Five-minute digest

Proslogion

Anselm of Canterbury

Summary

The Proslogion is a short Latin work in twenty-six chapters, written by Anselm at the abbey of Bec in 1077 and 1078. In the preface Anselm explains that after writing the Monologion, a long chain of arguments about God, he looked for a single argument that would by itself prove that God exists and is the supreme good. He first called the book Faith Seeking Understanding. The work is written as a prayer addressed to God. Chapter 1 is a moving meditation in which Anselm asks God to teach him to seek and to show himself, and says that he does not seek to understand in order to believe, but believes in order to understand. Chapters 2 to 4 contain the famous argument later called the ontological argument. God is a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. Even the fool of the Psalms, who says in his heart there is no God, understands this idea, so it exists in his understanding. But a being that existed in reality as well as in the mind would be greater than one that existed only in the mind; therefore the being than which nothing greater can be conceived must exist in reality. Indeed, God cannot even be conceived not to exist. The remaining chapters explore what follows: that God is everything it is better to be than not to be, just, merciful, all-powerful, unchanging and eternal, and greater than can be conceived. The book ends with a meditation on the joy of heaven. A monk named Gaunilo soon replied with a defence of the fool, arguing that the same reasoning could prove the existence of a perfect island; Anselm answered him. The argument has been debated ever since, rejected by Thomas Aquinas and Kant and defended in various forms by Descartes, Leibniz and modern philosophers.

Top Lessons

Faith seeking understanding
Anselm starts from belief and uses reason to understand it more deeply. The book shows that prayer and rigorous argument can go together.
Related across the library
- A Tale of Two Cities, Lesson: The past does not stay buried
  The past does not stay buried. Manette's letter, hidden in his Bastille cell, returns eighteen years later to condemn the son-in-law he loves. Jerry Cruncher's grave-robbing, Recalled to life, and Carton's resurrection text all play on what rises again from the grave.
- The Sound and the Fury, June Second, 1910
  That Christ was not crucified: he was worn away by a minute clicking of little wheels One of the father's sayings Quentin cannot shake, reducing the Passion to the mechanism of the watch.
- An Essay on Man, Epistle I, lines 95-96
  Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest: Hope is God's gift that makes up for our ignorance of the future.
- Critique of Pure Reason, Preface to the Second Edition (B xxx)
  I must, therefore, abolish _knowledge_, to make room for _belief Limiting speculative knowledge to appearances leaves room for practical faith in God, freedom and immortality. Modern translations usually render Glaube as 'faith' and aufheben as 'deny'.
- Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers, The Shepherd Of Hermas
  So the shepherd bade me call them just as each one of them was stationed And they came row after row and they delivered up the rods to the shepherd And the shepherd took the rods and planted them in rows and after he had planted them he poured much water over them so that the rods could not be seen for the water And after he had watered the rods he saith to me Let us go now and after days let us return and inspect all the rods for He Who created this tree willeth that all those who have received rods from this t...
How the argument works
From the idea of a greatest conceivable being, Anselm argues that such a being must exist, since existing in reality is greater than existing only in thought. Following each step carefully is a training in logic.
Related across the library
- The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Book I, Part II, Chapter Second
  two knights uplifted each his horse with his own spirit and so completed his course in safety And indeed King Arthur was very much amazed that he had not overthrown his opponent for at that time as aforesaid he was considered to be the very best knight and the one best approved in deeds of arms that lived in all of Britain Wherefore he marvelled at the power and the address of that knight against whom he had driven that he had not been overthrown by the greatness of the blow that had been delivered against his d...
- Twilight of the Idols, FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
  the Age and the book as it now stands represents exactly the form in which Nietzsche intended to publish it in the course of the year Unfortunately its author was already stricken down with illness when the work first appeared at the end of January and he was denied the joy of seeing it run into nine editions of one thousand each before his death in Of The Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche says in Ecce Homo p If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how everything before my time was standing on its head...
- The Major Symptoms of Hysteria, Lecture IX: the Troubles of Vision
  and they nearly always consist in the repeti- tion of a few incomprehensible syllables If I say to her Miss X you walk much better to-day she an- swers smiling petitbedable petitbedable chacha petitbedable To the question What happened to you to-day she replies very quickly Petitbed- able chapetit petitbedable We can draw nothing more from her she will go on with this jargonnage as she says for a few hours Notice that we have here a real oblivion of the movements necessary for the pro- nunciation of words She is...
- Agnes Grey, CHAPTER I. THE PARSONAGE
  to say the truth there was something exhilarating in the idea of being driven to straits and thrown upon our own resources I only wished papa mamma and Mary were all of the same mind as myself and then instead of lamenting past calamities we might all cheerfully set to work to remedy them and the greater the difficulties the harder our present privations the greater should be our cheerfulness to endure the latter and our vigour to contend against the former Mary did not lament but she brooded continually over th...
- Gorgias, Full Text
  faith the only faith which cannot pass away is his who has not known but yet has believed A very few among the sons of men have made themselves independent of circumstances past present or to come He who has attained to such a temper of mind has already present with him eternal life he needs no arguments to convince him of immortality he has in him already a principle stronger than death He who serves man without the thought of reward is deemed to be a more faithful servant than he who works for hire May not the...
Critics and replies
Gaunilo, Aquinas and Kant raised objections that philosophers still discuss. Studying the debate teaches how to test an argument and answer objections fairly.
Related across the library
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- Billy Budd and Other Stories, Lesson: Perception is shaped by prejudice
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- The Conquest of Gaul, Medical lens
  The Commentaries say little about doctors, but much about bodies under military pressure. Siege warfare makes hunger the decisive weapon, culminating in the Alesia debate over cannibalism and the expulsion of non-combatants, a classic case for discussions of famine and of medical ethics in siege. Wounds are reported tactically, with officers wounded in the mouth by a sling or carried from the field. The Book VI ethnography links severe illness to vows of human sacrifice, an important if hostile source for Gallic...
- Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dr. Lanyon's Narrative
  Lanyon inventories the drawer of white salt, the blood-red liquid and the notebook of experiments, then watches the visitor drink and transform.
- The Provincial Letters, Lesson: Authority, evidence and matters of fact
  Authority, evidence and matters of fact. Letter XVIII accepts that the Church may judge whether a doctrine is heretical but argues that whether certain words stand in a book is a question of fact, known by reading and by the senses. Pascal adds the cases of the relics of St Denis and of Galileo: authority cannot make a fact false. The argument is a careful distinction, not a rejection of authority, and it shaped later debates over obedience and conscience.
For the Christian reader
The Proslogion is written as prayer as well as proof. Anselm begins by asking God for help and ends with longing for the joy of heaven. Read it with Psalm 14:1 and Psalm 27:8.
Related across the library
- Poems: First, Second and Third Series, First Series, Time and Eternity XVII
  I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given. The second stanza of I never saw a moor: as she knows heather and waves without seeing them, so she is sure of heaven.
- The Sound and the Fury, June Second, 1910
  That Christ was not crucified: he was worn away by a minute clicking of little wheels One of the father's sayings Quentin cannot shake, reducing the Passion to the mechanism of the watch.
- On the Incarnation of the Word, Summary
  On the Incarnation of the Word is a short treatise in which Athanasius of Alexandria explains why the eternal Word of God became a human being, died and rose again. It forms the second half of a two-part work addressed to a Christian friend named Macarius; the first part, Against the Heathen, argues against idolatry and for the existence of one God known through creation and the Word. The date is disputed: older scholars placed it before the Council of Nicaea in 325, while many now date it to the 330s, during At...
- Ain't I a Woman?, Lesson: For the Christian reader
  For the Christian reader. Truth, a Methodist convert who became a traveling preacher, took her name because she believed God had sent her to travel and declare the truth. Her speech rests on the conviction that God made women in His image and honored them in the gospel story, and it shows faith giving courage to a woman whom the world held in low esteem.
- On the Incarnation of the Word, §2. Erroneous views of Creation rejected
  created them made them male and female and said For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they twain shall become one flesh and then referring to the Creator says What therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder how come these men to assert that the creation is independent of the Father Or if in the words of John who says making no exception All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made how could the artificer be another distinct fr...

Verified Quotes

Frequently cited

“For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand.”

— Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion, Chapter I, trans. Sidney Norton Deane (1903).Quote card

Henry V, Act 4, Scene 7
Praised be God, and not our strength, for it When Montjoy concedes the field, Henry's first words give the victory to God.
Sophist, Speech and false statement, c. 263a
Theaetetus, with whom I am now speaking, is flying Set beside 'Theaetetus sits', this is the dialogue's test case of a sentence that is about something real and yet false.
On Christian Doctrine, Book I, Ch. 36
Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought Augustine's rule that love of God and neighbour is the goal and test of interpretation.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Source
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding IN FOUR BOOKS By John Locke image Quam bellum est velle confiteri potius nescire quod nescias quam ista effutientem nauseare atque ipsum sibi displicere Cic de Natur Deor l LONDON Printed by Eliz Holt for Thomas Basset at the George in Fleet Street near St Dunstan s Church MDCXC CONTENTS THE EPISTLE TO THE READER ESSAY CONCERNING HUMANE UNDERSTANDING BOOK I NEITHER PRINCIPLES NOR IDEAS ARE INNATE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION CHAPTER II NO INNATE SPECULATIVE PRINCIPLES CHAPTER I...
The Travels of Marco Polo, Book II, Chapter XXX
It is a fact that all over the country of Cathay there is a kind of black stones existing in beds in the mountains, which they dig out and burn like firewood. Marco describes coal, then little used in Europe, and the daily hot baths it makes possible in Cathay.

Frequently cited

“we believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived”

— Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion, Chapter II, trans. Sidney Norton Deane (1903).Quote card

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Chapter XXXI, Aunt Miranda's Apology
God made you in the first place, and you've done considerable yourself to help Him along; but she gave you the wherewithal to work with, and that ain't to be despised Rebecca says Miranda was the making of her; Jane divides the credit.
Five Children and It, Full Text
real It was It was square with stone walls four feet thick and great beams for ceiling A low door at the corner led to a flight of steps up and down The children went down they found themselves in a great arched gatehouse the enormous doors were shut and barred There was a window in a little room at the bottom of the round turret up which the stair wound rather larger than the other windows and looking through it they saw that the drawbridge was up and the portcullis down the moat looked very wide and deep Oppos...
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part 12
To be a philosophical Sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian Philo's ambiguous closing recommendation, which readers have taken as sincere fideism or as irony.
My First Summer in the Sierra, Chapter V
These blessed mountains are so compactly filled with God’s beauty, no petty personal hope or experience has room to be. Sketching on North Dome above Yosemite Valley.
On War, Source
Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger On War by General Carl von Clausewitz TRANSLATED BY COLONEL J J GRAHAM was st edition of this translation was the London reprinting NEW AND REVISED EDITION WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY COLONEL F N MAUDE C B LATE R E EIGHTH IMPRESSION IN THREE VOLUMES Contents INTRODUCTION PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION NOTICE THE INTRODUCTION OF THE AUTHOR BRIEF MEMOIR OF GENERAL CLAUSEWITZ BOOK I ON THE NATURE OF WAR CHAPTER I What is War CHAPTER II Ends and Means in War CHAPTER II...

Proslogion

Summary

Top Lessons

Faith seeking understanding

How the argument works

Critics and replies

For the Christian reader

Verified Quotes