J. A. DORNER.1
"According to the Monologium, we arrive at the
mental representation of God by the agency of faith and conscience, therefore
by a combined religious and moral method; by the same means we arrive at the
representation of the relativity of the world. But as there seemed to Anselm
something inadequate in making the Being of the Absolute dependent upon the
existence
of the Relative, as if the latter were more certain than the
former, he has interpolated in the
Proslogium (
Alloquium Dei) the
Ontological method. The thought of God, which is always given, and the being of
which is to be proved, claims, at any rate, to be the highest thought possible;
indeed, upon close comparison with all other thoughts which come and go, with
thoughts of such things as may just as well not exist as exist, it has the
essential peculiarity, the prerogative, so to speak, --and this is Anselm's
discovery, --that, if it is actually thought of as the highest conceivable
thought, it is also thought of as existent. Were it not thought of as being, it
would not for a moment be actually thought. Anselm then proceeds with his proof
as follows: 'We believe Thou art something, beyond which nothing greater can be
thought. The fool (Ps. xiv.) denies the existence of such a Being. Is He
therefore non-existent? But the very fool hears and understands what I say,
"something, greater than which there is nothing," and what he
understands is in his understanding. That it also exists without him would thus
have to be proved. But that, beyond which nothing greater can be thought,
cannot exist in mere intellect. For did it exist only in intellect, the thought
might be framed that it was realised, and that would be a greater thought.
Consequently, were that, a greater than which cannot be thought, existent in
mere intellect, the thought
quo
majus cogitari non potest would at the same
time be
quo majus cogitari potest,
which is impossible. Consequently, there exists, in reality as well as in the
understanding, something a greater than which cannot be thought. And this is so
true that its non-existence cannot be thought. Something may be thought which
is only to be thought as existent, and that is a
majus
than that the non-existence of which may be thought, and that Thou art, O Lord,
my God, I must think though I did not believe.' The nerve of the Anselmic
argument lies therefore in the notion that an idea which has an objective
existence is a
majus
than that to which mere subjective existence appertains; that, consequently, as
under the idea of God the highest thought possible is at any rate expressed,
the idea of God is not thought unless it is thought as existent. For, he says
in another place, it may be thought of everything that it does not exist, with
the exception of that
quod summe
est
to which being pre-eminently belongs. That is, the non-existence may be thought
of everything which has beginning or end, or which is constituted of parts and
is nowhere whole. But that, and it alone, cannot be thought as non-existent
which has neither beginning nor end, and is not constituted of parts, but is
thought of as
everywhere existing whole.
Gaunilo,
Count of Montigny, makes a twofold answer in defence of the atheist. He says
that that highest essence has no being in the understanding; it only exists
therein by the ear, not by being; it only exists as a man who has heard a sound
endeavors to embrace a thing wholly unknown to him in an image. And therein, he
says, it is concluded that the mental representation of God in mankind is
already a purely contingent one, and is produced from without by the sound of
words; its necessary presence in the spirit is not proved. Thus, he adds, much
is wanting to the ability of inferring its existence from the finding of such
an image in the spirit. In the sphere of mere imagination no one thing has a
less or a greater existence than any other thing; each has equally no existence
at all. Therefore, he writes, granted that the presence of the idea of God in
the spirit is not contingent, still the thought or the concept of God does not
essentially argue the being of God. Similarly says
Kant
later on: 'We are no richer if we think of our ability as one cipher more.'
That Anselm also undoubtedly knew, but he opined that the concept of God is
different to any other thought, which remains unaltered, whether it is thought
of as existent or non-existent; the concept of God is that thought, which is no
longer thought unless it is thought as existent, and which, therefore,
essentially involves being. But, of course, it is insufficiently established by
Anselm that a concept of God which does not necessarily include existence, is
not the highest thought, and therefore is not the concept of God, and that,
consequently, the really highest thought must also be thought of as existent.
To this the following objection attaches. Inasmuch as Anselm treated existence
as a
majus
compared with non-existence, he treated existence as an attribute, whereas it
is the bearer of all attributes. So it is not proved by Anselm that the origin
of this idea, which, when thought, is thought as existent, is not contingent to
the reason, but necessary; and that reason only remains reason by virtue of
this idea. Finally, Anselm thinks, thus overrating the Ontological moment, that
he has already attained therein the full concept of God. These shortcomings
were to be obviated, stage by stage, by his successors."
