¹ See Brecher, Robert, Anselm's Argument: The Logic of Divine Existence, Hants: Aldershot, 1986, 3Google Scholar. See also Logan, Ian, Reading Anselm's Proslogion, (Ashgate 2009), p. 1Google Scholar. In this article, I will not deal with the issue of the difference in the arguments presented in Chapter ii and in Chapter iii of the Proslogion as outlined by Malcolm, Norman (‘Anselm's Ontological Arguments’, The Philosophical Review, 69 [1960] pp. 41–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar) and Hartshorne, Charles (‘What did Anselm Discover’, Union Seminary Quarterly Review 17 [1962] pp. 213–222)Google Scholar respectively (see McGill, John Hick– Arthur, The Many-Faced Argument[London: Macmillan, 1968], pp. 301–333)Google Scholar.

² The argument was not originally called so. The term ‘ontological argument’ was coined by Immanuel Kant. For Anselm's argument, see Proslogion ii-iv and Anselm of Canterbury's Liber Apologeticus contra Gaunilonnem respondentem pro Insipiente replying to the objection raised by Gaunilon of Marmoutier. (See Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion: St. Anselm's Proslogion, translated with an introduction and philosophical commentary by Charlesworth, M.J., [Oxford: Clarendon, 1965]Google Scholar.)

³ This feature of the Proslogion can be seen in the very statement naming God as ‘id quo maius cogitari nequit’. (See Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion iii: St. Anselm's Proslogion, translated with an introduction and philosophical commentary by Charlesworth, M.J., [Oxford: Clarendon, 1965], p. 118.)Google Scholar

⁴ See Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion xvi : St. Anselm's Proslogion, translated with an introduction and philosophical commentary by Charlesworth, M.J., [Oxford: Clarendon, 1965], pp. 136–137Google Scholar.)

⁵ See Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio ii, 12, 34; 15, 39 : (= Nuova Biblioteca Agostiniana iii/2) introduced and translated and annotated by Domenico Gentili, (Roma: Città Nuova Editrice, 1987), pp. 255–257; 261–263.

It is typical that thinkers such as Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus and others, who hold the doctrine of divine illumination, accept Anselm's argument. Idealist thinkers of the post-Enlightenment age such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel and others, also accept his argument, although they re-formulate it in their own fashion.

⁶ Anselm clearly distinguishes between the understanding of God ‘that he is as we believe’ (‘esse sicut credimus’) and ‘that he is what we believe him to be’ (‘hoc esse quod credimus’). (See Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion ii : St. Anselm's Proslogion, translated with an introduction and philosophical commentary by Charlesworth, M.J., [Oxford: Clarendon, 1965], pp. 116–117Google Scholar.)

⁷ The ‘ontological’ argument is Platonic, not because it relies on the content of Plato's Theory of Forms, but because it relies on that theory's form. God and the ‘Good’ occupy similar positions at the summit of a hierarchical system, the nature of which they (respectively) determine. The point is that the Judeo-Christian God must have something in common with the rest of the hierarchy, his creation, in order to be the most real entity possible. (See Robert Brecher, Anselm's Argument: The Logic of Divine Existence, [Hants: Aldershot, 1986], p. 67.)

⁸ At the beginning of the Proslogion ii, where it appears for the first time, this name is rendered by the words: ‘aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit’. The actual formulation is not fixed either in the Proslogion itself, nor in the ‘Reply’ to Gaunilon: instead of aliquid, Anselm also says id; he sometimes omits the pronoun; he at times replaces possit by potest or even by valet; he occasionally replaces nihil (or non) …possit by nequit and also, quite frequently, uses maius or melius interchangeably. The phrases are quite similar and he seems to regard them as synonymous.

⁹ “Quo nihil superius”. Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio ii, 6, 14 : (= Nuova Biblioteca Agostiniana iii/2) introduced and translated and annotated by Domenico Gentili, (Roma: Città Nuova Editrice, 1987), p. 230.

¹⁰ See Selections from Mediaeval Philosophers, i/Augustine to Albert the Great, edited and translated with introductory notes by Richard McKeon, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929), pp. 147–148. Anselm's argument was largely neglected during the remainder of the Medieval Period due to its having been rejected by Aquinas in favour of the Cosmological Argument. However, in the seventeenth century, it was again brought into prominence by Descartes who made explicit the presupposition of the argument; that existence is an attribute or predicate which like other predicates, a given x can meaningfully be said to have or to lack. He argues that just as the idea of a triangle necessarily includes among the defining attributes of a triangle that of having its three internal angles equal to two right angles so the idea of a supremely perfect Being necessarily includes the attribute of existence. Therefore, we can no more think without contradiction of a supremely perfect Being which lacks existence than of a triangle which does not have three sides. Descartes then considers the objection that from the fact that in order to be a triangle a figure must have three sides, it does not follow that triangles exist; and likewise in the case of a supremely perfect Being. His reply is that whereas the notion (or essence) of a triangle does not include the attribute of existence, that of a supremely perfect Being does. Therefore in this case alone, we are able to infer existence from a concept.

¹¹ Both Anselm and Barth would agree that it is through God's light and truth that understanding is possible at all; even the understanding of the Fool is a gift of God, whether he acknowledges it or not. Where they differ radically is in their epistemology: in Barth's case, but not in Anselm's, epistemology is grounded in Christian faith. Barth implies that knowledge of God, which is possible only for those who believe in God, is a necessary condition of true knowledge of anything at all. (See Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, i/1, edited by Bromiley, G.W. – Torrance, T.F., [Edinburgh 1956], p. 148.Google Scholar) Anselm holds that certain things about God can be known by anyone. Whereas Barth thinks that the Fool can, without inconsistency, continue to think as he does (for he is an insipiens and as such thinks on a level where one can only think falsely; though without violating the inner consistency of that level – see Barth, Karl, Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum, [Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1975], p. 165Google Scholar), Anselm's argument is directed towards showing that the Fool is thinking irrationally if, after having attended to and understood his argument, he persists in his atheism.

¹² See Barth, Karl Church Dogmatics, ii/i, edited by Bromiley, G.W. – Torrance, T.F., (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), p. 304Google Scholar.

¹³ See Ibid., pp. 304–305.

¹⁴ The initial impetus to the re-ignited interest in the ‘Ontological’ Argument was provided by Norman Malcolm, the celebrated disciple and biographer of Wittgenstein. One may criticize Hartshorne's ‘relocation’ of the ontological argument in Chapter iii (of the Proslogion) and his regard of the argument in Chapter ii as only a poor first attempt. In effect, Hartshorne is accused by some authors (like Brecher himself) of foisting on to Anselm an argument that is not his own. (See Brecher, Robert, Anselm's Argument: The Logic of Divine Existence, [Hants: Aldershot, 1986], pp. 3–4Google Scholar.)

¹⁵ See Hartshorne, Charles, Anselm's Discovery: A Re-examination of the Ontological Proof for God's Existence, (La Salle/IL: Open Court, 1965), p. 97Google Scholar.

¹⁶ “aliter enim cogitatur, aliter cum id ipsum quod res est intelligitur” (Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion iv : St. Anselm's Proslogion, translated with an introduction and philosophical commentary by Charlesworth, M.J., [Oxford: Clarendon, 1965], p. 120)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ The Greek original reads: “TO ΓAP AYTO NOEIN EΣTIN TE KAI EINAI” (DK 28 B 3. See Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 440, 12; Plotinus Enneads 5, 1, 8).

¹⁸ Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans. by Macquarrie, John & Robinson, Edward (London: SCM Press, 1962), p. 19Google Scholar.

¹⁹ When discussing the Kantian categories, Heidegger claimed that Kant himself was very close to abandoning belief in timeless logic and timeless categories in his first edition of The Critique of Pure Reason. In the second edition, however, he fell back to the traditional point of view. (See Macquarrie, John, Heidegger and Christianity, [London: SCM Press, 1994], p. 25Google Scholar.)

²⁰ Schleiermacher can be said to have used the concept of ‘truth’ in this sense when he speaks of the redemption-liberation accomplished by Jesus as a passing from a state of God-forgetfulness to one of God-consciousness. (See Schleiermacher, Friedrich, The Christian Faith, [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clarke, 1989], §11, pp. 54–55Google Scholar.)

²¹ Also, as Parmenides linked being and thought, thinking cannot fail to be a thinking of being, and this establishes the link between Dasein and Sein. Heidegger also holds that Dasein is a unity. He holds that: “to be sure, the constitution of the structural whole and its everyday kind of Being is phenomenally so manifold that it can easily obstruct our looking at the whole as such phenomenologically in a way which is unified”. (Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, [London: SCM Press, 1962], p. 225Google Scholar.)

²² See Aquinas, Thomas, Quaestiones disputatae De Veritate i, 1 : (= Editio Sexta Taurinensis), [Roma: Marietti, 1931], p. 3Google Scholar.

²³ See Heidegger, Martin, Sein und Zeit, (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1963), p. 14Google Scholar.

²⁴ Heidegger, Martin, ‘On the Essence of Truth’, in Henry, Werner Brock ed., Basic Writings, edited by (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1949), p. 316Google Scholar.

²⁵ The reality indicated is projected by signs (that is, the visual or acoustic figures that are used in spoken or written language).

²⁶ This is the way in which the object shows itself. This makes it possible to ascertain the reality corresponding to the projection.

²⁷ See Heidegger, Martin, Sein und Zeit, (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1963), p. 91Google Scholar.

²⁸ “Sein zum seienden Ding selbst” (Heidegger, Martin, Sein und Zeit, [Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1963], p. 218Google Scholar).

²⁹ I am indebted to Inglott, Peter Serracino, Beginning Philosophy, (Malta: Media Centre, 1987), pp. 47–48Google Scholar, for the formulation of this argument.

³⁰ This is not intended by Anselm to be a definition of the nature of God, from which his existence is to be deduced. Instead, it formulates a rule of thinking. The point of the argument lies in the fact that, by starting with nothing more than the rule of thought contained in the name of God, one could arrive at the conclusion that God exists not only in thought, but also in reality.

³¹ See Barth, Karl, Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum, (Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1975), p. 113Google Scholar.

³² The term ‘ontologically’ is here used to differentiate from ‘logical necessity’ i.e. that existence is logically true (by definition). It is certainly highly doubtful to the human being whether a proposition asserting existence could be logically necessary i.e. whether or not one could maintain that a given kind of entity exists if one's argument is based only on the rules of language.

³³ Barth, Karl, Anselm: Fides Quaerens Intellectum, (Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1975), p. 94Google Scholar.

³⁴ To identify God with the name ‘id quo maius cogitari nequit’ is to make a declaration of faith. The proof, in itself, does not show that God is the one referred to by the name. What the proof points to, is the structure of the thinking of being. To think that than which no greater can be thought is to be in the presence of the structure of being. We cannot think of anything greater that the relation between self and the world (the structure of being), because all thinking is involved in such a relation. The structure of being is that than which nothing greater can be thought.

³⁵ Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles i, 11.

³⁶ See Gareth Matthews, ‘Aquinas on Saying God Doesn't Exist’, The Monist 47 (1963) p. 473.

³⁷ Thomas Aquinas’ refutation can be seen in his Summa theologiae i, 2, 1, 2.

³⁸ Ps 14 (13), 1.

³⁹ Karl Barth, too, has claimed that Anselm was not intending to argue against the atheist. (See Haskin, Dayton, ‘The Ontological Argument and Theological Education’, New Blackfriars 54 [1973] p. 150.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁰ Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae i, 2, 1.

⁴¹ Augustine, Sermo CXXVI, 1, 1.

⁴² See Anselm, De Incarnation Verbi, 1.

⁴³ Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae i, 16, 7 : Summa theologiae, edited by Thomas Gilby and others, iv, (Cambridge: Blackfriars 1964), p. 93.

⁴⁴ See Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, ‘Truth: Anselm or Aquinas’, New Blackfriars 66 (1985) p. 86.

⁴⁵ Davidson, Donald, ‘The Structure and Content of Truth’, The Journal of Philosophy 87 (1990) p. 279CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁶ Zizioulas, John, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church, (London: DLT, 1985), p. 70Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Rahner, Karl, Hearer of the Word, translated by Donceel, Joseph, (New York: Continuum, 1994), p. 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This translation contains an error in the first sentence quoted above and reads: “What being is, is always obvious”. This error has been corrected in the quotation from the same translation in A Rahner Reader, edited by McCool, Gerald A., (Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1975), p. 6Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ As quoted in Inglott, Peter Serracino, Beginning Philosophy, (Malta: Media Centre, 1987), p. 202Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ See Rahner, Karl, Hearer of the Word, translated by Donceel, Joseph, (New York: Continuum, 1994), p. 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁰ See Ibid., pp. 39–40, where Rahner equates ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’.

⁵¹ Ibid., p. 32.

⁵² Ibid., p. 29.

⁵³ “Cum intellectus et intelligibile in actu sint unum”. (Thomas Aquinas, In Metaph. Prooem., in Rahner, Karl, Hearer of the Word, translated by Donceel, Joseph, [New York: Continuum, 1994], p. 31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.)

⁵⁴ See Rahner, Karl, Hearer of the Word, translated by Donceel, Joseph, (New York: Continuum, 1994), p. 32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁵ The problem Rahner sees in Thomistic epistemology lies rather in the direction of how the known, which is originally identical with the knower can stand in a relation of otherness. Rahner considers the answer to lie in his postulation of the ‘Vorgriff’ towards being as illimited in itself, which is the transcendental condition of the possibility of an object known as object.

⁵⁶ Rahner, Karl, Hearer of the Word, translated by Donceel, Joseph, (New York: Continuum, 1994), p. 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁷ Even if Rahner's interpretation of Aquinas is to some extent correct, his perspective from a post-Cartesian point of view was vastly influenced by Kantianism and is very different from that of the Angelic Doctor's.

⁵⁸ Rahner maintains that his understanding of the knowledge of God is but a new translation of the traditional Thomist ways demonstrating the existence of God. The translation takes place from the language of the metaphysics of being to that of the metaphysics of knowledge. (See Rahner, Karl, Hearer of the Word, translated by Donceel, Joseph, [New York: Continuum, 1994], p. 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.)

⁵⁹ This is also held by Aquinas who also argues that in every act of knowledge we implicitly know God (See Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate xxii, 2 ad 1). However, Aquinas is much more mindful of the limitations of human knowledge: he maintains that what is self-evident in itself is not necessarily self-evident to the human person.

⁶⁰ Descartes’ classic defence of the Ontological Argument had some important critics, but the most invoked criticism was offered by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason. Kant rejected the argument on two bases: First, leaving the argument's presuppositions unchallenged for the moment, he grants the analytic connections Descartes had asserted between the concept of God and that of existence. Therefore in the proposition ‘a perfect Being exists’, one could not affirm the subject and reject the predicate. However, one could choose not to affirm both the subject and the predicate without contradiction i.e. to reject as a whole the concept of an existing all-perfect Being. Secondly, Kant rejects the assumption that existence is a real predicate (if it were a real and not merely a grammatical predicate, it would be able to form part of the definition of God, and it would therefore be an analytic fact that God exists) on the grounds that propositions asserting existence are always true or false as a matter of fact rather than as a matter of definition. The function of ‘is’ or ‘exists’ is not to add to the content of a concept, but to lay down a real object answering to a concept. Thus the real contains no more than the imaginary (a hundred real dollars are the same in number as a hundred imagined ones); the difference is that in one case the concept does, and in the other the object does not correspond to reality.

⁶¹ Anselm too would argue along these lines, for the idea of God he embraces is the point at which thinking necessarily transcends itself and thinks something it is incapable of thinking out any further because the infinite is incapable of being captured in any finite concept.

⁶² See Schleiermacher, Friedrich, The Christian Faith, (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clarke, 1989)Google Scholar, Part i. It is, however, difficult to conceive of the possibility of such experiences as Rahner and Anselm point to as being linked to some term in the sense of being experiences ‘of’ something or ‘about’ something.

⁶³ See Taylor, Charles, Philosophical Papers, i, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 112Google Scholar.