Two Great Little Books, Part 1

It was quite a few weeks ago that we spent some time with Anselm. We looked at a very important date in Anselm’s life. The date was 1066. This was a definitive day in English history and it turned out rather unknowingly to him to be a definitive day in Anselm’s life.

Who was Anselm? Well, he was a monk in Normandy. He was at the monastery at Bec in Normandy. And when William the conqueror went to England and conquered England in 1066 he brought over Anselm’s superior to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his name was Lanfranc. And when Lanfranc died he suggested that Anselm replace him. And so Anselm became the Archbishop of Canterbury, the post he held from 1093 until his death in 1109.

This life from 1033-1109 is a very crucial life in the history of the Christian tradition. A very crucial life both in the history of philosophy and in the history of theology. And I thought what we needed to do was go back and spend a little bit more time with Anselm than we did previously; he deserves it. And what we will do is look at two books of his. And I've called these "great little books" because they’re not very long books at all. In fact the first book we’re going to look at is called Proslogion. And it is less than 30 pages. Well that’s amazing. This book has had a huge impact in the history of philosophy and it's less than 30 pages. The other book is Cur Deus Homo which has had a huge impact in the history of theology, and that book is about 80 pages. So these are 2 great little books.

“O, miserable fall. We have given up that which is what we were made for—our blessedness. And we have received that with which we were not made for—our misery.” Well, what’s going on in the first book, Proslogion? This is a book that Anselm writes in 1077-1078. And how about that? It takes him over a year or two-year span to write a 30-page book. But it’s because it’s a very densely packed book. And early on in the book (and much of it is a prayer actually) Anselm asks God that the Lord would grant him to understand. And then he says he would love to have a reason that God exists. And he’s asking God to give him a reason that He exists.

Now, Anselm begins His book by acknowledging that he’s sinful, and because he’s sinful, and because of what he has lost in the fall, in fact at one point he says, “O, miserable fall. We have given up that which is what we were made for—our blessedness. And we have received that with which we were not made for—our misery.” And part of the implication of this fall is that our intellect is tainted by the fall. The fall leaves us, as later Calvin is going to say, “totally depraved,” right?

So, here’s the problem. And in light of that, Anselm recognizes that we need revelation, we need God to teach us. But, Anselm also recognizes that we are intellectual beings. That God has made us as rational creatures, and while sin has impacted us we are still rational creatures. And so he’s asking God to give him a reason that He exists. And so in the Proslogion, Anselm advances one of the philosophical arguments for God’s existence. We call this the "ontological argument."

It’s a very basic argument. It’s rather complicated, but it’s a very basic argument, and it’s essentially this: We have the idea that God exists. And we have the idea that God exists as a perfect being. And then he says, to exist in reality is greater than existence in the mind. We could put it this way—what would you rather have, a hundred bucks, or the idea of a hundred bucks? Well, I think I’d take the hundred bucks, right? So existence in reality is greater than existence in the mind.

So we have the idea of a perfect being, but if he only exists in our mind well then He’s not perfect is He? Because He only exists as an idea, not in reality. And since we have the idea of God, God exists, the perfect being exists. And Anselm says, “And you, O Lord, are this being.”

If you can track down this text of Anselm’s, it’s called the Proslogion, and read it, I think you’ll see in this wonderful prayer of this monk that God did help him find a reason to believe that God exists. And here it is in this great little book of Anselm’s.