[THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. In his Monologium, St. Anselm gives various proofs of the existence of God, but the most important proof is the one he expounds in the Proslogium, and which, since the time of Kant, has generally been referred to as the ontological argument. This proof of the existence of God has had enormous repercussions in the entire history of philosophy. Even during St. Anselm's lifetime a monk named Gaunilo attacked the proof, and St. Anselm himself replied to Gaunilo's objections. Later on, opinion was divided and interpretations of the argument differed. St. Bonaventure took a position close to that of St. Anselm; St. Thomas rejected the proof; Duns Scotus accepted it with alterations; then Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, established its impossibility in an apparently definitive way. Yet Hegel afterward restated the proof in different terms, and still later, in the nineteenth century, it was studied in depth by Brentano and especially by Father Gratry. Up to the present day the ontological argument is a central theme of philosophy, because it involved not only mere logical argumentation, but also a question that concerns all of metaphysics. This is the reason for the singular renown of St. Anselm's proof.
We cannot here enter into details of the interpretation of the argument. It will be sufficient to indicate briefly its essential meaning. St. Anselm's point of departure is God, a hidden God who does not manifest Himself to man in his fallen state. This is a religious point of departure: the faith of man, who was made in order to see God but has not seen Him. This faith seeks to understand, to practice theology: it is a fides quarens intellectum. But there does not yet appear the necessity or the possibility of demonstrating the existence of God. St. Anselm cites the thirteenth psalm: Dixit insipiens in corde suo: non est Deus (The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God).This denial calls the existence of God into question for the first time and gives St. Anselm's proof a meaning it lacks without the fool's statement. St. Anselm formulates his famous proof in these terms: When the fool says that there is no God, he understands what he is saying. If we say that God is that entity such that no greater entity can be imagined, the fool will understand this as well. Therefore, God is in his understanding: what he denies is that God is also in re, that is, that He really exists. But if God exists only in the imagination we are able to imagine that He could also exist in reality, and this conception of Him is greater than the earlier one. Therefore, we are able to imagine something greater than God if He does not exist. But this contradicts our premise that God is such that nothing greater than He can be imagined. Then God, who exists in the understanding, must also exist in reality. That is, if He exists only in the understanding, He does not fulfill the necessary condition; therefore, it would not be God of whom we were speaking.
As a matter of fact, St. Anselm's proof shows that the existence of God cannot be denied. It consists of confronting the fool's denial with the meaning of what he is saying. The fool does not understand the full implication of what he is saying, and for this very reason he is a fool. He is not thinking of God, and his denial is an error. His folly consists of this: he does not know what he is saying. If, instead, we imagine God as fully as possible, we see that it is impossible that He should not exist. Therefore, St. Anselm confronts folly with the doctrine of intimacy, the return to oneself, following the example of St. Augustine. When man enters within himself and finds himself, he also finds God, in whose image and likeness he is made. Thus the ontological argument is an appeal to the sense of intimacy, to the depths of the personality, and is based concretely on the refutation of the fool.
This meeting with God in the intimacy of the mind opens a clear path to St. Anselm's speculation. This is the course that medieval thought will follow in the subsequent period.]
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J (4/20/12): I'll definitely be chewing this for a good while, but initial thoughts:
Marias wisely points out the importance of the doctrine of "faith seeking understanding," which seems to me an attitude preferable to its opposite, understanding seeking faith. In other words, faith seeking understanding seems to create more "room" for the rational faculty, following on the assumption that a particular human rational faculty does not know all, and cannot fully grasp God. If it did know all, then there would be no reason to seek any further knowledge, and thus all doors would be (apparently) closed. But if the faith that God really exists is taken as the primary motivation, and the desire to understand this, to apprehend it with reason, proceeds from this primary motivation, it seems to give reason much more room. It is like the difference between someone standing on a beach and having faith that there is another land beyond the horizon, assuming that he doesn't know all that is out there, and someone else assuming that he does know all that is out there, and refuses to get in a boat and find out for himself. It may turn that there is no other land, but the man who gets in the boat will know for sure. His faith will have sought understanding.
Anselm's ontological argument, then, is one attempt at apprehending the existence of God with reason. I think that ultimately God cannot be apprehended with reason, but this is the God that also cannot be labeled with any term, even "God." This is sometimes distinguished as the difference between God and the Godhead--Godhead cannot be apprehended by reason, for reason proceeds by categories, and no category can contain the Godhead. God can be represented by any number of logical proofs, or images, or even emotions, but the Godhead is beyond all of these.
Also, I am intrigued by what Marias calls "the doctrine of intimacy." He indicates that the fool's stance closes the door to the intimate knowledge of God. Because the fool is so confident in his estimation that God does not exist, he sees no reason to pursue the inquiry any further, and thus will not descend to the "depths of the personality," there to find God. But because faith in God's existence is Anselm's premise, supported by its rational counterpart in the form of the ontological argument, one who adopts Anselm's position feels free to pursue the intimate path to God. It is important that faith is still fundamental for Anselm, and that the rational proof is almost like a bonus. This is the sense of faith seeking understanding; understanding is perceived as something continuously attained, which is only possible when proceeded to from the foundation of faith. I think this attitude is characteristic of the Middle Ages, and would become reversed with the rise of the scientific method around 1600.
But I don't think the fool is necessarily condemned, or "wrong." What will he do if he does not pursue Anselm's intimate path, if he closes the door to the possibility of God's existence in reality? When one door closes, another can open; perhaps he will end up on another path, and find God in another way. Surely there is not one path to God; Anselm's is only one of infinitely many. And if we consider other ways of defining God other than Anselm's "that which there is none greater," we can see the situation in a new way. As I said earlier, I think that ultimately, and perhaps Anselm would agree, that God (the Godhead) cannot be defined, even as that which there is none greater. Eckhart would agree with this. He could also be that which there is none smaller. "Small" and "great" imply size, but the Godhead is sizeless. So we can use epithets like that which there is none greater, or the All, or the One, or the Ground of everything, while recognizing that these are just concepts that don't even begin to scratch the surface of the true nature of God/Godhead.
So what if we define God as present in his entirety in every "entity" in the universe--every atom, every emotion, every thought, every image, every everything? According to this view, the fool's denial of God's existence is itself an expression of God. And if we return to the image of the doors, the fool may have one door closed, one which Anselm leaves open, but this may lead him to another door, which can itself lead right back to God. This is the same sentiment as saying that the saint is nowhere nearer to God than is the murderer.
All this is to say that, while acknowledging the subtlety of Anselm's attempt to apprehend God with reason, and it is the best logical argument I have come across, the very nature of God is so far beyond reason that it is laughable. Augustine expressed something similar:
"I beheld these others beneath Thee, and saw that they neither altogether are, nor altogether are not. An existence they have, because they are from Thee; and yet no existence, because they are not what Thou art. For only that really is that remains unchangeably. . . . Thou, Lord, madest them, who art beautiful, for they are beautiful; who art good, for they are good; who art, for they are. Yet they are not beautiful, nor good, nor are they, as Thou their Creator art--compared with whom, they are neither beautiful, nor good, nor are." (quoted in Alan Watts' Supreme Identity)
The seeming contradictions of this passage indicate the extremely paltry status of reason, even in its highest human expression, to the Godhead. It is as if the level of reasoning that Anselm, Aquinas, and co. are operating seems to be the summit of Mt. Everest; but from the Godhead's point of view, they are simply standing atop a mole hill.
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J (4/20/12): Re-reading, and clarifying one thing: when I say that the saint is nowhere nearer to God than is the murderer, this is to be understood in a certain sense, and not as an appraisal of human morality. It is meant to indicate the presence of God "within" every entity in the universe, whether it is a human or a leaf, in the sense of Eckhart's "God is nearer to you than you are to yourself." And it is also meant to indicate what is hinted it in the Augustine passage--from the point of view of the Godhead, who is infinite, all of finite creation appears as equal manifestations of his infinity. A commonly used diagram is the circle--the center is the Godhead, and every point along the circumference is everything in the universe. From this viewpoint, the saint and the murderer, a rock and a galaxy, are equal in the eyes of the Godhead. Human morality is another story.
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