God, whom they have never seen, as a serious, logical undertaking, ending in something true, indubitable, and certain. Though one may come to know of something through the operations of one’s own mind, he argues, it can be just as real or even more real than that which one knows through experience of the world. While Anselm expresses confidence that the mental concept he entertains of God in his mind refers to a being that exists in reality, he does not believe that the mental concept he might entertain of any other entity—such as, perhaps, the perfect knight—would do so. Gaunilo conjectures as to what would happen “if I should hear something said about some man, entirely unknown to me, whom I did not even know to exist”19—or, one could add, if he should hear something said about the perfect knight, whom he has never met or known to be. The fact that he could easily conceive of this man—of this knight—does not mean that he should therefore believe him to exist. As he explains, “It could happen, if he who was speaking was lying, that the man whom I conceived did not exist.”20 It may be that there exists no such man—no such perfect 18

19 20

Anselm, Pros. 2 (i.101.15–102.3): Et certe id quo maius cogitari nequit, non potest esse in solo intellectu. Si enim vel in solo intellectu est, potest cogitari esse et in re, quod maius est. Si ergo id quo maius cogitari non potest, est in solo intellectu: id ipsum quo maius cogitari non potest, est quo maius cogitari potest. Sed certe hoc esse non potest. Existit ergo procul dubio aliquid quo maius cogitari non valet, et in intellectu et in re. Anselm, Pro insip. 4 (i.127.4–5): si de homine aliquo, mihi prorsus ignoto, quem etiam esse nescirem, dici tamen aliquid audirem. Ibid., 4 (i.127.7–8): et tamen fieri posset, ut mentiente illo qui diceret, ipse, quem cogitarem homo non esset.

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knight—despite what he has been told. On the one hand, Anselm agrees with Gaunilo that, just because one can entertain a mental concept of this man (or this knight), this man (or knight) does not necessarily exist. He declares, “There is … one supremely great thing and supremely good thing, that is, the Supreme One of all who are.”21 As we have seen, every creature, insofar as it is good at all, exists in relation to the Creator, who is Goodness itself. While there is no need for the best island or the best knight to exist, there is a need for the Supreme Being—that is, God—to exist because his being furnishes the ontological underpinning for all of his creatures. God is the only entity which must necessarily exist, not only in the understanding, but in the thing, because he is the only entity defined by his existence: in him alone is essence existence. For that reason, Anselm proposes, “If someone should discover for me anything existing, either in the thing or in the concept alone, aside from ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived,’ to which he can apply the sequence of my arguments, I will discover, and I will give him, the lost island, not to be lost again.”22 So confident is he that his line of thought applies to God, and only to God, that he offers to give something he cannot give to whoever will prove him wrong. On the other hand, however, if one can put the ontological singularity of God to the side, Anselm sets up an intellectual structure which could, hypothetically, be used with other beings. He argues, “Everything that is less good is similar to that which is more good, insofar as it is good. It is therefore clear to any rational mind that, by ascending from the lesser good to the greater good, from those things than which something greater can be conceived, we can conjecture, to a large degree, about ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived.’”23 Every lesser knight, insofar as he is still a knight at all, exists in relation to a better knight and, by extension, in relation to the best knight. If there is a good, there must be a better, and if there is a better, there must be a best. Like God, who is the summit of all beings, the best knight may seem not to exist, given that he surpasses all other knights, but it is necessary that he exist, insofar as his existence underwrites that of all other knights. Philosopher as he may be, Anselm not only develops the abstract definition of God as “that 21 22

23

Anselm, Mono. 1 (i.15.11–12): Est igitur unum aliquid summe bonum et summe magnum, id est summum omnium quae sunt. Anselm, Pros. 3 (i.133.6–9): si quis invenerit mihi aliquid aut re ipsa aut sola cogitatione existens praeter quo maius cogitari non possit, cui aptare valeat conexionem hujus meae argumentationis: inveniam, et dabo illi perditam insulam amplius non perdendam. Ibid., 8 (i.137.14–18): Quoniam namque omne minus bonum in tantum est simile majori bono inquantum est bonum; patet cuilibet rationali menti, quia de bonis minoribus ad maiora conscendendo ex iis quibus aliquid maius cogitari potest, multum possumus coniicere illud quo nihil potest maius cogitari.

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than which nothing greater can be conceived” (in all its verbal awkwardness); he also represents, through Gaunilo, the concrete image of the lost island as a dazzling place, comparable only to the Fortunate Islands of classical mythology and literature.24 His very willingness to hypothesize the existence of the lost island and his gift of this place—no longer lost—to anyone who would defeat him in argument reflects the unexpected pleasure he takes in his and others’ fictions.

2

The Perfect Knight

At Arthur’s court, some of Lancelot’s fellow knights argue that the perfect knight does not exist in this world. In discussion with these knights, King Arthur maintains that Lancelot is the perfect knight. At one point, when he has left the court, Arthur laments, “It used to be said that all earthly prowess was at my court, but I say that now it is not, since the best knight in the world is absent from it.”25 With this remark, Arthur makes clear, Lancelot is, not only a real person in the world, but an idea in one’s mind. He is, not only the particular, concrete Lancelot, but also the universal, abstract Earthly Prowess. Later, when the knights of the Round Table are preparing for a tournament, Arthur expresses regret that Lancelot is not among them. If Lancelot were present, Arthur declares, his knights would defeat all of their opponents at the tournament, but, in his absence, they will all be vanquished. Some of Arthur’s knights take exception to his views of Lancelot. Yder, the king of Cornwall and knight to Arthur, denies that Lancelot is as good a knight as he is reputed to be. He alleges, “If we were to vanquish everyone … and Lancelot were with us, without striking a blow, still people would say he had vanquished everyone and had taken the prize.”26 If people perceive Lancelot as the single best knight in the world,

24

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On the Fortunate Isles, see Flavius Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana v, 3; Plutarch, Life of Sertorius viii; Pliny the Elder’s Historia naturalis iv, 36. Gaunilo derives his description of these isles most directly from Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae xiv, 6. 8. Isidore comments, “Pagan error and the songs of the secular poets have held that these islands to be Paradise because of the fecundity of the soil [Unde gentilium error et saecularium carmina poetarum propter soli fecunditatem easdem esse Paradisum putaverunt].” In his Vita Merlini (vv. 908–940), Geoffrey of Monmouth will identify the Fortunate Isles with Avalon. Lancelot, ed. Micha, vol. 8, p. 36: Et soloit l’ en dire que toute la proeche terriene estoit en mon ostel, mais je di que ore n’ i ele mie, puis que il mieudres chevaliers del monde en est fors. Ibid., vol. 4, p. 350: car se nous vainquions tout, … et Lanceloz fust avec nos sanz cop ferir, si diroit l’ an qu’ il avroit tout vaincu et emporteroit tout le pris.

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Yder maintains, it is, not because he is, in fact, superior to others, but because people are predisposed to perceive him as superior. He suspects that spectators at tournaments and battles say to themselves, “That is Lancelot. Therefore, he will be the best knight,” and that they thus allow Lancelot’s (inflated) reputation to influence their interpretation of what they see happening on the field. They allow who Lancelot is to inform their interpretation of what he does, in a manner that distorts their view of who he is. Guinevere warns, “King Yder, … do not put Lancelot on the same level as our other knights,”27 but he insists that Lancelet is, indeed, on this level. As Yder feels that Arthur has overestimated Lancelot’s worth, he feels that he has underestimated the worth of the other knights of the Round Table. Were Lancelot to fight against these knights in the tournament, he promises, “He would not go away except defeated.”28 Despite objections raised by Arthur, Guinevere, and Arthur’s nephew Gawain, one hundred and fourteen knights agree with Yder that they would be able to defeat Lancelot in battle, and they resolve to oppose him at the next tournament in order to prove this point. If the perfect knight does not exist in the world, Yder and his allies assert, it is because, given the fallibility of human nature, it is inevitable that every knight will, at some point, succumb to another in combat. In a similar manner, some of the ladies at Arthur’s court argue that the perfect lover does not exist in this world. Guinevere usually maintains that Lancelot is the perfect lover. She refers to him as “he in whose heart I believed all loyalty was lodged.”29 With this remark, she makes clear, Lancelot is, not only a real person in the world, but an idea in one’s mind. He is not just the particular, concrete Lancelot, but also the universal, abstract Loyalty. Yet, on three occasions, Guinevere believes Lancelot to have been unfaithful to her: she sees a damsel wear a belt she herself had given him; she sees him wear a sleeve another damsel had bestowed upon him; and she finds him in bed with yet another damsel. Convinced that he has betrayed her, she cries out in sorrow and anger, “Ah, God, who will ever prove loyalty again in any knight or in

27

28

29

Ibid., vol. 4, p. 349: Rois Ydiers, … ne metez ja Lancelot el ranc de noz autres chevaliers, car si m’aïst Diex que s’il a ce estoit menez que il encontre celz de ceans volsist estre et il se voloit travillier, je ne cuit mie que il a plain poing de gent ne menast a desconfiture l’orgoil de ceanz. Ibid., vol. 4, pp. 349–350: je sai bien qu’il ne s’en iroit ja se desconfit non …. Et se/ Lanceloz venoit contre els par aventure, ja n’alassent il fors .iii. ou .iiii. encontre lui, si le randroient il tout pris. La Mort le roi Artu: Roman du xiiie siècle, ed. Jean Frappier (Geneva: Droz, 1936; rpt., 1964), 32, p. 32: cil en qui cuer ge cuidoie que toute loiauté fust herbergiee. Frappier’s edition of this text provides the Long Cyclic Version, which is based on Paris, Ars. 3347.

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any man, when disloyalty has lodged itself in the best of all the good ones?”30 If Guinevere is distressed to think that Lancelot has been consorting with these damsels, it is, in part, because she thinks that her lover has been unfaithful to her, but it is also, in part, because she thinks that the most loyal of all knights has acted disloyally and that, in doing so, he has shown that all knights will, at some point, act disloyally. Arthur’s sister Morgan Le Fay shares Guinevere’s cynicism about lovers. As an enchantress, she creates what is called “The Valley of False Lovers,” a valley that any knight may enter but that none may leave if he has been false to his lady, whether in deed, in thought, or in desire. According to the spell Morgan has cast, the false lovers she keeps imprisoned in this valley will be freed once there arrives a knight who has never been unfaithful to his lady in any such manner, yet she is confident that such a knight will never appear. As Lancelot approaches this valley, one of her maidens advises him not to enter because, she explains, “I do not believe there is a knight who has ever been born who has been in love and has not, in some way, been false to his lady.”31 Because all knights are faulty in love, it necessarily follows that Lancelot, who is one such knight, must be faulty as well. If the perfect lover does not exist in the world, Guinevere and Morgan affirm, it is because, given the fallibility of human nature, it is inevitable that every lover will, at some point, betray his mistress. As the Vulgate Cycle establishes, the perfect knight exists in the world, and his name is Lancelot. At the tournament where King Yder and the other knights of the Round Table intend to set themselves against him, Lancelot does not appear, yet a mysterious new knight does arrive, wearing armor and carrying a shield no one recognizes. Fighting against the knights of the Round Table, this stranger ends up defeating sixty-four knights and being defeated by none. So extraordinary is his performance in battle that Yder feels that his doubts about Lancelot have been vindicated. He proclaims, “In the name of God, never did Lancelot demonstrate so much prowess, nor could he, for he never had the prowess of this knight.”32 Yet it turns out that this new knight was, in fact, Lancelot, forewarned by Guinevere to don new armor and a new shield and to

30

31 32

La Mort du roi Arthur, ed. Mary B. Speer, in Le Livre du Graal, ed. Daniel Poirion, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 3 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 2001–2009), vol. 3, pp. 1179–1486, at 38, p. 1214: Ha! Dix, qui trovera jamais loiauté en nul chevalier quant loialté faut al miudre chevalier des autres? Speer’s edition is based on Bonn ub 526. Lancelot, ed. Micha, vol. 1, pp. 287–288: je ne cuit pas qu’il nasquit onques chevaliers qui par amors eust amé qui en aucune maniere n’ eust fausé envers s’amie. Ibid., vol. 4, p. 372: En non Deu, … onques Lanceloz ne fist tant de prouesce ne il ne les porroit pas faire, car onques ne fu de la proesce cestui.

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fight on the other knights’ side. Indeed, far from taking advantage of his reputation, as Yder alleges that he does, Lancelot customarily enters tournaments and battles incognito. He typically wears different armor and carries a different shield, so that he cannot be recognized by them, and, if asked who he is, typically answers only, “I am a knight”;33 “I am a knight errant”;34 or “I am a knight … of King Arthur’s court.”35 If people perceive Lancelot as the best knight in the world, it is, not because they are predisposed to perceive him as superior to others around him, but because he is, in fact, superior. Far from saying to themselves, “This is Lancelot. Therefore, he will be the best knight,” onlookers at tournaments and battles say to themselves, “That is the best knight,” and then, perhaps, learn that it is Lancelot. By preventing Yder and his allies from knowing him from who he is, Lancelot forces them to know him from what he does. Lancelot is not described as the “ideal” knight, in part, because the word “ideal” did not exist in Old French. Instead, he is described as the superlative knight. He is repeatedly characterized as “the best knight in the world,”36 “the best knight presently alive,”37 and “the best … knight who ever lived.”38 He is “the flower of all knights”39 and “the most valiant in the world,”40 to the point where “There cannot be another of his valor.”41 What distinguishes Lancelot from other knights is not the absolute difference of the “ideal” and the “real,” but the relative difference of the best and the good. That which is ideal is, by definition, that which is not real. In contrast, that which is the best is unique and therefore rare, but it nonetheless exists. As superior as Lancelot may be to other knights, the Vulgate Cycle indicates, he remains on a continuum with other men. He stands on the highest step of the ladder of excellence, but this is a ladder on whose rungs all noble men can be found. The perfect knight does exist and must exist in the world because he is the source of the excellence in which all knights partake. As the perfect knight exists, the perfect lover also exists in the world, and, again, his name is Lancelot. If one damsel wore his belt and if he wore the other damsel’s sleeve, it was not because he loved them, but because they demanded these boons of him in a way he could not refuse. If he slept with the third 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Ibid., vol. 7, p. 362: Je sui … uns chevaliers. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 7: Je sui .i. chevaliers errans. Ibid., vol. 7, p. 430: i. chevaliers sui, … au roi Artu. Ibid., vol. 8, p. 121: li mieudres chevaliers del monde. Ibid., vol. 8, p. 207: uns chevaliers, li mieudres qui orendroit soit. Ibid., vol. 4, p. 209: li millor chevalier et le plus bel qui or fust. Ibid., vol. 8, pp. 461–462: la flors de tous les chevaliers. La Mort le Roi Artu, ed. Frappier, 71, p. 90: chevaliers del monde et li plus vaillanz. Lancelot, ed. Micha, vol. 4, p. 187: de sa valor ne porroit uns autres estre.

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damsel, it was only because she had deceived him into thinking she was Guinevere. Indeed, throughout this work, a long series of ladies and damsels attempt to seduce Lancelot, but he repulses all of them, always explaining, as politely as he can, that his heart is not his own. When Guinevere doubts Lancelot’s faithfulness, Bors, Lancelot’s cousin, reproaches her for having rejected “my lord Lancelot, who was the worthiest man in the world and who most loved you.”42 He addresses, not what Lancelot is alleged to have done or even has done, but, rather, who he is. Because he knows that Lancelot is “the worthiest man in the world,” he knows that he has loved Guinevere loyally and will continue to love her loyally, whatever evidence there might seem to be to the contrary. In the end, Guinevere recognizes that Bors is right, and she repents bitterly of her doubts about her lover. She says to herself, “You unhappy creature, how did you dare to believe that Lancelot was inconstant, that he loved another lady than you? Why have you so betrayed and deceived yourself? … No man has ever loved a lady as much as he has loved me, nor so loyally.”43 She realizes that it is, not Lancelot who has betrayed and deceived her, but she who, in doubting Lancelot, has betrayed and deceived herself. She realizes that Lancelot is the best of lovers, even when appearances suggest otherwise; that he therefore will always act as loyally as the best of lovers would do; and that the universal, abstract quality of Loyalty can, in fact, be found embodied in this particular, concrete individual. Needless to say, when Lancelot enters the Valley of False Lovers, the constancy he has always shown toward Guinevere defeats the logic upon which Morgan’s spell is based. The walls that imprison the captives crumble, and all of the knights kept there are now set free. Like the perfect knight, the perfect lover does exist in the world, epitomizing the standard to which all other lovers aspire. The problem for the authors of the Vulgate Cycle, is, not that the perfect knight does not exist in the world, but that, as fallen human beings, we have difficulty recognizing his existence. At the end of La Mort le Roi Artu, Arthur has exiled Lancelot from Logres and then pursued him to Gaul to wage war against him there, but he is forced to return to his own kingdom because his nephew Mordred has usurped his throne in his absence. As Arthur is preparing to march on Mordred, Gawain urges him to request Lancelot’s assistance in this war, because it is only by doing so that he will achieve victory, but Arthur refuses. He

42 43

Ibid., vol. 6, p. 179: Dame, por quoi nos avez vos si traïs … que vos mon signor Lancelot qui ert li plus prodome dou monde et qui plus vos amoit avez si vilainnement chacié de cort? La Mort le roi Artu, ed. Frappier, 72, pp. 91–92: Maleüreuse chose, comment osas tu cuidier que Lancelos fust nouveliers, qu’il amast autre dame que toi? Por quoi t’ies tu si traïe et deceüe? …. [O]nques hom n’ ama autant dame comme il m’a amee ne si loiaument.

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explains, “I have certainly hurt him so much that I do not believe that my appeal to him would be of any use, so I shall not request it of him.”44 Yet Gawain knows, with a clear-sightedness that Arthur, tragically, cannot share, that, despite the harm Arthur has done him, Lancelot would indeed come to his aid. He tells Arthur, “He is the worthiest man I have ever seen and the most gallant in the world, and he loves you with such great love that I know truly that he will come to you if you send for him.”45 Because he knows who Lancelot is, namely, the most worthy and gallant of knights, he knows how he will act, namely, by rescuing Arthur in his hour of need, despite everything Arthur has done against him. Gawain’s words will be proven correct when, too late, Lancelot learns that Arthur has faced Mordred in battle on Salisbury Plain, and he crosses the Channel to defeat the last remnants of Mordred’s followers. Now, however, Gawain tells Arthur, “My lord, … he loves you much more than you believe.”46 Though Arthur has interacted with Lancelot for many years by this point, Gawain suggests, he still does not grasp the extent of Lancelot’s love for him because he still does not grasp the possibility of such a superlative individual, who loves those who hate him. Of course, medieval audiences would have all been familiar with a man who was more excellent than all other men, who was hated, arrested, and killed by those who would not recognize that excellence, and who continued to love those who hated, arrested, and killed him. It is not that Lancelot is Jesus Christ or that he represents Jesus Christ. (His son Galahad will play that role.) But Lancelot represents a certain excellence, beyond what is normally seen in the world, which people have difficulty believing exists. For modern readers, Lancelot is a “romanticized” character, that is, one whose virtues owe more to the author’s imagination than to his observation of the world. For medieval readers, he is a realistic character, for those whose understanding of reality includes the best that it has to offer. If Anselm is confident that mental concepts can correspond to reality, it is because he is confident that human beings, through their minds, can gain access to the truth, in the world. He writes about the Supreme Being in his Monologion “that the mind is the mirror and image of him.”47 By contemplating itself, as in a mirror, the mind beholds both itself and the Godhead 44 45 46

47

Ibid., 166, p. 213: je me sui tant meffais vers lui que je ne quit mie que proiere i puist avoir mestier, et por ce ne l’ en requerrai je pas. Ibid: ce est li plus preudom que ge onques veïsse et li plus deboneres del monde; et il vos ainme de si tres grant amour que ge sei veraiement qu’il vendra a vos, se vos le mandez. Ibid: toutes voies vous loeroie je que vous mandissiés a Lancelot qu’il vous venist secourre, et je sai veraiement qu’il i venra, si tost come il verra vos letres, car il vous aime assés plus que vous ne quidiés. Anselm, Mono. 67 (i.77.26): Quod mens ipsa speculum eius et imago eius sit.

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of which it is an image. Thanks to “the similarity … of natural essence”48 in which it approaches God, the mind comes to know God as it comes to know itself. Given the fact that the mind is the mirror and image of God, Anselm indicates, human beings can gain access to truth through logical deductions. In Cur Deus homo, he responds to the objections of infidels, who disdain the Christian faith “because they deem it to oppose reason.”49 He asserts that he will establish the truth of the Incarnation and the Redemption through “rational arguments”50 which will be convincing to them. At the same time, Anselm also suggests that human beings can gain access to truth through what may seem to be beautiful fictions. In a dialogue with Boso, a monk of Bec and a frequent interlocutor, he expounds upon the symmetry between the manner of human beings’ damnation, in the Old Testament, and the manner of their redemption, in the New Testament. Just as man fell through disobedience, he writes, “It was fitting [oportebat]”51 that he be restored through obedience; just as he fell through a woman, it was fitting that he be restored through a woman; and just as he had been vanquished by the devil, it was fitting that he vanquish this Tempter. He writes, “Many other things, if studiously considered, show the ineffable beauty [ineffabilem … pulchritidinem] of our redemption, procured in this manner.”52 Boso protests that, even if infidels admitted the beauty of Anselm’s arguments, they would not be persuaded of their truth. He affirms, “If there is not something solid, on which they rest, they do not appear sufficient to infidels.”53 When these unbelievers consider Christians depicting the mystical correspondences between the events of the Old and the New Testaments, he asserts, “They consider us, as it were, to be painting upon a cloud, since they do not think this belief of ours to be a reality, but only a fiction [non rem gestam sed figmentum].”54 As Boso sees it, while arguments based upon beauty, like Anselm’s, embellish the truth, they do not establish the truth, let alone convert unbelievers to the faith. Because they do not establish the truth, he warns,

48 49 50 51 52 53 54

Ibid., 66 (i, 77.21): naturalis essentiae … similitudinem. Anselm, cdh, Praefatio (ii.42.10–11): quia rationi putant illam repugnare. Ibid., Praefatio (ii.42.12): rationibus. Ibid., 1.3 (ii.51.5). Ibid., 1.3 (ii.51.11–12): Sunt quoque alia multa, quae studiose considerata ineffabilem quandam nostrae redemtionis hoc modo procuratae pulchritudinem osendunt. Ibid., 1.4 (ii.51.16–18): Omnia haec pulchra … suscipienda sunt; sed si non sit aliquid solidum, super quod sedeant, non videntur infidelibus sufficere. Ibid., 1.4 (ii.51.21–52.3): Quapropter cum has convenientias quas dicis infidelibus quasi quasdam picturas rei gestae obtendimus, quoniam non rem gestam, sed figmentum arbitrantur esse, quod credimus quasi super nubem pingere nos existimant.

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they resemble “pictures,”55 and pictures painted on air or water at that.56 For Anselm, however, logical reasonings and aesthetic correspondences, abstract arguments and concrete images, and proofs and picture all reflect the fact that our minds are themselves a proof, a picture, an image of God. While Anselm wrote a hundred years before the composition of the first Arthurian romances, many characters in these later works express his opponents’ skepticism about the existence of the best in our world, even as the authors of these works confirm his own confidence in its reality. 55 56

Ibid. 1.4 (ii.51.21): picturae. Boso is not the only person to criticize Anselm’s fondness for beauty. Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams complain of Anselm in Anselm, Great Medieval Thinkers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 74, that “his desire for stylistic grace and rhetorical effectiveness—which are on display in the Proslogion to a markedly greater degree than in any of his other systematic works—sometimes obscures his train of thought or misdirects the unwary reader.” They refer in particular to the fact that “the Lost Island argument is so vivid and memorable” (75).

part 3 Anselm Reading Humanity

∵

Divine Justice, Mercy, and Intercession in Anselm’s Prayers Gregory Sadler

Perhaps I am presumptuous to speak, but the goodness of you both makes me bold.1

∵ On several counts, Anselm of Canterbury has long been recognized as a boldly innovative thinker of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. In this paper, specifically focused upon his prayers, it is unnecessary to enumerate the contributions he makes within a variety of different areas of life, thought, and society. It is worth noting, however, not only the range and depth of the topics he grappled with but also the rigorous, even relentless, argumentation involved in his works, including the prayers, through which he elaborates a systematic (though not systematized) perspective.2 Anselm’s innovativeness also pervades the very structure of his works, in which rhetorical composition rarely serves primarily as adornment, and instead reflects and embodies the purposes of his texts. This is perhaps evident nowhere more than in the collection of Anselm’s prayers, which break new ground in multiple manners.3 From within the devel-

1 Prayer to St. Mary (3), trans. Ward, 125 (iii. 24). All references to Anselm’s prayers here are provided with a shortened title of the prayer, the page number(s) from The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion, trans. Benedicta Ward (London: Penguin, 2006), followed by the volume and page number in Schmitt. 2 For a now-classic viewpoint on whether Anselm develops and relies upon a general system of thought, cf. Dom Jean Robert Pouchet, O.S.B. “Existe-t-il une ‘synthèse’ anselmienne,” Analecta Anselmiana, vol. 1 (1969). His conclusion, with which I agree entirely, is that: “Saint Anselm’s corpus is not simply an ensemble of juxtaposed monographs touching on the majority of great theological subjects, but rather it takes on, to a certain degree, a character of coordination much more spontaneous than coordinated, in virtue of which we can speak of partial syntheses, or of synthetic aspects, or of the synthetic value of his teaching,” p. 8. I would go so far as to say that this Anselmian system is to be found as well running through his prayers, meditations, and letters. 3 For a range of assessments of the functions, innovativeness, and cohesiveness of perspective

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oping tradition of private prayers, he adapts traditional Christian narratives and imagery, introjects intensely expressed affectivity, and articulates entire dramatic frameworks that are at the same time entirely expressive of his own personal situation and yet eminently adaptable to other persons. The effect of these prayers is to enfold the petitioner performatively into uncompromising consciousness of the reality of his or her own fallen, damaged condition, and by participation into an economy (or better put, community) in which restoration of the human being can take place, not only directly by divine agency but also through the intercession of the saints. The aspect of Anselm’s prayers that I focus upon here is one that assumes central, indeed architectonic, importance within those early works, but also plays an understandably significant role within Anselm’s thought more generally. The theme or issue, expressed in a single phrase, is that of the interplay between divine justice and mercy. Everywhere this issue arises, Anselm is concerned not only with working out an adequate understanding, a rational explanation for a compatibility, rather than contradiction, between justice and mercy, but also with more existential concerns, locating and situating the human person affectively, reflectively, and volitionally, within this dynamic and mysterious framework of justice and mercy. In two earlier papers, I have discussed how Anselm examines and then reconciles seemingly incompatible realities of divine justice and mercy in the Proslogion4 and in the Cur Deus homo.5 As a component of what has developed into a book-length project

in Anselm’s prayers, cf. in particular: R.W. Southern, Saint Anselm and His Biographer: A Study in Monastic Life and Thought 1059–c. 1130 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 34– 47; Thomas H. Bestul, “Saint Augustine and the Orationes sive Meditationes of St. Anselm,” in Anselm Studies 2, ed., Joseph Schnaubelt (White Plains: Kraus International, 1988); Marylin McCord Adams, “Romancing the Good: God and Self according to St. Anselm of Canterbury,” in The Augustinian Tradition, ed. Garreth Matthews (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 91–109; Rachel Fulton Brown, “Praying with Anselm at Admont: A Meditation on Practice,” Speculum 81, no. 3 (2006), 700–733; Benedicta Ward, “Inward Feeling and Deep Thinking,” in Anselm Studies, Vol. 1, ed. Gillian R. Evans (White Plains: Kraus International, 1983), 177–184, and “Introduction,” in The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion, trans. Benedicta Ward (New York: Penguin, 2006); and Eileen C. Sweeney, “The Rhetoric of Prayer and Argument in Anselm,”Philosophy and Rhetoric 38, no. 4 (2005), 355–338 and Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), ch. 1. 4 Gregory Sadler, “Mercy and Justice in St. Anselm’s Proslogion,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 80, no. 1 (2006), 41–61. That paper also contains some discussion of justice and mercy in the Monologion. 5 Gregory Sadler, “Is God’s Justice Unmerciful in Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo?” The Saint Anselm Journal 11, no. 1 (2015), 1–13.

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examining the paradoxical tensions between justice and mercy throughout Anselm’s corpus, this paper focuses exclusively on how justice and mercy figure into the Prayers.6 This presentation is divided into four parts. The first part introduces the problematic of justice and mercy as found in Anselm’s thought, and discusses how the Prayers provide a distinctive perspective upon the issue. The second part presents the case of divine justice against the petitioning sinner in Anselm’s prayers, setting out the problematic that justice would seem to rule out mercy precisely because of what sin’s injustice has effected within the human person. The third part examines several recurring, rhetorically constructed resolutions of the seeming incompatibility between justice and mercy proposed by Anselm within the prayers. The fourth part focuses specifically on the active and appropriate roles human beings play for each other within the divine economy of mercy and justice.

1

The Anselmian Problematic of Justice and Mercy

Asking a seemingly naïve question provides a useful starting point for thinking about this issue. Why should there be any conflict between divine justice and divine mercy? Certainly, according to orthodox Christian doctrine, God is just, but why should that fact of being just preclude Him from being merciful even to the greatest of sinners? After all, God made the rules. He calls the proverbial shots in the end. It is God’s decree or determination that is ultimately decisive. So why shouldn’t God be able to suspend justice, or abrogate divine judgment of a sinner, if He so decides? Indeed, if God is supremely good, if He is a redeemer of the sinner, proverbially “rich in mercy,” why should anyone dread divine justice rather than hope for, or even confidently count upon, divine mercy? To make matters more concrete, why all this endless moaning and groaning in Anselm’s prayers about his sinful state, his trepidations over encountering the strict judge, his concerns over his inability to set things right (or even to feel as he ought to), his groveling and wheedling before potential intercessors? Perhaps Anselm himself endorses the view that divine mercy trumps justice precisely through the mechanics of intercessory prayer? After all, he complains to God at one point, “That surely is the sentence of justice, not of mercy, and who calls on justice in my cause? My talk was of mercy, not of justice. In the

6 Anselm’s Meditations are also of considerable interest for understanding his views on these topics, but given the richness of the prayers, and limitations of space, I pass over them here.

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wretched tribulation of my soul I beg of you, my God, the bread of mercy; why do you press the stone of justice into my mouth?”7 Does not this sort of talk seem to presuppose not only that justice and mercy are in some sense opposed, but that God ought to set aside his admittedly just judgment in favor of a greater mercy, not least because He can? Anselm could reply, and does in effect indicate to us readers as we explore the architecture of his prayers, that such a point of view represents a fundamentally mistaken conception of an entire host of matters. One of his main goals in these compositions is to starkly depict the realities facing the sinner and then to outline the remedies available to that person. Put in another manner, the Prayers presume and move within the whole of an Anselmian moral and metaphysical perspective, one whose outlines are largely yet to be elaborated in his later treatises, but one entirely consistent with these earlier works.8 In order to reserve space to explore the prayers, I will simply set out several doctrines I take to be central within this theological perspective. First, God is not merely superlatively just, but is justice itself, what justice is, and the entire order of creation, including the moral order, participates in some way in the divine justice.9 Any account of matters that frames divine mercy simply as an abrogation or nullification of (or even as a localized exception from) divine justice ultimately proves unworkable. Second, whatever justice human beings possess, as participation in justice, resides primarily in the human will.10 It is a good of which human beings can be deprived only through their own volition, by choosing some other good in preference to that of maintaining justice in the will.11 Third, once justice has been lost, a human being becomes incapable of regaining or restoring it by his or her own power, and injustice imposes consequences damaging to the entire person.12 Fourth, God does indeed act mercifully towards human beings, not only by effacing the guilt (though not

7 8

9 10 11 12

St. Peter, trans. Ward, 140 (iii. 33). As we know from the explanations Anselm himself provides in the prefaces to his works, they tended to emerge as written compositions from the framework of his own sustained meditations upon given subjects, occasioned by a need or desire on the part of others to have them in written form. As noted earlier, it is arguable that Anselm possessed and relied upon a systematically developed understanding of the matters that he discussed in less systematic, and more occasioned forms. Mono. 16, (i. 30–31). Memorials of St. Anselm, R.W. Southern and F.S. Schmitt, O.S.B, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1969). De ver. 12, (i. 194). De lib. arb. 5, (i. 215–217). For a few examples, cf. De lib. arb. 10, (i. 210). De casu 17, (i. 262). De conc. vir. 8, (i. 149–150), De concordia 3.3, (ii. 266), and 3.14, (ii. 288).

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all consequences) of original sin, but even by offering pardon for personal sins. Fifth, a key way in which God effects this mercy towards the sinner is by graciously restoring that person (and human nature) back from a state of injustice to a state of renewed justice. In forgiving or pardoning (parcere), God does not simply wipe away a black mark, or allow something bad to pass on this occasion, but rather affects a change within the person to whom mercy is being shown. Sixth, God’s merciful grace is offered to human beings not only, we might say, directly from God himself, but also through the mediation of other human beings who willingly collaborate with the divine will.13 Within the fuller, more adequate understanding of divine justice and mercy outlined by these key Anselmian doctrines, we can better understand the purposes of the prayers. Anselm tells Mathilda, when sending her a collection of his prayers, that these works “are arranged so that by reading them the mind may be stirred up either to the love or fear of God, or to a consideration of both.”14 Fear, among other affects (e.g. disgust with oneself, anger at one’s sins) is aroused within the penitent sinner through consideration of the scope, rigor, and inescapability of divine justice. Love is something that the human being ought to feel and act upon towards God,15 but is also evoked through consideration of the depths of divine mercy, all the more so when that mercy turns out to be compatible with justice. Two other features Anselm points out are also significant. He suggests that the prayers be used flexibly by the reader, so that it is not necessary that they be read in their entirety as compositions, but rather in ways the reader finds them useful, for “meditating”16 and for arousing these affective responses through that prayer. In addition to this, he also suggests his prayers may be useful as models Mathilda can use in composing her own prayers.17 Returning to the focus upon divine justice and mercy, we might envision Anselm’s compositions as embodying and elaborating a teaching upon 13 14

15 16 17

De concordia 3.6, (ii. 270–273). Prayers and Meditations, trans. Ward, 90 (iii. 4). In Letter 28, he tells his fellow monk Gundulf, to whom he sends the three prayers to Mary, that what the prayers were intended to do (ad quod factae sunt) is that “ere the end is reached, the compunction of contrition or of love may through divine grace be found in them by whoever reads or rather, meditates upon them,” The Letters of Saint Anselm, trans. Walter Froelich (Kalamazoo, Cistercian Publications, 1990), Vol. 1, 121 (iii. 136). Prayer to Christ, trans. Ward, 93 (iii. 6). Letter 28, trans. Froelich, 121 (iii. 136). Rachel Fulton Brown emphasizes this as a central motivation for Anselm’s composition; “Why did Anselm of Canterbury feel the need to write prayers for himself, his brothers, and friends? … Historically speaking, there are doubtless many answers. Phenomenologically, there is arguably only one: to experience, and so to understand, prayer, one has to practice making it oneself.” “Praying with Anselm at Admont,” 708.

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this core Christian problematic that contemporary readers might interpret and adapt within the scope of their own reflections, thoughts, prayers, and affectivity.

2

The Demands of Divine Justice

Anselm affirms throughout his prayers that God is superlatively just, and he depicts this supreme justice through rhetoric conveying that the divine justice is not merely an extreme point along a continuum of a quality of justice, but rather, as justice itself, exhibits what might be called a “reflexive intensity” of that divine attribute.18 For instance, in his Prayer to St. John The Baptist, calling God “my just judge”, he both affirms the rightness of the judgment, and that God is thereby indeed God, Lord, and Creator.19 In the Prayer to Saint Nicholas, God’s justice is called a “third abyss,” yet more terrible and unfathomable than those other abysses of Anselm’s sins or the punishments of those sins.20 In relation to the creature, one aspect of the divine justice is manifested in the fear the sinner experiences “before the all-powerful justice of the stern judge,”21 who rightly condemns the sinful creature. As Anselm depicts this divine judgment, however, it does not occur as a once-and-for-all punctual event, imposed in extrinsic and purely legalistic manners upon a person for his or her misdeeds, isolated from their environment, their relationships, and the ongoing narrative of their life. Rather, it possesses and moves within interconnected metaphysical and moral dimensions, reverberating throughout the created order, affecting a person at the core of their very being and relations with the rest of creation, and, of course, with God. To be unjust, as Anselm understands it, represents a privation of justice within the will of the person, a deformation or lack that is not a mere absence or nullity, but which presents itself determinately. This conception of justice and injustice is a central and distinctive doctrine within the moral theory that runs throughout the entirety of Anselm’s works, but in the treatises, it tends to

18 19 20 21

Cf. Gregory Sadler, “A Perfectly Simple God and Our Complicated Lives,” The Saint Anselm Journal 6, no. 1 (2008), 1–23, at 8. St. John The Baptist, trans. Ward, 132 (iii. 28). St. Nicholas , trans. Ward, 192 (iii. 59). Cf. also St. John the Evangelist (2), trans. Ward, 163– 164 (iii. 46). St. Mary (2), trans. Ward, 110 (iii. 15). This language runs consistently throughout the prayers, so that, e.g. in the St. Paul, he similarly refers to God as “the powerful and strict judge,” trans. Ward, 141 (iii. 33).

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be worked out in general terms. Within the Prayers, this thematic of the condition within which the unjust human being discovers him- or herself to be is dealt with existentially, depicted and lamented by the subject suffering from but also responsible for their miserable state. The Prayers highlight a number of key and mutually reinforcing features of this condition of injustice. Sin effectively sets one against God as an enemy, subject to His wrath, expressed in the severity of his judgment against, and punishment of the sinner. God is called a “fearsome [tremendum] judge,” and, Anselm worries: “terrible is the severity of the Judge, intolerably strict, for the offense against him is huge, and he is exceedingly wrathful.”22 The sinful creature is not only opposed to God himself, but also to the right order interwoven within creation’s very fabric. As Anselm laments in the Prayer to Saint Paul, “even that which is irrational and insensible condemns me.”23 A bit later, he adds: “all things that are right are turned against me.”24 Even worse, “all that has being [quod est] opposes” him.25 This estrangement is still more the case in relation to other rational beings. “All spirits, good and evil, condemn me. The good because they owe justice to God; the evil because they serve my injustice … They both judge my iniquity in this, because they know that according to justice, I deserve to be damned.”26 At multiple points, Anselm worries that his very sinfulness and injustice may preclude the very possibility of any merciful intercession on his behalf. He expresses this generally by asking: “which one will be an intercessor with him, if all are his accusers and judges?”27 He realizes that, however he may be tempted to (mis-)represent his condition, “the truth of the matter convicts me as an enemy of God.” He points out: “I have provoked God and all things to vengeance, and there is nothing left that is not offended to intercede for me.”28 This problematic extends particularly to the very people he would ask to intercede, the saints. Precisely by their very closeness to, their friendship with, their participation in the justice of God, the faults of the sinner are rendered more noxious to them. In the Prayer to Saint Stephen, Anselm admits that “in offending God, I have offended you also and all the saints.”29 In the 1st Prayer to St. John the Evangelist, in which Anselm confesses that he is justly and truthfully

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Saint Stephen, trans. Ward, 175, (iii. 50). Cf. also Saint Nicholas, trans. Ward, 191 (iii. 59). Saint Paul, trans. Ward, 142 (iii. 34). Ibid., trans. Ward, 144 (iii. 35). Ibid., trans. Ward, 145 (iii. 35). Ibid., trans. Ward, 141–142 (iii. 34). Ibid., trans. Ward, 142 (iii. 34). St. John the Evangelist (1), trans. Ward, 159 (iii. 43). St. Stephen, trans. Ward, 177 (iii. 51).

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called an “enemy of God,”30 it is the very friendship of the saint with Christ that understandably produces hatred against the sinner, because “an offense against God deserves to be hated by the friends of God,” seemingly turning those who might intercede for the sinner against him.31 This sort of personal offense extends even to the Mother of God, for by sinning against Christ, he “alienat[es] [irritavi]” and “offend[s]” His mother.32 Not only do other people condemn the sinner, the sinner condemns himself reflexively as well in these prayers. At numerous points Anselm experiences his own conscience accusing him, revealing multiple dimensions of damage, corruption, estrangement, and injustice in his sinful condition. Within the dramatic and affective structure, situating the sinful person in conversation with the saints and with God Himself, the petitioner is made progressively more and more aware of the depth and consequences of sins, the malefic effects they produce upon and within the person. In the Prayer to Saint Nicholas, this growing awareness reveals a veritable and horrifying abyss, “irredeemable and bottomless.”33 Anselm is forced to admit that his sins exceed his own capacities to recall, to enumerate, or even to adequately repent for them.34 He employs a rich and disturbing variety of imagery in detailing the damage done to his soul. He is “sick with the sickness of vice, in pain from the wounds of crimes, putrid with the ulcers of sin.”35 He is a soul, “lacerated by the wolves” teeth, by wounds self-inflicted, by infection.36 His soul is practically dead,37 and though he is not yet suffering “eternal death, even now [he] is abandoned to the spiritual death that draws to the other.”38 He is “lost to all virtues” and “dominated by a crowd of vices.”39 In wanting to turn back towards God, he realizes another set of consequences of sin that manifest themselves in a number of different modalities, including affective, volitional, habitual, and cognitive. He suffers from a com-

30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38 39

St. John the Evangelist (1), trans. 160 (iii. 43). Ibid., trans. Ward., 158 (iii. 42). St. Mary (2), trans. Ward, 112 (iii. 16). St Nicholas, trans. Ward, 191 (iii. 59). St. Mary Magdalene frames this similarly in term of a “dark prison of sins, wrapped round with the shadows of darkness,” trans. Ward, 201 (iii. 64). Cf. St. Benedict, trans. Ward, 197 (iii. 62) and St. Peter, trans. Ward, 139–140 (iii. 32). St. Mary (1), trans. Ward, 107 (iii. 13). St. Peter, trans. Ward, 136–137 (iii. 30–31). St. John the Baptist, trans. Ward, 127 (iii. 26.) St. Paul, trans. Ward, 148 (iii. 37). St. Benedict, trans. Ward, 198 (iii. 63). Cf. also Prayer to Mary Magdalene, where Anselm speaks of the “depth of vice,” trans. Ward, 201 (iii. 64).

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plex state whose significance is consolidated in one word, torpor. He does not love or desire God, nor God’s will expressed in the right ordering of justice, as he realizes that he ought to. He thus finds himself unable to perseveringly will what is right,40 as well as to repent of his wrong ways and condition.41 Instead, he finds himself choosing to return to his sins, committing them at times “willingly, readily, and openly”42 and at other times secretly, turning his monastic habit into a living lie.43 Vices have taken deep root within the fabric of his soul and continue to exercise their attraction upon his will.44 Even worse, he realizes that he is deluded about his true state. His “crowning unhappiness” is that “while it is all true, yet it does not seem so to me.”45 Though he “stand[s] continually in danger” he “does not always recognize this.”46 He laments that “the habit of vice has wiped away in me the knowledge of true good,”47 and that “even to think of what is for its good makes [his depraved mind] weary and stupid.”48 He can bring to mind the virtues, which he does not possess, only “slowly” and “with what difficulty.”49 The unjust, sinful human person suffers from a divided self that cannot be reintegrated through its own powers, and such a person cannot escape from the worse parts of this self. This reveals a veritable paradox, identifiable as a “double bind,”50 for in order to adequately confess what he has done wrong,

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42 43

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This will later be thematized as “pervelle” in De casu 3, (i. 238). Such a characteristically Anselmian use of “per-” also shows up in his characterization of the prayers in Letter 28, in which the reader will eventually arrive, perveniatur, at the affective states the prayers are intended to induce, trans. Froelich, 121(iii. 136). Cf. among examples: Prayer to Christ, trans. Ward, 93–94 (iii. 7), Prayer Before Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, trans. Ward, 100 (iii. 10), St. Mary (1), trans. 108 (iii. 13), St. Peter, trans. Ward, 135 (iii. 30), St. John the Evangelist (2), trans. Ward, 163 (iii. 45–46), St. Nicholas, trans. Ward, 188 (iii. 57–58), St. Benedict, trans. Ward, 197 (iii. 62). St. John the Baptist, trans. Ward, 128 (iii. 27). St. Benedict, trans. Ward, 198 (iii. 63). On this theme of lying through one’s life and actions, cf. De veritate 9, (i. 199) and De Humanibus Moribus 130 (Mem. 88). This theme of living a lie also arises in his Prayer by a Bishop or Abbot, in which Anselm expresses concern not only over his own sinful and false state but also over the possibility of scandalizing others and involving them with sin, trans. Ward, 211(iii. 70). Ibid., trans. Ward, 197 (iii. 62). St. Paul, trans. Ward, 143 (iii. 34). He notes that while he knows this through his “rational nature”, he does not understand, trans. Ward, 149 (iii. 37). On the purpose of human rationality, cf. Mono. 68, (i. 78) and Cur Deus 2.1, (ii. 98). St. Stephen, trans. Ward, 176 (iii. 51). St. Nicholas, trans. Ward., 189 (iii. 58). St. Benedict, trans. Ward, 197 (iii. 62). Ibid., trans. Ward, 197 (iii. 62). Eileen Sweeney aptly uses that term to describe the situation in “The Rhetoric of Prayer

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and what is presently wrong with him, Anselm must engage in brutally honest self-examination, but in doing so he becomes horrified by what he now sees within himself, “prevent[ing him] from avowing it.”51 He realizes just how far removed he has departed not only from God’s supreme justice, or even from a right ordering and orientation of his own will, but apparently even from the very possibility of appealing for clemency. Precisely what needs be admitted and confessed, so that it may be healed, precludes him from showing himself to Mary or to John the Baptist, and thus from appealing to them as intercessors.52 Anselm’s consistent personification of sins is a striking rhetorical feature of the prayers. He never claims the old excuse ‘the Devil made me do it’ but a cursory reading of the prayers might suggest that he displaces a certain portion of his guilt onto his sins. He tells his sins that “it is from you that all these evils flow into me.”53 They “drag [him] here and there.”54 He speaks of sinners as “misled by sins” and then “caught up in their fetters.”55 His own sins tempted and deceived him, when they “promised sweetness,” engaged in “persuading” in which they were “gentle with me,” and even suggested “it was easy to get out [of the trap] by the grief of penitence.”56 In the Prayer to St. Nicholas, he faults his sins for seducing him: “you make my soul drunk with your sweetness … you anoint my heart with your pleasures.” He then asks: “Why did you hide these things from me? Why did you betray me?”57 The answer to these questions and accusations, however, involves his taking full responsibility for his sins. “In fact, you have not betrayed me, but I have betrayed myself by believing in you. You did not deceive me, but I have deceived

51 52 53 54 55 56 57

and Argument in Anselm,” 358. For other useful discussions, cf. Gillian Evans, “The Secure Technician: Varieties of Paradox in the Writing of Saint Anselm,” Vivarium 13, no. 1 (1975), 1–21; George Heyer, “St. Anselm on the Harmony Between God’s Mercy and God’s Justice,” in The Heritage of Christian Thought, eds. Robert Cushman and Egil Grisilis (New York: Harper and Rowe, 1965), 31–40; and Rachel Fulton Brown, “Oratio/Prayer,” in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 167–177. St. John the Evangelist (1), trans. Ward, 159 (iii. 43). St. Mary (1), trans. Ward, 108–109 (iii. 14). Cf. also Prayer to St. John the Baptist, trans. Ward, 130 (iii. 27–28). St. Paul, 143 (iii. 34). St. Benedict, 197/62–63. Cf. also St. John the Evangelist (1), 158 (iii. 43). St. John the Baptist, 131 (iii. 38). In St. Nicholas, he employs imagery of “darkness and chains … shadows and weight,” to describe the “prison,” sin has landed him in, 189 (iii. 58). St. Paul, trans. Ward, 144 (iii. 35). St. Nicholas, trans. Ward, 190 (iii. 58).

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myself because I have received you into myself … I knew there was no faith in you, and yet I had faith in you.”58 His sins even arguably perform a useful function when, instead of concealing his condition, they “cry out against” him.59 The process of prayer reveals that the self, though divided, “disturbed and confused” in “the state of sin,”60 nevertheless remains oneself. Anselm acknowledges, as fully as he is able, the scope and depth of his own injustice, admitting to himself and to his intercessor that “my sins have made me what I am.”61 Perhaps what sets his own injustice into its greatest relief is an additional factor touched upon in the prayers, namely the fact that God has already previously shown mercy to him, and more than once, in pardoning his sins. Anselm reflects upon the extent of his personal sins:62 “You set aside, merciful Lord, the old rags of original sin … I busied myself with sordid sins; despising what you had promised …. You refashioned your gracious image in me, and I superimposed upon it the image that is hateful.”63 He transgressed “against him who made me, and remade me.”64 He is forced to admit, in addressing Christ: “Your mercy cleansed me from what you had created from original sin; your patience has hitherto borne with me, fed me, waited for me when after I had lost the grace of my baptism, I wallowed in many sordid sins.”65 In all of this, he notes a central feature: “in sinning … you prefer yourself to God your Creator,” a moral failure “than which nothing is more unjust.”66 The situation of the sinner’s injustice, meriting punishment doled out in—and as—justice, is thus seemingly as dire as it could possibly be thought to be.

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Anselm’s Appeals for Mercy

As briefly outlined here, the situation of the sinner appears quite grim, precisely because those outlines depict the reality that would have to be faced if strict justice is to apply, that is, if the sinner is judged on his or her (essentially non-existent) merits alone. It might appear then as if the sinner’s only

58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

Ibid., trans. Ward, 190 (iii. 58). St. John the Evangelist (1), trans. Ward, 159 (iii. 43). St. Mary (1), trans. Ward, 108 (iii. 14). St. John the Baptist, trans. Ward, 128 (iii. 26). On this distinction, cf. De conc. vir.1, (ii. 140). St. John the Baptist, trans. Ward, 128 (iii. 27). Ibid., trans. Ward, 129 (iii. 27). Prayer to Christ, trans. Ward, 94 (iii. 7). St. Nicholas, trans. Ward, 191 (iii. 59).

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recourse is to hope for a miracle, to throw him or herself entirely upon the divine mercy, as a final resort. But Anselm does not merely place or plead his case before God, Mary the mother of God, and the saints. Instead, both passionately and articulately, he argues for the rationality, the fittingness, and even in a sense the necessity of divine and saintly mercy. In doing so, he elaborates for us his readers (and perhaps fellow petitioners) several manners in which mercy and justice can be properly understood to be, not in conflict or contradiction, but complementary to each other. Through the rhetorical structure he provides to his prayers, Anselm models an exemplary architecture of petition, but also provides his readers a meditative and affective education. This teaching encompasses not only how to pray effectively, but also how to understand, and situate oneself within, the interplay between divine justice and mercy. Comparison and analysis of Anselm’s prayers reveals a number of tropes and techniques designedly woven into their rhetorical fabric. These formal features of Anselm’s compositions, however, are intimately appropriated to the content, serving not primarily as ornamentation but rather to orient thinking, feeling, and willing one’s way through dilemmas and labyrinths of life and death, sin and salvation, justice and mercy, confronting and at times confounding the petitioner. Here, in the interest of space, I focus on three recurring types of argumentative appeals Anselm makes in the prayers. The first of these includes arguments bearing upon the priority of goodness and mercy over injustice and evil. The second encompasses arguments stressing the appropriateness of intercession on the part of God and the saints. The third type consists in recollections of divine examples and teachings. As we have seen earlier, the Anselmian petitioner is brought to understand himself as deeply entangled in evil or injustice. His sins are not minor transgressions, but have stained his entire being to the core. Any one of these sins on its own is serious enough, and considered together, they constitute a limitless abyss. And yet, goodness possesses an ontological priority over evil, concretely manifested in the prayers in a priority of mercy’s power over that of the injustice of the petitioner and the evils to which he has permitted himself to become enslaved. The general structure or argument, often framed as a rhetorical question, is to say something along these lines: If evil has such great power that I cannot on my own escape it, and the goodness you enjoy is more powerful than evil, then the evil I am beset by can be overcome by that goodness. Indeed, not only can that goodness overcome, it ought to overcome that evil, precisely because it is that goodness. Anselm makes such an appeal in addressing Mary, asking: “If my misery is too great to be heard favorably, surely your mercy will be less than it ought to

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be?”67 He likewise asks in the Prayer to St. Peter: “O God, and you his greatest apostle, is this misery of mine so huge that it cannot be met by the wideness of your mercy?”68 With John the Evangelist, he raises the questions: “if my sins stand in the way of what I desire, why do not your merits assist my prayers the more? Are my sins potent for ill, and your merits impotent to help? … Why, I say, when the merits that are offered to him are greater than the sins that offend him?”69 He suggests to Stephen, that “however grave my unhappiness, however bitter my need, how much more wonderful will be the goodness of him who forgives.”70 He is particularly importunate towards St. Nicholas, arguing: “[Y]ou could not have power only in those things that come to nothing, and be powerless in those that go on into eternity.”71 Drawing a contrast between Nicholas’ “plenitude of goodness” and Anselm’s “abundance of badness,” he urges: “if only that super-abundance would overflow and flood into my abundant ills. Oh, if only that full plenitude would fill the emptiness of my need.”72 Indeed, throughout his prayers, Anselm makes so bold as to suggest that it would be unbefitting for God and the saints not to show “immense mercy,”73 if indeed mercy can overcome. “Or if it can, but will not, what is the enormity of my guilt that exceeds the multitude of your mercies?” He adds: “Is it true, then, that the more I am oppressed by misery, the more mercy will tarry? That is an unheard-of word from one who is merciful to one who prays.”74 In fact, Anselm argues in numerous manners that it is befitting for merciful intercession to occur. One particularly strong appeal is made to God in the Prayer to Saint Nicholas. “[A]re you so inflamed against a penitent sinner that you forget your own nature?”75 He asks this in the course of arguing that God’s justice opens the door to intercession precisely because of the divine attribute of God’s goodness.76 “Either hear me yourself, or let someone else hear me whom you will listen to on my behalf. Lord, if it is my sins that hold you back from hearing me, you are within your rights, but do not forbid another to hear

67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

St. Mary (1), trans. Ward, 107 (iii. 13). St. Peter, trans. Ward, 139 (iii. 32). St. John the Evangelist (2), trans. Ward, 166 (iii. 47). St. Stephen, trans. Ward, 177 (iii. 51). St. Nicholas, 187/57. Ibid., 187 (iii. 57). St. Stephen, 174 (iii. 50). St. Peter, 139–140 (iii. 32). St. Nicholas, 185 (iii. 56). This prefigures the line of argument that will later be found in Proslogion 9–11.

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a miserable suppliant, because you are also good.”77 Intercession offers God the opportunity to show, and to be, precisely what God is, and this feature of intercession holds even more for Mary and the saints. In the Prayer to Saint Stephen, intercession provides “a place for goodness … a time for mercy … an opportunity to show charity.”78 Intercession also restores a possibility for a sinner to rightly give to God what he owes. Anselm admits: “Lord, I know and admit that I am not worthy of your love, but surely you are not unworthy of my love?” And then, he suggests: “Therefore grant to me, Lord, by the merits of him form who you have honor, that I may be made worthy out of my unworthiness.”79 Petitioning both Christ and Mary, Anselm elaborates: “show me your mercy, for I need it and it is right for you to give it, lest I act towards you unjustly …. [G]ive my soul your love, which not unjustly it asks and you justly expect it to ask, lest I be ungrateful for your good gifts because of that which in justice it shudders at, and you not unjustly punish.”80 By appeals to fittingness, Anselm in effect argues that mercy has a place within the scope of justice. If justice is to be entirely realized, mercy needs be shown. The saints themselves are human beings, not only exemplary models to be followed, but people who themselves were at one time in need of divine mercy, and who themselves received gracious and restorative instruction from God. Anselm appeals to both of these themes in his Prayers, connecting the two of them together in his Prayer to Saint Paul, where he points out “kind Lord, you are accustomed to giving counsel to those who plead with you.”81 He asks Christ: “why did you come down from heaven, what did you do in the world, to what end did you give yourself over to death, unless it were that you might save sinners?”82 Then he turns to Paul: “what did you teach when you were passing through the world?”83 When the answer to this, namely faith, turns out not to be for Anselm a secure recourse since his own faith is dead,84 he first asks Paul to raise him as one who is dead, appealing to biblical examples of Elijah and Elisha,85 but then appeals to both Christ and Paul, employing striking imagery of them as loving and caring “mothers by your mercy.”86 Paul is asked 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

St. Nicholas, 185 (iii. 56). St . Stephen 176 (iii. 51). St. John the Evangelist (2), 164 (iii. 46). St. Mary (3), 125 (iii. 25). St. Paul, 145 (iii. 35). Ibid., 145–146 (iii. 36). Ibid., 146 (iii. 36). Ibid., 147 (iii. 36). Ibid., 149 (iii. 37). Ibid., 154 (iii. 40). They are also mothers by “affection” and “kindness,” as opposed to being

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to intercede as a mother to Anselm, precisely by following the example of, and repeating the mercy of Christ that was shown earlier to him. A number of similar examples occur in the prayers. Anselm makes so bold as to remind Peter that Anselm “may have strayed, but at least it is not he who has denied his Lord and Shepherd,”87 but then recalls another occasion of Peter’s threefold speech, when “Christ asked you three times if you loved him” and then commanded him “feed my sheep.”88 Later in that prayer, he writes: “see, here is a soul needing mercy, and here is the merciful apostle Peter before the God of mercy, who had mercy upon the apostle Peter, and taught him what to do, and gave him the power to do it.”89 He appeals similarly in his first Prayer to John the Evangelist: “Oh, you compassionate friends of God, have compassion upon one so needy, by that same compassion that God had towards you!”90 In the second, he invokes John’s teaching of love, and in asking for intercession argues, “do this in exchange for the love you owe him, so that you may set me free for him even my love with yours, for you owe him not only your love, but that of many more.”91 Then he appeals to John’s own teaching about showing compassion to a brother,92 and to the parable of the Good Samaritan, asking Christ to urge John to intercede for him: “speak, I pray you to your beloved John to show him me, your servant, and say to him ‘Go and do likewise’.”93 With Benedict, he urges: “pray and beseech you by the mercy you have shown to others, and by the mercy God has shown to you.”94 He even reminds Mary Magdalene: “Recall in loving kindness what you used to be, how much you needed mercy, and seek for me that same forgiving love that you received when you were wanting it.”95

87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

fathers by “effect”, “authority,” and “teaching.” For useful discussion about Anselm’s masculine and feminine depictions of Christ and the Saints, cf. Caroline Walker Bynum, “Jesus as Mother and Abbot as Mother: Some Themes in Twelfth-Century Cistercian Writing,” Harvard Theological Review 70, no. 3–4 (1977), 257–284; Sally Vaughn, “Saint Anselm and His Students Writing About Love: A Theological Foundation for the Rise of Romantic Love in Europe,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 19, no. 1 (2010), 54–73; and Kari Elisabeth Børresen, “Female Metaphors, from Scripture to Julian’s Showings,” in The High Middle Ages, eds. Kari Elisabeth Børresen and Adriana Valerio (Atlanta: Society for Biblical Literature Press, 2015), 167–180. St. Peter, trans. Ward, 137 (iii. 31). Ibid., trans. Ward, 137 (iii. 31). Ibid., trans. Ward, 139 (iii. 32). St. John the Evangelist (1), trans. Ward, 159 (iii. 43). St. John the Evangelist (2), trans. Ward, 166 (iii. 47). Ibid., trans. Ward, 168 (iii. 48). Ibid., trans. Ward, 170 (iii. 49). St. Benedict, trans. Ward, 199 (iii. 63). St. Mary Magdalene, trans. Ward, 202 (iii. 65).

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The Dramatic Context of Intercession and Mercy

One of the key innovative aspects of Anselm’s prayers is his invitation of the petitioner into a dramatic, concretely and intensely interpersonal context of compunction over sin, awareness of one’s own condition, appeals for intercession, and restoration not only for the person but growth in relationships and involvement in a community. He provides the words and the frameworks for even a contemporary petitioner to place him or herself, intellectually, affectively, volitionally into needed conversation with God, Mary, and the saints. The guiding theme orienting this paper, the interrelation between divine justice and mercy, plays a significant role in this process, not least since Anselm is invoking mercy of (and through) intercession while brought to face the fact and the consequences of his own injustice set in stark contrast, even opposition, with the divine justice. It is not simply the case that because of his sins, he now happens to find himself on the outs, so to speak, with a divine juridical regime against which he has transgressed, and therefore liable to suffer the penal consequences. Rather, the injustice of the sinner means that he is on his own, cast by his own wrong volitions and vicious habits outside of a community of persons with whom he yearns to be reconnected. The sinner has not been abandoned by this community, or by God, but rather has exiled himself, by abandoning the justice that he ought to have kept when he possessed it, and cannot reacquire by his own powers or choices in his fallen state. In Anselm’s own particular case, this disconnect is exacerbated by the higher demands imposed by his own chosen monastic profession, as well as his subsequent responsibilities as an abbot and a bishop, roles that he certainly fills, but to which he confesses himself inadequate. Still though, he is not entirely removed from this Christian community. For this is not simply a community in accordance with or structured by justice, but one in which justice assumes its fullest dynamism and agency, a community united by love, by concord, by grace, in which a multitude of persons are able to be entirely that, persons in the fullest sense. Anselm’s prayers reflect his own desires to be reincorporated within that community, within which alone he can be, or become, the person he is supposed to be, rather than the miserable sinner he finds himself to be. How does this play itself out in his prayers? In order to bring this discussion to a close, I will briefly mention just three features key to Anselm’s perspective in his prayers: the first is the importance of the community of conversation. The second feature is the roles humans play within the economy of grace. The third is the nature of the reformation of the sinning petitioner.

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Anselm’s prayers are rarely addressed solely to the addressee mentioned in the title. In the Prayer to Christ, Anselm also addresses himself in one paragraph to “[m]y most merciful Lady,” i.e., Mary, and in the second and third prayers to Mary, he addresses himself equally to Christ, her son and his Lord. This expansion of the conversation of prayer to encompass additional persons is not exclusive to this Theotokos-Christ axis, but occurs throughout the prayers to the various other saints. In fact, the only prayer in which this does not seem to be the case is the one addressed to Saint Stephen. Why is this? What is going on in this shift of addressee? Is Anselm merely meandering from his hopedfor intercessor, if not his topic, in bringing God (or more specifically the Son, Christ) into the conversation? Is he attempting to “kick his problem upstairs,” as we sometimes say, to appeal to the ultimate authority, when he finds himself getting bogged down with a middleman of grace and redemption? Or is he perhaps playing one person against another in order to wriggle himself off the hook, as might be suggested by a cynical reading of the interplay in the second Prayer to St. Mary? Notice how Anselm argues his case there. He suggests: “surely if I have offended you both equally, you will both also be merciful? So the accused flees from the just God to the good mother of the merciful God. The accused finds refuge from the mother he has offended in the good son of the kind mother. The accused is carried from one to the other and thrown himself between the good son and the good mother.” This allows him to ask: “Dear Lord, spare the servant of your mother; dear Lady, spare the servant of your son” because “[w]hen I throw myself between two of such unbounded goodness, I shall not fall under the severity of their power.”96 A better interpretation would stress that, in making this sort of appeal, Anselm is recognizing the already existing community of the saints in a very tangible, concrete way. The saints can intercede not because they are heavenly bureaucrats for a divine substance who would be alternately detached and disengaged from, wrathfully and strictly just towards, or impersonally connected with His creation, but because they are intimately and continually engaged with a just, but also merciful, loving, and personal God. Intercession occurs not just between sinner, saint, and God, but rather through the reincorporation of the sinner into a community of concord centered around God, and this is reflected in the fact that the petitioner addresses the saints alongside God within the same prayer. The sinful human being, as damaged and stained by

96

St. Mary (2), trans. Ward, 112–113 (iii. 16).

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sin as he or she is, is not yet cut off from the possibility of participation, at first limited, and later fully enjoyed, in that heavenly community. As noted earlier, the economy of grace is not something alien to the agency of human beings. While ultimately everything, even being itself, comes from God, and grace occurs primarily through divine initiative, in Anselm’s view, human beings are intended to play a central role in the actual workings of grace, through willingly cooperating, or better put, collaborating, with God’s will.97 In Anselm’s prayers, what the divine will wants for human beings is clearly that intercession by the saints occurs on their behalf, and that it be deliberately sought by the Christian petitioner. Perhaps the most audacious example of this occurs when Anselm asks: “The merciful son of God … came to seek the sinner who had strayed, and will you … repel wretches that pray to you?”98 Peter’s role is to intercede as shepherd to the lost sheep, following both Christ’s example and explicit injunction. Paul is given the privilege and power to raise those who are spiritually dead. In fact, he is entirely aligned within his will, though not equal in power to, Christ.99 He reminds Stephen that “you and the saints are so full of such wealth … that you delight rather to free by your goodness, those who by justice you are able to condemn.”100 The saints are, to put it very simply, not those people who have transcended the human condition and left it behind, but those in whom human nature is most fully realized, as concrete human persons, within the community of the blessed fully enjoying the divine conversation. The last aspect that needs to be highlighted here is that Anselm’s prayers do not ask that some cosmic slate be wiped clean, that he be removed from some type of naughty list and inscribed instead within a list of nice persons. That sort of legalism would remain beside the central point. After all, we are talking about the person who shocked his hearers by telling them “he would prefer to sin and go to hell innocently, than to go to heaven polluted by the stain of sin.”101 Anselm is a petitioner who focuses on the heart of the matter at issue. Accordingly, the mercy that he asks of his intercessors ultimately is that he may be restored, through God’s graces, to a state of justice. And this is not simply having some transgressions against justice effaced or forgotten, but rather having

97 98 99

100 101

This is made clear in the person of Christ in St. Mary (3), trans. Ward, 123 (iii. 23). St. Mary (2), trans. Ward, 111 (iii. 16). St. Paul, trans. Ward, 154 (iii. 40). “If in quantity of affection you are unequal, yet in quality you are not unalike. Though in the greatness of your kindness, you are not unequal, yet in will you are of one heart.” St. Stephen, trans. Ward, 177 (iii. 52). Vita Anselmi, 84.

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justice replaced where it most needs to be, within the human will. As an example of this, he asks Mary: “let this filth be washed from my mind, let my darkness be illuminated, my lukewarmedness blaze up, my listlessness be stirred.”102 He realizes that without internal moral reformation, any sort of external justification would be of no use. Another prime example of this is when he tells Mary Magdalene: “such a flavor [of the love of God] will make my heart sick, if it has of itself nothing of the same virtue.”103 One might say that the effects of any intercession that does not produce, or at least open the possibility of, justice perseveringly sought by willingly choosing a change in the person, simply will not stick. What Anselm most truly desires, the culmination of intercession, the effect of mercy, is found in the Prayer to God: “let me believe and hope, love and live, according to your purpose and your will.”104 What he asks in the meantime is that God “[h]ear[s] always with your favor, not according as my heart wills or as my mouth asks, but as you know and will that I ought to will and ask.”105 The resolution of the problem, or the seeming paradox, of divine justice and mercy thus occurs not only at the highest level, within what we might call the scope of the divinity, or of the interpenetration of God’s attributes of justice and goodness (which are, as Anselm will remind us, the same thing in God). This resolution also occurs at the lower level in which we human beings exist and live, in the human soul, and particularly in the human will. In the latter, mercy means not an escape or absolution from justice’s demands, but a grace that restores once again the justice that ought to be present within the damaged human will. This restoration reflects but does not replicate the justice within the wills of saintly human beings, since each human person is different and distinct, even when in complete concord and harmony. And just as faith is not living faith unless it shows itself in striving and action, and orients its vivacity by ardent love, the justice restored to the will of the sinner by the mercy of God and His collaborators, the saints, should in turn show itself not only in enacting justice, but also in displaying mercy towards yet other people, offering them the possibility of reincorporation into that community between the human and divine. 102 103 104 105

St. Mary (3), trans. Ward, 116 (iii. 19). St. Mary Magdalene, trans. Ward, 206 (iii. 67). Prayer to God, trans. Ward, 91 (iii. 5). Prayer for Enemies, trans. Ward, 219 (iii. 75).

Anselm and the Place of Happiness in Ethics Tomas Ekenberg

Et vos igitur: nunc quidem tristitiam habetis iterum autem videbo vos et gaudebit cor vestrum et gaudium vestrum nemo tollit a vobis. John 16:22

∵ Anselm holds that true happiness is not to be found in this life. Consequently, even if Anselm might agree that the task for ethical theory is to specify the right way to true happiness, his understanding of this objective will differ from that of most of the ancients. The ancients identify true happiness or eudaimonia with the best and most honorable, admirable, satisfying, and satisfactory complete version of this life. Their ethical theories aim at answering the question of what happiness is by answering the question about how a person should live, what sorts of activity a person ought to be engaged in throughout of her (earthly) life as a whole. Anselm would agree that an ethical theory should answer the question of how we should go about attaining happiness, but on his account, happiness cannot be identified with the activities performed throughout a temporal life. While he grants central roles to happiness and its pursuit in his ethics, he operates within a theoretical framework and with a conception of happiness that differs significantly from the ones presupposed in most of mainstream ancient thought. The purpose of this paper is to explore some important aspects of Anselm’s view of the place of happiness in ethics. While stressing that Anselm agrees with Aristotle and Plato on important points, I will also argue that his eudaimonist outlook involves a rejection of a purported defining presupposition of ancient eudaimonism: the so-called Activity Thesis. I believe that clarifying this important detail will help us see more clearly that Anselm does indeed place happiness at the very center of his ethics.

© Tomas Ekenberg, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004506480_012

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The Activity Thesis

In On the Trinity, Augustine asserts that we all want happiness, and Anselm later follows suit. All rational creatures desire happiness, and Anselm argues in De casu diaboli and elsewhere that we all want those things that will lead to happiness. But ought we to want happiness? When we want happiness, do our desires or choices line up with what is really morally good and right? In other words, is happiness the thing we ought to aim at? To the ancient philosophers, the answer to this question was in general a resounding “yes”. Platonists, Stoics, Peripatetics, Epicureans, and most other ancient philosophers agreed with the notion that happiness is the final end for human beings. Just as we all do aim at happiness, so we all should aim at happiness. The agreement among the ancients that the final end is happiness was of course primarily—and perhaps completely—verbal. The philosophical schools parted ways on the question of what happiness is and what the truly happy life consists of and requires. For instance, Stoics and Peripatetics disagreed on the role of external goods. And Platonists and Epicureans disagreed on the value and significance of pleasure and pain. And so on. However, despite these differences, all of these philosophical schools make happiness or “eudaimonia” the focal point of ethical inquiry and discussion. Even if the term “eudaimonism” signals a primarily verbal agreement, there still seem to be a few points where the ancient schools agreed on substantial issues. In her book Morality of Happiness, Julia Annas proposes a set of general characteristics of ancient eudaimonism—a number of “formal requirements” to which nearly all the ancient theories would conform. For instance, as is often pointed out, by “happiness,” they referred not to a certain subjective sensation or passing feeling or mood, but rather to—in Aristotle’s words—“living well and doing well.” Moreover, they insist that thinking about morality requires reflecting on a person’s life as a whole.1 The happy person, on this view, is not merely cheerful here and now, and perhaps he need not even be cheerful ever. A person enjoying eudaimonia is a person that has a good, fulfilling, and admirable life as a whole, a life that exhibits what is often summed up as human flourishing. A further, related, point on which the ancients agree is the notion that happiness is activity. Julia Annas discusses this notion at length in her book, and 1 Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Annas presents the hedonistic school of the Cyrenaics as a rare exception. They rejected the importance of achieving an overall final end and argued that we should seek maximal intensity in pleasurable experiences, not happiness. See Morality of Happiness, 227–237.

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Nicholas Wolterstorff has recently referred to this feature of ancient ethical theory as the activity thesis in his discussion of Augustine’s view of happiness.2 The point of departure for Aristotle and others is the idea that happiness is an end, a telos, but not an end in the sense of end point or end product, but rather an end in the sense of the activity or activities that make up a good life as a whole. There is a near universal agreement among the ancients that happiness is not a thing that someone else might give you. The morally good person plays a crucial, active role in that same good person’s own life. Further, the end state of moral development, should one ever reach it, is a way of life—a way of living. Specifying that way of life—specifying the telos of human beings—involves making clear what sorts of activity the good person is involved in. In short, happiness is activity. Julia Annas quotes Arius Didymus, who in the course of explicating Aristotle’s ethics, makes this point very clearly: [Since the final good is not the fulfillment of bodily and external goods, but living according to virtue] therefore happiness is activity (energeia) in accordance with virtue in actions that are preferred, as one would wish them. Bodily and external goods are called productive of happiness by contributing towards it when present; but those who think that they fulfill (sumplēroun) happiness do not know that happiness is life, and life is the fulfilment of (sumpeplērōtai) of action. No bodily or external good is in itself an action or in general an activity.3 I will argue that while Anselm’s ethical assumptions fail to meet the criteria described by Annas, his ethical outlook is nevertheless eudaimonist. Recent discussion on Anselm and eudaimonism has focused on Anselm’s notion that there are two goods and that rational creatures are created with two wills—one for benefit and happiness, and one for justice. However, depending on what we take to be his view on more subtle and fundamental points about teleology and goal-directed action, his claims about the will and motivation support different ethical conclusions. By examining the relationship between happiness and activity in Anselm, I believe we can highlight some unnoticed assumptions at work in the discussion between different interpreters, and also provide a solid case for deeming Anselm’s ethics a form of eudaimonism. Toward the end, we will look at some remarks from David Gauthier that will give us a sense of what 2 See Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Happiness in Augustine’s Confessions,” in Augustine’s Confessions—Philosophy in Autobiography, ed. William Mann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 46–70. 3 Quoted in Annas, Morality of Happiness, 45.

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a contemporary argument for the activity thesis might look like, which will give us a sense of what may be at stake philosophically in Anselm’s rejection of this thesis. By considering a possible Anselmian response to this challenge, we will also see more clearly where Anselm departs from—but also the points on which he agrees with—the starting points of the ancient moralists. Before looking more closely at Anselm’s rejection of the activity thesis, I will first very briefly run through the main points of Anselm’s metaethical position and attempt to isolate those points relevant to the question of eudaimonism that are the most open to interpretation and on which commentators have disagreed.

2

The Good and the Right

Anselm’s metaethical assumptions most clearly come to the fore in his discussion of truth, justice, freedom, and the origin of evil in the three dialogues he wrote at Bec: De veritate, De libertate arbitrii and De casu diaboli. In De casu diaboli, Anselm claims that we ordinarily distinguish between two goods and two corresponding evils: good as justice and good as benefit (in Latin iustitia and commodum). The corresponding evils are injustice and disadvantage, respectively: For disregarding the fact that every nature is called a good, we usually talk of two goods and two contrary evils. The first is the one called justice, to which the opposite evil is injustice. The other good is the one which I think can be called benefit, and the opposite of it is the evil of disadvantage. Not everybody wills justice and not all flee injustice. But benefit not only every rational nature wills, but every being capable of sensation, and also to avoid disadvantage. For no one wills anything unless he considers it in some way beneficial to himself. In this way, accordingly, all will their own well-being, and they try to avoid their own ill-being. I speak now of happiness, because no one can be happy unless he wills happiness. For no one can be happy if he has what he wills not, or does not have what he wills.4

4 De casu 12 (i. 255): Excepto namque hoc quod omnis natura bona dicitur, duo bona et duo his contraria mala usu dicuntur. Unum bonum est quod dicitur iustitia, cui contrarium est malum iniustitia. Alterum bonum est quod mihi videtur posse dici commodum, et huic malum opponitur incommodum. Sed iustitiam quidem non omnes volunt, neque omnes fugiunt iniustitiam. Commodum vero non solum omnis rationalis natura sed etiam omne quod sentire potest vult,

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This distinction between two senses of good constitutes an important step in Anselm’s argument for how to understand the origin of evil. In the exquisitely complex discussion of De casu diaboli, Anselm tries to make sense of the sin and subsequent fall of Satan and the other bad angels without implicating God. According to Anselm, Satan sinned not by “willing” something evil, but by “willing” a good in the sense of a (potential, presumptive) benefit, that was not also a good in the sense of being right or just. In doing so, Satan was motivated by the prospect of his own increased happiness while failing to be motivated by concerns about justice. On Anselm’s account, the two senses of “good”—justice and benefit—thus line up with two ways of being motivated by the good. He argues that all rational creatures are initially given two wills, or as he calls them elsewhere, two basic affections. One affection is oriented towards benefit and ultimately towards happiness, and the other is oriented towards justice. Satan possessed both these “wills,” but in some sense failed to act on, or failed to actualize, one of them.5 Anselm’s account of Satan’s sin raises several delicate questions as to what his views are with respect to both angelic and human moral psychology and action theory. One such question is whether Satan needs to actually act on his desire for the unlawful benefit or whether the desire per se or the mere forming of the wicked will—i.e., the will-act itself—constitutes the sin. In order to answer this question, it seems we need to get clear about the relation between willing and actions in angels, and since they lack physical bodies, it seems we are here dealing with non-corporeal action. Further, it seems we need to get clearer about the relation between Anselm’s talk about the will and the activ-

et vitat incommodum. Nam nullus vult nisi quod aliquo modo sibi putat commodum. Hoc igitur modo omnes bene sibi esse volunt, et male sibi esse nolunt. De hac beatitudine nunc dico, quia nullus potest esse beatus qui non vult beatitudinem. Nullus namque beatus potest esse aut habendo quod non vult, aut non habendo quod vult. All translations are my own, but I have consulted and benefited from the translations of Thomas Williams in Monologion and Proslogion with the Replies of Gaunilo and Anselm (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1995) and Three Philosophical Dialogues (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2002). 5 On Anselm’s account, the sin is at least under one description an omission rather than a positive act. Satan failed to will justice with his happiness. What makes Satan worthy of blame is not in any way his willing happiness, Anselm insists, but rather the lack of justice in his will. Anselm’s account thus nicely lines up with the Augustinian notion of evil as mere privation. See esp. De casu 16. For a discussion, see my “Voluntary Action and Rational Sin in Anselm of Canterbury,” British Journal of the History of Philosophy 24, no. 2 (2016), 215–230, and also Katherin Rogers, “Anselm on the Ontological Status of Choice,” International Philosophical Quarterly 52 (2012), 183–197, which explores metaphysical aspects of this feature of Anselm’s account.

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ity of willing on the one hand, and talk about practical reasoning and choice, appetites and wishing and rational preferences and so on, on the other. While these questions are unavoidable in a more comprehensive assessment of his ethics, I will here allow myself to put them aside.6 For while Anselm treats will (or voluntas) as a primitive notion, leaving it to us as interpreters to establish what he means by it, he is much more forthcoming when we turn to focusing on happiness. Here we get quite a bit of elucidating discussion and something close to a definition. Anselm follows Augustine (On the Trinity 13) by arguing that unless a person wills happiness, he cannot become happy. Moreover, he thinks that all rational creatures will benefit precisely because they will happiness. He says in De casu diaboli that unless an angel gets what he wants and is rid of those things he does not want, he cannot become happy. But only if that angel wills those benefits that harmonize with the demands of justice does he also deserve to actually become happy. This is what the good angels did according to Anselm, and as a reward they got whatever it was that the bad angels “willed,” and have been punished for “willing”. Is happiness simply the same as the highest good and also the one final end for human beings in Anselm? Prima facie, the answer seems to be “no”. In order to specify the final end, we must include the concept of justice. The end of human beings comprises both happiness and justice, and justice is according to Anselm higher and nobler. A picture emerges where happiness is something that creatures should aim at only if it meets certain requirements, and once we see what Anselmian happiness consists in, we see why this is so: In Cur Deus homo, Anselm says happiness is “a sufficiency where there is no lack”.7 In his last work, De concordia, he tells us that “it is the opinion of all” that happiness involves “a sufficiency of appropriate benefits without any lack”.8 Now, Anselm’s own explanation of Satan’s sin requires that there are potential benefits beyond the limits of justice. Therefore, aiming at a benefit and happiness cannot be precisely the same as aiming at what is morally good and right. Getting clear about the precise relation between happiness and justice as two basic kinds of

6 I discuss Anselm’s concept of will in more detail in my “Free Will and Free Action in Anselm of Canterbury,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 22 (2005), 301–318. 7 Cur Deus 1.24 (ii. 93): Nullus autem iniustus admittetur ad beatitudinem, quoniam quemadmodum beatitudo est sufficientia in qua nulla est indigentia, sic nulli convenit, nisi in quo ita pura est iustitia, ut nulla in eo sit iniustitia. 8 Anselm, De concordia 3.13 (ii. 285): In beatitudine autem, secundum omnium sensum, est sufficientia competentium commodorum sine omni indigentia, sive angelica intelligatur beatitudo, sive illa quam habebat Adam in paradiso.

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value or, in other words, reconstructing Anselm’s metaethical outlook, requires some work, however, and his position has been a point of controversy in recent scholarship. As we have seen, when Anselm makes his distinction in De casu diaboli, he distinguishes both happiness and justice from a third sort of goodness, namely the kind of good which Platonists attribute to all things that are, simply by virtue of their being. So happiness and justice are both distinct from mere metaphysical or essential goodness, but does this mean happiness and justice are both kinds of moral goodness? Do they both provide us with moral reasons or, as it were, with moral “oughts,” and do they do so independently, or are they somehow interrelated as providers of such reasons? On this point, commentators have disagreed.9 I believe that commentators have assumed either that justice must be the one and only value that is properly speaking a moral value, or they have assumed that when Anselm says happiness and justice are both goods, he means they are both sources of moral value somehow. The former assumption (that happiness is morally irrelevant) will lead to reading Anselm as putting forward a deontological theory where the account of what is right does not in any way invoke an account of what is good. Morality is not about happinessmaximization at all. In my view, Jeffrey E. Brower’s chapter on Anselm’s Ethics in the Cambridge Companion to Anselm is the most clear and cogent argument for this conclusion.10 The assumption that goodness in the sense of benefit or commoditas must be thought of as at least morally relevant provides a framework consistent with reading Anselm’s text along teleological lines. Here we take seriously Anselm’s claim that God created angels, then man, in order that those rational natures might reach happiness and perfection in the fruition of God Himself. In this picture, rational creatures act morally when they are guided by reason towards their natural end. Now, as Brower notes, a eudaimonist theory is a teleological theory where the moral value (or rightness) of an action is explained in terms of its conduciveness to happiness. Since Anselm introduces another distinct end or source of moral value besides happiness, namely justice, it seems we cannot call Anselm a eudaimonist.11 But the devil is in the details, as they say.

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10 11

For a good overview of the issues, see Eileen C. Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), chapter 5. Jeffrey E. Brower, “Anselm on Ethics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Anselm, eds. Brian Davies and Brian Leftow (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 222–256. See Brower, “Anselm on Ethics,” 222–223.

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The deontologist is right in asserting that Anselmian justice can be seen as a source of obligation that is entirely external with respect to the agent. I believe, however, that the feature to grab a hold of in Anselm’s theory is the central role he gives to goal-directed activity. As Sigbjørn Sønnesyn and Katherin Rogers argue, Anselmian moral action is always aimed at something; it is aimed at a telos and this telos is Anselmian happiness.12 The moral agent which emerges from Anselm’s discussion is a benefit maximizer.13 He is a benefit maximizer who seems to be required at times to curb his own maximizing, to be sure, but he is still a maximizer. And there is nothing wrong in his maximizing per se Anselm argues. On the contrary, we cannot make sense of created rational nature as a moral being unless we understand that human beings and angels were created with the drive to becoming happier, and on top of this, the ability to suppress that striving—the ability to obey. So, according to Anselm, moral agents are not merely permitted to maximize benefit; this is what they ought to do, within the limits of justice. In this picture, justice independently provides the agent with distinct reasons not to act in certain ways.14 Anselm insists that justice must be preserved for its own sake, and if a person avoids transgressing the limits of justice because she fears punishment or because she wants a reward, she is motivated by benefit and happiness, and she is, therefore, not acting justly. Now, Anselm’s insistence on moral motivation may seem to conflict with a teleological ethical outlook, but Terence Irwin has helpfully distinguished two possible ways to read Anselm’s claim that justice must be kept for its own sake (propter se servata):15 Anselm could mean that being moved by what is just is wholly incon-

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Katherin Rogers, “Anselm on Eudaemonism and the hierarchical structure of moral choice,” Religious Studies 41 (2005), 249–268; Sigbjørn Sønnesyn, “‘Vt sine fine amet summam essentiam’: The Eudaemonist Ethics of St. Anselm,” Mediaeval Studies 70 (2008), 1–29. For a helpful discussion of this aspect of Anselm’s theory of motivation, see Peter King, “Scotus’s Rejection of Anselm: The Two-Wills Theory,” in Archa Verbi Subsidia 5. Johannes Duns Scotus 1308–2008: Investigations into his Philosophy, eds. Ludger Honnefelder, Hannes Mohle, Andreas Speer, Theo Kobusch, Susana Bullido Del Barrio (Munster: Aschendorff, 2011), 359–378. According to Anselm, justice can be thought of as a upper boundary (meta) or limit on the will to happiness. See especially De casu 14 (i. 258–259). In “Scotus and the Possibility of Moral Motivation,” Irwin argues that Anselm may reject eudaimonism, but on other grounds than the ones we are focusing on here: Depending on how we understand Anselm’s two goods to be related, the mere insistence on justice as a distinct source of motivation may be tantamount to a rejection of eudaimonism, in Irwin’s view. Terence Irwin, “Scotus and the Possibility of Moral Motivation,” in Morality and Self-Interest, ed. Paul Bloomfield (Oxford University Press, 2008), 159–176.

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sistent with being moved by benefit. If this is so, then he is most naturally read as having severed any and all connection between what is good and what is right. But Anselm could also mean that a person preserves justice for its own sake and is correctly motivated when she takes justice to be worth preserving even if no further benefit should result from it.16 If this is right, then incorrect motivation and injustice arises the moment a person starts sticking to what is just only if she thereby gains some further benefit. Does this mean that according to Anselm, whoever keeps justice keeps justice for the sake of benefit? Eileen Sweeney has recently objected to Katherin Rogers’ reading of Anselm’s account of happiness and justice raising this very point. Rogers takes Anselm’s claim in De casu diaboli 12 that “no one wills anything unless it is beneficial to him in some way” to entail that justice too is a benefit and is also willed as such by those who will it.17 According to Sweeney, however, such a reading “seems to evaporate the distinction between the two wills”18 since willing justice now turns into yet another instance of willing benefit. Further, while proponents of eudaimonist ethics such as Plato and Aristotle would argue that “one should seek virtue because it is ultimately beneficial,” Anselm “seems to hold the opposite, that choosing what would be virtuous for some benefit deprives the act of its moral value.”19 Note, however, that the expression “keeping justice for the sake of benefit” is as ambiguous as the expression “keeping justice for its own sake”. If a person chooses what is just only because he will gain from it—if his motive is to secure some good thing beyond justice—then clearly his motive is not really justice, but rather this other thing. By contrast, if we think that justice is itself a good thing and in itself beneficial to its possessor, then saying that we want justice because it is beneficial seems to convey little more than an expression of the goodness of justice. This is consistent with Anselm’s teleological approach as described above. Anselm distinguishes between two sorts of goodness, or two sorts of good thing, benefit and justice. The goal of a human being is to become just and happy. Therefore, action directed at promoting happiness within the limits of justice is morally right action. But happiness on Anselm’s account consists not in performing certain actions, but rather in being in the possession of those things the actions are aimed at getting hold of, or in holding on to them. “For

16 17 18 19

Similarly, a just person will take justice to be worth preserving even if it means putting herself in harm’s way. Katherin Rogers, Anselm on Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 67. Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word, 226. Ibid., 227.

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no one can be happy if he has what he wills not, or does not have what he wills,” Anselm claims.20 And he is talking about benefits—i.e., good things— not activity. Strictly speaking, happiness is not up to the rational creature herself. In order to become happy, the person needs to hold an appropriate set of good things, and it is not—or at any rate never completely—within a creature’s power to secure these goods (nor to get rid of the evils) required for happiness. The things are not necessarily bodily goods, and in the case of the angels none of them are. But the goods are all external in the sense that their presence depends only partly or not at all on the agency of the creature. In Anselm’s discussions about the good life, the good things that make up happiness are all gifts from God, and the creature is always on the receiving end.21 In other words, Anselm rejects the activity thesis. Here one might object that saying that Anselm rejects the activity thesis is to distort Anselm’s view of justice and the moral person. Even if the moral person indeed maximizes benefits and so aims at getting hold of, and then holding on to, good things rather than at developing a good way of living, the morally good person is still active. The morally good person maintains a just will by striving only for morally permissible benefits. The maintaining and the striving are both activities. If this is right, then the good life does involve activity. But this objection glosses over the crucial point, which is precisely the nature of the connection between happiness and activity in Anselm as compared to at least some of the ancients. We now have on the table two very different ways to think about the relation between activity and happiness. The ancients took some activity to be an essential part of happiness, where happiness refers to a good life in its entirety, and so happiness requires activity in the sense of being essentially constituted by activity. Happiness is here understood as living well and doing well as opposed to faring well. In the objection in the last paragraph it is suggested, quite plausibly, that a good life for Anselm involves activity, activity aimed at happiness, but we are now only thinking of the sort of action which is aimed at bringing about and maintaining a happy state—not those actions such a happy state might include. We now have a clear sense of instrumental

20 21

Anselm, De casu 12 (i. 255), also quoted above. While Anselm consistently holds that all good things are God-given, he also argues that in one instance a creature may give a good thing to herself, at least in a way (aliquo modo): Since the loss of justice is not something that is caused by God, but is brought about by sinful creatures themselves, those creatures who do not reject the good of justice may be said to—in a way—have given themselves the good that is justice. See De casu 18 (i. 263). This argument has been considered important to understanding Anselm’s conception of creaturely freedom.

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action, but still no hold on a kind of action that might be constitutive of happiness, i.e., the kind of activity—instrumental or not—which constitutes an essential part of a happy life. When we look at Anselm, we are thus looking exclusively at a kind of activity that is distinct from the happiness that that same activity is aimed to bring about, and we have no account to make us see why this activity—in itself—should be considered essential to happiness.

3

Anselmian Happiness

This last point becomes clearer if we focus in on the notion of complete happiness or the completion or perfection of happiness in Anselm and compare his view to the ancients’. For Peripatetics and Stoics, at least, complete happiness must mean the admirable life in its entirety, or perhaps the most admirable life in its entirety. Complete happiness is then the actual activities that the morally advanced person is engaged in over the course of her life. Anselm, by contrast, claims complete happiness means the possession a certain collection of benefits. Note that Arius Didymus appears to explicitly reject this kind of account in the passage quoted above. He is willing at most to concede that we deem these benefits conducive to happiness (and here a crucial disagreement with Stoics is evident) but he flatly rejects the notion that the benefits or external goods are constitutive. Anselm thinks the benefits are constitutive. Their presence directly adds to, and absence subtracts from, our happiness. But what happens if our happiness is already complete? It is in his discussion in De casu diaboli of the good angels that Anselm’s rejection of the activity principle is perhaps the clearest, both because Anselm here stresses that happiness can be given to a creature as opposed to requiring activity on the creature’s part, and because the description of happiness given here seems to make happiness a state in which a person may or may not find herself in at a given moment in time. Anselm argues in De casu diaboli chapter 6 and later in chapter 25 that the good angels, after the fall of Satan, are no longer able to sin. Like the bad angels they were able to sin in the beginning, but after the fall of the bad angels, they cannot. For God completes their happiness by seeing to it that they now have everything they could possibly want.22 Whatever a good creature wills, it wills or chooses because it wills to be happy within the limits of justice. But if it is 22

See esp. De casu 6 (i. 243): Sic ergo distincti sunt angeli, ut adhaerentes iustitia nullum bonum velle possint quo non gaudeant, et deserentes illam nullum velle queant quo non careant.

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already maximally happy within the limits of justice, there is nothing left for it to will. There will never be any reason for it to start desiring something new. There will never be any reason for the creature to attempt, or to see to, or to do anything it is not already doing. Happiness is, in this sense, for Anselm, the end of the line. I think many of us find Anselm’s view of the happy state of the good angels prima facie puzzling and perhaps even troubling. A possible reason for this is that his account may run afoul of certain presuppositions on our part regarding what constitutes happiness: intuitively, we may suppose that a life without new projects, without new endeavors, would be pointless and therefore unhappy. Even if such a “happy” life should turn out to be morally right in that we would—trivially—make no transgressions or commit no injustice, we may suspect it would still be a life utterly unsatisfying. David Gauthier has forcefully challenged utopian conceptions of the good life along these lines, and I believe that by looking closer at what is at issue in Gauthier’s discussion, we shall be able to bring out in sharper detail Anselm’s conception of happiness. Like Anselm, David Gauthier thinks that we should think about the moral agent as a benefit maximizer. And like Anselm, he thinks we should construe morality as being essentially about constraints on individual benefit maximizers. Rather than grounding that constraint in human nature or in God’s will, Gauthier delineates a conventionalist account where the restrictions are the product of something much like a Hobbesian social contract. But more importantly for our purposes, he argues against the sort of account entailed by the Anselmian notion of happiness as a complete set of benefits. He argues that it is precisely instrumental actions that provide fulfillment to human beings. Since it is activities that provide fulfillment, a happy life cannot be a life wholly without scarcity. Happiness requires lack—not the absence of lack. If a fulfilling human life must include activities with instrumental value, then paradise can be gained only to be lost. Paradise is gained when all obstacles to fulfillment are overcome, but when all obstacles are overcome, instrumental activities lose their point and cease to afford fulfillment. And with the loss of paradise, we come to a new understanding of the place of scarcity in human affairs. In the broadest sense, it is scarcity that gives rise to activities with instrumental value. If they are necessary to fulfilment, then scarcity is necessary too. The idea of a human society based not on scarcity but on plenitude is chimerical; to overcome scarcity would be to overcome the conditions that give human life its point.23

23

David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 333.

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Clearly, Anselm does not think paradise will be lost once gained. But then again, Anselm arguably does not believe activity—activity properly understood, that is—will cease when paradise is gained, either. And consequently, Anselm has a perfectly sound response to give to Gauthier. While Gauthier’s argument appeals to the sensible notion, prevalent among the ancients, that happiness must involve activity, it also invokes the dubious notion that only activities with instrumental value can provide a person well-being and happiness. Anselm does not believe that the point and purpose of human existence is fully exhausted by our function in an earthly society, and he could simply respond that there are activities which are good not only instrumentally, but also, or even only, intrinsically. There are actions which are intrinsically honorable, intrinsically desirable, and intrinsically satisfying. Further, he could argue that happiness typically consists in precisely such activities. In other words, the various benefits which make up happiness on Anselm’s account could include activities the value of which is derived from nothing beyond the value of being engaged in precisely that activity. There are several texts which support that this is indeed Anselm’s view.24 Paradise will be filled with enjoyment. Already in his early work Proslogion, Anselm outlines the abundance of good things awaiting the faithful in the afterlife: O he who will enjoy this good: what will there be for him and what will there not be? Clearly what he will want will be there and what he will want not will not be there. For there will be goods of the body and goods of the soul, goods of such a kind the human eye has not seen and ear has not heard and the heart has not considered.25 Here the focus is on good things, but among the good things are clearly activities. Further, these are not activities merely aimed toward the goal of happiness. Rather, these are intrinsically pleasurable, satisfying, rewarding, etc.: If swiftness [pleases you], or strength, or a freedom of the body of which nothing can stand in the way, they will be like the angels of God, since [for them] is sown an animal body, and raised a spiritual body—in power at

24

25

I am very grateful to Bernd Goebel for bringing several texts on heavenly happiness to my attention. Apart from the one quoted here, there is an interesting passage in the fragments: Dicta Anselmi 5, and Eadmer’s De beatitudine perennis vitae (based on Anselm’s sayings) is also clearly relevant in this context. Both are in Mem. Anselm, Pros. 25 (i. 118): O qui hoc bono fruetur: quid illi erit, et quid illi non erit? Certe

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any rate, not in nature. If long and healthy life: a healthy eternity and eternal health is there, since the just will live forever. If satiety: the just will be sated when the glory of God has become apparent. If intoxication: the just will be intoxicated from the abundance of the house of God. If melody: choirs of angels sing to God without end there. If any pleasure [voluptas] not impure but pure [pleases you]: the just will drink from the torrent of His pleasure. If wisdom: God’s wisdom itself will show itself to them. If friendship: the just will love God more than themselves, and one another as themselves, and God will love them more than they love themselves.26 Ancient philosophy would side with Anselm on this point. There are activities that are intrinsically good, and contemplation, virtue, and the happy life are all obvious examples. Why are we not back with the Ancient picture? Because on Anselm’s picture, the very activities are gifts or “rewards” bestowed on a subset of rational creatures. The activities are thus external goods.

4

Concluding Remarks

Anselm believes happiness is impossible in this life. According to Anselm, no activity performed in this life will amount to true happiness. But a complete life could be lived in pursuit of true happiness, and for such a life the person will be awarded true happiness in the afterlife. Like the eudaimonists, Anselm holds that we ought to aim at happiness, and that moral action really consists in aiming at true happiness. Unlike the eudaimonists, he does not believe that happiness is, strictly speaking, in our power. In the final analysis, nothing is. Even our actions are given by God. And happiness consists in the enjoyment of God-given goods, amongst which we find even our own right will, if such a thing we have.

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quidquid volet erit, et quod nolet non erit. Ibi quippe erunt bona corporis et animae, qualia “nec oculus vidit nec auris audiuit nec cor hominis” cogitavit. Ibid. (i. 118–119): Si velocitas aut fortitudo, aut libertas corporis cui nihil obsistere possit: “erunt similes angelis dei,” quia “seminatur corpus animale, et surget corpus spirituale,” potestate utique non natura. Si longa et salubris vita: ibi est sana aeternitas et aeterna sanitas, quia “iusti in perpetuum vivent” et “salus iustorum a domino.” Si satietas: satiabuntur “cum apparuerit gloria” dei. Si ebrietas: “inebriabuntur ab ubertate domus” dei. Si melodia: ibi angelorum chori concinunt sine fine deo. Si quaelibet non immunda sed munda voluptas: “torrente voluptatis suae potabit eos” deus. Si sapientia: ipsa dei sapientia ostendet eis seipsam. Si amicitia: diligent deum plus quam seipsos, et invicem tamquam seipsos, et deus illos plus quam illi seipsos.

Anselm on Evil and Eudaimonism Eileen C. Sweeney

My task in this essay is two-fold: first to explicate Anselm’s views on evil and eudaimonism, and second to argue that those views are best understood not by abstracting them as positions from the form in which he lays them out. I take up these specific issues in Anselm because though they do not receive as much attention as Anselm’s ontological argument, there is some difference of opinion among scholars of Anselm on them, and these differences are in some ways indicative of different ways of reading Anselm. On the question of evil, it has been the standard view that Anselm follows Augustine in assigning to evil the status of privation or non-being; nonetheless, Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams argue that Anselm rejects the reduction of evil either to nonbeing (it’s not something but the lack of something) or to ultimate good (it’s not evil ultimately but part of the providential plan and, hence, good). There is, they claim, “no context independent” way of asserting that something ought or ought not to be.1 I have agreed with something like this account, while Katherin Rogers finds such complications of Anselm’s views unnecessary and unpersuasive. On the issue of whether Anselm’s ethics is eudaimonistic or deontological, most have attributed to Anselm some version of eudaimonism even given his distinction between the will for justice and for commoditas (translated variously by “happiness,” “utility,” and “advantage”) and his definition of having a rational will as “the ability to keep uprightness of will for the sake of this uprightness itself.”2 Anselm’s view is hard to categorize, clearly not simply Kantian because making use of the notion of happiness and virtue, but also asserting the distinction between justice and happiness and insisting on the choice of justice over happiness.3

1 Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams, “Anselm on Truth,” in The Cambridge Companion to Anselm, Brian Davies and Brian Leftow, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 213; cf. Visser and Williams, Anselm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 50, where they call this “contextualism.” 2 De lib. arb. 4 (i. 214). 3 Katherin Rogers takes Anselm’s ethics to be eudaimonistic in the end, and Gregory Sadler finally places Anselm in the virtue ethics camp, while Bonnie Kent, Jeffrey Brower, John Hare and Daniel Rakus find Anselm further from these Aristotelian categories; for Hare, Anselm is closer to Augustine and Scotus, and for Rakus, Kierkegaard rather than Kant. See Katherin A. Rogers, Anselm on Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 60–72, and Freedom and Self-Creation: Anselmian Libertarianism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 73, 118,

© Eileen C. Sweeney, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004506480_013

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In my book, I attempted to approach these questions by going beyond a narrow focus on what Anselm claims to how and the why he reaches his conclusions.4 The tendency to read Anselm (or other thinkers) in order to extract his positions on a given issue is not just anachronistic because those positions did not exist at the time Anselm was writing, but also because it assumes that Anselm’s only or main point was to articulate a position for academic debate. Such a reading amounts to ignoring the form and the context of his works, their audience and his purpose in writing, distorting Anselm’s thought. In a review of my book on Anselm, Rogers argued that I had not made Anselm’s positions on these questions clear and that those positions were less complex and more straightforward than I had implied.5 So I am revisiting these two issues here to try to make clearer the unique character of Anselm’s claims. But Rogers’ focus on classifying Anselm’s positions according to contemporary philosophers’ categories, e.g., Anselm as a eudaimonist, speaks to a larger issue for understanding Anselm. This kind of analysis ultimately distorts Anselm’s thought by projecting it through Aristotelian categories, even (as we will see) even in the account of Anselm’s Augustinian account of evil. Anselm’s thoughts on both evil and eudaimonism are, I want to argue, expressive of his own ver-

124. Gregory Sadler, “What Kind of Moral Theory does Anselm Hold?” paper presented at the 6th Felician Ethics Conference, 2012, accessed online at https://felicianethics.files.wordpress​ .com/2012/04/what‑kind‑of‑moral‑theory‑does‑anselm‑hold.pdf. Bonnie Kent, “The Moral Life,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy, A.S. McGrade, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 236–237; Jeffrey Brower, “Anselm on Ethics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Anselm, Brian Davies and Brian Leftow, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 222–224; John Hare, God’s Call: Moral Realism, God’s Commands, and Human Autonomy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001); Daniel T. Rakus, “Alter Augustinus and the Question of Moral Knowledge,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 43 (1997), 313–337. Except for Kent, these writers are attempting to place Anselm in the systematic discussion of the basic ethical theories as philosophers now enumerate them, a worthwhile but almost necessarily anachronistic undertaking. For less anachronistic accounts, see Jean-Robert Pouchet, La Rectitude chez Saint Anselme: Un itinérarie augustinien de l’âme á Dieu (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1964), 89–90, 195–197, Michel Corbin, “Se Tenir dans la Vérité: Lecture du chapitre 12 de saint Anselme sur la Vérité,” in Les Mutations socio-culturelles au tournant des xie–xiie siècles: études anselmiennes (ive session: Abbaye Notre-Dame du Bec, Le Bec-Hellouin, 11–16 juillet 1982) (Spicilegium Beccense, ii). Raymonde Foreville, ed. (Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1984), 649–667, Jean Rohmer, La finalité morale chez les théologiens de saint Augustin à Duns Scot (Paris: J. Vrin, 1939), 156. 4 Eileen C. Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word, (Washington, D.C., The Catholic University of America Press), 2012. 5 Katherin A. Rogers, review of Eileen C. Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2012.07.10 http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/anselm‑of​ ‑canterbury‑and‑the‑desire‑for‑the‑word/.

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sion of Neo-platonism, one that is scrupulously faithful to the notion of fragmentation of being in the finite creature.

1

The Problem of Evil

What is usually asserted after accepting the claims that evil exists and that God is both omnipotent and all-good is that evil is privation and, thus, that everything that appears evil is not really evil in some ultimate sense. Augustine and Boethius both solve the problem of evil by sweeping evil actions into the providential plan, from which perspective they are both necessary and good. Thus, in On the Free Choice of the Will Augustine asserts (infamously in my view) that “God does good in correcting adults when the children whom they love suffer pain and death.”6 And recall the last lines of Boethius’s De hebdomadibus: “some things are just, some things are otherwise, but all things are good.”7 In the Consolation Lady Philosophy stuns the prisoner with her claim that from the divine (and hence true) perspective, evil is truly good.8 As he writes, “[an evil deed] ought to be since it is permitted wisely and well by him without whose permission it could not have happened. And it ought not to be with respect to him by whose evil will it is conceived.”9 For Anselm, then, the assertion of God’s providence does not do away with the sense in which evil things ought not to be, as it seems to for Boethius and Augustine. Anselm handles the problem of evil in slightly different terms in De casu diaboli. Even as he embraces the Augustinian principle that evil is nonbeing, he adds that there is an evil which is something: the evil of disadvantage (incommoditas), for example, sadness and pain. These evils follow evils of privation or absence and are something that we are justified in regarding with aversion.10 In making this claim, Anselm saves our ordinary intuition about evil, just as he does in claiming that some things simply ought not to be. This comes at a price, for in order to accommodate ordinary intuitions, Anselm seems to embrace 6

7

8 9 10

Augustine, De libero arbitrio, iii, 68, in Saint Augustine: Opera Omnia—Corpus Augustinianum Gissense (hereafter cag), ed. Cornelius Mayer, (Basel: Schwabe, 1995), Part i, 145–146, accessed online on the Past Masters database. Boethius, De hebdomadibus, in Boethius: The Theological Tractates and the Consolation of Philosophy, trans. H.F. Stewart, E.K. Rand, and S.J. Tester, Loeb Classical Library, 74 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990 [1973c]), 50, ll. 173–174. Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, bk. iv, prose 6, in Boethius: The Theological Tractates and the Consolation of Philosophy, trans. S.J. Tester, 370, ll. 184–195. De ver. 8, (i. 186). De casu 26 (i. 274).

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two apparent contradictions: the same thing both ought and ought not be, and evil is both nothing and something. In other words, Anselm must embrace a kind of perspectivalism, i.e., that the evaluation of whether something ought or ought not be shifts depending on the perspective or criteria taken up, and that neither perspective is illusory nor fully absorbed into one that is higher and all-inclusive.11 How does Anselm justify this fundamental ought-not-ness of evil alongside its ought-ness, i.e., its place in the providential plan? In De concordia Anselm makes use of a distinction used by Boethius, between antecedent and subsequent necessity. The necessity which marks what God foreknows about what is willed by free choice is subsequent necessity; that there will be a rebellion tomorrow is necessary and foreknown by God but in the sense that, as Anselm puts it, “if it will happen, ‘it will happen’” is necessarily true.12 Anselm argues further that God’s providential plan does not cause evil deeds to exist, even though God causes what they are. What Anselm seems to mean by this is that God creates the beings and gives them the freedom by which their acts are evil or good (thus creating the “what” of evil deeds). But God does not necessitate those acts, in the sense that he does not antecedently will them as part of his providential plan (thus he does not cause the acts to exist). Though there are difficulties about how to work out this view, it seems clear that here as well Anselm is attempting to maintain a kind of double perspective even on God’s knowledge and providence concerning evil actions.13 Rogers argues that attributing to Anselm a complex double perspective on evil, refusing to reduce its ought-not-ness to some larger ought-ness is unnecessary. She maintains that there is “no need to invoke perspectives and contexts, if that means anything more than that different aspects of the same thing can have different properties.”14 One can easily avoid the contradiction of ought and ought not, she argues; there simply is no contradiction in two different aspects of a thing having different properties. Thus, the shape of a thing might have one property and its weight, another. This works, more or less, for thinking about things according to Aristotelian categories. But this is not the metaphysics Anselm’s language is attempting to capture. His is rather a Neo-platonic metaphysics, in which being varies inversely with fragmentation. That things have different aspects with different,

11 12 13 14

Cf. Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams, Anselm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 50, where they call this “contextualism.” See also above, n. 1. Anselm of Canterbury, De concordia i, 3 (ii. 250, 13–24). For more on what these difficulties might be see Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury, 350–353. Rogers, review of Sweeney (see above n. 5).

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and even contradictory, attributes is not a neutral fact about the many ways in which “being” is and is said for Anselm, but an existential crisis affecting our existence and actions and which causes evil and suffering. As Anselm puts it in the Monologion, compared to the being of God what we are is non-being. We as creatures both are and are not being.15 Anselm’s insistence that evil both ought and ought not be is a reflection on the consequences of the combination of being and non-being, or, to say the same thing in a different way, the incomplete and fragile being of creatures. To be sure, the goodness of God’s creation as well as God’s providential care for that creation weigh on the side of the oughtness of whatever comes to be, but the ought-not-ness of evil, Anselm asserts, remains a surd which cannot be enfolded without remainder into the good. Moreover, Anselm’s claim that some things “ought to happen in one sense, and ought not in another” is not just a claim that different aspects of things have different properties, for in the case of those acts, like Jesus’ suffering, which both ought and ought not to be, it is the very same thing, the suffering, not different aspects of Jesus, that both ought and ought not be. And even if unjust suffering, for example, could be separated into distinct properties, some of which ought and some others of which ought not to be, Anselm insists that we end, as we began, with the truth that it both ought and ought not be. Anselm’s explanation of how and in what senses the same thing ought and ought not to be is exactly that, an explanation of the truth of the contradictory statement, not the complete dissolution of the contradiction. And since the combined ought and ought-not-ness of things is a reflection of the metaphysics of creatures—the way in which they are and are not, the contradiction is also true not just from a human perspective (from which we cannot see the greater good) but also from God’s. Though Anselm does not explain any further, my own view is that completely dissolving evil into good, metaphysically or morally, or in any way dissolving the tension between its ought and ought-not-ness is fundamentally offensive and morally indefensible because it instrumentalizes the suffering of others for the sake of the higher providential good. Further, I think that insofar as we are tempted to take this kind of God’s eye view, it is no longer a perspective but a pretended synthesis of perspectives, and not, I don’t think, the view of the God Anselm actually worships. When we move swiftly and fully to the providential perspective, we undermine our moral outrage at injustice and weaken our compassion for those who suffer. Thus, we become less motivated to right those wrongs and less able to suffer with those who suffer. I think that the God

15

Mono. 28 (i. 46).

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Anselm worships has to have a sense in which evil ought not to happen; he has to have, and wants us to have, moral outrage and compassion. This is the mistake, I think, in Augustine’s formulation at least, when he says in De libero arbitrio that God does good in punishing parents with the death and suffering of their children. Or when the author of a recent article argues that chattel slavery is the necessary path to the greater good of universal human rights.16 There is a subtle but very important difference between these formulations and the way, for example, President Obama pointed to the good that had come (and should continue to come) of the racist shootings of African Americans praying in a church in Charleston in the summer of 2015.17 Obama managed to hold both the perspective of ought-not-ness of this act and the suffering it caused along with that of providence in which all evil is turned to good. Dylann Roof imagined that his act of racial hatred would provoke fear, violence and recrimination, Obama pointed out, but, he continued, Roof didn’t know he would be used by God to bring about the opposite. While Roof “presumed [his act] would deepen divisions that trace back to our nation’s original sin,” Obama continued, “God works in mysterious ways. God has different ideas. [Roof] didn’t know he was being used by God.” “Blinded by hatred,” Obama concluded, “he failed to comprehend the grace Reverend Pinckney so well understood, the power of God’s grace.” Obama explained that we receive this grace that turns evil to good but we never deserve it. I think the reference to mystery and to grace are a way of recognizing that the dimension in which evil is turned into good is another dimension from the one in which people suffer, and that the one does not utterly negate the other. Thus, we cannot collapse the perspectives from which evil is and is not, ought and ought not to be. (This is what Lady Philosophy does when she vaporizes the evil into non-being.) Obama’s way of talking respects the exclusively subsequent necessity of the evil from which good would come, against both the intention and imagination of its perpetrator and not, before it happened, part of God’s providential plan. Obama did not attempt to occupy the supposed perspective of eternity from which this and other evils had to happen and happened for the best in just this way, but throughout his sermon, he juxtaposed them, always mentioning both the evil that had been done in conjunction with the goodness/grace that has been given. By contrast, there is in Augustine’s claim about the goodness of a child suffering for her parents’ correction and the account 16 17

George Tsai, “Lamentable Necessities,” Review of Metaphysics, vol. 66, no. 4 (June 2013): 775–808. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post‑nation/wp/2015/06/26/transcript‑obama‑ delivers‑eulogy‑for‑charleston‑pastor‑the‑rev‑clementa‑pinckney/?utm_term=.8a6895e8 a47f.

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of slavery as necessary for the sake of human rights something both static and uni-dimensional that does justice neither to the mystery of God’s ways nor to innocent suffering and the evil of its perpetrators. To be fair, Augustine in other contexts refrains from making the kind of connection between a child’s suffering and the betterment of her parents he asserts in De libero arbitrio. In De vera religione, Augustine distinguishes between how God deals with the whole human race (publicly and through history and prophecy) and individual providence. Though there is providence for the individual, Augustine declines to speculate on how it might work; it is something God and those individuals know but we do not.18 Boethius, too, describes some of the myriad of possibilities whereby God’s providence can operate, noting both that we cannot know and that it could be a very different plan than the one we might infer from our perspective. And neither Augustine nor Boethius hold the view that God allows or even causes suffering in order that people be improved or corrected by it. In the passages I have contrasted with Anselm’s views on evil, they are focusing on one half of what Anselm also holds, that God, his creation and his providence are good, and evil is the deviation from that fullness of being. Augustine’s and Boethius’s lesser emphasis on the oughtnot-ness of evil and the reality of suffering in order to focus on the non-being of evil can lead to a forgetting and oversimplification, as it does in the popular (but to my mind abhorrent) cliché that “everything happens for a reason.” Though it’s messy, Anselm wants to hold both of these truths before our eyes together, that evil both ought and ought not be, that evil is both nothing and something. I consider what Anselm is doing here a kind of “friendly amendment” to Augustine and Boethius, a reminder to those following their lead not to forget that the non-being of evil does not mean we can ignore its consequences or fail to deplore and work against it.

2

Anselm and Eudaimonism

There is something analogous at stake in my unwillingness to resolve another tension in Anselm: that between justice and happiness.19 The problem, Rogers argues, is that if one too thoroughly uncouples justice from happiness in Anselm, he becomes a kind of proto-Kantian, asserting the ultimate ethical act as self-sacrifice and opposed to happiness. She argues that though there is, accord-

18 19

Augustine, De vera religione xxv. 46. (cag, Part 1, 216). Rogers, review of Sweeney (see above n. 5).

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ing to Anselm, a conflict between the will for justice and the will for benefit when we will justice over benefit, we nonetheless will justice as beneficial.20 But it does seem that unless we are going to collapse Anselm’s distinction between the will for benefit and that for justice into one will for benefit, we have to maintain that there is or can be a real conflict between them. It may not be the contrary or the abnegation of self-interest to will justice, but it is not, at least in the moment of choice, the fulfillment of self-interest for Anselm. Considering whether or how knowledge shapes the good/benefit that we want, Anselm parts company decisively with Aristotle and Plato. He argues that knowledge drives us to want more benefit, ultimately to desire to be God, and failing that, to will whatever benefits are accessible to us even if they are unjust. This comes out in the discussion of the will for happiness in De casu. The teacher gets his student to admit that “if he did not more greatly will happiness in proportion to the degree he deemed it to be great and better, then … he would not be willing happiness.”21 The teacher goes on to argue that if the will for happiness is unable to secure “greater and true benefits,” it moves to “lesser benefits,” even “unclean and base” benefits, seeking whatever can be gotten and as much of it as possible. Though there is a role for judgment about what is greater and better, the direction of the will for happiness is toward more. The point, in other words, seems to be quantity not quality. Self-interest does not become enlightened, and, hence, does not lead to virtue for Anselm. Though Anselm asserts that we can only will what is in some respect beneficial, he holds that we can will something that is less beneficial than something else (this is what the good angels did). The will for happiness alone cannot do this, but the will for justice can. In describing the act of the angels, Anselm makes clear that they weigh a lesser benefit that is just against a greater benefit that is unjust.22 So in willing justice, they are giving up some benefit, and when they make that choice, the reason cannot be for benefit. God did indeed, according to Anselm, make us to be happy, but for Anselm we must, though I am hesitant to say it, because it sounds like Kant, deserve that happiness. But I don’t need to invoke Kant—Anselm himself writes, “one who does not will justice ought not to be happy.”23 Further, unlike Plato or Aristotle, Anselm’s theory of obligation is not based on the claim that virtue or justice brings or is happiness. Anselm is quite insistent that justice must be willed for its own sake and, hence, not as benefit, argu20 21 22 23

Rogers, Anselm on Freedom, 67. De casu 13 (i. 257). Ibid., 14 (i. 258–259). Ibid., 12 (i. 255).

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ing that if the angels had chosen to keep justice because they would thereby avoid punishment, this would have deprived their action of justice. For “if,” the teacher explains, “[the angel] had kept from sinning because of fear, then he would not have been just.”24 For Anselm, it is not that I will something against or giving up my self interest in willing justice, but rather that in my response to the just or right thing, the question, “is it good for me?” just doesn’t arise. I am tempted to say in more colloquial terms, “It just isn’t about me.” In this Anselm in a sense follows Augustine’s critique of pagan virtue as self-centered, maintaining that our end is not found in the self but outside the self.25 And it is outside the self not as fulfilling or benefiting the self but as the recognition of the infinitely greater worth of the thing that is loved and is, thus, loved for its own sake. Whereas God wills justice as benefit and benefit as justice, not so human beings, Anselm is telling us. And the reason is not because we lack the perspective from which to see that justice is to our ultimate benefit, but because, unlike God, we are not the ultimate good. The choice of justice is not a sacrifice or rejection of the self in a modern sense, but it is a transcending of the self, in a way that recognizes its limitations and does homage to the unlimited good. Anselm of course believes in the strongest terms possible that the best life is in homage to that supreme good and, in that sense, some might argue, he does resolve the tension between justice and benefit. The good angels, by limiting their pursuit of benefit, gain everything they might have lost and more, Anselm argues.26 But they cannot act for that reason, foregoing in the short run so that they will gain in the long run. Anselm in this way and to this extent refrains from dissolving the tension between self and other; we must choose. We lack both the generosity and inclusiveness of God, even though it is true that the more we give, the more we gain. But it is not giving if it is for gain. Giving doesn’t redound to the benefit of the self, it expands the self. I can in this regard make reference both to Thomas Aquinas’ discussion of expansion (dilatatio) as an effect of love, and to what happened when the Grinch decided to give rather than take: “Well, in Whoville they say—that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day.”27 Compare this with the self-regard and self-involvement of Aristotle’s magnani-

24 25 26 27

Ibid., 23 (i. 270). Augustine, De civitate Dei, xix, 25. (cag, Part 6, 696). De casu 6 (i. 243). Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, i–ii, q. 33, a. 1. (Corpus Thomisticum, ed. Leonina, digital ed. Robert Busa. S.J., url: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth2026.html​ #34959). Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (New York: Random House, 1957), online text available at http://ninjamonkeyspy.livejournal.com/585154.html.

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mous man. While the megalopsychia performs great actions and does so for the greatness of the act rather than for his own benefit, he is still focused on himself, his own greatness—what acts are worthy of him, what recognition is owed to him. While he does not care about wrongs done to him, neither does he admire much and, most importantly, he is not in relationship with any others except with his friend.28 While the “great souled man,” we might say, ‘expands’ to great deeds and great honors, he still does not expand his focus beyond himself. The Grinch is moved to his good deeds by the value of others, not himself. Given the choice of friends, the Grinch or the megalopsychia, I choose the Grinch.

3

Conclusion

In the classroom I have always wholeheartedly supported and thoroughly enjoyed re-enacting Aristotle’s elegant sleight of hand where he makes any conflict between self- interest and the interest of the other disappear.29 And I have tried to reproduce Lady Philosophy’s disappearing trick, in which after a dialectical turn, she opens the cabinet, to show the evil people have disappeared— that not only are they worse off, degraded to the level of animals, but that they do not even exist: “For of those who are evil, I do not deny that they are evil but that they are purely and simply, I do deny.”30 This is, of course, a deliberately provocative and even inaccurate claim, for surely the evil men who acted against Boethius do in some sense exist. But Lady Philosophy is completely focused on following through to the vanishing point the logic of the non-being of evil, attempting to turn the prisoner’s perspective on his suffering around a full 180 degrees. Similarly, in the Gorgias Socrates proves to the amazement and disbelief of onlookers that the powerful are really powerless, and that doing injustice is worse than suffering it.31 Poof, and like the audience at a magic show, students ask, “how did they do it?” Anselm in a way is the inventor of the most famous and most famously frustrating argument producing this kind of effect. I refer, of course, to the ontological argument. But he does not, as I have shown 28

29 30 31

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, iv, 1123a34–1125a17. Aristotle’s expression here is “live with” 1124b31–1125a1. In The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes. 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) vol. 2, 1173–1175. Ibid., ix, 1168b12–1169b2, 1847. Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, iv, prose 2, ed. Tester, 326, ll. 108–110: Nam qui mali sunt eos malos esse non abnuo; sed eosdem esse pure atque simplicter nego. Plato, Gorgias, 466d–470b; 474b–476a, in Plato: The Collected Dialogues, eds. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961), 555–559, 564–567.

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here, elegantly and seamlessly dissolve difference and contradiction into unity on the topics of evil and the relationship of happiness to virtue. Why not? In the Consolation, Lady Philosophy does move off the view that evil—and even the evildoers—do not exist, but she comes down from the heady heights of the non-existence of evil as a concession to the limitations of human understanding, not as the truest formulation of the nature of evil.32 For Anselm the problem is not merely that we do not have the perch from which we can see that evil is illusory and justice is happiness, and he does not assert that lacking that perch is what explains our trouble accepting these conclusions. On evil, I have argued that Anselm does not completely dissolve evil into non-being because his subject is the fragmented and mixed being of creatures rather than God. On justice vs. benefit/happiness, it is that same metaphysics of incomplete being that distinguishes the happiness of the individual from the full, true, and complete good of justice; its good (the good of the finite individual) is not the good. Most philosophers, at least today, have a tendency to think they can and should solve problems. They either find a strategy for dissolving one horn of a dilemma so that the other can reign unchallenged (the evil do not exist, virtue is happiness) or find a way, usually by making a distinction, to defuse dilemmas so that both horns can be maintained in a certain sense but without the scandal of contradiction. Anselm, I have argued, by contrast is a problematizer. Even, or especially, his most famous solutions—on the existence of God and necessity of the Incarnation—are problematic in the extreme. They are, even as successful, invitations to further and unsettled meditation, not solutions that allow us to leave a problem behind as something completed and mastered. That we, our actions, and our world are a problem to us is what Anselm wants to show, not fix or escape. Now I think that in the end Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, and Plato are also in the business of making things problematic, though in different ways and highlighting different aspects of these problems than Anselm. But they are not the subject of this paper, and their views turned into ‘positions’ on certain questions are often used as a way to walk away from a problem rather than to live in and with it. And it is this notion of philosophy as a series of puzzles to be solved and then dispensed with to which I want to contrast Anselm’s work. Uncharacteristically for me, I have tried in this essay to limit myself to Anselm’s arguments and conclusions in a narrow sense without paying much attention to the rhetoric, structure, and rhythm of his texts, all of which function as the music to which the lyrics of his arguments are set. The lyrics plus the music

32

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, iv, prose 7, ed. Tester, 376, 14–17.

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make philosophy a spiritual exercise, not merely the attempt to win an argument. One could, of course, and many do, hold the latter view of philosophy, but it would not make sense for Anselm. For Anselm, the existential crisis of our fragmentary and fragile hold on being, in which we are and are not, and are never wholly what we are, is that which he wants us to hold before our mind and heart constantly, in the way God tells the Israelites in Deuteronomy to bind the commandments as a sign on the hand and an emblem on the forehead so that they will be constantly reminded of them (Deuteronomy 6:8). To this end, in my view, Anselm writes meditations and dialogues, not to solve problems but to expose and consider deeply those problems and their existential consequences. The problem of evil and the relationship of justice to happiness are issues confronted for the most part in dialogue form, in arguments that are both excruciatingly detailed and time consuming. The arguments and even their conclusions are not easily excerptible just as those in Plato’s dialogues are not. The wrong turns and the contradictions and tensions are just as important and revealing as the conclusions. In Anselm’s case (I won’t speculate on Plato), the complex path towards conclusions, which almost always lead to some further problem or question fits with his version of Neoplatonism, with what I have elsewhere called “the metaphysics of creatures.” Creatures, those whose existence is derived and dependent rather than per se, are not truly or wholly what they are; they are not in some significant sense. They experience their own lack of completeness and sufficiency, and they can and do, alas, often seek completeness and sufficiency unjustly; the reality of their condition; the reality of what they suffer and cause others to suffer has to be recognized so that they recognize who they are (and are not). They cannot leap over their own finitude either as the bad angels attempted to do it, by becoming God, or by pretending to occupy a God’s-eye perspective from which suffering the consequences of insufficiency disappears into the providential plan. Further, the tendency to seek one way out or another, and the inability to see the complete picture at once means that Anselm must take his student on a journey of self-discernment as well as argument, and losing some of the arguments is an essential element of the journey.

Omnis volens ipsum suum velle vult: On a Theory of incontinentia in Anselm’s Thought Riccardo Fedriga and Roberto Limonta

1

Comparing Traditions: Aristotle, Paul, Augustine

It is well known that Aristotle thought of akrasia as a lack or weakness of boulesis, which recedes when confronted by the strength of a sensible desire.12 It is not a vice or a habitus, but a temporary condition of cognitive failure: the akratic knows that what he is doing should not be done (which justifies Risto Saarinen’s definition of Aristotle’s theory as “clear-eyed akrasia”3) but does not freely choose to act accordingly because epithumia robs him of the capacity to make a free choice, albeit contingently. Such an account will be picked up again, with some differences, in the thirteenth century—thanks to the translation of Robert Grosseteste4—by Albert the Great, author of an important commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics,5 and especially by Thomas Aquinas.6 Neither of these proposed a rigorously Aristotelian theory, but Anselm’s is even less so.

1 The authors have discussed together the whole paper. The various sections and the corresponding footnotes have been written as follows: R. Limonta, 1 and 3, R. Fedriga 2 and 4; section 5 has been written by both authors. 2 en vii, 1147a25–1147b1–5. In Aristotle, Aristotle in Twenty-Three Volumes, ed. E.H. Warmington, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973. Cf. Jaakko Hintikka, Time and Necessity, Studies in Aristotle’s Theory of Modality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973); Jaakko Hintikka, “Aristotle’s Incontinent Logician,” Ajatus 37 (1978), 48–65; Justin Goslin, Weakness of the Will (London: Routledge, 1990) at 25–37; Risto Saarinen, Weakness of the Will in Medieval Thought, from Augustine to Buridan (Leiden: Brill, 1994), at 8–16; and Simo Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), at 8–16. 3 Saarinen, Weakness of the Will, 12: “we define ‘clear-eyed akrasia’ to mean that the akratês knows that what he is doing is wrong.” 4 Robert Grosseteste, The Greek Commentaries of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle in the Latin Translation of Robert Grosseteste, ed. H. Mercken (Corpus Latinum Commentariorum in Aristotelem Graecorum vi), (Leiden: Brill, 1973–1991). 5 In ca. 1250–1252 and in ca. 1262–1263. See Albert the Great, Alberti Magni Opera Omnia edenda curavit Institutum Alberti Magni Coloniense Bernhardo Geyer praeside. (Münster: Aschendorff, 1951–). 6 Summa Theologiae, i, q. 77 and ii, qq. 155–156, Quaestiones disputatae de malo, q. iii, at. 7–13, Sententia libri Ethicorum, vii, l. 2. In Thomas Aquinas, Opera omnia, ed. Leonina vol. 4–12:

© Riccardo Fedriga and Roberto Limonta, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004506480_014

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It is Paul (in his Epistle to the Romans especially) and, to a lesser degree, Augustine, who provided the theological-conceptual basis for Anselm’s theory.7 We shall focus on the former, given its greater normative character. In Romans 7:19 Paul writes: “I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do.”8 The stress here is no longer on knowledge, as it had been for Greek thinkers from Socrates to Aristotle, but on will. The good is not that which is “known” but that which is naturally “desired” every time something is intentionally cognized. In the Epistle to the Romans Paul describes an inner conflict, placed at the juncture of faith in its formal and legislative dimension on the one hand, and law as inner consent on the other; weakness of will is, as such, connotated by the term incontinentia instead of akrasia. In Romans 7:19, the incontinent wants x but does y, which is what he does not want. His will consents to what his will does not want, or even, to what his will recognizes as something not to be wanted. What leads one to sin is the very existence of the law as a boundary that the will is naturally inclined to break in an attempt to push it further back. Consider Romans 7:7: “I did not know sin except through the Law.”9 It would seem that the incontinent’s conflict is not so much due to the clash with external elements, as much as with the inner conflict of the will, whose attempt to break the righteous law is constantly frustrated as the boundary never ceases to present itself. Augustine, on the other hand, analyses the paradox of will in terms of an incontinentia provoked by external temptations, which cause a split followed by a clash within the will. The conflict is thus internalized as a disease of the spirit that, simultaneously, wants and does not want. In Augustine’s view, incontinentia is a dispersio animi10 and, in line with this account, the will’s conflict is determined by inner urges that move in opposite directions. The very same self both wants and does not want: “ego eram, qui volebam, ego, qui nolebam” (It was I who willed, I who did not will).11 Augustine captures this conflict with the formula invitus facere, that is, “to act unwillingly” or “to act against one’s will.”

7 8

9 10 11

Summa theologiae 1888–1906, vol. 23: De Malo, 1982. vol 47, 1–2: Sententia libri Ethicorum, 1969. Civitas Vaticana, Vatican Polyglot Press. Another crucial source could be Seneca and the stoic heritage. See infra chapter 5 “Diversas voluntates as different modes of willing.” The translations of the epistle’s text are our own. The text is from C.E.B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Epistle To The Romans, vol. 1 (London: T&T Clark, 1975): Romans 7:19: οὐ γὰρ ὃ θέλω ποιῶ ἀγαθόν, ἀλλὰ ὃ οὐ θέλω κακὸν τοῦτο πράσσω. Romans 7:7: τὴν ἁμαρτίαν οὐκ ἔγνων εἰ μὴ διὰ νόμου. Cf. Augustine regarding vana et curiosa cupiditas in Confessiones x.35.54, l. 2, in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1953–), 184. Confessiones viii.10.22.

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The will is lacerated, torn between the Spirit, on the one hand, and the tendency to sin and the law of the flesh, indelibly stamped on the soul by original sin, on the other. Lanfranc of Canterbury, the author of an important Commentary on the Pauline Epistles, follows Paul’s account.12 In commenting on the aforementioned passage—“I did not know sin except through the law”—Lanfranc stresses how what makes sin attractive and drives the will to break the law is the fact that greediness is prohibited, not the greedy act in itself: “tantam vim concupiscentiae antea non eram expertus, quantam postea; quod cognovi esse prohibitum. Vel, nesciebam concupiscentiam esse peccatum” [he didn’t know the power of concupiscence previously, but only after he had experience [of the law]; that is, he didn’t know that concupiscence was sin].13 Sin lures the incontinent through a delusion of omnipotence: the transgression lies in the attempt to make velle ever closer to posse14 until the two become indiscernible. The will to sin is to be explained not in terms of wanting something evil, but in terms of wanting it insofar as it is sinful, wanting it qua sin.

2

Rectitude between Posse and Velle: Will and Freedom of Will

Anselm reinterprets the patristic tradition through the lens provided by Paul.15 Central to his account are the notions of pervelle (which we can translate as “to will to the end, to will with complete perseverance”), libertas arbitrii (freedom 12 13

14

15

Beati Lanfranci Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis in omnes Pauli epistolas commentarii cum glossula interjecta in pl, 150, 101–405. Lanfranc, Beati Lanfranci (pl 150, 127°). Regarding Lanfranc’s commentary on the Pauline Epistles see Margaret Gibson, “Lanfranc’s Commentary on the Pauline Epistles,” Journal of Theological Studies xxii (1971), 86–112, and Margaret Gibson, Lanfranc of Bec (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978). Karl Barth, Fides quaerens intellectum: Anselm Beweis der Existenz Gottes im Zusammenhang seines theologischen Programms (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1931), 143–146 (Revised edition, Zürich, Theologische Verlag, 1981, 161–164), interpreted Rom 7:7 in terms of a man who, through the institution of the law, wants to make himself divine and become to himself what God is to him. Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum (Gn 3:5): this is the fundamental sin of the man who is faithful to the Israelite law. In Anselm’s view, the incontinent par excellence is the devil (cf. De casu), for he was not able to stand by the rectitude of will and wanted to be like God: he willed God’s will, that is, he willed in a manner that was boundless and exceeded the divine order. It is this notion of omnipotence that allows us to draw a connection between Paul and Anselm’s accounts. The English translations of Anselm’s works cited below are by Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson, Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises of Anselm of Canterbury (Minneapolis: The Arthur J. Banning Press, 2000).

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of choice or capacity to choose) and rectitudo (rectitude). We shall focus on the latter in particular. Anselm extends the semantic field of the term rectitudo beyond its moral value (which was established by Paul, Augustine, and especially Gregory the Great in his Moralia in Job)16 and establishes a close analogy between logical-semantic rules and the law of divine ordinatio. In this account, rectitude is both the “righteous way” of he who acts in accordance with God’s will and His teachings, and the recta significatio that connects words to named objects, so that “Ergo non est illi aliud veritas quam rectitudo [the affirmation’s truth is simply its rightness, or correctness]”.17 Anselm examines the rectitude of will in a number of writings (De libertate arbitrii, De veritate, De casu diaboli, De concordia), but chapters v–vii of De Libertate arbitrii are especially significant for our purposes. The main topic of this work is not, as Anselm points out, free will (liberum arbitrium), but freedom of will (libertas arbitrii). This faculty is not accounted for as the capacity to freely (i.e., arbitrarily) choose among a number of possible options, but as will’s capacity to follow the path of rectitude without thereby losing its freedom. Freedom of will is properly understood as the capacity not to stray off the righteous path, deviating from which would in fact cause the will to lose its capacity to choose goodness. As we can read in Monologion: Nihil igitur apertius quam rationalem creaturam ad hoc esse factam, ut summam essentiam amet super omnia bona, sicut ipsa est summum bonum. [Nothing is clearer than that the rational creature was made for this end: viz., to love above all [other] goods the Supreme Being, inasmuch as it is the Supreme Good.]18 Rectitude, in short, is not a third element in addition to the act of volition and its object: it is the relation between these two. To will righteously (recte) means to will something in a certain way, in a certain respect; it means maintaining the right tension for the will to move along the straight line that leads to goodness. For this reason, Anselm insists on the modal characterization of the will’s action, which he expresses through the adverb recte or through terms linguistically related to rectitudo (following the meaning of the term discussed above). 16 17 18

Cf. Robert Pouchet, La Rectitudo chez Saint Anselme. Un itinéraire Augustinien de l’Ame à Dieu (Paris: Ètudes Augustiniennes, 1964), 45–54. Anselm, De ver. 2, trans. Hopkins, Richardson, 166 (i. 178: 25). Anselm, Mono. 68, trans. Hopkins, Richardson, 78 (i. 79: 27–29).

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Here we have some examples of the use of the term recte in the sense explained above, showing how this term is ethically, theologically and philosophically crucial and so frequent in the Anselm’s works: Sequitur ergo deum velle hoc modo rectam voluntatem ad volendum recte et ad servandum eandem rectitudinem esse Iiberam, quae quando potest quod vult, Iibere facit quod facit. [Therefore, it follows that in this manner God wills that an upright will be free for willing rightly and for keeping this uprightness. And when the upright will is able [to do] what it wills, it does freely what it does.]19 Quod tunc quidem, quando recte est, bonum et iustum est; quando vero non recte, hoc solo quia non recte est, malum est et iniustum. Est autem aliquid recte esse, et hoc est a deo; non esse vero recte non est aliquid, nec est a deo. [Indeed, when willing exists rightly, it is something good and just; but when it does not exist rightly, then solely in virtue of the fact that it does not exist rightly, it is evil and unjust. However, existing rightly is something, and it is from God; but not existing rightly is not something and is not from God.]20 Deus vero recte exigit a natura quod ei dedit, et quod sibi iuste debetur. [God rightly requires from nature what He gave to her and what justly is due to Him.]21 19 20 21

Anselm, De concordia i. 6, trans. Hopkins, Richarson, 542 (ii. 256–257: 30–32). Ibid., 1.6, trans. Hopkins, Richarson, 545 (ii. 259:7–10). Anselm, De conc. vir. 28 (ii. 171: 7–8). The peculiar use that Anselm makes of recte and iuste in this text requires clarification, for the distinction is crucial to his reflection on the modes of will. Recte refers to what God demands (that is, wants) and it is therefore an adverbial form with which Anselm indicates a mode of will. Rectitudo is an inner fact, insofar as it is not such if it is not pursued for the sake of rectitude itself. Iuste, on the other hand, applies to what ought to be done, that is, to iustitia as the foundation of a public, recognisable ethic that sanctions external acts through a system of rewards and punishments. Rectitudo and iustitia do not contradict but complement one another as the external and internal aspect of the same divina ordinatio: for justice is the rectitude of will that is preserved for the sake of rectitude itself (cf. De concordia i, 6.256.14–15 and De ver. xii, 193.12–16), and it is thus twice “righteous” since its righteous will is turned towards what will righteously wants. On this distinction and its meaning, see Bernd Goebel, Anselm von Canterbury über Willensstärke und und Willensschwäche in Tobias Hoffmann, Jörn

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Quoniam ergo patri filii voluntas placuit, nec prohibuit eum velle aut implere quod volebat: recte voluisse ut filius mortem tam pie, tam utiliter sustineret—quamvis poenam eius non amaret—affirmatur. [Since, therefore, the will of the Son pleased the Father, and he did not prevent him from choosing, or from fulfilling his choice, it must be said that he rightly wished the Son to endure death so piously and for a so useful object, though he was not pleased with his suffering.]22 The human condition is such that “not to will” is not an option: all one can do is choose to will what one must will (following the straight line through which rectitude connects volition to its object), or to will what one ought not not will. In the latter case, will is forced to follow convoluted paths and crooked lines, and to act unjustly. Anselm uses again an adverb to express this mode of the will, iniuste: Iam igitur tibi manifestum esse puto ex rationibus supra positis diabolum sponte dimisisse velle quod debebat et iuste amisisse quod habebat, quia sponte et iniuste voluit quod non habebat et velle non debebat. [Therefore, I think that from the foregoing argument it is now evident to you that the Devil both freely departed from willing what he was supposed to will and justly lost what he had because he freely and unjustly willed what he did not possess and was not supposed to will.]23 Denique quod non iuste fit, non debet fieri; et quod non debet fieri, iniuste fit. Si ergo non iuste malis misereris, non debes misereri: et si non debes is misereri, iniuste misereris. [Therefore, if You were not justly merciful to those who are evil, it would be the case that You ought not to be merciful [to them]; and if You ought

22 23

Müller, Matthias Perkams [Hrsg.], Das Problem der Willensschwäche im mittelalterlichen Denken/The Problem of Weakness of Will in Medieval Thought. Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales—Bibliotheca, 8, Peeters Publishers, Leuven 2006, 89–122. We owe this reflection to our discussion with Bernd Goebel, who commented upon the first draft of this article; we take this opportunity to thank him for his kind observations and suggestions. Anselm, Cur Deus 10 (ii. 65: 27–29). Anselm, De casu 4, trans. Hopkins, Richardson, 225 (i. 242: 12–15).

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not to be merciful, then You are unjustly merciful. Now, if it is blasphemous to say this, then it is right to believe that You are justly merciful to those who are evil.]24 The key element here is the relation between posse and velle that was crucial to Paul’s account. Anselm, however, reinterprets it in an entirely original way, that is, through the lens of modality. In the Lambeth Fragments, Anselm analyses such a relation in logical-linguistic terms.25 The capacity to choose (velle) acquires potestas when it takes the shape of libertas arbitrii, that is, the freedom not to stray from the right path possessed by the will. It is thus only improperly that one can talk of potestas peccandi: no true power is at play when it comes to sin, but a form of logical impossibility to act correctly. As for the precise meaning of velle, Anselm elaborates on it in De libertate arbitrii and De concordia.26 He improves on Paul’s account, which left the objects of volitional acts underdetermined. The term “will” denotes both the instrument (instrumentum) by which we desire, which is always in the soul and turns towards different objects; and the actual use (usus) of the will as an activity (opus) that turns towards specific objects at specific times. Strength of will is not to be found in acts of will (usus), but in the will’s intrinsic nature (instrumentum), which, being inherently free, is always able to tend towards rectitude, purely for the sake of rectitude itself (ad volendum rectitudinem). For rectitude is not “rectitude of language” or “rectitude of will” (it is not a linguistic or mental property), but it is “in the language” and “in the will,” as it constitutes the rule of the world’s divine order. Thus rectitude—for example that of he who “acts the truth” ( Job 3:20)—can exist even if no act of will is actually performed, just as it can exist if no linguistic significatio ever occurs: M. Si nullus aliquo significare velit signo quod significandum est: erit ulla per signa significatio? D. Nulla. M. An ideo non erit rectum, ut significetur quod significari debet? D. Non idcirco minus erit rectum, aut minus hoc exiget rectitudo. M. Ergo non existente significatione non perit rectitudo qua rectum est et qua exigitur, ut quod significandum est significetur. [T. If no one wishes to signify by means of any sign what should be signified, then will there be any signification by means of signs? S. No. T. And so, it will not be right for what-ought-to-be-signified to be signified? S. 24 25 26

Anselm, Pros. 9, trans. Hopkins, Richardson, 99 (i. 108: 17–19). Cf. Anselm, Lam. frag. (37, l. 28–38: l. 23). Cf. De lib. arb. 7 and De concordia iii. 11.

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[On the contrary], it will not therefore be less right and rightness will no less demand this. T. Therefore, when the signification does not exist, that rightness does not perish by which it is right that there be signified what should be signified and by which it is demanded that there be signified what should be signified.]27 There is no need to postulate two orders of will, one that is righteous and one that is not. The fact that no righteous act of will is actually in place does not entail the impossibility to activate right will; the latter is present within the viator’s nature even when he does not will according to this will, that is, when he does not will righteously. In Anselm’s account, therefore, weakness of will is the inability (i.e., the lack of posse) to follow on rectitude’s path, which is a consequence of the inability to want rectitude in itself (i.e., lack of velle). In the case of strength of will, the will wants itself: it wants its very rectitude and thus wants righteously. The libertas arbitrii may therefore be defined as “potestas servandi rectitudinem voluntatis propter ipsam rectitudinem” [the power to safeguard will’s rectitude for the sake of rectitude itself].28 In the case of weakness of will, instead, the will wants what it should not want, that is, it desires the loss of its natural freedom of choice: it wants, in effect, not to want; it wants to lose its nature as free will. The fact that rectitude persists within the will, even when the actions performed are contrary to it, is what explains the incontinent’s inner conflict. Here, Anselm takes up and rigorously reinterprets Paul’s account: the will’s rectitude is, so to speak, the internalized version of Paul’s Law.

3

Ethics, Logic, and Theology: A Unitary Rule in Anselmian Thought

Weakness of will, therefore, is not a conflict occurring between two wills, but between two different modes of willing: the one that wants to safeguard free will (i.e., rectitude understood as free will) and the one that wants to want freely, that is arbitrarily. As we read in De concordia: “voluntas qua utimur ad volendum, sicut ratione utimur ad ratiocinandum, non est aliud quando quis illa recte utitur, et aliud quando non recte” [the will, which we use for willing (even as we use reason for reasoning), is not one thing when someone uses it rightly and something different when he uses it wrongly].29 These two modes of will27 28 29

Anselm, De ver. 13, trans. Hopkins, Richardson, 188 (i. 197: 31–37). Anselm, De lib. arb. 3 (i. 225: 10–11). De concordia i. 7, trans. Hopkins, Richardson, 545 (ii. 259: 13–14).

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ing work in a sort of circular movement, so to speak, that encompasses all Anselmian thought and that we can also find in the aforementioned passage, with the comparison between the modes of willing and the modes of reasoning. From a linguistic point of view, indeed, the first mode of willing corresponds to recta significatio, while the latter corresponds to usus loquendi. In several passages of De veritate and De grammatico, Anselm poses a fundamental distinction of levels.30 One is usus loquendi, where the correctness of reference and truth-value are established within propositional rules set by (using Hester Gelber’s words) the “conversational community.”31 It is a linguistic level (referable to the historical languages) where truth is understood as the denotative function of the term in reference to an object fixed by context.32 This reference, understood by Anselm here not as a truth-functional property, constitutes a pragmatic function that regulates connections between terms and objects in the linguistic use. If the research is widened from the grammaticallogical to the ethical context, the linguistic signification seems to refer to a socially constituted moral rule. In fact, in the usus loquendi the language is regulated by the necessity of naming things (appellatio) rather than giving them 30 31 32

Cf. De gramm. 11 and 18, De ver. 1–2 and 13. Hester Goodenough Gelber, It Could Have Been Otherwise: Contingency and Necessity in Dominican Theology at Oxford, 1300–1350 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 12–21. Cf. the case of albus in Anselm, De gramm. 14, trans. Hopkins, Richardson, 152 (i. 160.26– 161.4): Nempe nomen equi etiam priusquam sciam ipsum equum album esse, significat mihi equi substantiam per se, et non per aliud. Nomen vero albi equi substantiam significat non per se, sed per aliud, id est per hoc quia scio equum esse album. Cum enim nihil aliud significet hoc nomen, quod est “albus”, quam haec oratio, quae est “habens albedinem”: sicut haec oratio per se constituit mihi intellectum albedinis, et non eius rei quae habet albedinem: ita et nomen. Sed quoniam scio albedinem esse in equo, et hoc per aliud quam per nomen albi, velut per visum: intellecta albedine per hoc nomen, intelligo equum per hoc quod albedinem scio esse in equo, id est per aliud quam per nomen albi, quo tamen equus appellatur. (Surely, even before I would know that the horse is white, the name “horse”—of and by itself, and not on the basis of anything else—would signify to me the substance of the horse. But the name “white” would not of and by itself signify [to me] the substance of the horse, but would signify it on the basis of something else, viz., on the basis of the fact that I know the horse to be white. For since the name “white” would signify nothing other than does the phrase “having whiteness”: just as by itself this phrase would signify to me whiteness but not the thing which has whiteness, so also the name “white” [would by itself signify to me whiteness but not the thing which has whiteness]. But I would know that whiteness is in the horse, and [I would know] this on some basis other than on the basis of the name “white” (viz., [I would know it] on the basis of sight). Therefore, having understood on the basis of the name “white” that whiteness is meant, I would—on the basis of the fact that I know the whiteness to be in the horse—understand that the horse was meant. That is, on some basis other than on the basis of the name “white,” which is, however, appellative of the horse, [I would understand that the horse was meant]).

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meaning (significatio); in the same way, public ethics is dedicated to establish a social practice capable of regulating external events (iustitia), but incapable of judging intentions (rectitudo). This level inserts itself on that of the interior word, which has connotative value and gives recte meaning to things. Here too, the Anselmian circular movement works according to the ways described above in the usus loquendi: a true word (intimam locutionem)33 refers to the (internal) rectitudo in the moral sphere and to a will that acts recte. The adverbial modality that defines good will corresponds to the one—expressed by iuste—that recognizes the public acknowledgment of the good action. Iustitia and rectitudo, as historical languages and the divine word, encompass each other: iustitia needs rectitudo as its own basis and rectitudo has to become iustitia.34 In the same way, the interior word (which will never be a perfect language due to its nature) shifts into usus loquendi, which in turn has to follow the right word as final truth criterion. Therefore, the dynamic, and not truth-functional relation that involves the philosophical-logical context and the ethical and theological motivation of the Anselmian thought, is evident.

4

For a Modal Theory of Will

Coming back to the crucial point of the weakness of will, Anselm draws a distinction between the two modes of willing when he talks of “the will by which we want something in itself” on one hand, and “the will by which we want something for the sake of something else” on the other.35 There seems to be a “direct” and an “indirect” will, which, as a further token of Anselm’s philosophical consistency, perfectly corresponds to another key dichotomy: that between per se and per aliud.36 Anselm’s modal theory of will is wholly contained within the first and the last sentence of book 5 of De libertate arbitrii: that is, between the opening 33 34 35

36

Ibid., 12. Cf. Anselm, De ver. 13 (i. 194:18–26). Anselm, De lib. arb. 5 (i. 215: 2–5): Alia namque est voluntas qua volumus aliquid propter se, ut cum volumus salutem propter se; et alia cum aliquid volumus propter aliud, ut cum volumus bibere absinthium propter salutem. In De veritate the dichotomy is employed to distinguish direct and indirect significatio, while in the Monologion it sets apart the word by which God speaks Himself (i.e., as Father generates the Son) from that by which God creates the world. The action per se is such insofar as words and things, God and his essence, the righteous mode of willing and the (righteous) object of volition are joined together in the simplicity of rectitude.

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assertion “Omnis volens ipsum suum velle vult” [Whoever wills, wills his own willing]37 and the closing statement “voluntas non nisi sua potestate vincitur” [will may not be defeated but by its own power].38 This chapter’s purpose is to show that no temptation can force someone to sin who does not wish to do so: in other words, that it is impossible, properly speaking, to act against one’s will, to act unwillingly (invitus facere) as Augustine maintained.39 For that would amount to “wanting not to want,” or “wanting while not wanting;” or better still, “wanting unwillingly” (sponte). The crucial distinction, here, is between invitus (against the will) and nolens (without willing): in Anselm’s view, the will can act invitus (compelled by external forces) but not nolens. The will that sins always acts knowingly: it approves of what it wants. Two tendencies operate here simultaneously. Weakness of will is thus the will’s conscious abandonment of what it knows it should want and yet chooses not to want. Formally put, “P wants and does x knowingly, even if P knows it should righteously want y.” Duty must be understood in the same deontological terms Anselm attributes to being. As is well known, Anselm claims that what is, insofar as it is, ought to be. Accordingly, the presence of a duty within the will does not imply only a moral obligation that the will may decide to fulfil or not to fulfil. It also implies that righteous will exists even if it has no reference, i.e., even if no good action is actually performed. In light of these considerations, the aforementioned proposition should be reformulated as follows: P wants and does x knowingly, even if it wants and continues to want y. Anselm thus envisages two forms of willing, one aimed at x and one aimed at itself qua willing x. Risto Saarinen interpreted this as the postulation of two wills belonging to two different logical orders (what Saarinen calls “Anselm’s principle”):40 the first-order will is the act by which P desires x; the second-order will is that of which the former is the object and under which it is subsumed. But, in our view, such a reading does not fit Anselm’s style of reasoning, which 37 38 39

40

Anselm, De lib. arb. 5 (i. 214: 22–23). Ibid. 5 (i. 216. 31–217.1). Augustine, De spiritu et litera (31.53): Quanquam, si subtilius advertamus, etiam quodquisque invitus facere cogitur, si facit, voluntate facit; sed quia mallet aliud, ideo invitus, hoc est, nolens facere dicitur (Yet on a closer analysis, it appears that even if you do a thing under compulsion, unwillingly, you do it by your will if you do it at all: you are said to do it against your will, that is, unwillingly, because you would prefer to act differently). Saarinen, Weakness of the Will, 46: “Let us call this ‘Anselm’s principle’, which is read as follows: ‘If x wills that p, then x wills that he wills that p.’”. About the question of a second-order will in Augustine and the Augustinian tradition, as a reflexive capacity on which human free will is grounded, see also Tomas Ekenberg, “Augustine and Second-Order Desires and Persons,” in Subjectivity and Selfhood in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, eds. Jari Kaukua, Tomas Ekenberg (Switzerland: Springer, 2016), 9–24, particularly 17–21.

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is almost structurally adverse to attempts of reification. Saarinen’s interpretation fits Desmond Henry’s reading of Anselm more than it fits Anselm’s theory itself.41 Furthermore, if we accept the view that Anselm identifies a secondorder will, then the question about the loss of rectitude must be posed at this further level. We end up with a pervelle at the origin of velle, and a perpervelle at the origin of pervelle and so on ad infinitum.42 In truth, if Anselm’s thought is prone to regression to an extent, it is not because it subscribes to a Platonic noetic hierarchy but because it proceeds by recursive reasoning, as Karl Barth rightly pointed out;43 it is a ruminatio that comes to an ever more detailed clarification of rectitude through a recursive motion modally expressed by an adverbial form; which is what we call an adverbialist theory of intention.44

5

Diversas voluntates as Different Modes of Willing

Anselm’s writings, in our opinion, do not support a reading that posits the existence of two different wills; rather, two acts or inclinations of will seem to be at stake. Anselm uses the terms “diversas voluntates” in De libertate arbitrii.45 Nev-

41 42

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See also Eileen Sweeney, “Anselm on Human Finitude: A Dialogue with Existentialism,” Saint Anselm Journal, 10.1 (Fall, 2014), 1–10, particularly 6–9. Cf. Desmond Paul Henry, The Logic of Saint Anselm (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967). Bernd Goebel argues that postulating a second-order will entails accepting a third, a fourth, a fifth level and so forth, in an unjustifiable regressio ad infinitum. Bernd Goebel, “Anselm von Canterbury über Willensstärke und und Willensschwäche,” in Das Problem der Willensschwäche im mittelalterlichen Denken/The Problem of Weakness of Will in Medieval Thought, eds. Tobias Hoffmann, Jörn Müller, Matthias Perkams (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2006), 5–37. See also Bernd Goebel, Rectitudo Wahrheit und Freiheit bei Anselm von Canterbury: Eine philosophische Untersuchung seines Denkansatzes (Münster: Aschendorff, 2001). Massimo Parodi and Marco Rossini, “Libertà necessaria e libertà contingente in Anselmo d’ Aosta,” Rivista di storia della filosofia 1 (2013), 43–64, recently resumed this idea, infering the absolutely ungrounded nature of freedom in Anselm’s thought. Cf. Barth, Fides quaerens intellectum, 104–105 (1931); 97–98 (1981 edition). The movement of Anselmian thought is circular and doesn’t need the correspondence to the reality external to the mind. This explains the well-known clash between Anselm and Gaunilo about the Proslogion’s argument. For Gaunilo, truth is correspondence between the concept in mind and the object in reality, whereas for Anselm the mental existence of the concept is a proof of the existence of a thing out of the mind; in fact, for Anselm you can’t have a concept if it’s not caused by something real. This kind of intentionality helps us to understand that the Anselm’s formulation of rectitudo as the right way of willing doesn’t obligate us to the existence of the object of the will. The rectitudo is the way we need to will (the mode of velle and scire) more than a quality of the things. Anselm, De lib. arb. 5 (i. 215: 5–6).

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ertheless, with “voluntates” he does not mean two different faculties of the soul but rather two different modes of acting, as comes to light in the following part of the chapter.46 Whether directed towards itself or towards something else, the will is a single entity, and the relevant distinction is that between distinct kinds of action, whose quality is determined by the will’s mode. In fact, at the end of the first question of De concordia, Anselm writes: Nam sicut cum aliquis utitur gladio aut lingua aut potestate loquendi, non est aliud gladius aut lingua sive potestas, cum rectus est eorum usus, et aliud cum non est rectus: ita voluntas qua utimur ad volendum, sicut ratione utimur ad ratiocinandum, non est aliud quando quis illa recte utitur, et aliud quando non recte. [Now, when someone uses his sword or his tongue or his ability-to-speak, the sword or the tongue or the ability-to-speak is not one thing when its use is correct and something different when its use is incorrect. Similarly, the will, which we use for willing (even as we use reason for reasoning), is not one thing when someone uses it rightly and something different when he uses it wrongly. Now, the will is that in virtue of which a substance or an action is called just or unjust; and when the will is just, it is not anymore or any less that which it is essentially than when it is unjust.]47 Anselm’s cognitive and representational model seems to be founded on an intentionality of reference in which the decisive and qualifying act of will is not the relationship between the subject and the object of willing, or the righteous nature of one of the two (which is implicit to Anselm’s theology), but the manner in which the subject exercises his will in relation to the object.48 46

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Anselm, De lib. arb. 5, trans. Hopkins, Richardson, 202 (i. 216.31–217.2), points out that voluntas non nisi sua potestate vincitur. Quare nullatenus potest tentatio vincere rectam voluntatem; et cum dicitur, improprie dicitur (the will is overcome only by its own power. Therefore, temptation is not at all able to overcome an upright will; and when it is said [to be able], it is said improperly). De concordia i.7, trans. Hopkins, Richardson, 545 (ii. 259: 10–14). Using the classification traced by Alberto Voltolini and Clotilde Calabi, we can define this model as a “moderate and not monadic adverbialist theory of intentionality.” that is a theory in which the adverbial mode of intentionality is meant as a qualification of the relationship between subject and object, and not as a monadic experience (it is the difference, as Voltolini and Calabi pointed out, between the experience of a green triangle on the one hand, and “looking greenly” or “looking triangularly” as a unitarian experience on the other). Cf. Alberto Voltolini and Clotilde Calabi, I problemi dell’intenzionalità (Torino: Einaudi, 2009), at 229–239; see also Frank Jackson, “On the Adverbial Analysis

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At this juncture, it is intriguing to draw a connection between Anselm’s modal approach to weakness of will and Seneca’s notion of “acting against conscience,” in the suggestive interpretation of the Roman thinker’s moral philosophy that Marcia Colish has recently put forth.49 A brief comparison with the view held by Seneca—who enjoyed a vast popularity throughout the Middle Ages, from the Carolingian Renaissance to its peak in the twelfth century50—will contribute to clarify Anselm’s conception of the will and its functions.51 Colish’s interpretation shows how Seneca’s notion of weakness of will innovates on the Stoic tradition, which straightforwardly rejected akrasia on the basis of right reason (orthos logos) and its capacity to control acts of will through the daily practice of the examination of conscience. According to the Stoics, in other words, it is not possible to want against one’s will: every action is entirely voluntary. When reflecting upon the philosophical problem posed by the possibility of acting against conscience, that is, upon the moral condition of he who acts against the conscience’s norms, in works like De ira and De beneficiis52 Seneca emphasises that good conscience remains an inner possession of the soul even when external circumstances prevent it from being realised.53 Expressed in Anselm’s terms, we might say that the rectitude of will persists even when it remains in the form of instrumentum which is prevented from turning into

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of Visual Experience,” Metaphilosophy vi (1975), 127–135; Frank Jackson, Perception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); and Michael Tye, “The Adverbial Theory: a Defense of Sellars Against Jackson,” Metaphilosophy vi (1975), 136–143. Cf. Marcia L. Colish, “Seneca on Acting Against Conscience,” in Seneca Philosophus. eds. Jula Wildberger and Marcia L. Colish, Trends in Classics, Supplementary Volumes 27 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 95–110. We are grateful to Marcia Colish for pointing us to Seneca as a possible relevant antecedent to Anselm’s theory. About the Stoic tradition in the Middle Ages and the large influence and circulation of Seneca’s works, see Marcia Colish, The Stoic Tradition From Antiquity to The Early Middle Ages. 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1985), at 17–19. About Seneca as an Anselm’s source, cf. Riccardo Fedriga and Roberto Limonta, “La debolezza di volontà in Anselmo e le sue fonti,” Rivista di storia della filosofia 3 (2016), 357–386. Incidentally, in De ira the examination of conscience is practiced in the context of “a range of personal and interpersonal settings” (Colish, “Seneca on Acting,” 102) that define a conversational community which is not so different from Anselm’s monastic one. For references to Seneca’s texts, see François Préchac, ed., Sènèque. Des bienfaits, 2 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1926–1929); Leighton D. Reynolds, ed., 1965. L. Annaei Senecae Ad Lucilium epistulae morales, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965); and Leighton D. Reynolds, ed., 1977. L. Annaei Senecae Dialogorum libri duodecim (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977, reprinted with corrections 1988). Colish, “Seneca on Acting,” 101–102.

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usum. The distinctions drawn by the two philosophers thus share some salient traits: on the one hand, there is rectitudo as an inner disposition, on the other, there is iustitia as the externalised and public form taken by moral duty. But in Seneca as in Anselm, what truly matters is one’s inner intention.54 In her analysis of the Letters to Lucilius, Marcia Colish evidences how, in Seneca’s view, one never sins involuntarily but always has a full awareness of what is good and what is bad. What is more, if an action is not performed according to right intention, one may be sinning and acting against conscience even when one’s external conduct conforms to moral norms.55 When examining the case of one who is running down a steep slope and finds himself unable to stop whenever he wants—which is presented by Seneca in Letter 40—Colish reconstructs Seneca’s view of acting against conscience in terms of the “function of his will,” and not in terms of impediments caused by external factors (e.g., passions, context, or a different will).56 Similarly, Anselm addresses the issues raised by akrasia by providing a modal and functional conception of will, as we have shown.

6

Conclusions

Let us come back to Anselm’s texts and consider the way he analyzes the term voluntas in his Lambeth Fragments. Anselm distinguishes four ways in which ‘will’ may be said: “efficient” will (voluntas efficiens), “approving” will (voluntas approbans), “granting” will (concedens), and “permitting” will (permittens).57 Weakness of will belongs to the last mode; it is voluntas that “permits, whilst disapproving” (permittit quamvis reprobans).58 In other words, the will permits (i.e., wants) by virtue of free will and simultaneously disapproves (i.e., does not want) by virtue of that freedom of will that is called rectitude. It wants in one respect and does not want in another, in accordance with the will’s different “wavelengths”—there is, as such, no need to reify one voluntas encapsulating 54

55 56 57 58

It is thus tempting to view such a conception of akrasia as an alternative to the Aristotelian model, in the form of a guiding-thread which originated with Seneca’s thought, was developed by Anselm and eventually reached through to the ethics of intention of Abelard (whose logic shows evident traces of Stoic influences) and to the moral reflection of Eloise (who was educated on literary texts and appears to have been greatly influenced by Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius). Colish, “Seneca on Acting,” 103. Ibid., 105. Lam. fr. Ibid., 39.4.

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another as an object. Incidentally, a similar line of interpretation is followed by some contemporary commentators, like Richard Hare, who speaks about two different “directions” of the will, one entailing the other, in his analysis of akrasia in Medea and Saint Paul.59 Will wants recte60 or iniuste,61 sponte,62 and inordinate,63 and through these adverbial forms Anselm conveys his modal theory of will. Moreover, passages that place equal emphasis on adverbs are spread throughout Anselm’s work and do not concern will only: they constitute a veritable stylistic and conceptual aspect of his thought. In De veritate, for instance, the truth of signification occurs when the proposition “recte significat” (it signifies rightly, or correctly).64 Again, in the same text, we read “qui vult quod debet, recte et bene facere dicitur” [he who wills what he ought is said to do what is right and good],65 and “omne quod est, recte est” [everything which is is rightly],66 to which the adverb iuste is added just a few lines below. As for the will, Anselm describes right willing as recte velle: “Quicumque vult quod debet, putas eum recte velle” [whoever wills what he ought wills rightly and has rightness, or uprightness, of will].67 In De libertate arbitrii vii, the will that forsakes rectitude does so because it turns towards what it wants fortius. In book ix, righteous will is free insofar as it chooses “sponte utique et non invita” [it chooses freely and not unwillingly].68 The devil’s will to sin, on the other hand, is the willing inordinate69 of he who “sponte dimisit voluntatem quam habebat” [freely lost the will which he had].70 The devil wills sponte: the adverb expresses the mode of his velle, which is exercised spontaneously, i.e., knowingly and willingly. This is different from the unreflected mode that Anselm expresses with the adverb naturaliter.71 To sum up, even if it is not possible to identify incontinentia or akrasia as an explicit topic in Anselm’s corpus, it is nevertheless possible to reconstruct an 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

William Hare, Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), at 78–81. Anselm, De ver. 5 (i. 182: 22). Anselm, De casu 6 (i. 282: 14). Ibid., 3 (i. 239: 11). Ibid., 4 (i. 241: passim). Anselm, De ver. 2 (i. 178: 14). Ibid., 5 (i. 182: 22–23). Ibid., 7 (i. 185: 30). Ibid., 12 (i. 193: 15). Anselm, De lib. arb. 9 (i. 221: 23). Anselm, De casu 4 (i. 241: 22). Ibid., 3 (i. 239: 11; 222). I.e. in De lib. arb. 11 (i. 223: 10–11; 208): Semper enim naturaliter liber est ad servandum rectitudinem si eam habet, etiam quando quam servet non habet (“For he is always naturally free for keeping uprightness if he has it, and even when he does not have any to keep”).

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implicit theory—modal and adverbial—of the weakness of will, original both with respect to the Aristotelian canon and to the theological sources of the late ancient and early medieval tradition. By implicit we mean that this theory, although it cannot be traced back to an explicit declaration of the author, is possible to reconstruct from texts, fragments and sources with philosophical coherence and historical relevance. By modal and adverbial we mean here a theory of will where the value of moral choices is not determined by the source or by the subject of the action (the intellect, the good or the evil will, the passions or other external stimuli) but by the way in which a subject intends one’s objects. This intentionality is expressed adverbially in the form of a will “in the way” (e.g., rightly/recte or unjustly/iniuste) one cognitively experiences one’s objects. In the terms of the classification proposed by adverbialist theorists like Michael Tye,72 we could talk, in the case of Anselm’s concept of weakness of will, about a moderate adverbialist theory of intentionality, i.e., a theory in which the adverbial mode of intentionality qualifies the relationship between subject and object.73 The Anselmian adverbial theory is therefore a representational one. The mode (linguistically expressed by the adverbs) is this representation: it describes not the way that the perception works but the way we represent and understand it. This interpretation, as we have seen, allows us to consistently connect some pivotal logical, theological, and ethical concepts of Anselmian thought, like rectitudo, freedom of will, justice, per se and per aliud signification. The modal and adverbial theory of will also allows not to conflate the action of will with its object and to place emphasis on the action’s morality, on the acting recte. This means avoiding Saarinen’s solution of positing two wills that contradict the Anselmian pivotal principle of simplicity, ruled by the rectitudo for a monk like Anselm who thinks of the will in terms of a blended consciousness. Anselm’s way of thinking is indeed almost structurally adverse to attempts of reification. The act and its object are differentiated so that the object, which is good insofar as it is part of the divine design, may be distinguished from the act, whose quality is defined instead by its mode. In Anselm’s theological conception of the world, every existing reality has its own specific significance and role within the divine ordinatio: sequitur nullam voluntatem esse malum sed esse bonum inquantum est, quia opus dei est; nec nisi inquantum est iniusta malam esse 72 73

See Tye, “The Adverbial Theory,” 45: “necessarily, experiences that are alike in their representational contents are alike in their phenomenal character”. See also ibid., 69. See also Voltolini and Calabi, I problemi, 75.

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[no will is an evil thing and that every will, insofar as it is, is a good thing because it is the work of God. And only insofar as it is unjust is it evil].74 Will, therefore, should not be intended by means of being grounded on its object, but it should be judged mainly on the basis of its mode of intentionality. The will is always intentional and free, and incontinentia is just a temporary situation in which we discover, more than a contingent weakness of will, the persistence of an innate and eternal power of man to act recte.75 74 75

Anselm, De casu 19 (i. 264: 13–15; 248). Similar ideas, which are the defining traits of Anselm’s view on incontinentia, can also be found in Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 21–42, proving the viability of the Anselmian solution in the contemporary debate.

part 4 New Readings / New Perspectives

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The Rediscovery of Anselmian Thought in the Nineteenth Century: A Portrayal of Johann Adam Möhler’s Reading of Anselm Emery de Gaál

For several centuries preceding the Romantic Era few theologians troubled to pay particular attention to the coherent message of Anselm of Canterbury’s actual texts, such was the degree that manualists dominated theological discourse. Anselm remained the almost exclusive preserve of philosophers. Their efforts culminated famously in Kant’s rejection of “the ontological argument,” the name given to Anselm’s proof of God’s existence post factum, as advanced in the Proslogion. The priest and theologian Johann Adam Möhler (1796–1838) was the first to recover Anselm of Canterbury’s theological relevance for modernity—and rejected the reduction of the Anselmic imagination Descartes and Kant had undertaken. Unfortunately his significant achievement was already forgotten by the second part of the nineteenth century. Two intellectual currents formed the rich, intellectually vibrant background for Möhler’s revival of interest in Anselm of Canterbury in the nineteenth century: Idealism (ca. 1770–1830) and Romanticism (ca. 1780–1845).

1

The Intellectual Milieu for Möhler’s Retrieval of Anselmic Thought

Idealism supposes the dependence of reality on the recognizing subject. Thereby spiritual values, such as dignity, freedom, and insight become the highest goods. Ideas are the driving forces of human history, providing it with coherence and an indwelling entelechy. Matter can be explained by acknowledging its participation in the intellectual realm. Kant, Hegel, Fichte, and Schelling are but the most noted representatives of German Idealism, an interpretation of the world that captured the imagination of the educated classes. In this system, nature and mind are aspects of the Absolute.1 All of multifarious reality is deducible from a metaphysical principle. All knowledge of particular things is a self-reflection of the free, self-constituting mind. 1 Cf. Stephen Priest, Theories of the Mind (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991). Miles Burnyeat, et al., Idealism, Past and Present, ed. Godfrey Vesey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

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Seemingly opposed to this view is Romanticism, which favors the particular and concrete over and against the general and abstract. It subscribes to a holistic and organic understanding of the world. Comprehending the particular and fragmented is valuable and superior to cerebral reasoning alone. In the particular the totality of the created order, both material and spiritual, i.e. in its essential interrelatedness, is apprehended. For the Romantics, the Middle Ages were a favored epoch as it seemed to embody the individual’s organic link with human history and all of nature. In this view, only the human mind, or spirit, is able to fuse all things together, while reason left to its own resources is superficial—as it generalizes in its analyses—and thus conveys a distorted description of reality. This resentment of rationalism was a reaction to Enlightenment’s overemphasis on the geometric and rational. Not only that, appreciating spiritual unity was seen as most congenial to the human mind.2 Therefore Romantics shied away from exhaustive definitions and preferred “true inwardness” vis-à-vis verbose explanations. Inspired also by Pietism and Christian mysticism, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), the father of liberal Protestantism, memorably surrendered a rational accounting of faith in the sense of deduction and reasoning in favor of “a sense and taste of the infinite” in his Speeches on Religion in 1799.3 More generally, Romanticism places great emphasis on the inward, personal experience of the totality of being as the key to understanding the meaning and purpose of both the universe and one’s own personal life. Inspired to no small degree by Schelling, the Catholic Tübingen School of theology, under Johann Sebastian von Drey (1777–1853) and Möhler, rediscovered the living community of believers and the Catholic Church as a living organism. While dwelling on the organic totality of faith, as also Protestant Romantics would, these Catholic Tübingen scholars enthusiastically affirmed, in conscious opposition to Schleiermacher, the intelligibility of Christian faith. This explains the irresistible attraction that Anselm, some 700 years after his death, exerted on the young theologian and priest Johann Adam Möhler. In 1827–1828, Möhler wrote three articles on Anselm’s thought in the Theologische Quartalschrift, the famous and oldest Catholic theological period-

2 Cf. Jacques Barzun, Classic, Romantic and Modern (Garden City: Anchor, 1961). 3 Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, trans. John Oman (New York: Harper, 1958), 15; Laura Dabundo, ed., Encyclopedia of Romanticism: Culture in Britain 1780’s–1830’s (London: Routledge, 1992). Stephen Prickett, Romanticism and Religion— the Tradition of Coleridge and Wordsworth in the Victorian Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976). Hans Georg Schenk, The Mind of the European Romantics: An Essay in Cultural History (London: Constable, 1966).

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ical founded just a few years earlier (1817) in Tübingen. His friend and colleague Ignaz von Döllinger (1799–1890) compiled these articles posthumously in Gesammelte Schriften und Aufsätze.4 Döllinger will become later the spiritus rector of, but not party to the Old Catholic schism (1871). Still earlier, an English book-edition of this text had appeared, translated by Henry Rymer in 1842, who at that time was still a student at St. Edmund’s College.5 These articles constitute the modern beginnings of Anselm research, from a theological perspective, that continues to this day. The first printed version of Anselm’s Opera appeared in Nuremberg in 1491. Shortly thereafter one appeared in Basel in 1497, another in 1549 in Paris, and a fourth in 1560 in Cologne. The most recent collection available to Möhler was Gabriel Gerberon’s, first published in 1699 in Paris, followed by a second edition published 1744 in Venice.6 According to the original German edition of Möhler’s articles on Anselm, he consulted one of the Gerberon versions for his studies.7 4 Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, ed., Dr. Johann Adam Möhler’s Gesammelten Schriften und Aufsätze, 2 vols. (Regensburg: Manz, 1839/40). Walter Kasper, “Vom Geist und Wesen des Katholizismus,” in Theologische Quartalschrift 183/3 (2004), 196–212. Michel Deneken, Johann Adam Möhler (Paris: Cerf, 2007). 5 Johann Adam Möhler, The Life of St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury; Contribution to a Knowledge of the Moral, Ecclesiastical and Literary Life of the Eleventh & Twelfth Centuries, trans. Henry Rymer (London: T. Jones, 1842). Henceforth Anselm. 6 Möhler used one of the two Gerberon editions as sources for both the Anselmic corpus and the Vita Anselmi by Eadmer: Sanctus Anselmus Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis per se Docens: opus perutile theologis ac concionatoribus, qui in eo puras ac sublims sententias habent tam moribus instituendis quam catholicis veritatibus explicandis aptissimas, ed. Gabriel Gerberon (Delphis: apud Henricum van Rhijn, 1692) or Opera omnia nec non Eadmeri monachi cantuarensis Historia novorum et alia opuscula labore ac studio D.G. Gerberon (Venezia: J. Corona, 1744). This information can be gleaned from Möhler’s original article, “Anselm, Erzbischof von Canterbury, Ein Beitrag zur Kenntniß des religiös-sittlichen, öffentlich-kirchlichen und wissenschaftlichen Lebens im elften und zwölften Jahrhundert,” Theologische Quartalschrift (1827/3) 435–497, (1827/4) 587–664, (1828/1) 62–130, (1827/3) 442. Other editions available during Möhler’s time were: Anselm, Opera (Nuremberg: Caspar Hochfelder, 1491); Anselm, Opera (Basel: Johann Amerbach, 1497(?)); Omnia D. Anselmi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi, theologum omnium sui temporis facile principis opuscula (Parisiis: i. Roigny, 1549); D. Anselmi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi, theologum sui temporis facile principis, operum, quae quidem haberi potuerunt, omnium (Coloniae Agrippinae: apud Maternum Cholinum, 1560); Divi Anselmi Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis opera omnia: quatuor tomis comprehensa, ed. Jean Picard (Coloniae Agrippinae: sumptibus Petri Cholin, 1612); Opera Omnia: extraneis in sacros libros commentariis exonerata, ed. Théophile Raynaud (Lugduni: L. Durand, 1630); Sancti Anselmi ex Beccensi Abbate Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera: nec non Eadmeri Monachi Cantuariensis Historia novorum, et alia opuscula, ed. Gabriel Gerberon and others (Lutetiae Parisorum: sumptibus Ludovici Bllaine et Joannis du Puis, 1675); S. Anselmi, Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis … theologia commentariis et disputationibus, tum dogmaticis, tum scholasticis illustrate (José Sáenz de Aguirre, Romae: A. Herculis, 1688, 1690). 7 According to Josef Geiselmann, Möhler used the first edition of the Gerberon version for

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Human History as Struggle for Genuine Freedom

One can easily detect the historical background against which Möhler wrote in the introduction: “[Anselm’s] life was placed in that happy period of the history of the church, when she powerfully and successfully exerted all her force to escape from that melancholy thraldom, in which she had so long been held by the vicissitudes and revolution of all social institutions.” The Church had “subdued the wild flowers of the barbarians.”8 The author alludes to the French Revolution in 1789, the drawn out and deleterious Napoleonic wars (1796–1815), and the ensuing secularization tearing asunder religion and society, as well as the organic unity of faith and society in Germany in 1806 (Reichshauptdeputationsausschuß), during Möhler’s own time. As the Church had overcome the dark ages of the migration of peoples, he hoped that in the nineteenth century she would likewise overcome the effects of the French Revolution and secularization. In a language betraying his own Romantic age, he wrote about the medieval Church: “during the strife of the most furious storms, her call resounded; she subdued all, and the contending elements, as if arrested by magic, fell into a calm at her feet.”9 He perceived the Church as a living person giving both the individual and society unity and purpose, that is, an overarching meaning to the totality of reality. He divined Anselm as a valiant, spiritual combatant for this noble cause: The entire body of the contemporaries of Anselm displayed it in its whole [das Ganze]; but he united within himself so many talents and powers, that, in every regard, he represented the whole, in which so many formed a part. This whole, divided into a multiplicity of manifestations, was the religious enthusiasm, the renewed yearning after divine and eternal things, which had been so long stifled in the miseries and woes of the times .… The freedom of the individual presupposes the freedom of the body: for when an individual really forms, as he should, an organic member of the whole, his destiny is deeply and wonderfully implicated in the fate of the entire body.10

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Symbolism. Johann Adam Möhler, Symbolik, vol. 2 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1961), 18. Möhler, Anselm, vii. Ibid., ix. Ibid., x. Cf. Kathrin Rogers, Anselm on Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

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In the question of British investitures, he apprehended Anselm’s selfless struggle for the Church’s freedom expressing itself. To Möhler’s mind such a profound “theology of human liberation”11 could only develop within the confines of a cloister, home to spirituality in general and to meditation on matters divine in particular. He thereby rightfully defined the monastic community as Anselm’s Sitz im Leben without contesting the title “Father of Scholasticism” later generations of philosophers and theologians had bestowed upon him.12 In keeping with the history-oriented interests of his age, he dedicated the first two-thirds of his text to a biography of Anselm. Therein he summarized the content of Eadmer’s Vita Anselmi. To a far lesser degree he referenced Chronica Beccense and the Vita S. Lanfranci.13 The concern of twentieth-century Catholic Ressourcement à la Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) et al. is already materially present in Möhler’s sweeping vision of theology as the collective endeavor of numerous theologians from varied backgrounds, inspired by the Holy Spirit and serving the one Church, which is the extension of the incarnation of the divine Logos, the eternal Son of God; all occurring in the strength of the Eucharist. He showed that Lanfranc had exhorted his student Anselm to study the church fathers and the classics.14 Möhler made special mention of a heuristic principle: “in the midst of these exertions he did not forget, that without Christ, all knowledge of vice and virtue, of their origin and advances, is unavailing … and how his lessons were best told by his [Anselm’s] life.”15 Möhler stressed that, for Anselm, theology meant an existential and ethical struggle with evil. This spiritual combat for the good and true was, for Möhler, the epistemological key to understanding the Proslogion.16 He knew that Anselm was ever mindful of humanity’s postlapsarian state. The implication is that there is

11 12 13

14 15 16

Author’s choice of expression. The first was Martin Grabmann, Die Geschichte der scholastischen Methode (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 1933). The paucity of bibliographical information Möhler provides does not always permit an ascertainment of his sources. They may have included Eadmer, De Vita D. Anselmi archiepiscopi Cantuariensis (Anverpiae: J. Gravius, 1551); Eadmer, “Vita D. Anselmi archiepiscopi Cantuariensis,” Sancti Anselmi ex Beccensi abbate Cantuariensis archiepiscopi Opera, 2nd edition, correcta et aucta (Lutetiae Parisorum: sumptibus Montalant, 1721); “Vita S. Lanfranci and Chronica Beccense,” Beati Lanfranci Cantuariensis archiepiscopi et angliae primatis, ordinis S. Benedicti, Opera Omnia (Lutetia Parisorum: sumptibus Ioannis Billanae, 1648). Möhler, Anselm, 8. Ibid., 12. Ibid., 21. Cf. Erwin Sonderegger, “Anselms Proslogion: Besinnung statt Beweis,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie, 60 (2013), 269–291. See in contrast: Christian Göbel, “Ontologisch oder Kosmologisch?” Theologie und Glaube 103 (2013), 83–103.

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never a value-neutral position; the individual is inextricably positioned in the alternative between these two—et tertium non daretur. Inextricably in a state of guilt, the created condition is one that is unable to reach truth on its own, even to the small degree contingent human cognition could have had before the fall.17 Left to its own devices, human reason cannot reach truth. But did this make Anselm, in the eyes of Möhler, a fideist? How is an “illumination of the mind” as introspection to occur and yet faith remain intelligible? This illumination requires a loving asceticism on part of the seeker of truth. Thus, Anselm enthusiastically sided with the reforms of Pope Gregory vii (ca. 1015–1083), known as Hildebrand, who vigorously opposed simony and immoral life on part of the clergy and advocated celibacy. Also, following Gregory, he strongly opposed Berengar of Tours (1010–1088), who denied the actual change of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist (Transubstantiation).18 Anselm’s intimate correlation between rectitude of lifestyle and seeking truth confirmed, in Möhler’s estimation, Romanticism’s true intuition of an intrinsic connection between the material and the spiritual realms.19 Celibacy gains freedom from the shackles that material goods can impose on a human person. Renunciation is considered a prerequisite for the spiritual life. While both first and foremost contributing to the indispensable clarity of mind which a theologian needs in order to ponder divine matters, such personal asceticism also brings about the Church’s freedom and, as a consequence, “the freedom of the people” entrusted to her charge. By collectively acquiring such spiritual freedom, Christians are able to live in accordance with their true desires. There is no gainsaying in Möhler’s judgment, Anselm locates humanity in a constant “conflict of the Spirit against the flesh.” Thus Möhler interpreted Anselm’s view of the Church: “In her alone, despite all clamours to the contrary, reside true and universal freedom and equality: in her that contempt which, notwithstanding all constitutional laws, is generally thrown upon the lower classes, is truly annihilated.”20

17 18

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Ibid., 29–34. Cf. Herbert E.J. Cowdrey, “Pope Gregory vii and the Anglo-Norman Church and Kingdom,” in Giovanni B. Borino et.al., eds., Studi Gregoriani per la Storia di Gregorio vii e della Riforma Gregoriana (Roma: Ateneo Salesiano, 1947 ff.), vol. 9 (1972), 79–114. Möhler, Anselm, 39–42. Ibid., 44. It is noteworthy that concurrent with his tripartite article on Anselm, Möhler wrote essays on priestly celibacy, which had at that time been questioned in a controversial memorandum published by professors in Freiburg. After a dearth of vocations, the publication of On the Spirit of Celibacy in 1828 inspired many men to join the Catholic priesthood. See Johann Adam Möhler, Vom Geist des Zölibats, Beleuchtung der Denkschrift

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On this spiritual canvas, Möhler then portrayed Anselm’s struggle with the secular ruler William the Conqueror (1028–1087) and his successors on the issue of fealty to the throne and investiture. Möhler detected in these trials not only the archbishop’s loyalty to the Church, i.e. to Christ put to test, but in addition, Anselm’s undying fidelity to “the whole” of being courageously evidenced. To him this expressed itself most convincingly in Anselm’s loyalty to the chair of Peter. Möhler showed that in Anselm’s faith-sustained disposition there was no trite, nostalgic, or “antiquarian” reflex, but rather a conscious and heroic abiding in the whole (das Ganze) for the sake of the particular that is nourished by an unusual insight into faith’s nature.21 Ergo, there can be no contradiction between fidelity to God and the See of Rome on the one hand and loyalty to the body politic on the other. Only fidelity to the whole assures spiritual regeneration and safeguards the dignity of the individual constituents of the whole (the individual person, the political realm, the Church, the Papacy, etc.). For this reason, Möhler portrayed at great length the acrimonious struggle between the particularistic English rulers and Anselm, representing a Christ-centered, magnanimous Weltanschauung. In the second and last part of his book, Möhler introduced a definition of Scholastic theology “as the attempt … to demonstrate Christianity as rational, and all that is truly rational as Christianity.”22 Obviously the (Augustinian-) Anselmic axiom credo ut intelligam, introduced in the first chapter of the Proslogion,23 served as basis for this claim.24 Something akin to an Ignatian sentire cum ecclesia—albeit later in articulation—is fundamental to any serious theology.25 Möhler writes:

21 22 23

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für die Aufhebung des den katholischen Geistlichen vorgeschriebenen Zölibates, ed. Dieter Hattrup (Bonifatius: Paderborn, 1993). English edition: Johann Adam Möhler, The Spirit of Celibacy (Mundelein: Hillenbrand, 2007). Möhler, Anselm, 74 ff. Ibid., 122. Anselm, Pros. 1 (i 100:15–19): “I do not try, Lord, to attain Your lofty heights, because my understanding is in no way equal to it. But I do desire to understand Your truth a little, that truth that my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand. For I believe this also, that ‘unless I believe, I shall not understand’ [Isa. 7:9].” Translation from Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, eds. Brian Davies and G.R. Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 87. Cf. Augustine, Ep. 120 ad Consentium, 1, 3. For de Leturia, this central Ignatian concept is not merely a rational recognition, but at the same time an inner experience and appropriation filling the whole soul and satisfying it, assuring one of an instinctively secure behavior and ecclesial disposition. Pedro de Leturia, Estudios Ignacianos ii (Roma: Institutum Historicum 1957), 153.

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One who does not participate with the church in her belief of the divinity of Christ, nor consider her as the author of heavenly grace which regenerates mankind, will behold the doctrinal decrees and the speculative researches upon the Trinity and upon the relation between nature and grace as … useless subtleties …. Infidelity … necessarily begets an incapacity for deep and refined inquiries into divine subjects, for the mind may often become so darkened as to be incapable of following such researches.26 One must conclude that the underlying assumption for both Anselm and Möhler is that there is no real moral neutrality: the human being must make moral choices. God is both creator and the morally incomparably good. The conscious commitment of a human person to the created and revealed good leads to an increase of human freedom and this in turn leads to the ability of greater objective insight on his part. But this commitment remains paradoxical to the postlapsarian mind which is isolated from the whole of reality.27 The infelicitous consequence of such an unspiritual disposition is falling victim to a confusion caused by false alternatives, such as between rationalism and fideism. Only from a faith-filled, comprehensive perspective can one arrive at three truths: (1) “supernaturalism” (in a qualified sense) is rational, (2) Christian faith is the history of the concrete and particular, and (3) revealed dogmas are reasonable.28 The close nexus of spirituality and scholarly inquiry was well established for Möhler: We are indeed presented with the soothing assurance that the most learned of the scholastic writers were also the most pious and interior Christians and the most faithful sons of the church. Thus Anselm, Hugh of St. Victor, Peter Lombard, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and many others are characters who, for practical morality, rank amongst the most beautiful and pleasing forms which history has preserved.29 The basis for this he detected in Anselm’s appreciation of Gen 1:26, as found, for example, in Anselm’s Monologion: “‘Man acknowledges himself as the image of

26 27

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Möhler, Anselm, 125 f. This view comes remarkably close to Henri de Lubac’s understanding of the paradox. Cf. Hans Urs von Balthasar’s succinct definition of that term in The Theology of Henri de Lubac (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1991), 15. Möhler, Anselm, 127. Ibid., 129.

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God; or, what is more correct, he is the image of God then only when he is conscious of him, knows him, and loves him. The highest destiny, the very being of man is, therefore, to love God; of which he is incapable, unless he be conscious of God and know him.’ To erect this trinity in himself must therefore be the highest object of man.”30 This is the center of Anselm’s anthropology for Möhler: the human “spirit” reminds itself involuntarily of its divine creator and thereby gains integrity (rectitudo).31 The Blessed Trinity was perceived by Anselm as God’s self-consciousness, intelligence, and charity. This divine, tripartite constitution is found also in human beings. Augustine’s concept of memoria was transposed by Möhler to mean self-consciousness. It should be noted, that while in modernity ever since Descartes, self-awareness contains the moment of subjectivity in the pejorative sense of the term; this was altogether unknown to both Augustine and Anselm. The origin of Descartes’ insight is not the external world of sense impressions, but the human spirit grasping itself and thereby God. The insight contains the two elements of spontaneity and synthesis of the multifariousness of experience.32 This has foundational ramifications for humankind. By being aware of God and knowing and loving Him, humankind becomes yet more what it was created to be, namely, the image of God. In Möhler’s reading, Anselm argued that the inner depths of the human mind can arrive at some knowledge of God. Surprisingly, Möhler did not expressly refer to the Augustinian sources for Anselm’s anthropology.33 Nor did he refer to Plato, Plotinus, Marius Victorinus, or Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite.34 Being aware of God, knowing Him and loving Him, were the highest achievements of the human spirit for Augustine.

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Ibid., 131. The citation is from Monologion 67 and is one of few instances where Möhler quotes Anselm in the footnote in the original Latin: “Nam si mens ipsa sola ex omnibus quae facta sunt, sui memor et intelligens et amans esse potest: non video cur negitur esse in illa vera imago illius essentiae, quae per sui memoriam et intelligentiam, et amorem in trinitate ineffabilii consistit. Aut certe inde verius esse illius se probat imaginem, quia illius potest esse memor, illam intelligere et amare.” Cf. Anselm, Monologion 67 (i. 78:1–5). For a presentation of Möhler’s anthropology see Symbolism: Exposition of the Doctrinal Differences between Catholics and Protestants as Evidenced in their Symbolic Writings, trans. James Burton Robertson (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 23–201; Hervé Savon, Johann Adam Möhler: The Father of Modern Theology, trans. Charles McGrath (Glen Rock: Paulist, 1966). Kurt Flasch, “Vernunft und Geschichte, Der Beitrag Johann Adam Möhlers zum philosophischen Verständnis Anselms von Canterbury,” in Analecta Anselmiana, vol. 1, ed. F.S. Schmitt (Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1969), 165–194. Cf. Augustine, De Trinitate, x.10: “memoria et intelligentia multarum rerum notitia atque scientiae continentur.” Cf. Augustine, Confessiones, Books vii and x. Möhler’s contemporary Hegel had defined the Blessed Trinity as the foundation of all of

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Möhler did not contrast this interior epistemological approach to the objective Aristotelian-Thomistic one, which emphasized the mediation of knowledge of God via the world of senses. Möhler did, however, consider Anselm’s thoughts on this point the most speculative and profound in Christianity. Like Bonaventure, he did not criticize Anselm for not distinguishing sufficiently between philosophy and theology (as did Thomas Aquinas). The Trinity’s constitution as loving self-awareness contains an implication for the Trinitarian explication of human anthropology. This is the basis for the possibility of human beings being able to know and to love. Faith and reason form a cohesive unit for both Anselm and Möhler, while in modernity the two are perceived as mutually excluding, separate realms. This close correlation of faith and reason permitted Möhler to regard favorably what is to some modern eyes the too rational status of the central tenets of faith. The mysteries of faith became here reasonable mysteries. By taking self-awareness as the point de départ, Möhler also intended to render Anselm more palatable to his contemporaries, who were influenced by Schelling, Kant, and Hegel.35 The Augustinian/Anselmic understanding of both God and the human spirit consisting equally of memoria, intelligentia, et amor, allowed Möhler to connect Anselm to a central motif of Romanticism. The German term das Gemüt, while lacking an English or Latin equivalent, may be rendered “a noble feeling or sentiment that enables access to the whole of reality as something meaningful and beautiful.”36 This Gemüt is something divinely implanted by a charitable God in every human being. In cognition and subsequently in his whole existence, the human being expresses what is impressed in him. Möhler’s experience of Gemüt enabled him to relate Anselm surprisingly well to nineteenth-century readers (influenced as they were by the Kantian transcendental shift), without reducing Anselm’s thoughts to whatever then contemporary understanding might appreciate. Countless twentieth-century studies of Anselm did not reflect this intimate connection between the human mind and divine being, of subjective and objective elements, as Möhler did so remarkably well. Either they were beholden to an Aristotelian-Neo-Scholastic disposition or to one of linguistical

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speculative philosophy. The Trinity is “die Grundlage der ganzen spekulativen Philosophie.” Georg F.W. Hegel, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 19 (Stuttgart: Frommann, 1927–1940), 138. Cf. Stefan Schmitz, Gott richtig denken: Anselm von Canterbury, Kant und Hegel: zur Begründung der Theologie als Wissenschaft (Berlin: lit, 2012). This German term for the locale of interiority can be found in Meister Eckhart’s concept of the Seelenfünklein. Hegel will define it as “Totalität des Geistes.” Cf. Benedikt von Hebenstreit, “Gefühl und Gemüt,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, vol. 4, 2nd ed. (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 1960), 581–583.

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analysis. Karl Barth even would argue that Anselm made no use of Augustine’s teaching on memoria in order to justify his own thesis of an all-sovereign God and therefore the primacy of the ontic versus the noetic. A comparison of Möhler’s and Barth’s reading of Anselm reveals their underlying divergent understandings of the concepts of original sin and, consequently for Barth, the rejection of the analogia entis, a concept not defined by Anselm, but materially present in his thought. The unity of the subjective and objective, for both Anselm and his nineteenth-century reader Möhler, was found in the cogitating subject as the uncontested image of the Trinitarian, divine self-consciousness. In contradistinction, Barth embraced the analogia fidei.37 Möhler, however, continued in the vein of the analogia entis and argued that this led the thinking subject to ultimately accept the Magisterium’s teachings. The originality of this insight notwithstanding, in his study on Anselm he supplied no justification for the ecclesial foundation of cognition guided by faith. Faith is the supreme act of the human mind becoming self-conscious by acknowledging the personal God as addressing the human person. It does not reflect on and actuate something accidental or superfluous, but reflects on the essence of humankind. “God is present to the mind as an innate idea and the essential support and ground of all intellectual activity” Fastiggi observed.38 The Anselmic id quod maius cogitari nequit is neither a solipsistic exercise nor a self-generated concept, nor does it come about by way of mediation of the senses, but it is an inner spiritual experience. God grants this phrase to Anselm after his prayer. God is the unmediated presence in the human mind (dare one state: God is “the self-presence” of the human person). Therefore, to call Anselm’s proof a “proof” in the Scholastic understanding or that of the modernday sciences fails to appreciate the point d’appui for the Anselmic argument. Anselm does not deduce from the external effects of God His divine existence, as does Aquinas in the Quinque Viae, but from the interior encounter with an immediate divine presence—there is a qualitative difference between God and any other object of the human mind, such as “glass,” “buffalo” or “friend.” Möhler interpreted the Augustinian notion of memoria vaguely as selfawareness, without conflating Anselm’s interpretation of that term with Hegel’s understanding of Bewußtsein. Möhler seemed to argue in the following vein: Anselm is optimistic regarding human reason’s capacity and therefore favors

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Karl Barth, Anselm; Fides Quaerens Intellectum (Pittsburgh, PA: Pickwick, 1985), 11. Robert L. Fastiggi, “The Divine Light Within: Reflections on the Education of the Mind to God in Augustine, Anselm, Bonaventure and Newman,” Faith Seeking Understanding: Learning and the Catholic Tradition, ed. George C. Berthold (Manchester: Saint Anselm College, 1991), 195–206.

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speculation; but he never succumbs to the temptation of rationalism. It is not that one must first gain knowledge of the human self and subsequently of the external realm and finally of history and matters divine. By implication, Möhler accused Cartesianism of following the wrong epistemological sequence. From the center of human existence and cognition God is the source of all ultimate knowledge, granting insight into the totality of reality. But this does not occur outside of history or apart from a personal encounter with God. According to Möhler, Descartes failed to take into consideration a person’s conscious awareness of his own historical reality or of his ability to gain insight into the totality of reality as already preparing him to live in the presence of God. Genuine insight requires an ability to truly know reality. As created in the image and likeness of the triune God, it belongs to the essence of human nature to know reciprocally both itself and God. Möhler interpreted Anselm, therefore, to hold that man is essentially a relational creature as he is inextricably posited into a relationship with his creator, however inchoate and perhaps unbeknownst to him this fact may be.39 This personal relationship between God and man is complemented by that of man and history. History, in turn, is assumed to be identical with the history of salvation. Thus, for Möhler, thinking from an originally Idealist perspective, there also exists a relationship between reason and history. In spite of the multifarious distractions surrounding human beings, there is an authentic knowledge of God in our awareness of God, which grants both unity to all objects and individuality to everything. All knowledge of particular individual objects would fall short were they not connected to absolute knowledge.

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The Correlation of Freedom with the Moral Life

By spontaneous spiritual efforts aided by grace, man is able to enliven certain innate ideas. Here Möhler demonstrated also the influence of his teacher Drey on his reading of the Anselmic corpus: becoming aware of God and of oneself are but two aspects of the one and same self-reflecting activity.40 Faith enables a mature spiritual life to arise. Thus faith can advance to a knowledge

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Cf. Josef Rupert Geiselmann, Die katholische Tübinger Schule (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 1964), 138. Johann Sebastian Drey, Kurze Einleitung in das Studium der Theologie (Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1966), 3: “Der Mensch wird sich Gottes bewußt, wie er sich seiner selbst bewußt wird.” Cf. Josef Rupert Geiselmann, Kommentar zur Symbolik Möhlers, kritische Ausgabe, vol. 2 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1961), 403.

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which in turn grants insight into the reasonableness of human existence. In this qualified sense, Möhler concluded that Anselm believed that the spiritual life can “prove” or evidence Christian faith without resorting explicitly to Scripture. Therefore, spiritual rectitudo allows for a “pure” reflection, apart from an explicit creedal tenet, as a basis to gain insight.41 Faith does not counteract reason, but on the contrary, allows an inborn rationality to be actuated to a degree reason could never achieve on its own—i.e. were it not related to the ground of cognition. In support of this, Möhler appealed to Anselm, who wrote: “every truth of reason is supported by the Scriptures, which they either directly favor or do not oppose.”42 Later Möhler asserted: Every finite being is by nature an image of God: the more perfect, this image, the greater will be its knowledge of God. Hence the soul of man is most qualified to know God; and the more the soul shall know itself the more truly it will know God; and the more it neglects itself the less it will be qualified to reflect on God.43 To Anselm and Möhler it is crucial to acknowledge that “the gospel … [is] the holy work of God … considered objectively in the church.”44 Thus both Anselm and his reader regard Scripture as sui generis: it is God’s work written and handed down by another divine work, namely the Catholic Church.45 Möhler saw how Anselm trusted unreservedly the ecclesial intuition regarding the whole of reality. The gospel is not something idiosyncratic and wholly foreign to humankind, but “the revelation of the highest reason,”46 and therefore most congenial to human reason and in fact, an essential part of the creature made in the image and likeness of God. Because of this, one may not construe an artificial opposition between Christianity and philosophy. True insight develops in an acknowledgement of the wholeness or all-encompassing totality of reality, not from a compartmentalization of reality and knowledge: “faith is ruined by the abandonment of wholesome knowledge.”47 On the other hand, knowledge is fully apprehended in faith. Therefore, Möhler believed a fortiori

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Möhler, Anselm, 133. Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams, Anselm (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Ibid., 136. Cf. Anselm, De concordia iii (ii. 251:28–252:29). Ibid., 161. Ibid., 138. Ibid. Ibid., 139. Ibid., 141.

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that it was altogether unjustified to call “Anselm … the founder of natural theology … and the scholastic writers … [or] rationalists.”48 On this point his decided disagreement with rationalizing elements within theological writings of his own day is in evidence. Certainly he had the rationalists Georg Hermes (1775– 1831) and Anton Günther (1783–1863) in mind. It was Anselm’s firm conviction that without faith true reasonableness or rationality cannot be found. Faith cultivates underdeveloped rationality to such a degree that human reason is able to explicate faith’s implied reasonableness. Thus faith and reason and theology and philosophy meet and yet remain separate and distinct, approximating constituents of one reality. Christian faith is grounded in reason and reason comes to its own through faith: “thus inborn rationality remains buried in itself, unless enlightened by reason.”49 Faith always enjoys a chronological priority even vis-à-vis a fully actuated human reason (however difficult to define this is). It never dissolves wholly into reasonableness, or vice-versa, though such attempts to understand it as approaching pure rationality confound every age. “What never could be done by the scholar of a great painter or statuary with the works of his master, is done by many with regard to the gospel,”50 wrote Möhler. With a nod to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781), Möhler saw Scripture as a dynamic process of revelation. Against Schleiermacher’s and Friedrich Jacobi’s rationalistic critique of Scripture, he argued in favor of a simultaneity of humble acceptance of the biblical narrative and cognitional appropriation of faith. Although Möhler didn’t mention him, it seems he was thinking of Hegel.51 He saw Anselm arguing in favor of a third way between the Scylla of rationalism and the Charybdis of sentimentalism (thus circumscribing fideism and traditionalism), a way in which reason encounters through faith something that in an inchoate manner is present to reason but requires faith to articulate it. Yet, this articulation remains merely a tension-filled, ever asymptotic approximation; never does an identity of the contents of faith and the range of reason occur.52 The two abide in a tension to one another that vivifies reciprocally

48 49

50 51 52

Ibid., 142. Here Möhler quotes Anselm, De concordia 6 (ii. 272:28–273:2): “Sicut igitur terra non germinat naturaliter ea quae maxime necessaria saluti corporis nostri sine seminibus; ita terra cordis humani non profert fructum et justitiae sine congruis seminibus.” Möhler, Anselm, 137. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Encyclopedia Logic, with the Zusätze (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991), § 77. Möhler quotes Hegel’s Encyclopedia of Philosophical Knowledge in a footnote ibid., Anselm, 151. In the English edition of Möhler’s book Hegel is misspelled as “v. Heyel.”

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both personal faith and reason ever anew. Until the day of the visio beatifica, this tension translates ever again into a dynamic form of freedom for contingent human beings. Moreover, this tension enkindles an interior fervor on the part of the human Gemüt for God and liberates our reason—from its otherwise self-imposed limitations—so that we can enter into greater cognitional clarity. Möhler considers the disjunction “of natural and positive theology at the commencement of the eighteenth century”53 to be the result of a loss of Christian identity. At this point he seems to imply that Hegelian dialectic is not something corresponding to an objective reality, but rather the consequence of a decline in Christian culture.54

4

God as the Self-Explication of Human (Self-)Awareness

Having established the non-contradiction between faith and reason as inherent in both according to Anselm’s theology as presented in the Monologion, Möhler discusses the monk’s “proof” of God’s existence as developed in the Proslogion. He goes immediately in medias res and discovers the possibility of pondering “the nonentity of God” as the central issue at hand.55 As to every possible concept there is a corresponding possible content, there must be something commensurately corresponding to the concept of God. As it belongs to the natural concept of God not to be mere potentiality, God must exist. Möhler concluded that for Anselm, “God is that being, greater than whom nothing can be conceived; so no one, who unites this reflection with his thought of God, can imagine the nonentity of the Almighty.”56 Without critically questioning it, Möhler seems to have accepted Kant’s understanding of Anselm’s proof as “ontological,” although he did not embrace the disjunction between noumenal and phenomenal. Being and thought are equivalents because a “thought destroys itself if no being corresponds to the idea.”57 Arguing against a contemporary opponent to Anselm’s proof, Möhler proposed that “God” was an entirely different kind of being than imagined “crowns” (Thaler).58 The cog-

53 54 55 56 57 58

Möhler, Anselm, 143 f. Ibid. Ibid., 147. Ibid. Ibid., 150. Kant famously substituted for Gaunilo’s imagined islands, “thalers”—a German coin of the day. Cf. Joachim Ringleben, Erfahrung Gottes im Denken. Zu einer neuen Lesart des Anselmischen Arguments (Proslogion 2–4), (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000).

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nitional concept “God” is sui generis, that is, without parallel or equivalent. In both Anselm and Möhler one detects an operative manifestation of Augustine’s theory of illumination: All opposition to this so-called ontological evidence, and to this definition given by Anselm of the most perfect being, is unavailing, since it is deeply implanted in the human mind as it is inculcated by all philosophy, however unwillingly and without design, as a principle of indispensable belief.59 Möhler affirmed that this intellectual insight merits being predicated as “evidence”—in the translation. In Möhler’s judgment, the age that rejected this proof rejected it because of its own endemic, deeply fragmented existence. Here one sees again Möhler applying his heuristic principle: only a spirituality tempered by asceticism can rise to such lofty speculative heights as Anselm had attained: The desire to demonstrate the existence of God appears impossible, save in an age which, on subjects of faith, is in the last degree divided against itself; but this cannot be said of St. Anselm and his times; his arguments are throughout scientific discussions, researches into truths already believed.60 Referring to De libertate arbitrii, he concluded that were one to hold that God did not exist, the affirmation of anything’s existence would ultimately collapse.61 Nevertheless, and for precisely this reason, the being of God cannot be expressed in any relative term. It would be downright nonsensical to attribute to God degrees of perfection. The perfection of all attributes coincides completely with God, as God is self-identity.62 God alone is no accident and all other terms—save “God”—reflect something contingent, ephemeral and accidental. “How the greatest being can be59

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Möhler, Anselm, 152. Cf. Martin Tillmann, Einheit des Geistes und Gotteserkenntnis. Aspekte zur Erkenntnislehre bei Augustinus und Anselm von Canterbury (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003). Chung-Mi HwangBo, Urteilskraft und Gotteserkenntnis: zur Argumentationsstruktur im Monologion des Anselm von Canterbury (Freiburg i. Br.: Alber, 2007). Ibid., 152. Ibid., 153. Möhler cites the Latin from Anselm, Monologion 14 (i. 27:19–20): “consequitur ut, ubi ipsa non est, nihil sit.” Ibid., 154. At this point Möhler quotes from Anselm, Monologion 16–17 (i, 30:1–32:4) extensively.

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come less than it is, is inconceivable. How the greatest good can descend beneath itself, is beyond comprehension.”63 This established the fact that the term “God,” and in fact God himself, singularly stands out unparalleled, without any analogon. The consequence is “therefore, the world is created from God, and without God there is nothing, so God has by himself produced the world from nothing.”64 Möhler thus is in agreement with Anselm that God and immanence never meet on the same level. God’s eternal “Word of the highest being, is not the similitude of things, but the essential truth of their being; their absolute and simple being is in him, and they are but its resemblances.”65 Möhler does justice to Anselm by interpreting his œuvre within Platonic and Augustinian parameters. As the human being, an ensouled creature, is created in the image and likeness of God, “it is not unreasonable that the mind of the Most High should in the same Word express itself and the united creation.”66 Having seen the incomprehensibility of God affirmed in Anselm’s writings, Möhler also considered figurative speech. That such human speech does not entirely miss the intended object lies in the subject’s nature being an image of God.67 Yet this insight is not where the movement of the human mind stops. It leads, as Möhler found in the Monologion, to charity: Faith is dead, unless animated and fortified by love. A dead faith is essentially different from that which is animated: a dead faith is contented with receiving what is proposed for belief; an animated believes it in itself [credere quod credi debet; credere in id quod credi debet]. Without love, therefore, no true faith can exist.68 In conscious opposition to the then popular manualists in the tradition of Francisco Suárez, Luis de Molina and Domingo Bañez, Möhler joined Anselm in emphasizing the pivotal dimension of personal faith. The cognitionally perfect being is God, who must necessarily exist. This was for Möhler not strictly speaking an exterior scientific proof. Rather, the term “God” is the self-explication of human thought—without nota bene in any way being dependent on it.69 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

Ibid., 157. Ibid. Ibid. Cf. Anselm, De lib. arb. 10 (i, 222:1–23) and Anselm, Monologion 31 (i. 48:13–50:13). Ibid., 159. Cf. Anselm, De lib. arb. 34 (i. 226:1–31). Ibid., 161. Ibid., 162. The reference is probably to Anselm, Monologion 78 (i 84:14–85:9). Ibid., 165. Confirming Möhler’s reading see Imre Koncsik, “Die analoge Selbstüberschreitung beim sog. Ontologischen Gottesbeweis des Anselm von Canterbury,” in Jahrbuch für Religionsphilosophie 10 (2011), 143–163.

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Möhler then pondered the question of the origin of sin as presented by Anselm, referencing De conceptu virginali et originali peccato. The abilities to sin and to seek happiness originate in the same capacity. While the ability to persevere in grace is granted by God, the sinner and Satan willfully reject this gift. As in “rational creation, goodness and happiness are necessarily inseparable,”70 the sinner “is of necessity unhappy.” Ontologically, man is in an ethical dilemma from which he cannot extricate himself. Yet this ethical conundrum is precisely his chance for salvation. The option for evil can only be overcome by being just. But one cannot acquire justice on one’s own. This requires divine action: “God is the fountain of all justice.”71 Drawing then on De libertate arbitrii, Möhler illustrated that for Anselm, “the lack of justice prepares man for vice. Evil consists in the consent to sin, not in the sensation it provokes.”72 Punishment consists essentially in God withholding justice. Injustice, like evil, is by and of itself nothing positive, but merely the crying absence of justice: “Original sin is, therefore, our want of justice implanted in Adam with reason.”73 This has ontic and epistemic consequences: After the first sin, therefore, man is reduced to simple nature—that is, he possesses reason, will, &c., as they are without grace, these powers not becoming by original sin anything different from what they are in themselves. As it is through grace alone that man can wish, perform or know anything really good, so the absence of justice must necessarily be accompanied by consequences the most fatal.74 Möhler discovered Anselm arguing that in the postlapsarian state human reason, unaided by grace, is blind. However much there may be a desire to recognize God, it would amount to a silly exercise in futile solipsism was a human being to attempt to rise to a conclusion on matters concerning the existence of God unaided by grace. Indeed “it would be the height of impiety.”75 Möhler saw Anselm introducing a helpful distinction. The consequences of original sin belong to the present nature of humankind, but sin presupposes the personal will of the individual. In addition, he discovered in the Benedictine monk’s thoughts something illuminating: freedom (libertas) did not consist in

70 71 72 73 74 75

Ibid., 166. Ibid. Ibid., 168. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 169.

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the ability to choose between good and evil, but in abiding in God’s divine will. Otherwise one would have to define God as not free. Thus, human freedom is not a fact of brute human existence, but a dynamic, or more precisely, a spiritual quality human beings must strive to attain ever again. For Anselm, as for Möhler, freedom comes close to being a supernatural virtue. Interpreting Anselm, Möhler wrote, “Freedom is essentially the power of persevering in good for the sake of the good; for assuredly man is gifted with freedom, for the sake of his perseverance in goodness, not of his degeneration into evil.”76 While God does not deprive humankind of the freedom to will the good and to desire to behold God, “[y]et there is a difference between the freedom of the sinful and that of the just man.”77 A few lines later he stated even more unequivocally that “[a]fter his fall, [man] is really [actu] without it, but still capable of recovering it.”78 Thus Anselm was able to find a singular correspondence between freedom and grace. Freedom was the ability to seek the good for its own sake. This good was God. Thus freedom (libertas) led to righteousness (rectitudo). Möhler closed his reflections on Anselm with a note on an aspect of theodicy. He discovered that God in Anselm’s eyes was outside time. He was necessarily good, while human beings strive for the good in freedom. Sin was simply the lack of a good moral quality and not in and of itself something positive.

5

Conclusion—A Symphony of Faith and Reason in the “Thinking” Subject’s Encounter with God

Möhler thus summed up his objectives: he desired to “effect a change in the judgment of some upon a period in the history of Christian theology which may justly lay claim to an acquired fundamental knowledge; and … excite in others a desire to share in the rich treasures concealed in scholastic literature, and to treat philosophically the dogmas of Christianity.”79 Möhler’s book on Anselm may be read like a paraphrase of excerpts from Anselm’s œuvre. He was cognizant of the value of primary sources and the requirement to subject these texts to a close reading. Möhler did not directly address the vexing question of whether Anselm had been a philosopher or a theologian, or whether in different works he wrote as one but not as the other. Indirectly, however, Möhler did respond to this 76 77 78 79

Ibid., 171. Ibid., 172. Ibid., 173. Ibid., 177 ff.

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question by way of showing the close relationship of faith and reason (and therefore of theology and philosophy) in such a way that both retain their relative autonomy but also are enhanced by virtue of their relatedness to each other. Barth had argued that Anselm exclusively had a theologian’s concern, associating it with the analogia fidei.80 Etienne Gilson rejected this interpretation, but hesitated to categorize Anselm as a philosopher.81 F.S. Schmitt, who edited the critical edition of Anselm’s writings, considered Anselm a Christian apologetic sui generis.82 Möhler showed how Anselm was inspired by Scripture but often argued apart from the biblical testimony. By not reducing Anselm to either a philosopher or a theologian, Möhler also did not yield to Kantianism, empiricism or rationalism. Rather, over and against Enlightenment Deism, he beheld no insurmountable gulf between reason, historic contingence, and faith to exist; rather faith and reason enrich one another.83 It would be interesting to know how Möhler would have responded to the nature-spirit dualism propagated by Anton Günther (1783–1863) and particularly his and Rosmini-Serbati’s (1797–1855) forms of “the ontological argument,” and yet more interesting, how would he have protected God from becoming the guarantee of human ideas, as ontologism advocated?84 Unfortunately, Kurt Flasch misses the moral point of Möhler’s lengthy discussion of Anselm’s life as a demonstration of one grounded in moral uprightness (rectitudo).85 The Anselmic correlation of faith, spirituality, and reason as the basis for his epistemology is to Möhler’s mind convincingly demonstrated. 80 81

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Barth, Anselm. Fides Quaerens Intellectum. For a similar position, see Sofia Vanni Rovighi, S. Anselmo e la Filosofia del sec. xi (Milano: Bucca, 1949), 59. Etienne Gilson, “Sens et Nature de l’ Argument de Saint Anselme,” Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age 9 (1934), 5–51. Gilson perceived in Anselm a Christian gnostic à la Clement of Alexandria who was mindful that the Blessed Trinity and the incarnation cannot be subjects of philosophical inquiry. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt, “Die wissenschaftliche Methode in Anselms Cur Deus Homo,” Spicilegium Beccense (Paris: J. Vrin, 1959), 350. John Paul ii, Fides et Ratio (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1999), prooemium, 3: “Faith and Reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. e.g. 33:18; Ps 27:8–9; 63:2–3; Jn 14:8; 1Jn 3:2).” Cf. Martin Kirschner, Gott, größer als gedacht: die Transformation der Vernunft aus der Begegnung mit Gott bei Anselm von Canterbury (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 2013). D. Cleary, “Ontologism,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 10 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1967), 701–703. Flasch wrote “Ihre breiten biographischen Partien sind für uns ohne Interesse …” in “Vernunft und Geschichte,” 170. Flasch seems significantly influenced in his reading of both Anselm and Möhler by Bernhard Lakebrink, “Anselm von Canterbury und die Hegelsche

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While it is certainly true that Möhler was not left uninfluenced by Hegelian thought, one should be careful not to subsume Möhler—already at this early stage of his theological development—under Hegel’s understanding of the Spirit’s self-explication in history. To Möhler there is too great a—may one say “automatic”—proximity between the Trinity and world in the Hegelian system. In contrast to Anselm’s mind—thus Möhler’s reading of Anselm—this proximity needs to be consciously affirmed and ethically lived in order for human beings to actuate freedom. When God conceived in man an image of himself, the image remained image—but possesses a dynamic impetus towards the divine and thereby towards a more authentic appreciation of the human self. Here an investigation into Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite and to what degree Anselm was influenced by him and whether Möhler was mindful of it would be interesting. Möhler did not further problematize the viability of transposing eleventhcentury thought into the nineteenth century. He held the Church and anyone sanctioned by her by way of canonization to be living in organic continuity with the primordial Church of Pentecost, i.e. enlivened by the same Holy Spirit. The Anselmic “rationes necessariae” have deceived many. Here, Möhler refrained from addressing this issue. All truth is historical, or more precisely stated, it is salvific and historic—but precisely for this reason not subjective in the pejorative sense of the term, but personal. Möhler’s lasting achievement was to avoid the fateful disjunction between rationalism and fideism, a disjunction which has preoccupied the majority of twentieth-century Anselm scholars, with the exceptions of perhaps Rudolf Allers, Dieter Henrich, and Raymond Klibansky.86 In opposition to a naïve dialectical understanding that obliterates or cancels out the subjective and personal in favor of a greater synthesis, Möhler forged a unity of objective reality and subjective consciousness that can only come about in the subjective individual. The Augustinian teaching on memoria was for Möhler the heuristic key to understanding Anselm. For this reason Möhler was able to presume ab initio an anti-rationalistic stance when reading this archbishop of Canterbury.

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Metaphysik,” Parusia, Studien zur Philosophie Platons und zur Problemgeschichte des Platonismus, Festgabe für Johannes Hirschberger (Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1965), 455– 470. Rudolf Allers, Anselm von Canterbury. Leben, Lehre, Werke (Wien: Hegner, 1936). Dieter Henrich, “Eröffnungsrede,” in Raymond Klibansky, Die Wirkungsgeschichte Anselms von Canterbury (Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1975), 19–27. Dieter Henrich, Denken und Selbstsein: Vorlesungen über Subjektivität (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2007). Cf. Martin Kirschner, “Mit Gott beginnen?” Theologische Quartalschrift 193 (2013), 45–63.

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Thereby he was able to acknowledge Anselm both as philosopher and as a theologian. For Möhler, there does exist in intellectual history a vague trajectory from Anselm, via the School of Chartres, to Nicholas de Cusa and eventually via corruptio to Hegel. Anselm indeed presumed the Blessed Trinity as an object of speculative thought, without subsuming it under theology.87 This led to an enrichment of the Gemüt, “an internal, deep emotion of the minds of men.”88 With the aid of Anselm, Möhler overcame the transcendental Idealism of Kant (influenced by a Lutheran anthropology), where the “Ding an sich” remained ever elusive. There is a nexus between object and subject as, according to Catholic anthropology: the image of God was not completely destroyed in the human being.89 Only spirit-gifted human freedom is able to encompass both “history and reason.” Thus, Möhler was able to grasp the necessity of reason and the contingency of external, historical evidence as one event and yet maintain that divine revelation approached human beings from within.90 The discovery in Anselm’s œuvre of the image of God residing in man even after the fall (which serves as the basis for an essential rational human faculty) formed the central basis for Möhler’s magisterial book, Symbolism, comparing the Christian creeds. Over and against Deistic naturalism, which perceived a self-sufficient natura pura as the human essence, the human being remains a creature endowed with the forward-impelling spirit (Geist), which finds in God its telos. This was the foundation for Möhler’s “supernaturalism,” which was both theocentric and anti-enlightenment. If this is indeed the case, then it is possible to appreciate the Church as the voluntary assembly of such spiritgifted creatures as God’s work of art.91 Mindful of the human mind’s dynamic Trinitarian constituents, Möhler would echo Anselm’s words in the Proslogion 1: “I acknowledge, Lord, and I give thanks that You have created Your image in me so that I may remember You, think of You, love You.”92 87 88 89

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Flasch, 192. Möhler, Anselm, xi. According to Catholic understanding, original sin did not completely destroy free will, but merely weakened it. According to Luther, once deprived of free will, human nature becomes completely corrupt. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Washington, DC: usccb, 2000) art. 1008. Johann Adam Möhler, Symbolik, ed. Josef Rupert Geiselmann, vol. ii (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1961), 364. English edition: Johann Adam Möhler, Symbolism; Exposition of the doctrinal Differences between Protestants and Catholics as evidenced in their symbolic Writings (New York; Crossroad, 1997). Ibid., 660. Anselm, Pros. i (i 100:12–13) “Fateor, domine, et gratias ago, quia creasti in me hanc imagnem tuam, ut ti memor to cogitem, tea mem.” English in: Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, Davies and Evans eds., 87.

Remoto Christo: Anselm’s Experiment in Cur Deus homo and an Augustinian Aside James Wetzel

I want to begin with a reading of the argument in Cur Deus homo that I have long felt in my bones is wrong, and yet it is a reading that, until recently, I have been unable to evade. The argument is for the reason’s blessed entanglement with the God who is not only the beckoning being greater than which none can be conceived but also Christ, the incarnate son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, whose willing self-sacrifice releases humankind from the worst kind of debt slavery. Anselm frames this argument as an audacious thought experiment, an artificial twisting of human experience to fit a mold that will be, to say the least, less than comfortable. He and his trusted student, Boso, agree together to remove Christ from their opening deliberations and enter imaginatively into a history that has been untouched by divine mercy or forgiveness; then they will see whether the need for forgiveness in this bleakly intellectualized landscape is sufficiently rigorous to call for the requisite deus-ex-machina and thereby wed God to his incarnation.1 Although Boso and Anselm are willing to train their minds, for a time, to do without Christ, they are not in the business of secularizing their thinking. Indeed they cling unapologetically to a number of key principles, all religiously affirmed, that bear constitutively on the return of Christ to a resurrected form of reasoning. Anselm and Boso assume, without argument, that human beings are made for God, that intimacy with God is of the essence of human beatitude, that sin wrecks this intimacy, that sin insinuates itself unavoidably into this life of death of ours, and that no one enters into eternal life while still stained by sin. In short, everything that Anselm and Boso, as confessing Christians, are prepared to affirm about eternal life, short of affirming Christ, they are prepared to admit into argument, in the form of a presupposition. They are clearly not attempting, from within the parameters of the Cur Deus homo experiment, to motivate Christian theism from the ground up; they are merely testing their prospects for salvation under the twin banners of remoto Christo

1 Cur Deus, Praefatio (ii.42.11–13): Ac tandem remoto Christo, quasi numquam aliquid fuerit de illo, probat rationibus necessariis esse impossibile ullum hominem salvari sino illo. Cf. Ibid., 1.10 (ii.64–67).

© James Wetzel, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004506480_016

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and sola ratione. A negative result here, which is the result they are looking for, is going to be as unsettling as it is reassuring. But more on the unsettling part towards the end. For now, let’s stick to reassurance. It is both tempting and reassuring, in conformity with modern rationalism, to want to credit Anselm with having taken a firm step out of the age of faith and towards the sober good sense of nonquestion-begging argumentation. Of course his argument in Cur Deus homo is not likely to convince atheists of the necessarily Christian character of God, but nor does he have to assume that his reasoning has force only for theists already disposed to be Christian. Having started with the remoto Christo posit, Anselm will be able, by argument’s end, to lay claim to one of the most thoroughgoing rationalizations of incarnational theology in the history of such things. But what is true of temptation in general is no doubt true as well of this one in particular and the reading it engenders: that ultimately it ought to be resisted. And yet I have been, in a quasi-confessional way, promising you a compellingly bad reading of the argument of Cur Deus homo. To keep my promise, I must linger a bit longer in temptation’s long shadow. So what is it about sin that it makes it both inevitable and, remoto Christo, absolutely unforgivable? Take the case of a sin that, for the purposes of Cur Deus homo, Anselm offers as paradigmatic.2 Someone says to you, “look over there (aspice illuc)”, and before you can even blink, God interjects to tell you this, “Not by any stretch do I want you to look (nullatenus volo ut aspicias).” You take a quick look anyway, with a mixture of incredulity, curiosity, and mild defiance. What could be so bad about just looking? Boso will describe the case of the disobedient looker as a case of lightweight sin, indeed “the most lightweight (levissimum),” and Anselm does not correct his description.3 It just doesn’t matter, with regard to the ultimate severity of the consequences, whether you are an Orpheus trying not to look back at Eurydice, or an Alypius, trying not to open your eyes at the Roman Colosseum, so as to void the sight of bloodlust, or just an aging spouse, trying not to believe your wife when she tells you that, yes, once again your lost keys are in the door. If the divine command is, ‘don’t look,’ and you look, your disobedience tears a hole in the fabric of creation that threatens to unravel everything. Anselm’s striking lack of interest in a human scale of consequence, where bloodlust weighs heavier than lost keys, suggests why he doesn’t feel especially pressed to make the case for sin’s inevitability. If it takes so little, humanly

2 Cur Deus 1.21 (ii.88.20–21). 3 Cur Deus 2.14 (ii.113.22).

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speaking, to aggrieve the divine perfectionist—a bite of a fruit or a look askance will do—then who really is safe from sinning? It doesn’t take a thick doctrine of original sin and a heavy sense of corporate responsibility to get to the homespun wisdom that no one is perfect. But all this just means that Anselm has staked his cards on showing that the divine perfectionist, far from being a hypersensitive monster, hell bent on punishing slights to his honor, is in reality the eternal font of justice, apart from whom order itself is inconceivable. I concede that I am not medieval enough or sufficiently well versed in feudal norms to be able to make much sense of Anselm’s appeal to the sanctity of divine honor and the duty of a sinner to restore what sin has violated, but I also have to wonder whether even a medieval thinker, steeped in feudal norms, can make much sense of having to restore something that is absolutely impossible to damage or steal. I find more telling than all the talk about honor Anselm’s claim that God, apart from Christ, cannot forgive sin of any degree of severity, big or little, without wholly undoing the basis of the difference between notsinning and sinning, between freely conforming to an intelligible order of the good and veering off the grid to look for meaning and self-definition in a void.4 When Anselm speaks of an inability here, of course he does not mean to imply a debility or deficiency. It isn’t a mean or petty spirit that keeps God from forgiving. Here we are up against a pillar of theological logic. If it is God who wills what justice essentially is, then God cannot authenticate an alternative source of justice without sowing self-contradiction into the heart of being itself. Let me offer an analogy here, drawn in part from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks in the Philosophical Investigations on how to talk, or how not to, about the length of the standard meter in Paris: There is one thing of which one can state neither that it is one meter long, nor that it is not one meter long, and that is the standard meter in Paris.— But this is, of course, not to ascribe any remarkable property to it, but only to mark its peculiar role in the game of measuring with a meter-rule.5 My philosophical scruples here, I admit, are not as exacting as Wittgenstein’s. I think it is perfectly permissible to say that the Paris meter is a meter; it just gets confusing when I fail to keep in mind the profound difference between saying that the Paris-meter is a meter and attributing that length to some other kind of object, like my favorite walking stick, whose function is other than to determine 4 See especially Cur Deus 1.12 (ii.69–71). 5 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, rev. 4th edition, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), §50.

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what the length of a meter is. Turning to the case of God and justice, there is a world of difference, indeed I am tempted to say, literally a world, between my claim that God is just and my claim, say, that I am just. If it should turn out that I have been doing unjust things, it follows either that I am not as just as I think I am or that I am a liar. If it should turn out that God has been doing unjust things, it follows that I have been mistaking God for a sinner. The obvious difference for Anselm between a standard-setting being like the Paris meter and a standard-of-being setter like God is that we can decide to use something other than a platinum rod in Paris to define what a meter is while there is no substitute for God, the only independently eternal being. Sin, then, is not simply a matter of falling short of a designated norm; it is an attempt to subvert normalization altogether, to entertain the proposition, ‘God is just,’ as if it were merely a descriptive claim, subject to falsification in light of new facts on the ground. The advantage of this way of reading Anselm is that it has some hope of relieving his God from a monstrous kind of perfectionism, utterly alien to the creatures upon which it is imposed. If divine perfectionism is a requisite feature of any intelligibly ordered creation, then our choice is not, our rules or God’s, but, to be or not to be. God’s rules are God’s by virtue of who God is, and God’s rules are ours by virtue of a gift of being. The liability of this way of reading Anselm, as far as I can tell, that it leaves no room for the possibility of forgiveness. In the second book of Cur Deus homo, Anselm sets out a very complex and somewhat convoluted argument for why Christ, having freely chosen selfsacrifice, has a life to offer others that fills and spills over the infinite sinkhole of sin. Let’s just stipulate the success of that argument and move onto the big question: can Christ will the forgiveness that his Father cannot? Not, I think, if the will of the Father and the will of Christ are one. If they are one, then Christ’s will just is his Father’s will, and he cannot forgive sin without giving a nod to non-being and undoing creation. But suppose their wills are different. In that case, either Christ’s will opposes his Father’s, and he is subject, like everyone else, to the same impossible need for forgiveness, or his will surpasses his Father’s, and his Father gets relegated to the role of arbitrary formalizer, having no more inherent an authority to set a creative standard than the Paris meter has to set a metric. I see no way to salvage the unity of Anselm’s God, given the way I have been arranging the furniture in Cur Deus homo. I am now clearly at the limit of my compellingly bad reading. Happily I no longer feel stuck at that limit, though I am not quite ready to say that I have altogether relocated. A number of months ago I reread with some care two of Burcht Pranger’s essays on Cur Deus homo: one cast as a critique of Jean-Luc Marion’s take on that text and appearing in a conference volume on Anselm and Abelard, the other focused on the tragic-like poetics of Cur Deus

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homo and appearing as a chapter of The Artificiality of Christianity, a collection of Pranger’s essays on the poetics of monasticism.6 I am in general a grateful reader of Pranger’s writings, but I am especially grateful to read him when I am caught in a cul-de-sac of stalled thinking and feel the need for either another entrance or a new exit. Although I rarely find his most productive insights easy to fathom, it has been my consistent experience of him that his readerly intuitions outpace my ploddingly philosophical way of proceeding and serve for me as a kind of horizon. I seem to be always on my way to this horizon, but, given its promise, I am moved to persevere. Pranger’s critique of Marion in his essay, “Anselm, Marion, and the Refusal of Gift,” struck me as trenchant, but as I had never read Marion’s reading of Cur Deus homo for myself, I felt duty-bound to extract it painstakingly from the dense and difficult phenomenology of Étant donné (Being Given) and give it an independent evaluation. Imagine my surprise and secret relief when I discovered that Marion has all of two sentences to say about Anselm, neatly tucked away in a footnote. Here they are, in English translation: It must be remarked that when a theologian of Anselm’s caliber dares to think the Incarnation in terms of satisfaction—the dignified exchange between the fault for sin and its retribution in the Redemption (Cur Deus 1.12)—he finds himself bearing the brunt of objections that are all the stronger as they remain strictly theological. The model of the gift as transcendent exchange cannot stand, especially not in revealed theology.7 As obiter dicta go, these are politely devastating. Marion grants Anselm his theological intelligence and then, in practically the same breath, convicts him of a theological blunder of the first-order. When any kind of exchange rate enters into the picture of transcendently divine generosity, the result is a selfconflicted deity, a wrecked Trinitarian economy, and the utter disappearance of gift giving. One would have thought a theologian of Anselm’s caliber would know better. Pranger’s qualified defense of Anselm from Marion’s withering critique is not so much that Marion gets the argument of Cur Deus homo wrong,

6 M. Burcht Pranger, “Anselm, Marion, and the Refusal of Gift,” in Anselm and Abelard: Investigations and Juxtapositions, ed. G.E.M. Gasper and H. Kohlenberger (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2006), 48–55, and “Death and Pleasure: The Poetics of Cur Deus homo,” in The Artificiality of Christianity: Essays on the Poetics of Monasticism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 177–190. 7 Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward A Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey Kosky (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 349, n. 54.

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but more that he assumes too quickly that there is argument there that avails itself to neat encapsulation, whether as a quid-pro-quo exercise or something a bit fancier. In this assumption, Marion betrays his lack of appreciation for what Pranger refers to as “the nuclear power of Anselm’s notion of refusal.”8 It took me a while, I concede, before I could do much with the metaphor of nuclear power, but here, at least, is a start. First of all, think bombs and not power plants. In a conventional exchange with God, where I refuse the gift of a renewed life, I end up, metaphorically speaking, self-detonating. My refusal activates the sin within me—activates sin’s latent power of non-being—and I become one with what my sin essentially is: my inner emptiness, the null and void. There is nothing about this scenario that defies bookkeeping. Now go nuclear. If I somehow manage to defy the gift giving of the eternally generous giver, the blast of my refusal unsettles any kind of argumentative logic that would be used to contain, explain, or explain away the damage. In the moment I refuse grace, God is eternally the God who has yet to make the offer; in the moment I accept grace, I am eternally the one who has yet to receive. It is impossible to wrap up an argument here, at the juncture between time and eternity, or tell a story that has a definitive, humanly relatable ending, but as Pranger points out, in his essay on the poetics of Cur Deus homo, “… it is not the story that counts. It is the phantom of negation in which time is compressed, reversed, and even, it seems, suspended.”9 The moral of all this for impatient philosopher-types—perhaps like Marion, certainly like me—is not that poetics replaces argument in Anselm, but that Anselm’s mode of argumentation is unrecognizable apart from the poetics that informs it. Pranger thinks of the principal directives of Cur Deus homo— sola ratione, remoto Christo—as “principally poetical statements,”10 and in a very precise sense of poetical, he is quite right to do so. Anselm stages absence and self-constriction in order to cede the stage of his thinking to the being who creates from nothing and, without violent imposition, restores what’s been lost. It is a poor poetics that exchanges such faithful drama for the fragile selfconsistency of a God-bereft argument. Let me conclude with an Augustinian aside. If I were to bring the animus of Augustine’s inspiration to the scene of Cur Deus homo—where, I believe, it is in large part already there—I would cast the paradigmatic sin somewhat differently than Anselm does, who makes it out to be, in essence, the unbearable lightness of being. For Augustine, the look away from God connotes a twofold 8 9 10

Pranger, “Anselm, Marion, and the Refusal of Gift,” 54. Pranger, “Death and Pleasure,” 189. Ibid.

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wonder: it is the wonder of angels who look away and witness divine poetry as it emerges out of the inconceivable night, and it is the wonder of human beings who look for themselves in that night, discover there the belatedness of all self-love, and receive forgiveness. There is no steady gaze at absence to be had, no absolute look away to be taken. Augustine resists the temptation to pit sin against grace and render darkness into a competing light. If he is right to do so, then no one can remove God from the light of reason and expect that there will be something left—a redeemable, if darkened reason—that manages retrospectively to illuminate a path for God’s return. In the final book of his Confessions, Augustine gathers the spirit that sheds love into his heart into the brooding presence that hovers over the watery chaos of a first creation.11 His intuition is of oneness. Creation and redemption are the same. But his mind still clings to an ungraspable difference. It is in the acceptance of what cannot be thought but still begs for thinking that Anselm and Augustine find their shared sense of theological drama. 11

Augustine, Conf. 13.7.8. Augustine reads the redeeming spirit of Romans 5:5 into the creative spirit of Genesis 1:2.

Pondus Dei: Anselm’s Minimalism M. Burcht Pranger

In December 1969 I visited The Art Institute of Chicago for the first time. Both the unique quality of the collection and the intensity of my youthful spirit made that visit an unforgettable experience: all those dancing Degas coming to a standstill in Seurat’s La Grande Jatte with its Sunday afternoon flâneurs, promenading or reclining on the grass, absorbed in the stillness of space and time. It took twenty years before I visited again. Worn out for reasons unknown, upon entering the museum I did not feel up to starting my tour right away, so I went down to the basement to have a coffee in the cafeteria. Sitting there in reflective mood—as self-absorbed almost and inward looking as any of Seurat’s figures whilst at the same time observing the comings and goings of the visitors and the playful movements of the cafeteria’s young staff—I stayed in my seat except to get another coffee. In fact, I did not get up until two hours later, heading not to the collection but to the exit. Yet there was no doubt in my mind that I had properly revisited the Art Institute of Chicago. By “properly” I do not mean that, while idly musing away, I was involved in mental efforts of bringing back to memory the paintings I had seen twenty years before. As my eyes were physically removed from the art objects, there was no subterranean play of memorial resurrection going on. Instead, precisely due to their physical absence, there was an enormous weight on my mind of their suspended presence above my head, to the point where I was able to get up and leave them, unseen and alone. In this article I want to have a look at Anselm’s pictura remota/his absent picture through an analysis of the poetic principles that make his thought and writings tick. By doing so I will mainly focus on Anselm’s statements of principle in the prefaces to his various works, as well as on a number of salutations in the letter corpus. Among those principles I count the famous sola ratione in Monologion, the unum argumentum in Proslogion, the Christo remoto in Cur Deus homo, and the clues Anselm offers in his First Meditation with regard to the wie so lesen sei, that is, to the non-linear and random way in which the reading of his meditations should be undertaken. As I said, the rhetorically crafted salutations in the letter corpus will, surprisingly perhaps, further contribute to this undertaking. Far from being abstract entities governing the text, what I am calling, for convenience, principles are part of that text and have to be assessed as such. If it were otherwise, Anselm’s work would make for much easier and less controversial reading and interpretation. But even when Anselm is quite

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explicit with regard to his procedure, as for instance, in Cur Deus homo where he elaborates on his method, his simple phrase Christo remoto becomes only more complicated if we realize how it is embedded in a wider (con)text which prevents it from functioning in an isolated and supra-textual manner. Let us have a closer look at this embedded presence of the Christo remoto inside the text of the preface to Cur Deus homo. Since some people, without my knowledge, have transcribed the first parts of this work for their own benefit before its final and full completion, I have been forced to finish the work you have before you to the best of my abilities, sooner than it suited me and, as a consequence, in a form shorter than I wanted it to be. For now I have been silent about several things I would have inserted and added had I had the opportunity to edit the work quietly and within the proper space. With heartfelt suffering, whose origin and cause are known to God alone, I started writing this book, upon request, in England and I have finished it in the province of Capua, a stranger in a strange land. In line with the subject matter I have called it Cur deus homo and I have divided it up into two separate books. The first book contains the objections of the infidels who reject the Christian faith because they hold it to be incompatible with reason, as well as the response to those objections of the faithful. And it proves by necessary reasons, with Christ removed, as if he had never existed, the impossibility that any man should be saved without him. The second book proceeds in the same manner, as if nothing were known about Christ, in no less certain terms, with the plain evidence of reason and truth that human nature is instituted with the purpose that integral man, that is, man both in body and soul, at one moment in time will enjoy blessed immortality, and the necessity that this happens to man because of the way he is made, but only through god-man; and that all things we believe about Christ ought to happen by necessity.1 I have quoted this preface in full since it raises at once the question of the very nature of Anselm’s enterprise. In that way, before starting out, Anselm’s reader is invited first to decide on his own way of reading: either jump to a theme that might interest him, such as the Christo remoto in and for itself which, in my view, would imply moving on a level of flatness, the sort of thing that comes with a broad and selective philosophical or theological approach; or

1 Anselm, cdh, Praefatio (ii. 42–43).

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heed Anselm’s own delicate and minutely calibrated textual finesses before setting out on wider interpretative expeditions. Thus, if we take the slow route, we realize that it is not for the first time—and, for that reason, not without more than incidental relevance—that Anselm rebukes those who, after getting hold of parts of his work in progress, rushed to publishing and distributing an “unfinished” work. As a matter of fact, Anselm had shown the same concern about possible misunderstandings and jumping to conclusions in the early stages of the publication of Monologion and Proslogion. Slow writing asks for slow reading. “That is why,” he writes in his letter to abbot Rainaldus, to whom he sent a copy of the Monologion upon the latter’s repeated requests, “I urgently beseech your holiness not to show this work to those who are verbose and quarrelsome, but to those who are rational and quiet.”2 If we honour the meditative nature of Monologion and Proslogion as explicitly stated by Anselm in the prefaces to those works, we can see how argumentation as in the sola ratione should be considered an intrinsic part of the meditation itself (by which I do not, of course, mean to deprive argumentation of its dialectical nature and turn it into something non-rational). For Anselm, meditation as an overall exemplum meditandi de ratione fidei is part of the necessary slowness of writing and reading as a vehicle to establish a personal bond between text and reader. In his seminal Space Between Words Paul Saenger describes this procedure elegantly with regard to the Orationes: He [Anselm] composed a book, to which he himself gave the title Orationes sive meditationes, with the explicit intent that it be perused and read in private, where it might serve as a spiritual conduit from the author to the reader. Anselm’s initial title for the Monologion was Exemplum meditandi de ratione fidei, and its first chapter was “Exercitatio mentis ad contemplandum Deum.” In it, he carefully distinguished between images and logographs, internal mental speech and external oral speech. For Anselm, like John of Fécamp, meditation was the free, speculative thought stimulated by private reading. Anselm became one of the first medieval authors to refer to the punctuation of his own text when he pointed out that his division of the text into paragraphs freed the reader from obligatory reading from beginning to end by permitting easy entry wherever one wanted. This liberty empowered readers to control the process of their own spiritual stimulation.

2 Ep. 83, (iii. 208).

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Anselm also expressed the concern, unprecedented in the writings of the early Middle Ages, that monks should avoid a too rapid reading of devotional texts. In a world in which scriptura continua3 and hierarchical word blocks had been normal, reading had been a slow and laborious task, and reading too rapidly could not have been a vice worthy of condemnation. The endemic fault of early medieval oral readers, denounced by the ninth-century monk Hildemar in his Commentum in Regulam sancti Benedicti was an inaudible mumbling of syllables, reflecting lack of comprehension. In effect, the new word separation that facilitated the reading of difficult texts and enhanced individual spirituality in the eyes of the reformed Benedictines created a new vice. Anselm insisted that spiritual works be read decorously, with the requisite emotion. As reading became a silent and solitary activity, constraints imposed by the group were no longer efficacious, and explicit injunctions against private abuse were required.4 Now one might object that there is nothing new in Anselm’s use of interior and exterior speech. The distinction belonged squarely with the PlatonicAugustinian tradition. But then I would like to ask: has any scholar accounted for a return of that internal speech to the external one, both of them falling into the generic category of speech? Subsequently, “free and speculative thought stimulated by private reading” which in its turn was enhanced by the technical changes on the manuscript page, will, at least in Anselm’s case, always be constrained by this iron embrace of inner and outer, the free thought as much being part of the structured meditation as the divisions and the reader’s liberty with regard to the ordre du discours. Thus, paradoxically, the redeployment of the slowness of the old scriptura continua engendered, in terms of meditation, a new kind of slowness, deliberate this time, which, covering Anselm’s entire oeuvre, asked for a new and refined reading technique. If we have another look at the Preface to Cur Deus homo by reviewing it in slow motion, we cannot fail to notice the concurrence of self-confidence in Anselm’s matter of fact announcement of the subject-matter, the equally selfconfident presentation of the procedure by means of necessary reasons, then on the other hand, the shakiness of the unfinished, unpolished composition. Though, true, all that could fit in nicely with the rhetorical conventions of the dedicatory genre, and the modesty topos which was often a part of it. Pointing to a troubled state of mind when embarking upon writing could also be part 3 Scriptura continua means writing without spaces between words. 4 Paul Saenger, Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 203–204. The Orationes sive meditationes can be found in Schmitt, ii. 5–91.

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of that rhetorical—and it should be added—monastic routine. But the same does not apply to the same extent to the phrasing of the inner turmoil in the shape of Anselm’s sigh that the writing of Cur Deus homo was overshadowed by “heartfelt suffering whose origin and cause are known to God alone.” Things would be different if that suffering could be linked to Anselm’s political troubles at the time in England resulting in his exile in Italy. However, although Anselm mentions those two locations, he firmly disconnects them from any known cause, thus inserting an element of the abysmal into the Preface, so abysmal indeed that it eludes the author himself. That said, we still have to account for the third element of the Preface: the Christo remoto which Anselm springs as a surprise on his reader. Is it part of the initial shakiness, or of the self-confidence in argument, or does it come from the suffering of which God alone knows the origin and cause: unde et cur passus sum novit deus? Does it suffer from, is it affected by, the various layers of its rhetorical surroundings, or does its stand on its own? If so, would that isolated stance apply to the other statements in the preface too, and would we have to extend that isolation to the further discourse of Cur Deus homo proper? Are we, for instance, supposed to forget Anselm’s passus sum when, at the end of Cur Deus homo, Christ’s removal is reversed, and becomes the relentless necessity of his passion, a necessity that, like Anselm’s inner turmoil, results from an inner causality without any preceding cause? I do not think we can give a definitive answer to that question, even though it might do no harm if it were to be part of our “free, speculative thought stimulated by private reading.” After our first attempt at reading the Preface to Cur Deus homo, it is clear enough that Saenger’s drawing attention to Anselm’s division of paragraphs in the Meditations as offering food for thought obtains, beyond his manuscript based approach, also for spaces between words, lines and paragraphs. As for food for thought, each and every line in this Preface invites the reader to pause, in order to reflect upon the separate statements in themselves as well as on the necessity of reading them once again, backwards as it were, in the light of the next statement. In the process the text gains in dimensionality. The necessity of reading and rereading in this particular way is part of the geometry of Anselm’s language, which is first and foremost characterised by its verticality— just as Seurat’s pointillistic points at once break open abysses between the points while creating an overwhelmingly integral presence—or by its tendency to halt, cut, break and bend words and lines seemingly caught up in the horizontal flow of discourse. As I will argue in more detail, it is this special verticality that underlies the reader’s liberty to start and stop reading wherever he wants, not only in the Prayers and Meditations but also in Anselm’s work at large. Paradoxically, this freedom to create space hinges on an extreme degree

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of linguistic density and precision, equally characteristic of Anselm’s language. Thus, as I have shown elsewhere, the opening line of the first Meditation “terret me vita mea/my life horrifies me” triggers, on the part of the writer and reader, a long train of thought about the human condition by creating ever more space between terror and life while at the same time, because this space produces a contradiction in terms, contracting life and terror all along.5 Ultimately, that contradiction proves unsustainable and blows itself apart as—here the verticality comes in—it had been in the process of doing from the outset. The same can be said of the “fool says in his heart: there is no God” and, not least, of the Christo remoto. It is one of the ironies of history that Anselm, who is credited by Saenger with being one of the first authors to establish our modern reading practice, is also one of the most enigmatic. Thus the gaps between sections and the freedom of the reader to end and begin where s/he wishes would seem to fit in better with modernist literature such as Samuel Beckett than with the orderly shape and sequence of treatises which, after the twelfth century became, ever more scholastically, the disciplinary norm for practising theology and philosophy. However, just like Beckett, Anselm does not abolish linearity and narrative, and to be in the middle of a passage expressing despair is not the same as being involved in exercising one’s mind with one single argument, or to experience the gaudium plenum/full joy. But, just as every word and line uttered in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot or Endgame is vertical and self-contained, calling to the surface the drama playing out inside the deep caves of language, the surface arc of expectation and denouement suggested by the titles stays in place. In a similar vein we have in Anselm someone with a text that is essentially scattered yet overwhelming in the full force of its integral appearance. And in case anyone is worried by the enormous leap in time between Anselm and Beckett, the arbitrary nature of a supposedly orderly and sequential development in history evaporates if one realizes that, as Erich Auerbach has shown, the master of both scattered and integral poetry is no less a poet than Dante.6 Perhaps we should accept that in the history of (written) expression chronology does not always reign supreme. Every so often the king of the unexpected event may enter the stage like Melchisedec “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life ….” (Hebrews 7:3).

5 “Anselm of Canterbury and the Art of Despair,” in M.B. Pranger, The Artificiality of Christianity: Essays on the Poetics of Monasticism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 107–135. 6 Erich Auerbach, Dante als Dichter der irdischen Welt (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1929). Trans. Ralph Manheim, Dante, Poet of the Secular World (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1961).

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I am not altogether sure whether I have made myself clear so far. For the sake of clarification, let me give a counter-example. Some years ago I published an article in Arjo Vanderjagt’s festschrift, called the “The Absent Bible in Augustine, Anselm, and Calvin.”7 In the article, conceived as a playful and slightly ironic bagatelle, I primarily aimed at Calvin by arguing that an overkill of scriptural language was no guarantee of its presence. On the contrary, Calvin’s massive reconstruction and imitation of scriptural language required so much help from the Holy Spirit in deciphering that mass of biblical material that Scripture, in such a charged context, ran the risk of turning into a spiritual entity, indeed into a phantom itself. In contrast, so my argument ran, Anselm’s suspense in the sola ratione and the Christo remoto only reinforced and intensified Scripture’s presence. This article drew the ire of a veteran Anselm scholar, Jasper Hopkins, to the extent that he rushed to publish a refutation of my argument on the Internet entitled: “The Alleged Superfluity of Scripture in the Thought of St. Augustine and St. Anselm.”8 Ignoring Calvin altogether he focuses on my reading of Augustine and Anselm. I leave aside Hopkins’s first attack, aimed at the unimaginable possibility of Scripture becoming superfluous, although in my view, Christianity being an eschatological religion, no such possibility should be ruled out beforehand. More important for my present argument in this article is the corollary to Hopkins’s first attack: the fact that, while accusing me of being selective in emphasizing the special effects of the temporary bracketing of Scripture, he indiscriminately enshrouds Anselm with both Scripture and reason which, in his view, manifest themselves in Anselm’s work in a juxtaposed fashion. In the end, there are for Anselm two different sources of knowledge; and these sources do concur and must concur: some knowledge comes from reason and experience. Accordingly, in De Incarnatione Verbi 6 Anselm uses the expression “to know by clear reasoning as well as by faith.” Similarly, as he thinks, even someone of only modest intelligence can know by clear reasoning that “Something than which a greater cannot be thought” exists. But this truth may also be known from Scripture. Does the fact that a religious believer knows this truth by clear reasoning lead Anselm to judge that such a believer no longer needs the authority of the Bible with respect to this truth? Not at all. For only the Bible will tell the believer 7 “Anselm, Calvin and the Absent Bible,” in Alasdair A. MacDonald, Zweder R.W.M. von Martels and Jan. R. Veenstra (eds.), Christian Humanism. Essays in Honour of Arjo Vanderjagt (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 457–469. 8 https://jasper‑hopkins.info/AugustineAndAnselmOnScripture.pdf., 1 July 2009.

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what obligations the fact of God’s existence lays upon him. And—from Anselm’s Catholic viewpoint—only the Bible will assure him that the God-man has already come.9 Would Hopkins have been more lenient if he had known about my suspenseful visit to the Art Institute of Chicago? If he had known about the delicate question (and enigma) of the exact location of a centre, a meeting point of presence and absence, distance and proximity of an art object, a manuscript with spaces between words; or about free meditative thought? What we now have is a flat text whose juxtaposition of faith and reason in the guise of Hopkins’s “two sources of knowledge” breathes the air of the Tridentine Council rather than of the more experimentally minded eleventh century. For Hopkins both faith and reason should be mutually helpful one to the other and “even should reason be able to prove the existence of God, Anselm still requires instruction from the Scriptures in order to know, for example, such things as whether or not God is a predestinating God.”10 In that respect Hopkins presents us with a mitigated version of Karl Barth’s theological interpretation in his Fides Quaerens Intellectum (1931) in which biblical language is continuous except for brief interruptions such as the Christo remoto, gaps that meanwhile keep being supported by the surrounding pillars of biblical truth. What those various readings of Anselm share is the trust not only in a fixed meaning of reason and faith but—what is more important—a supreme confidence in the way those notions figure in the flow of language, either philosophically of theologically, thus excluding any possibility of total suspension. Such an approach tends to get entangled in endless arguments as, for instance, the presumed shift from theology to logic of the id in the id quo maius nihil cogitari potest, some seeing it, in a way similar to a mental scriptura continua, as belonging to the preceding, uninterrupted flow of religious language and for that reason meaning “God,” others treating it as a philosophical statement pure and simple without any textual context. Neither approach recognizes Anselm’s overall handling of language. Now, what I understand by sola ratione or Christo remoto is neither a Hopkins-like use of reason and faith all pervasive throughout the texts, nor a Barth-like (ab)use of the credo ut intelligam as guaranteeing, by means of uninterrupted theological language, that the gaps of Christo remoto and sola ratione will never, flashing from the discourse, unsettle, will never be abysmal, that is. Instead, I turn my attention to the way sola ratione and Christo

9 10

Hopkins, “The Alleged Superfluity,” 13. Ibid., 12.

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remoto do indeed momentarily and radically suspend Christian language and thought while remaining part of Anselm’s discourse. But as soon as that game is to be played, it is rien ne va plus, everything or nothing. To describe that process is no easy task and will certainly fail as long as we stick to gluing words, lines and meanings together in a merely horizontal way. However, if we allow for vertical interruptions and fragmentations as part of an ongoing discourse, we have to demonstrate how such a language can work at all, exploring whether it has a centre and, if so, whether that centre holds. To shed more light on the theme of absence and silence in Anselm, let us turn to his letters.11 It is here that we meet an Anselm who is lighter and less burdened by the anachronistic weight of his intellectual afterlife. The least we can say in advance is that, once we glimpse Anselm writing to real yet absent people, we can observe him—rather than conforming to the limitless dimensions of real space and time—searching for a silent centre from which it is possible to cut through the confusions of remoteness and absence in order to establish a monastery of the mind, so to speak. As a result, dealing with his fellow monks, wherever they are, is not entirely unlike dealing with God, wherever he may be. This monastic-epistolary stance is elegantly characterized by Eileen Sweeney as follows: In an important sense Anselm never casts himself nor addresses his fellow monks as “on the way” but places them at one extreme or the other. Anselm’s addressees, like Anselm and everyone in life, of course, is [are] in via, but the point is that for Anselm, being “on the way” is not a place to stay or be at home. Anselm only recognizes two possibilities: one is either moving out of the world toward God (in which case what matters is not where one is but where one is going, not the motion but its goal), or one is mired in the nullity of the world.12 Quite! In Anselm’s monastic case, the general anthropological notion of humankind as being in via should be specified as stemming from—and being dominated by—a stabilitas loci, the materiality of which is spiritual by nature.

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(Schmitt, vol. iii, iv, v) I focus on the letters in iii. I have discussed the same subject-matter in a different context in my article “Dimidia Hora: Liminal Silence in Bernard of Clairvaux, Anselm of Canterbury, and Barack Obama,” in Babette Hellemans and Alissa Jones Nelson (eds.), Images, Impressions, Sound, and Silence from 1000 to 1800—Degree Zero (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 229–247. Eileen C. Sweeney, Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 71.

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Consequently, the notion of travelling changes, as does the status of spatial distance. In a sense, this metamorphosis of travelling from movement to stasis and pauses (in speaking and writing) is analogous not only to his own handling of silence through “his sense of the possible,” as in his Proslogion and Cur Deus homo. It also takes us back (or forward, in historical terms) to worries about the survival of successiveness and melodiousness. By taking the heart out of melodiousness and harmony in the guise of reciprocity, Anselm seems to deprive himself of any spatial dimension and to replace it with utter silence in the guise of proclaiming the lack of any need for friends to write letters at all. They had better stay silent. Even though, for Anselm, this silence is as self-evident as the impossibility for God not to exist or for Christ not to suffer, his monastic friends had more trouble grasping this stance—as indeed quite a number of contemporaries failed to understand Anselm at all.13 Thus it took a letter for Anselm to explain to his monastic friends the absence of any need for writing letters. If those friends had caught the implications of this particular “sense of the possible,” they should not have been surprised about what they perceived as an undesirable communication gap. Nevertheless, surprised they were. One example stands out because of the stubbornness of the two correspondents. Anselm, for his part, was writing as a reluctant correspondent, preferring silence to what, for him, was nothing but superfluous chatter. Since the other correspondent in this case—his former fellow monk at Bec, Gundulf—had repeatedly requested that Anselm write to him, Anselm replies as follows: To the monk Gundulf. He who is his all to him who is his all [his own to his own], friend to friend, brother to brother, Anselm to Gundulf, wishes him, for love of happiness, perseverance in holiness, as reward for holiness, eternal happiness. Now my Gundulf and your Anselm are witness to the fact that you and I have no need whatsoever to express our mutual affection for each other through letters. For since your and my soul never think about each other in terms of absence but embrace each other incessantly, nothing is lacking in our relationship except the fact that our presence to each other is not physical. Why then should I describe my love for you in a letter, when you keep the real imprint of that love in the inner sanctum of your heart? For what else does your love for me mean than the image of my love for 13

See M.B. Pranger, “Anselm Misunderstood: Utopian Approaches towards Learning in the Eleventh Century,” in Josef Zumr and Vilem Herold (eds.), The European Dimension of St. Anselm’s Thinking (Prague: Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 1993), 163–187.

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you? That is why your will, known to me, urges me to write something to you because of our physical absence. But because we are known to each other through the presence of our souls, I do not know what to say to you except that God may give you that of which He knows that it will please Him and benefit you. Farewell.14 Even Jasper Hopkins would have to admit that Anselm includes a certain superfluity in this letter in the guise of the absence of any need of letter writing between two kindred souls. This insistence on the superfluity of exchanging letters is all the more remarkable in the light of Anselm’s adherence, in other letters, to the ancient requirement of physical presence and his sensitivity to the fatal blows of grief that physical absence and distance deliver to friendship. In this vein, he writes to his friend Gilbert Grispin, a former monk at Bec who went on to become the Abbot of Westminster: “I often recognized how great and how true this affection was when it revealed itself face to face, kiss to kiss, embrace to embrace.”15 Exclamations like this abound, in particular in the salutations of Anselm’s letters, and it is with good reason that Sweeney’s section on friendship in her book on Anselm is entitled “Physical Separation and Spiritual Union.” But, apparently, Gundulf’s is a different case. Like Gilbert, he had been a fellow monk of Anselm’s at Bec before following Lanfranc, first to Caen and then to Canterbury, where he ended up as the Bishop of Rochester. We have a total of 16 letters from Anselm to Gundulf, seven of them written when Anselm was still the prior at Bec. Those seven stand out for their strong language of monastic love, whereas the later letters are much more business-like. In all but one of those seven letters, Anselm touches upon the theme of the lack of necessity for writing, as if he feels pressured by Gundulf’s repeated requests: “as you propose to write, most beloved soul of my soul, as you propose to write, I am not sure what should be the best starting point of my address” (Letter 4). These requests incite Anselm, in turn, to develop a kind of rhetorical acrobatics of refusal. Thus in Letter 7, he limits his salutation—and, by implication, the letter—to “Anselm to Gundulf,” just to drive home the point that the mere mentioning of names tells the full story of affective union. In Letter 16, he voices his doubts concerning the added value of “letters flying”—by airmail, as it were—“to and fro, trans mare, from coast to coast.” All Gundulf has to do is “enter the inner chamber” of his heart to learn the status of their mutual affections. Finally, in an attempt to counter Gundulf’s stubborn insistence, Anselm

14 15

Ep. 41 (iii. 152–153). Translations are mine. Ep. 130; (iii. 271–273); trans. Sweeney, Anselm and the Desire for the Word, 48.

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turns to Pauline mysticism, to “things no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart conceived” (1Cor. 2:9; Letter 59): “Since you know that the flavour of love is not known with the eyes or ears, but is delightfully tasted only with the mouth of the heart, with which words and letters could your and my love be described? And yet you insist impertinently to me that I do what cannot be done.”16 Now we have sufficient information to do some business. Anselm’s so-called accuracy should be reassessed. While containing notions such as sola ratione and Christo remoto and, it should be added, faith, his work is not contained by them, to paraphrase Hugh Kenner’s characterization of Beckett’s Endgame: “the play contains whatever ideas we discern in it: no idea contains the play.”17 As a consequence, we should take into account the incoherence and fragmented nature of his Gesamtwerk as it is cut off from the nullity of any other language, logic or reality, any support of context. Of course, this is not to deny that Anselm argues coherently in passages in which he argues coherently, nor do I wish to confuse the use of different rhetorical genres with the notion of incoherence nor to ignore the presence of (a view of) language that can be assessed, as indeed has been successfully undertaken by Marcia Colish and Eileen Sweeney, as part of a late-antique, Augustinian and Boethian linguistic corpus.18 But the existence of a language embedded in tradition does not preclude the possibility of internal revolution and reversals such as Anselmian gaps and absences, pauses, slowings down and the shifts from one line or passage to another. More specifically, it is the fact that sola ratione and Christo remoto function as poetical principles within Anselm’s circular thought, subverting any language that he might use, whether the usus loquendi or the more technical language he inherited from his predecessors. This vertical and “fragmented” approach makes sense only if we acknowledge that, in the absence of any tertium comparationis with any other linguistic structure, it is organized from a centre rather than as a linear discourse. If we are indeed dealing with circularity rather than with linearity, we also have to acknowledge that the very centre of that circle is nothing less than a degree zero which, paradoxically, guarantees both Anselm’s immense accuracy and his fluidity. It is that very basic structure that allows for Anselm’s playfulness, for his shifts and absences as well as for his precision.

16 17 18

Ep. 59 (iii. 173–174). Hugh Kenner, Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study (London: Calder, 1962), 163. Sweeney, Anselm and the Desire for the Word; Marcia Colish, The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge, Revised Edition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983).

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Let me try to give some flesh to this peculiar geometry. As for the relationship between absent friends, we know by now that, perceived from the centre, no exchange of letters between monks is necessary or desirable. A bit further removed from that “degree zero,” but still within a circle immediately around it, we observe Anselm lamenting in a letter the absence of kisses and embraces or, using a different register, filling up the absent space with the Pauline “what no eye has seen”—which can be found if, just as in the Proslogion, one enters “the inner room of the heart.” Yet what seem to be different points of view are not mutually exclusive, corresponding as they do to the slow language of the monastery, where stating in so many words and, even more vociferously, making a double statement in the guise of sending letters about the lack of any necessity to write letters only intensifies, as in the Song of Songs, the mutual affect of love and longing. It is precisely this written denial that creates a poetic void, which proves to be presence and fullness. Thus Anselm writes to Gundulf: “For I am sure that you are not doing this [asking for letters] to have your love excited by letters lest it fall asleep or to have my love intimated that it stay awake” (Letter 59; Song of Songs 5:2). This negativity with regard to writing is an old trick on the part of Christian authors, with the sole purpose of evoking the intensity of affect and love. For Anselm, however, it is more than that, based as it is on a circularity in which distance or proximity to the centre creates lightness and freedom by locating problems of suffering and pain, joy and longing that become more “moveable” than they ever would be if they were on a straight line. In technical terms, Anselm achieves this effect, as we have seen, by means of using necessity only in the guise of a double negation (rephrasing it as “the impossibility not to”)—necessity in the reverse, so to speak—just as the denial of the need for mutual, Canticle-like exhortations (as discussed above) only reaffirms the bond of love: “I sleep but my heart is awake.” This is not a pre-existing necessity, imposed from the outside, but rather a necessity from within—a “following” (sequens).19 Likewise, the necessity of Christ’s incarnation in Cur Deus homo is equally sequens, resulting in the circular, tautological conclusion that Christ has suffered because he has suffered within the parameters of the necessitas sequens—just as, inversely, the fool from the Proslogion who denies the existence of God is proven to be a fool because he is a fool (cur, nisi quia stultus et insipiens?). It is hard sufficiently to appreciate the boldness and historical uniqueness of this approach and, within the history of Christian thought, I could not think

19

See cdh ii, 17 (iii. 125).

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of anything that comes close to Anselm’s experiment. Boldness, yes, as in Eckhart, but with Anselm we are far removed from the support—and escape—of negative theology, Entbildung/de-imaging, of abandoning form, and of mysticism at large. What comes to mind (my mind, that is), is the extraordinary experiment of dodecaphonic musical language, insofar as it did away with any support of musical plot and melodic development. Twelve tones, all interrelated, allowing for fragmentation, gaps, and movement backwards and forwards in a seemingly arbitrary sequence, bringing in the listener to “complete” the job. Anything beyond that nucleus of twelve tones was to be considered nullity. Just like Anselm with his prescriptions of loose reading, those composers almost asked the impossible from both themselves and their listeners. Yet they dared descend to the bottom of language. Pierre Boulez characterized this selfimposed challenge as follows: The problem of Schoenberg as well as of Kandinsky was their apprehensiveness viz-a viz chaos. How to master a formal frame being so loose without writing anything that goes? A dramatic argument or a poem allows us to avoid that obstacle, but without an argument and without a poem form must live on its own. For that reason it is either forced to hold on to historical references or it must impose new rules. Unsurprisingly, in the beginning Schoenberg, Berg and Webern needed texts in order to come up with their most extraordinary inventions.20 Why, then, does the reading of the opening lines of the first chapter of Proslogion, bring back to me the sound of Anton Webern’s Fünf Orchesterstücke, opus 10, lasting no more than four minutes altogether?21 Eia nunc, homuncio, fuge paululum occupationes tuas, absconde te modicum a tumultuosis cogitationibus tuis. Abice nunc oneras curas, et postpone laboriosas distentiones tuas. Vaca aliquantulum deo, et requiesce aliquantulum in eo. “Intra in cubiculum” mentis tuae, exclude omnia praeter deum et quae te iuvent ad quaerendum eum, et “clauso ostio” quaere eum. Dic nunc, “cor meum,” dic nunc deo: “Quaero vultum tuum; vultum tuum, domine, requiro.”

20 21

Pierre Boulez, Eclats 2002, ed. Claude Samuel (Paris: Mémoire du livre, 2002), 50–51. My translation. Cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwX7jPdFsD4: Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by Matthias Pintscher.

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Come now, little man, leave behind for a while your preoccupations, hide yourself for a moment from your tumultuous thoughts. Put down now your heavy concerns and postpone your laborious distractions. Make yourself somewhat free for God and rest somewhat in Him. “Enter into the inner chamber” of your mind, shut out everything except God and what may help you to seek him. And, “after closing the door,” seek Him. Speak now, “my whole heart,” speak now to God: “I seek your face, your face, o Lord, I seek.”22 Is it because all those diminutives—including the aliquantulum/“a bit” of the vacare deo—are somehow reminiscent of Webern’s pointillist notes, touching the surface of the ear, so to speak, yet displaying dimensions of infinite proportions by being squarely focused on the “face of God?” Or, to return to Seurat’s flâneurs in La Grande Jatte resting and strolling aliquantulum/a bit on a leisurely Sunday afternoon, does not all this smallness and slowness, these fragments and “points,” represent a “form of its own?” If that is indeed the case, Anselm is free to proceed with his unum argumentum, his sola ratione and his Christo remoto because, inside the inner sanctum of the mind, the constraints of authority can, if need be, be bracketed, lifted and suspended. It goes without saying that ultimately this so-called superfluity of presence owes its light and momentary epiphany to a centre that holds: the weight of divine existence: pondus dei. That very weight grants a break—or, rather, breaks—to the monk, who, once inside the cubiculum of his mind, keeps ever so often—modicum, aliquantulum—asking to see the face of God, not unlike the weary visitor of the Art Institute or the absent monastic friend being free to sip his coffee or not to write a letter. 22

Pros. 1 (i. 97).

But Is It Abuse? Feminist Readings of Sadomasochism in Cur Deus homo Maggie Ann Labinski

One of the longstanding criticisms that feminists have raised against the Western Christian tradition concerns its depiction of suffering. Many have argued that by glorifying the death of Jesus, Christianity encourages believers to embrace the presence of pain within their own lives.1 As Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker suggest, “The central image of Christ on the cross as the savior of the world communicates the message that suffering is redemptive. If the best person who ever lived gave his life for others, then, to be of value we should likewise sacrifice ourselves.”2 The issue is that such images are more than religious symbols. Christianity not only teaches that Jesus suffered willingly, it also teaches that all are called to imitate Him—to model their lives after His own. The blood soaked cross is, in other words, prescriptive.3 It endorses a particularly violent kind of faithful action, one tied to the deepest of Christian pleasures. The aim of Jesus’ suffering, the reward promised to those who elect to follow Him, is the immeasurable delight of the beata vita. To suffer as the Son is to suffer with confidence, trusting that the pain of the present will someday lead to the ecstasy of seeing His Father face-to-face. As a result, feminists have by and large proposed that the Christian interpretation of suffering is sadomasochistic. To respond faithfully to the cross—to reflect God in all things—is to understand pain as the condition of the pleasures of spiritual triumph. The inevitability of suffering—the tragedy of the human condition—provides ample opportunity for Christians to habituate themselves to this dynamic. Beverly Harrison and Carter Heyward explain: [S]adomasochism is acted out as the most typically “Christian” of all social relations: We learn to experience the deprivation of pleasure—the 1 The classic text here is Joanne Carlson Brown and Carole R. Bohn, ed. Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1989). 2 Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker, “For God So Loved the World,” in Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: A Feminist Critique, ed. Joanne Carlson Brown and Carole R. Bohn (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1989) 1–30, at 2. 3 As Brown and Parker suggest, “The imitator of Christ, which every faithful person is exhorted to be, can find herself choosing to endure suffering … [For] the disciple’s role is to suffer in the place of others, as Jesus suffered for us.” Ibid., 8.

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pain of being hurt, hungry, or rejected; of feeling weak, stupid, or bad in the immediate present—as a moment filled with intense anticipation of pleasure that is yet to come.4 So understood, sadomasochism is not only central to the traditional Christian account of suffering, it is a definitive aspect of daily Christian life. Feminists have drawn upon a variety of canonical texts to support them in this conclusion, and special attention has been paid to Anselm’s Cur Deus homo. Therein, Anselm offers one of the earliest Christian theories of human redemption.5 He and his interlocutor (a monk by the name of Boso) seek to defend the position that only Jesus’ suffering could compensate for human sin and open the joys of the afterlife.6 Feminist readers of their dialogue have maintained that Anselm’s attempt to rationalize this decidedly violent act of restitution marks the start of a long history of Christian sadomasochism: The Christian drama of salvation has been staged historically as a transaction between an almighty God and a powerless humanity. As the lower relational entity, humanity has been cast as a “fallen” partner, able to be “saved” or “redeemed” into right relation only insofar as human beings know ourselves to be unworthy of anything but punishment from God. Into our unworthy lives comes Jesus, the Christ, to bear our sins and submit, on our behalf, to the Father God’s Will. Thus, standing in for us … Jesus is humiliated and killed, becoming thereby a perfect sacrifice to the Father. As the classical portrait of the punitive character of this divinehuman transaction, Anselm of Canterbury’s doctrine of the atonement represents the sadomasochism of Christian teaching at its most transparent.7

4 Beverly W. Harrison and Carter Heyward, “Pain and Pleasure: Avoiding the Confusions of Christian Tradition in Feminist Theory,” in Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: A Feminist Critique, ed. Joanne Carlson Brown and Carole R. Bohn (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1989), 148–173, at 154. 5 For an overview see Brown and Parker, “For God So Loved the World,” 4–26. See also, Robert J. Daly, “Images of God and the Imitation of God: Problems with Atonement,” Theological Studies 68 (2007), 36–51; and Stephen Finlan, Problems with Atonement: The Origins of and Controversy About, the Atonement Doctrine (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2005). 6 As Anselm explains, “The question is this. By what logic or necessity did God become man, and by his death, as we believe and profess, restore life to the world, when he could have done this through the agency of some other person, angelic or human, or simply by willing it.” Cur Deus 1.1 (ii 48. 265). 7 Harrison and Heyward, “Pain and Pleasure,” 153.

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The status feminists have given to Anselm’s “doctrine” is not to be considered complimentary. While diverse in focus, these analyses have largely argued that insofar as it prompts individuals to take pleasure in pain, Anselm’s narrative— like all sadomasochistic narratives—is abusive.8 In particular, the message of Cur Deus homo would appear to ignore the lived reality of the most marginalized members of our communities—i.e., those who suffer the pain of systemic and inter-personal violence.9 For, unlike the example of Jesus, such bruises are not directed towards splendor or glory. When applied to these lives, Anselm’s sadomasochism hardly reflects “good news.” Instead, as Brown and Parker conclude, Anselm’s depiction of Jesus’ suffering is downright dangerous: “The reality is that victimization never leads to triumph. It can lead to extended pain if it is not refused or fought. It can lead to the destruction of the human spirit through the death of a person’s sense of power, worth, dignity, or creativity. It can lead to actual death.”10 The theology of Cur Deus homo is abusive, in other words, because of the voices it fails to hear. It is abusive because of the pain it allows to continue.11

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Brown and Parker suggest, “Christianity is an abusive theology that glorifies suffering … If Christianity is to be liberating for the oppressed, it must be liberated from this theology. We must do away with atonement, this idea of a blood sin upon the whole human race which can be washed away only by the blood of the lamb. This bloodthirsty God is the God of the patriarchy who at the moment controls the whole Judeo-Christian tradition.” Brown and Parker, “For God So Loved the Word,” 26. For an overview of theoretical approaches to this abuse and practical solutions, see Catherine Clark Kroeger and James R. Beck, ed. Women, Abuse and the Bible: How Scripture Can Be Used to Hurt or Heal (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999); Catherine Clark Kroeger and Nancy Nason-Clark, No Place for Abuse: Biblical and Practical Resources to Counteract Domestic Violence (Downers Grove: ivp Books, 2001, 2010); Nancy Nason-Clark and Catherine Clark Kroeger, Refuge From Abuse: Healing and Hope for Abused Christian Women (Downers Grove: ivp Books, 2004); Anne L. Horton and Judith A. Williamson, ed. Abuse and Religion: When Praying Isn’t Enough (Massachusetts/Toronto: Lexington Books, 1988); Carol J. Adams and Marie M. Fortune, ed. Violence Against Women and Children: A Christian Theological Sourcebook (New York: Continuum, 1998); Nancy Myer Hopkins and Mark Lasser, ed. Restoring the Soul of a Church: Healing Congregations Wounded by Clergy Sexual Misconduct (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1995); Marie Evans Bouchlin, Seeking Wholeness: Women Dealing with Abuse of Power in the Catholic Church (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2006); Mary John Mananzan et al, ed. Women Resisting Violence: Spirituality for Life (New York: Orbis Books, 1996). Brown and Parker, “For God So Loved the World,” 7. This is not to suggest that all feminists have argued Anselm’s narrative is abusive. For two alternatives, see Lisa Cahill, “Quaestio Disputata The Atonement Paradigm: Does It Still Have Explanatory Value?” Theological Studies 68 (2007), 418–432; Flora Keshgegian, “The Scandal of the Cross: Revisiting Anselm and His Feminist Critics,” Anglican Theological Review 82, no. 3 (2000), 475–492.

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Sadomasochism and Abuse

Without denying the value of this scholarship, I would like to suggest that it is essentially incomplete. I do not doubt that there is something sadomasochistic about Anselm’s understanding of Jesus’ suffering. Likewise, I wholeheartedly agree that it is crucial that our religious narratives account for those who continue to be pushed to the margins in violent ways. However, I am less certain about the very serious charge that has followed from these premises. I am less convinced that simply because it is sadomasochistic, the message of Cur Deus homo is abusive. To be fair, the charge of abuse is well supported by certain trends within the wider body of feminist research on sadomasochism. The majority of these studies have focused on the sexual practice of bdsm [i.e., bondage and discipline (B-D), dominance and submission (D-S), and sadism and masochism (S-M)].12 Sadomasochism is, of course, a broad term—irreducible to the realm of sex/sexuality. Still, beginning as far back as the “sex wars” of the 1970/80’s, bdsm has been treated as the example of sadomasochism par excellence.13 Radical feminists, in particular, have used their investigations of bdsm as a benchmark from which to critique a number of sadomasochistic permutations.14 The recurring conclusion of their work has been that sadomasochism upholds abusive politics, advances abusive cultures.15 Sadomasochism would seem to prevent communities from critiquing the patterns of dominance/submission that remain in the world today. It would appear to limit our ability to question the ways in which such patterns require the “sadism” of some to the social/political detriment of others.

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15

The name of this set of sexual practices has undergone many changes—e.g., sadomasochism, sm, and (more recently) bdsm. Herein, I will follow the lead of current scholarship. At the very least, when “the personal is political,” the implications of our sexual experiences take on new meaning. For an overview of the relationship between sex and the social/political sphere see, Carole S. Vance, ed. Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984). Key texts include: Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978); Shulamith Firestone, Dialectic of Sex (New York: Morrow, 1970); Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (New York: Doubleday, 1970); Robin Linden et al, ed. Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis (San Francisco: the Well, 1982). Much of this argument overlaps with the “abuses” of pornography and prostitution. See Judith Walkowitz, “The Politics of Prostitution,” in Feminism and Sexuality: A Reader, ed. Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 288–296; Andrea Dworkin, “Pornography,” in Feminism and Sexuality: A Reader, ed. Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 297–299.

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And yet, while it is true that radical feminists have argued for the abusive implications of sadomasochism, their insights represent only one half of the scholarly conversation—one side of the “sex wars.” Also beginning as far back as the 1970/80’s, sex-positive (or pro-sex) feminists have maintained that there is nothing necessarily abusive about bdsm.16 The issue, as Pat Califia suggests, is that radical feminists have assumed a particularly ill-informed conception of bdsm—one rooted in its misrepresentation by popular culture: There is a paucity of accurate, explicit, nonjudgmental information about sex in modern America. This is one way sexual behavior is controlled … Because sadomasochism is usually portrayed as a violent, dangerous activity, most people do not think there is a great deal of difference between a rapist and a bondage enthusiast. [But,] sadomasochism is not a form of sexual assault. It is a consensual activity.17 Like most sexual practices, bdsm is more complicated than its stereotypes imply and privy to a variety of expressions. As such, it is open to reflecting a variety of social/political agendas, including the liberatory goals of feminism. This multiplicity indicates, as Patrick Hopkins argues, that feminist investigations of sadomasochism demand a greater “degree of subtlety … than has previously been employed.”18 It may be the case that some versions of sadomasochism are beyond reproof. However, it is also likely that others are personally, if not socially/politically, beneficial. The unilateral reduction of Anselm’s sadomasochism to the charge of abuse would seem, therefore, to underutilize the range of this scholarship. Feminist readers have not yet clarified the specific kind of sadomasochism implicated by Anselm’s examination of Jesus’ suffering. They have failed to grapple with the particulars of Anselm’s account. To this end, in what follows I will investigate three such particulars, each of which remains central to the broader body of feminist research into sadomasochism—i.e., the status of (1) submission, 16

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Key texts include: Pat Califia, Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex (Pittsburgh: Cleis Press, 1994); Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” in Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, ed. Carole S. Vance (London: Routledge, 1984), 267–319; Carole Vance, ed. Pleasure and Danger. For a more recent volume in this arena, see Merri Lisa Johnson, ed. Jane Sexes it Up: True Confessions of Feminist Desire (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002). Califia, “Feminism and Sadomasochism,” in Feminism and Sexuality: A Reader, ed. Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 230–237, at 232. Patrick D. Hopkins, “Rethinking Sadomasochism: Feminism, Interpretation, and Simulation,” Hypatia 9, no. 1 (1994), 116–141, at 118.

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(2) desire, and (3) responsibility. Does Anselm’s understanding of these topics reflect the abuses articulated by radical feminists? Or, does he at all grapple with the complexity put forth by their sex-positive colleagues? Given the privilege feminists have afforded the unique practice of bdsm, I will follow suit, all the while acknowledging that the implications of Anselm’s account are not limited to the arena of sex/sexuality. I will conclude by briefly exploring how feminist readers of Anselm might move forward. Can our analyses of the past hear the voices of all those who suffer in the present, including those who face the violence of sexual “scapegoating?”19

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Submission

One of the leading conversations throughout feminist scholarship on bdsm concerns the status of submission. Many radical feminists have argued that the concept of submission is abusive because it requires individuals to forfeit their agency. As Audre Lorde explains, this forfeiting is not restricted to the bedroom: Sadomasochism is an institutionalized celebration of dominant/subordinate relationships … it prepares us either to accept subordination or to enforce dominance. Even in play, to affirm that the exertion of power over powerlessness is erotic, is empowering, is to set the emotional and social stage for the continuation of that relationship, politically, socially, and economically.20 Submission would seem to be the very antithesis of agency, akin to sexual slavery. It would appear to foster a state of complacency, forcing its participants to rest content in their obedience to a “dominant” other. The invitation to occupy such a state should be unappealing. Unfortunately, as Diana Russell argues, the erasure of personal responsibility is often alluring, especially for those whose marginalization has left them believing that justice is but a pipe dream.21 The notion of submission, thereby, is but a useful tool for maintaining systems of 19 20

21

Rubin, “Thinking Sex,” 301. Audre Lorde, “Interview,” in Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis, ed. Robin Linden Darlene R. Pagano, Diana E.H. Russell, and Susan Leight Star (Pittsburgh: Frog in the Well, 1982), 68–71, at 68. This, in other words, is the consequence of the “internalization” of oppression. Diana E.H. Russell, “Sadomasochism: A Contra-Feminist Activity” in Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis, eds. Linden, Robin, Darlene R. Pagano, Diana E.H. Russell, and Susan Leight Star (Pittsburgh: Frog in the Well, 1982), 176–183.

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oppression. It targets the most vulnerable members of our communities and encourages them to comply with their suffering through the abdication of their free will. The apparent contradiction between submission and agency is of equal concern to Anselm in his consideration of the suffering of Jesus. As Harrison and Heyward suggest, one of Anselm’s working assumptions is that in order for Jesus’ suffering to be “perfect”—in order for His death to make possible the delights of the afterlife—it must have been freely chosen.22 More specifically, it cannot have been the case that Jesus went to the cross in a spirit of submission to His Father.23 Such passivity would not only problematize the extent of His Father’s “justice.”24 It would also call into question the “rationality” of this salvific transaction.25 For, why would a God ask any innocent free agent to forfeit themselves for the sake of the sinful? The problem, as Anselm’s interlocutor argues, is that there are several passages in the Christian Bible that infer that Jesus did submit to the cross. Of special contention is the text’s use of the language of obedience: For it is said that Christ “humbled himself, becoming obedient even to death, death, moreover, on the cross; because of which God has raised him up on high,” and that “He learnt obedience from his sufferings,” and that the Father “did not spare his only Son but handed him over on behalf of us all” … Everywhere here it is apparent that Christ endured death under the compulsion of obedience, rather than through the intention of his own free will.26 Obedience implies passivity, reducing the crucifixion to the “compulsions” of a physical (if not spiritual) slave. So understood, Jesus’ suffering suggests a Son doubly abused—once for the death of His body and once for the death of His will. Faced with the possibility of this undesirable outcome, Anselm reaches for an alternative that might hold onto Jesus’ agency without ignoring the content of Christian scriptures. He argues that the events surrounding Jesus’ suffer-

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Harrison and Heyward, “Pain and Pleasure,” 153. Anselm is clear: “[T]he Father did not coerce Christ to face death against his will, or give permission for him to be killed, but Christ himself of his own volition underwent death in order to save mankind.” Cur Deus 1.8 (ii. 60. 275). Ibid. Ibid., (ii. 59. 274–275). Ibid., (ii. 60. 275–276).

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ing involved both an act of free will and an act of submission. Anselm begins by seeking out a clearer definition of the word “obedience”—one that might clarify if and when submission could ever be considered appropriate. Not surprisingly, Anselm looks to his God for insight. What kind of obedience appeals to Jesus’ Father? What version does the Christian God “demand:” A: Why did the Jews persecute Christ to the extent of killing him? B: For no other reason than that he had maintained truth and righteousness unflinchingly in his way of life and in what he said. A: This, I think, is what God demands from every rational creature, and every creature owes this to God as a matter of obedience.27 The crucifixion does, according to Anselm, suggest an element of submission. However, it is very specific in its focus. This is because there is only one kind of obedience that is fitting enough for God to require—i.e., that which seeks to maintain “truth and righteousness.” It is this most proper example of obedience, and it alone, that Anselm argues Jesus exemplified. He explains: God, therefore, did not force Christ to die, there being no sin in him. Rather, he underwent death of his own accord, not out of an obedience consisting in the abandonment of his life, but out of an obedience consisting in his upholding of righteousness so bravely and pertinaciously that as a result he incurred death.28 Jesus did not submit to His suffering. Rather, His obedience was directed towards an object worthy of His submission, worthy of His Father to demand. Jesus was obedient to “upholding the righteousness” of humanity’s reconciliation with God. He submitted to the “truth” that only He could make the pleasures of such reconciliation a reality. Anselm, thus, concludes: “Since no one else could perform the deed, this consideration was as weighty, from the point of view of the Son, in his desire for the salvation of mankind, as if the Father were instructing him to die. Hence he acted … ‘obedient even to death.’ ”29

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Ibid., 1.9 (ii. 61. 276). Ibid., (ii. 62. 277). Ibid., (ii. 64. 279).

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By extension, Anselm’s divinely inspired understanding of obedience verifies the existence of Jesus’ agency on that terrible day. Anselm argues that there are often repercussions to “upholding righteousness,” and the present case is no exception. Jesus’ obedience resulted in suffering coming His way—suffering which, Anselm deduces, He then and only then freely chose to undertake. One need not collapse, in other words, the line between “on the one hand, what Christ did because of the demands of his obedience, and, on the other, the suffering, inflicted upon him because he maintained his obedience.”30 In fact, Anselm’s definition of obedience indicates one cannot effect such a collapse. To reduce the crucifixion to an act of submission alone contradicts the “demands” outlined by God. These “demands” imply that while the pleasures of reconciliation may be attributed to Jesus’ obedience, the pain of the cross rests fully with His will. It is a both/and that has much in common with the sentiments of sexpositive feminism. Unlike their colleagues, scholars here have argued that while bdsm may well involve submission, this need not be understood as dissolving all traces of human agency. The events of a bdsm scene involve both. They demand both. Like Anselm, Gayle Rubin argues that this becomes clear when one acknowledges the proper definition of submission.31 Though popular conceptions of bdsm may infer otherwise, the intended goal of submission is not pain. It is not sexual slavery. Rather, in the “play”32 of bdsm, submission is directed towards a very valuable object—i.e., pleasure.33 The value of pleasure, as Amber Hollibaugh indicates, rests in its ability to inspire sexual honesty, despite what traditional narratives may deem as sexually “correct.”34 An awareness of one’s pleasure encourages individuals to be cognizant of themselves

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Ibid., (ii. 61. 276). For Rubin, such definitions are similarly tied to consent. Rubin, “The Leather Menace: Comments on Politics and S/M,” in Coming to Power: Writings And Graphics on Lesbian S/M, ed. Samois (Boston: Alyson Publications, Inc., 1982), 192–225, at 224. On the use of the word “play,” see Margot Weiss, “Working at Play: bdsm Sexuality in the San Francisco Bay Area,” Anthropologica 48, no. 2 (2006), 229–245. Califia, “Feminism and Sadomasochism,” 234. Hollibaugh explains: “Every time we have been afraid of our desires, we have robbed ourselves of the ability to act. Our collective fear of the dangers of sexuality has forced us into a position where we have created a theory from the body of damage done to us. We have marked out a smaller and smaller space for feminists to be sexual and fewer and fewer actual ways for physical feelings to be considered ‘correct’ … We must say we want sex and set our own terms.” Amber Hollibaugh, “Desire for the Future: Radical Hope in Passion and Pleasure,” in Feminism and Sexuality: A Reader, ed. Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 224–229.

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and forthright with their partners. Pleasure is, in other words, an object worthy of human submission. For, it is key to upholding “truth and righteousness unflinchingly” in our sexual lives. However, to submit to such pleasure—to support the perseverance of “truth and righteousness” in the bedroom—also has repercussions. We cannot always imagine where our pleasures will lead. We cannot always foresee what will be revealed. One possible revelation is the knowledge that one’s own pleasure, or that of their partner, intersects with pain. This understanding invites a response. Will I engage? For how long? In what way? It is a response that, sex-positive feminists have argued, depends entirely on the choices of the participants—the free motion of their agency. Evidence of this can be seen in the contribution bdsm has made to the wider discourse on sexual consent.35 Consent is largely considered to be the chief way that we preserve sexual agency and avoid sexual abuse.36 Interestingly enough, it is often more explicit in bdsm than other sexual practices. Carol Truscott asserts: The starting point of all S/M relationships, then, is talk of the most intimate kind. The talk is about what S/M play gets the potential partners off; who will assume which role … what each person’s limits are; whether or not safe words are allowed or required, and if so, what they are … traditional relationships don’t usually begin with this intimate a discussion.37 The kind of consent given through the use of safe words not only transcends that implied in certain “vanilla” sexual tropes—e.g., “I lost myself in a moment of pure spontaneity.” It also reveals bdsm to be a potentially powerful site of both submission and free will. So understood, sadomasochism would hardly seem abusive. If anything, it would seem socially/politically fruitful. It prompts individuals to rigorously, and vocally, heed the line between the voluntary and the involuntary.

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The issue of consent has become so crucial to contemporary theorizing about sexual agency that it is often considered to be the only real indicator that sex has taken place. As Greta Christina argues, “As far as I’m concerned, if there’s no consent, it ain’t sex. But I feel that’s about the only place in this whole quagmire where I have a grip.” Greta Christina, “Are We Having Sex Now or What,” in The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings, eds. Alan Soble and Nicholas Power (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 23– 30, at 28. Ibid., 27–28. Carol Truscott, “S/M: Some Questions and A Few Answers,” in Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, ed. Mark Thompson (Boston: Alyson Publications, Inc., 1991), 15–36, at 19.

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Desire

A second issue of import within feminist research on bdsm concerns the nature of desire. Perhaps sadomasochism does not dissolve human agency. Maybe it is true that bdsm depends upon the choices of its participants. However, it is unclear why anyone would freely make such a choice. More specifically, radical feminists have argued that it is unclear what would compel someone to desire to inflict or receive pain with a sexual partner. Sadomasochistic desires would appear to run contrary to our most innate longings—e.g., those that privilege safety and personal (if not communal) well-being. Given this, scholars have argued that the practice of bdsm is abusive because it requires manipulation.38 The origins of these desires would seem to depend upon consistent social/political conditioning that all too conveniently mimics the oppressive leanings of traditional patriarchy. After all, what better way to keep an individual silent then to convince her that she desires the pain of her own marginalization? Luce Irigaray explains: That she may find pleasure there in that role, by proxy, is possible, even certain. But such pleasure is above all a masochistic prostitution of her body to a desire that is not her own, and it leaves her in a familiar state of dependency … Thus she will not say what she herself wants; moreover, she does not know, or no longer knows.39 Anselm’s investigation of Jesus’ suffering raises similar questions about the potentially manipulative roots of His desire. The conclusion the interlocutors have reached—the notion that Jesus was not passive in His death—suggests that He desired to face the cross. However, this only raises the issue of the origin of His longings. The violence of the crucifixion would appear to render such desires decidedly counterintuitive. As Boso stipulates, it simply is not apparent why “the Most High should stoop to such humble things; that the Almighty should do something with such great laboriousness.”40

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This position is shared with many feminist theologians in their analyses of violence and desire (Christian eros). See Alyda Faber, “Eros and Violence,” Feminist Theology 12, no. 3 (2004), 319–342; Kathleen Sands, “Uses of the Thea(o)logian: Sex and Theodicy in Religious Feminism,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 8, no. 1 (1992), 7–33. Luce Irigaray, “This Sex Which Is Not One,” in Feminism and Sexuality: A Reader, eds. Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 79–83, at 80. Cur Deus 1.8 (ii. 59. 274).

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Anselm initially, if not inadvertently, all but confirms the prospect of manipulation—the charge of abuse. He declares that Jesus’ desires could only originate from a single Source: Indeed, no man possesses the truth that he teaches, or a just desire, from himself, but from God. Christ, therefore, did not come to do his will, but the will of the father, because the just desire which he had came not from his humanity but from his divinity … For, just as it was not in accordance with human nature that he had the will to live righteously, correspondingly he could not have had that desire whereby he was willing to die in order to bring about something so exceedingly good, from any source other than from “the father of lights” by whom “every excellent gift and every perfect gift is given.”41 Linking the desires of the Son to the will of the Father answers the question of origins. But, it also implies that these longings are caught in a particularly vicious cycle. If Jesus’ choice to suffer was the result of a desire given from on High, it is not obvious how one could claim that His actions were truly His own. The roots of this desire would seem to infer the ultimate form of manipulation—i.e., an act of divine conditioning. In this way, the interlocutors’ dialogue compounds the question of the “justice” of Jesus’ Father and the “rationality” of His Son’s suffering.42 For, what man could resist any gift doled out by a God, even if it is a gift that will ultimately lead to the pain of death?43 Who could refuse the “drawing” of His Father?44 It is a scenario that Anselm quickly moves to avoid. He proposes that, though divinely inspired, Jesus’ desires do not infer a framework of manipulation. In particular, Anselm claims that there is simply no proof of foul play—no evidence that Jesus was coerced. If anything, there are clear functional similarities between the “drawing” that led Jesus to the cross and that which leads any of us to fulfill our deepest longings: For indeed, since everyone is “drawn” or “impelled” to something which he steadfastly desires, it is not inappropriate for it to be asserted of God

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Ibid., 1.9–10 (ii. 63–64. 278–280). Ibid., 1.8 (ii. 60; 275); (ii. 59; 274–275). As Anselm’s interlocutor reiterates, even Jesus could but ask: “The cup which my Father gave me, shall I not drink it?” Ibid. (ii. 60. 276). Ibid., 1.10 (ii. 64–66. 280–281).

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that he “draws” or “impels” when he is the giver of such a desire. In this “drawing” or “impulsion” there is no inevitable element of violence which is understood to be present: rather a spontaneous and heartfelt wish to hold on to the good desire which has been received.45 Jesus’ response to His desire does not indicate any trace of violence. What it does reveal is a “spontaneous” and “heartfelt” attempt to fulfill what He longs for—i.e., to make possible the salvation of humankind in a way that is fitting to His Father.46 There is, surely, a certain convenience in the overlap between Jesus’ desires and His Father’s will. However, this does not mean that the events of the crucifixion are the result of a vicious cycle or an ulterior divine agenda. Given the lack of evidence to the contrary, what, then, is responsible for all the fuss? What prompted Boso to suspect manipulation when there was no real sign of violence? Anselm submits that, in fact, Boso’s reaction is only too common. Many Christians, he argues, are suspicious about the content of Jesus’ desires. To believe that His suffering paid the price of human sin does not preclude feelings of skepticism about the pain itself. However, Anselm declares that such doubts are unwarranted. He argues that less contentious reflections of Jesus’ desires are only too common in our communities—so much so that we have made a habit out of urging each other to fulfill them. Anselm proposes that this is because, in these examples, we recognize the difference between the pain of the present and the pleasures of the future: “For instance, when we see someone wishing to endure an affliction bravely, in order that he may bring a good desire to fulfillment, although we express a wish for him to endure that suffering, the object of our wish and our love is not his suffering, but his will-power.”47 As such, Anselm asks Boso to reconsider his skepticism. He destigmatizes Jesus’ desires, eradicating the assumption that the presence of pain alone infers manipulation, infers abuse. It is a position well-reflected in the conclusions of sex-positive feminism. In response to the concerns of radical feminists, scholars here have argued that much of the suspicion surrounding bdsm is due to unnecessary skepticism about pain. Opponents of bdsm simply forget the myriad of ways in which pain and pleasure often come together as we seek to fulfill our desires. Historically, as Califia describes, this forgetting has been especially pronounced for human sex/sexuality:

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Ibid. (ii 65. 280). Ibid. Ibid. (ii 65. 280–281).

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Pain is a subjective experience. Depending on the context, a certain sensation may frighten you, make you angry, urge you on, or get you hot. People choose to endure pain or discomfort if the goal they are striving for makes it worthwhile. Long distance runners are not generally thought of as sex perverts … The fact that masochism is disapproved of when stressful athletic activity … is not is an interesting example of the way sex is made a special case in our society. We seem to be incapable of using the same reason and compassion we apply to nonsexual issues to formulate our positions on sexual issues.48 The overlap of pain and pleasure is a common feature of a range of human experiences. Nevertheless, unlike bdsm, the majority of this range is not considered abusive. We do not question the desires of the athlete who chooses to play through serious injuries. We do not consider the longings of the marathon runner to be rooted in patriarchal manipulation. As a result, sex-positive feminists have called for the de-stigmatization of such sexual desires. One of the ways this process has, thus far, been encouraged is through the creative expansion of fetishes.49 Historically, the word fetish has been used to regulate the terms of a community’s sexual hierarchy. “Normal” people have likes/dislikes. The “others” have fetishes. Sex-positive feminists have called into question this socially/politically loaded either/or. The popularity of roses, chocolates, and raised beds in the West does not imply that these objects are not fetishes. It simply infers that they are numerically common. As Califia argues: The world is not divided into people who have sexual fetishes and people who don’t. There is a continuum of response to certain objects, substances, and parts of the body. Very few people are able to enjoy sex with anyone, regardless of their appearance. Much fetishism probably passes as “normal” sexuality because the required cues are so common and easy to obtain that no one notices how necessary they are.50 To embrace the fetishes present in one’s own sexual practices sends a clear message. It signals that my desires need not dictate your sexual baseline. It attunes us to the human-ness of the sexual agents in our communities—including

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Califia, “Feminism and Sadomasochism,” 234. Ibid., 235. Ibid.

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those whose longings are different than our own.51 It works, in other words, to put an end to the real abuse—i.e., the all too sexually manipulative theory that some (traditional) desires should be the measure for all.

4

Responsibility

One final topic that continues to occupy feminist scholars of bdsm speaks to the question of social/political responsibility. Perhaps sadomasochistic desires do not imply manipulation. Maybe it is true that the overlap of pain and pleasure is more prevalent than it initially appeared. Still, radical feminists have indicated that a more basic issue remains—basic to the heart of feminist politics. More specifically, it is unclear how one might reconcile the “imagery” of bdsm (e.g., bondage, etc.) with the presence of injustice in our world. Hopkins explains: The radicals’ claim is that such imagery is not seen by viewers as rigidly compartmentalized into a self-conscious fantasy, separated from maledominated culture, but is instead an uncritical reinforcement of female submission and powerlessness central to the structures of patriarchal sexuality.52 The fact remains that we do not currently live in the best of all possible worlds. Instead, ours is a world where sadomasochism has the potential to perpetuate risky assumptions—myths about the suffering that “real women” find pleasurable: One can easily imagine that those masculinist men who might have access to such images will have little more critical insight than to defend their sexual desires or their version of women’s sexual desires by grunting, “Well she’s a woman and she likes it” or “Well she’s a feminist and she likes it.”53 As such, radical feminists have argued that bdsm is abusive because it is socially/politically irresponsible.54 Feminists, it would seem, owe each other 51 52 53 54

To be clear, de-stigmatization need not dismiss the differences between desires. Sex is not the same as running. Crucifixion is not the same as sex. Hopkins, “Rethinking Sadomasochism,” 131. Ibid. See Elisa Glick, “Sex Positive: Feminism, Queer Theory, and The Politics of Transgression,”

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better. Feminists have an obligation to work towards the goals of the movement. We have a duty to use even our sexual lives to transform the world into a safer place. The issue of responsibility is also of import to Anselm in his consideration of Jesus’ suffering. The interlocutors have made great progress in their investigation of Jesus’ desires. However, Boso is still left wondering whether these desires are not ultimately incidental to the crucifixion. Is it not more likely that the real cause of Jesus’ suffering rests outside Himself? More pointedly, is it not more accurate to say that Jesus faced the cross out of a deep sense of spiritual responsibility, if not familial obligation: You say that, when Christ died, he gave something which he did not owe. But no one will deny that, when he set this example in the way he did, he acted in a better way, and one more pleasing to God, than if he had not done this. And no one will say that he ought not to do something which he understood to be the better option and more pleasing to God. How, therefore, are we to assert that he did not owe to God what he did—namely, what he knew to be the better and more pleasing to God—especially since a creature owes to God all that it is, and all that it knows and is capable of?55 Boso’s question shares the form (though not the content) of the conclusion of radical feminism. In light of Jesus’ responsibilities to His Father, does He not “owe” the crucifixion? Would it not be (theologically) risky for Jesus’ life to suggest otherwise—to suggest that it is acceptable to give anything but what God considers “better and more pleasing?” It is a possibility that revives the ongoing question of the “justice” and “rationality” of the events of His death.56 For, when the God dictates the terms of our responsibilities there is, arguably, little wiggle room. God’s omniscience would appear to secure the truth of His “better options,” the certainty of His “pleasures.” Anselm’s response to Boso attempts to locate a middle ground. He does not deny the certainty of his God’s preferences. But, he does deny that Jesus’ actions are in any way reducible to a sense of indebtedness to His Father. Anselm’s argument draws upon his belief in the most basic gift of creation—i.e., the possibility of choice. He states:

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Feminist Review 64 (2000), 19–45; Melinda Vadas, “A Reply to Patrick Hopkins,” Hypatia 10, no. 2 (1995), 159–161. Cur Deus 2.18 (ii. 128. 350). Ibid., 1.8 (ii. 60. 275); (ii. 59. 274–275).

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Although a creature possesses nothing of itself, none the less, when God gives it leave to do or not to do something with his permission, he is granting it the gift of having two options, under such terms that, although one option may be better, neither is definitely demanded. Instead, whether the creature does what is better, or the alternative, it is said that what it is doing is what it ought to do.57 While it is true that God holds a hierarchy of goods and pleasures, this does not infer that human beings “owe” Him the top of the list. For, if not in some instances, the paradox of creation is precisely the opportunity to choose. So, too, Anselm concludes was Jesus “granted the gift” of diverse options. While His Father clearly had His own preferences on the matter, Anselm argues that these did not force Jesus’ hand. Instead, God understood the cross to fall under His Son’s “own prerogative to do or not to do.”58 Anselm leaves the full range of choices God allows for human beings unspoken. However, he does offer one particularly pertinent example to help shed light on the case at hand—i.e., sexual lifestyles: For instance, although virginity is better than marriage, neither is definitely demanded from a human being. Rather, it is said of a person who prefers to marry, and of one who prefers to preserve virginity, that this is what he ought to do. For no one says that a person ought not to choose virginity, or marriage. Rather, we say that what a person prefers, before choosing one of these options, he ought to do. And if he preserves his virginity, he looks forward to a reward for the voluntary gift which he is offering to God. When, therefore, you say that a creature owes to God what it knows is better and what it is capable of, this is not invariably true.59 Though it is true that God finds virginity to be “better” and “more pleasing” than marriage, Anselm argues that human beings do not “owe” God a life of virginity. Despite even God’s erotic preferences, human beings are allowed a multiplicity of sexual options. To identify as a Christian does not, in other words, require that one claim responsibility to a particular kind of sexual life. Rather, to identify as a Christian is to embrace the gift of creation—a gift that, while delineating a hierarchy, celebrates diversity.60 57 58 59 60

Ibid., 2.18 (ii. 128. 350). Ibid. (ii. 129. 351). Ibid. (ii. 128. 350). There are surely limits to Anselm’s example. At the very least, one might question the

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Anselm’s emphasis on the importance of such diversity is very much shared by sex-positive feminists. As Hopkins suggests, bdsm is not the first sexual practice that some have attempted to problematize by appealing to social/political responsibility.61 In the 1970/80’s, for example, several feminists argued that all forms of heterosexuality were also irresponsible.62 Women owed each other— owed the movement—more. Esther Newton and Shirley Walton explain: “The underlying reasoning goes like this: men have power, women don’t. Heterosexuality involves a man and a woman, hence an oppressor and a victim … Do away with heterosexuality and you do away with sexual oppression.”63 The flaws in such reasoning were soon revealed for what they were—i.e., divisive and deeply ignorant of the diversity of feminist experience.64 As Hollibaugh argues, the “assumptions” that hover around such appeals to responsibility are as revelatory as they are regretful: There are many assumptions at work behind feminist expressions of surprise and horror: I must be stupid or I could have done something better than that; I must have been forced against my will or I was just too young to know better; I have pre-feminist consciousness; I had a terrible family life … Unfortunately, the idea that sexual variation, that difference, could be the key to analyzing sexuality and desire, a way of untying the stubborn knots of a bitterly heterosexist culture, has yet to appear distinctly enough in our theorizing about sexuality.65

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ostensible reduction of our sexual choices to the practices of marriage and virginity. However, by encouraging human beings to own the gift of choice, Anselm’s narrative leaves room for the sexual diversity these choices imply. Hopkins, “Rethinking Sadomasochism,” 133. See Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” in Feminism and Sexuality: A Reader, eds. Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 130–143; Cheryl Clarke, “Lesbianism: An Act of Resistance,” in Feminism and Sexuality: A Reader, eds. Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 155–161. This claim came on the heels of others (like Betty Friedan) who argued that lesbianism (or the “Lavender Menace”) was irresponsible. Newton and Walton, “The Misunderstanding: Toward a More Precise Sexual Vocabulary,” in Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, ed. Carole S. Vance (London: Routledge, 1984), 242–250, at 247. As Susan Ardill and Sue O’Sullivan argue, the failure to recognize the sexual diversity that exists amongst feminists themselves has been a recurring problem for feminists. Ardill and O’Sullivan, “Upsetting an Applecart: Difference, Desire, and Lesbian Sadomasochism,” Feminist Review 80 (2005), 98–126, at 100. Hollibaugh, “Desire for the Future,” 404.

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It is a “key” that beseeches us to acknowledge that sex is neither solely the byproduct of a particular cultural context nor an exclusively informed (and, thereby) political choice. Our sexual practices—as all our social/political practices—grow in the messy spaces between. These spaces suggest, as Margot Weiss concludes, that sexual activity is “more fluid and less binary” than identity.66 It cannot simply be reduced to the metaphysical hierarchies implicated by our political ideals. More pressingly, if the goal of feminism is to assure a sense of social/political responsibility, it is not at all clear how dictating the terms of another’s sexuality might bring this goal to fruition. The real abuse would seem to occur when we refuse to allow an individual to make her own informed decisions—when we deny her the gift that (even!) God is willing to offer, the gift of choice.67 Chris Daley concludes, “I trust women to make healthy decisions and believe we are at our most extraordinary when free to express our most complicated desires. We have the ability to transform practices developed in patriarchal cultures into turn-ons, sexing up what would have otherwise tied us down.”68

5

Moving Forward

Feminist readings of Cur Deus homo have raised important questions. However, they have also ignored the range of feminist scholarship on sadomasochism. It is a range that invites us to take a closer look at the details of Anselm’s narrative. To this end, I have argued that the version of sadomasochism Anselm offers is more nuanced than meets the eye. Anselm does not present Jesus’ suffering carelessly—encouraging, thereby, the abuse of His disciples. Instead, he makes a point to avoid such abuse at every turn. More specifically, Anselm’s sadomasochism invites Christians (1) to rigorously heed the line between submission and agency, (2) to recognize the pain-filled choices we might make to fulfill our deepest desires, and (3) to embrace the impossible gift of human choice. Accordingly, Cur Deus homo not only casts the call of the cross in a very different light, it also foreshadows the insights of sex-positive feminism. 66 67

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Weiss, “Working at Play,” 233. As Pat Califia suggests, if feminists owe each other anything, it is the freedom to exist across this diversity: “My fantasy is that kinkiness and sexual variation will multiply, not disappear, if terrible penalties are no longer meted out for being sexually adventurous.” Califia, “Feminism and Sadomasochism,” 236. Chris Daley, “Of the Flesh Fancy: Spanking and the Single Girl,” in Jane Sexes It Up: True Confessions of Feminist Desire, ed. Merri Lisa Johnson, 127–138. (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002), 127–138, at 128.

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These are insights that push feminists to reconsider what motivated us to engage with Anselm in the first place—i.e., the conviction that any religious narrative about suffering should take into account those who exist on the receiving end of systemic and inter-personal violence. Feminists were driven to read Anselm by people—by those whose experiences have been ignored by the dominant narratives of the Christian tradition. Still, it would seem that there are other people—other voices—that this conviction would have us consider.69 In particular, there are those whose sexual lives have been unceremoniously rendered “abusive” by such counter-canonical readings.70 As Maneesha Decka explains, the individuals who participate in the set of sexual practices that fall under the umbrella of bdsm represent another social/political “subculture”—one that has survived a multitude of physical, psychological, and spiritual acts of discrimination, including the violence of widespread hatred, distrust, and sexual objectification.71 To move beyond a singular understanding of sadomasochism—to avoid labeling all such practices abusive—is to recognize this violence.72 It is to resist the temptation to further ostracize those who have been a very useful “scapegoat” for a host of social/political ills.73 The ongoing presence of this scapegoating within our academic communities suggests that we must begin to resist the polarizing mentality that has defined our scholarship. Feminist analyses of sadomasochism are, as Lynn Chancer argues, desperately in need of a more “synthetic” approach—one that would support the critique74 of our sexual/theological narratives but not the 69

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For an account of the importance of opening our scholarship, see Elizabeth Spelman, Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988), 1–17. It is a failure that turns the charge of abuse on its head, leaving Califia to argue: “We make you uncomfortable, partly because we’re different, partly because we’re sexual, and partly because we’re not so different. I’d like to know when you’re going to quit blaming us, the victims of sexual repression, for the oppression of [others]. I’d like to know when you’re going to quit objectifying us.” Califia, “Feminism and Sadomasochism,” 236–237. Maneesha Deckha, “Pain as Culture: A Postcolonial Feminist Approach to S/M and Women’s Agency,” Sexualities 14, no. 2 (2011), 129–150, at 132. See also Elizabeth Freeman, “Turn the Beat Around: Sadomasochism, Temporality, History,” A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 19, no. 1 (2008), 32–70. Likewise, it is unclear if such labeling would ultimately benefit the lives of those who have faced other forms of violence. As Gayle Rubin argues, “The anti-S/M discourse … could easily become a vehicle for a moral witch hunt. It provides a ready-made defenseless target population … The ultimate result of such a moral panic would be the legalized violation of a community of harmless perverts. It is dubious that such a sexual witch-hunt would make any appreciable contribution towards reducing violence.” Rubin, “Thinking Sex,” 299. Ibid., 301. For an account of the value of critique, see Marie Fortune, “The Transformation of Suf-

but is it abuse? feminist readings of sadomasochism

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continuation of our interpretive “wars.”75 Such an approach not only requires ongoing dialogue across these issues.76 It insists that these dialogues—these readings of Anselm—be guided by the voices of all survivors of violence, including those whom many have refused to hear.77

75

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77

fering: A Biblical and Theological Perspective,” in Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: A Feminist Critique, eds. Joanne Carlson Brown and Carole R. Bohn (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1989), 139–147. Lynn S. Chancer, “From Pornography to Sadomasochism: Reconciling Feminist Differences,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 571 (2000), 77–88, at 84. As Paula Webster suggests, it is a challenge that feminist readers are uniquely capable of accomplishing: “A truly radical feature of feminism has been the permission we have given each other to speak. We understand that through speech we could discover who women were and how we had been constructed: talk and the analysis that followed were the first steps toward change. And so we spoke. We shared our doubts and disappointments, rages, and fears; we nurtured the strengths we discovered and the insights that had been unappreciated for so long … We spoke the unspeakable; we broke the taboo.” Webster, “The Forbidden: Eroticism and Taboo,” in Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, ed. Carole S. Vance (London: Routledge, 1984), 385–398, at 385. Hopkins, “Rethinking Sadomasochism,” 135.

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Index Abelard, Peter 206n54 Adams, Carol J. 259n9 Adams, Marylin McCord 64, 111n61, 148n3 Aeneas 132 Albert the Great 192 Allers, Rudolf 233 Alonso, Modesto M. Gomez 125n13 Annas, Julia 167, 167n1, 168 Anselm Cur Deus homo 5, 63, 68, 69, 73–77, 81, 106, 143, 144, 148, 155, 171, 197, 235–240, 242, 243, 245, 246, 251, 254, 258–260, 263, 264–269, 272–273, 275 De casu diaboli, On the Fall of the Devil 3, 76, 77, 150, 154, 155, 167, 169–176, 182, 187, 188, 194, 195, 197, 207–209 De conceptu virginali et originali peccato 76, 150, 157, 196, 230 De concordia 69, 73, 74, 76, 111–113, 150, 151, 157, 171, 183, 195, 196, 198, 199, 204, 225, 226 De grammatico 71, 200 De humanibus moribus 155 De libertate arbitrii 3, 111, 150, 169, 180, 195, 198–199, 201, 202–204, 207, 228– 231 De veritate 3, 76, 150, 155, 169, 182, 195, 196, 199, 200, 201, 207 Epistola 67, 68, 105, 106, 151, 155, 244, 252–254 Epistola de incarnatione Verbi 52, 66–69, 72, 74, 76, 80, 81, 101, 105, 106 Lambeth Fragments 198, 206 Meditatio 70, 147–149, 151, 246 Memorials of St. Anselm 150, 155, 178 Monologion 1, 2, 33, 40, 46–53, 59, 60, 63, 71–81, 84, 86, 89, 91, 98, 99, 101–105, 107–117, 123–126, 128, 136, 142–143, 148, 150, 155, 170, 184, 195, 201, 220, 221, 227– 229, 242, 244 Orationes 71, 147–151, 153, 160, 244–246 Prayer Before Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ 155 Prayer to St. Benedict 154, 155, 156, 161 Prayer by a Bishop or Abbot 155 Prayer for Enemies 165

Prayer to Christ 151, 155, 157, 163 Prayer to God 165 Prayer to St. John the Baptist 152, 154, 155, 156, 157 Prayer to St. John the Evangelist 152– 156, 159–161 Prayer to St. Mary 147, 152, 154–157, 159, 160, 163–165 Prayer to St. Mary Magdalene 154, 161, 165 Prayer to St. Nicholas 152, 154–157, 159, 160 Prayer to St. Paul 152–156, 160, 164 Prayer to St. Peter 150, 154, 155, 159, 161 Prayer to St. Stephen 153, 155, 159, 160, 164 Proslogion 1, 2, 3, 5, 9–16, 18–24, 27–32, 39, 41, 44–46, 52, 63, 65, 69, 72–74, 76, 79–84, 86, 89, 91, 98, 99, 101, 102, 105, 106, 108–110, 112–120, 122, 126, 127, 129, 130–132, 135, 136, 148, 159, 170, 178, 179, 198, 203, 213, 217, 219, 227, 234, 242, 244, 251, 254–256 Quid ad haec respondeat editor ipsius libelli 39, 40, 68, 87, 88 Quid ad haec respondeat quidam pro insipiente 132, 133–135 Aquinas see Thomas Aquinas Ardill, Susan 274n64 Aristotle 4, 112n69, 166, 167, 168, 174, 187, 188–189, 190, 192, 193 Arius Didymus 168 Armstrong, A.H. 85n4 Asiedu, F.B.A. 47n2, 48n3 Augustine 1–2, 3, 4, 10–25, 28–46, 47–60, 102–107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112n70, 113n77, 116, 117n90, 121, 128, 131, 132, 134, 167, 168, 171, 180, 182, 185–186, 188, 190, 192, 193–194, 195, 202, 219, 221, 223, 228, 240–241, 248 Auerbach, Erich 247 Ayres, Lewis 54, 56n30 Bainvel, J. 106 Baker, Lynne Rudder 130n3

300 Balthasar, Hans Urs von 220n27 Banez, Domingo 229 Barth, Karl 63n6, 64n8, 70n41, 75, 131n3, 194n14, 203, 223, 232, 249 Barzun, Jacques 214n2 Beckett, Samuel 5, 247, 253 Benedikt von Hebenstreit 222n36 Berengar 107, 218 Bestul, Thomas H. 148n3 Boethius 4, 65, 121, 128, 133–134, 182, 183, 186, 189, 190 Bohn, Carole R. 257n1, 257n2, 258n4, 277n74 Bonaventure 220, 222 Bonnes, Jean-Paul 22n38 Børresen, Kari Elisabeth 161n86 Boso 68, 73–74, 75, 143–144, 235, 236, 258, 267, 269, 272 Bouchlin, Marie Evans 259n9 Bouliard, Henri 63 Brower, Jeffrey E. 172, 180n3, 181n3 Brown, Joanne Carlson 257, 258n4, 259, 277n74 Brown, Montague 48n4, 50n9, 52n15 Brown, Rachel Fulton 148n3, 151n17, 156n50 Burnyeat, Miles 213n1 Bynum, Caroline Walker 161n86 Cahill, Lisa 259n11 Calabi, Clotilde 204n48, 208n73 Califia, Patrick 261, 265n33, 269–270, 275n67, 276n70 Campbell, Richard 69, 118n2 Cattin, Yves 70n42, 82 Charlesworth, M.J. 63–64, 75, 129n21 Christina, Greta 266n35 Cicero 24, 45 Cleary, D. 232n84 Clement of Alexandria 232n81 Colish, Marcia L. 205, 206, 253 Copleston, Frederick 85n4 Corbin, Michel 181n3 Cowdrey, Herbert E.J. 218n18 Cranfield, C.E.B. 193n8 Dabundo, Laura 214n3 Daly, Mary 260n14 Daly, Robert J. 258n5 Dante 247 David, Barry 28n1

index Davidson, Donald 209n75 Deneken, Michel 215n4 Drey, Johann Sebastian 214, 224 Dronke, Peter 24n40, 101n2 Dworkin, Andrea 260n15 Eadmer 72–73, 80, 178n24, 215n6, 217 Eckhart von Hochheim 222n36 Edwards, Jonathan 81 Ekenberg, Tomas 4, 202n40 Evans, Gillian R. 21n35, 22n36, 24n40, 47n1, 64, 73n49, 148n3, 156n50, 219n23, 234n92 Faber, Alyda 267n38 Fastiggi, Robert L. 223 Fedriga, Riccardo 192n1, 205n51 Fendt, Gene 101n2 Fichte 213 Finlan, Stephen 258n5 Firestone, Shulamith 260n14 Flasch, Kurt 107, 221n32, 232, 234n87 Fleteren, Frederick Van 21n35, 69n40 Forest, Aimé 110n57 Foreville, Raymonde 181n3 Fortnam, Edmund 106 Fortune, Marie M. 259n9, 276n74 Gaunilo 2, 3, 28n1, 39, 46n48, 68, 76, 86–88, 89, 92n14, 92n15, 93n15, 130–131, 132– 133, 134, 135–136, 137, 170n4, 203n43, 227n58 Gauthier, David 168, 177, 178 Geiselmann, Josef Rupert 215n7, 224n39, 224n40, 234n90 Gelber, Hester Goodenough 200 Geoffrey of Monmouth 137n24 Gerberon, D. Gabriel 215 Gersh, Stephen 101n2, 103n11 Gerson, Lloyd 28n1 Gibson, Margaret 194n13 Gilbert Crispin 252 Gilbert, Paul S.J. 22n38, 101 Gilson, Etienne 29n1, 64n8, 64n17, 66, 232 Gioia, Luigi 53n19, 54n24, 56n33 Glare, P.G.W. 70n42 Goebel, Bernd 178n24, 196n21, 197n21, 203n42 Göbel, Christian 217n16

301

index Gödel, Kurt 84 Goodwin, George L. 121n5 Grabmann, Martin 217n12 Greene, Virginie 131n3 Gregory the Great 3, 4, 22, 23, 195 Gregory vii 218 Grosseteste, Robert 192 Gunther, Anton 226, 232 Hankey, Wayne 50n9 Hare, John 180n3, 181n3 Hare, Richard 207 Harrison, Beverly 257, 258n4, 258n7, 263 Harrison, Simon 49n7 Hartshorne, Charles 2, 3, 118–120, 121n5, 122–125, 127–128 Hegel 213, 221n34, 222, 223, 226, 227, 233, 234 Henrich, Dieter 233 Henry, Desmond Paul 203 Hermes, Georg 226 Heyer, George 156n50 Heyward, Carter 257–258, 263 Hildemar 245 Hintikka, Jaako 192n2 Hogg, David S. 79, 81 Hollibaugh, Amber 265, 274 Holopainen, Toivo J. 64, 101n2 Hopkins, Jasper 49n7, 84n2, 194n15, 195n17, 196n19, 197n23, 198n24, 199n27, 199n29, 200n32, 204n46, 204n47, 248–249, 252 Hopkins, Nancy Myer 259n9 Hopkins, Patrick 261, 271, 272n54, 274, 277n77 Horton, Anne L. 259n9 Hrdlicka, Clement Louis 25n45 Hwangbo, Chung-Mi 228n59 Ignaz von Döllinger, Johann Joseph 215 Irwin, Terence 173 Isidore of Seville 137n24 Jackson, Frank 204n48, 205n48 Jackson, Stevi 260n15, 261n17, 265n34, 267n39, 274n62 Jacobi, Friedrich 226 John of Fécamp 10, 22–23, 244 John Paul ii 232n83 Johnson, Merri Lisa 261n16, 275n68

Kant, Immanuel 2, 83, 86n6, 118n2, 180, 187, 213, 222, 227, 234 Kasper, Walter 215n4 Kenner, Hugh 253 Keshgegian, Flora A. 259n11 Kienzler, Klaus 21n35, 22 Kierkegaard, Søren 180n3 King, Peter 173n13 Kirschner, Martin 232n83, 233n86 Klibansky, Raymond 233 Kohlenberger, Helmut K. 12n11, 112, 239n6 Koncsik, Imre 229n69 Kondoleon, Theodore 31n12 Knuuttila, Simo 192n2 Kroeger, Catherine Clark 259n9 Lakebrink, Bernhard 232n85 Lanfranc of Canterbury 4, 47, 73, 105n33, 107, 194, 217, 252 Lasser, Mark 259n9 Leclerq, Jean 22n38 Leff, Gordon 63 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 84 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 226 Leturia, Pedro de 219n25 Lewis, Charlton T. 69 Lewis, Clive Staples 65 Limonta, Roberto 4, 192n1, 205n51 Lindberg, David C. 111n63 Linden, Robin 260n14, 262n20, 262n21 Logan, Ian 2, 64 Lombard, Peter 220 Lorde, Audre 262 Louth, Andrew 55, 56n30 Lubac, Henri de 217, 220n27 Luis de Molina 229 Luther, Martin 70n41, 75, 234n89 Malcom, Norman 118n2 Mananzan, Mary John 259n9 Mann, William E. 130n3, 168n2 Marion, Jean-Luc 5, 238, 239–240 Markus, R.A. 110n60 Mathilda of Tuscany 151 Matthews, Gareth B. 47n1, 52n15, 111n61, 130n3, 148n3 Maurer, Armand 9n4 McGill, Arthur C. 64, 110n57, 131n3 McIntyre, John 63, 64, 75

302

index

Meister Eckhart see Eckhart von Hochheim Millet, Kate 260n14 Millican, Peter 85n5 Möhler, Johann Adam 5, 213–234

Rubin, Gayle 261n16, 262n19, 265, 276n72 Russell, Diana E.H. 262 Ryan, John K. 15 Rymer, Henry 215

Nagasawa, Yujin 85n5 Nason-Clark, Nancy 259n9 Nebridius 131 Nicholas de Cusa 234

Saarinen, Risto 192, 202 Sadler, Gregory 3–4, 148n4, 148n5, 152n18, 180n3, 181n3 Saenger, Paul 244–245, 246, 247 Sands, Kathleen M. 267n38 Savon, Hervé 221n31 Schelling, F.W.J. 213, 214, 222 Schenk, Hans Georg 214n3 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 214, 226 Schmitt, Franciscus Salesius 11n7, 12n11, 112n69, 232 Schmitz, Stefan 222n35 Schufreider, Gregory 64n17 Seneca 132, 193n7, 205–206 Short, Charles 69n37, 70n42 Slotemaker, John T. 47n2 Smith, A.D. 118n2 Socrates 4, 189, 193 Sokolowski, Robert 1, 9–10, 13–14, 15, 16–17, 18–19, 24–27 Sonderegger, Erwin 217n16 Sønnesyn, Sigbjørn 173 Southern, Richard W. 14, 22n35, 64, 71n43, 79n73, 80, 148n3 Stearns, J. Brenton 118n2 Stolz, Anselm 64n17 Suarez, Francisco 229 Sullivan, John 104n23 Sullivan, Karen 3 Sweeney, Eileen C. 4, 64–65, 74n54, 127n18, 131n3, 148n3, 155n50, 172n9, 174, 181n4, 181n4, 181n5, 183n13, 186n19, 203n40, 250, 252, 253

Oliva, Adriano 26n52 Oppy, Graham 130n3 O’Sullivan, Sue 274n64 Parodi, Massimo 203n42 Parker, Rebecca 257, 258n5, 259 Paul, St. 3, 4, 14, 193, 194, 195, 198, 199, 207 Philostratus, Flavius 137n24 Plato 4, 24, 112n69, 166, 174, 187, 189, 190, 191, 193, 221 Pliny the Elder 137 Plotinus 221 Plutarch 137n24 Pouchet, Jean Robert 147n2, 181n3, 195n16 Pranger, M. Burcht 5, 238–240, 247n5, 251n13 Préchac, François 205n52 Pricket, Stephen 214n3 Priest, Stephen 213n1 Pseudo-Cicero 24 Pseudo-Dionysius 56 Rainaldus 244 Rakus, Daniel T. 180n3, 181n3 Regan, Richard 52n15 Reicher, Maria 131n3 Reynolds, Leighton D. 205n52 Ringleben, Joachim 227n58 Roberts, Lawrence 28n1, 31n12 Rogers, Katherin A. 64n17, 111n61, 170n5, 173, 174, 180, 181, 183, 186, 187n20, 216n10 Rohmer, Jean 181n3 Roof, Dylann 185 Roques, René 12n11 Roscelin 66, 67, 76 Rosmini-Serbati, Antonio 232 Rossini, Marco 203n42 Rovighi, Sofia Vanni 22n38, 232n80

Terence 132 Teske, Ronald J. 45–46 Thomas Aquinas 2, 9n4, 26–27, 50n9, 63, 70, 121, 125n13, 188, 192, 220, 222, 223 Thompson, John L. 65n21, 266n37 Tillmann, Martin 228n59 Truscott, Carol 266 Tsai, George 185n16 Tye, Michael 205n48, 208

303

index Vance, Carol S. 260n13, 261n16, 274n63, 277n76 Vaughn, Sally 161n86 Vettorello, Luca 2, 98n20 Victorinus, Gaius Marius 221 Vignaux, Paul 107n47, 114n80, 116n87 Viola, Colomon Etienne 69n40, 73, 74n53, 101 Viney, Donale Wayne 118n1 Visser, Sandra 64, 75, 144n56, 180, 183n11, 225n41 Voltolini, Alberto 204n48, 208n73

Ward, Keith 121n3 Weiss, Margot 265n32, 275 Whitehead, Alfred North 121n5 William the Conqueror 219 William of Ockham 85 Williams, Rowan 55–57 Williams, Thomas 64, 75, 144n56, 180, 183n11, 225n41 Williamson, Judith A. 259n9 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 237 Wolterstorff, Nicholas 121n4, 168 Ziolkowski, Jan 24n40

Walkowitz, Judith 260n15 Ward, Benedicta 148n3