In the Preface to the Proslogion Anselm describes the treatise in relation to his first treatise, pointing out two important differences between them. First, there is a difference in the complexity of argumentation: the Monologion includes ‘‘a chain of many arguments,’’ whereas the Proslogion will introduce ‘‘a single argument’’ (unum argumentum). Second, Anselm points out a difference in the mode of presentation: the Monologion was composed from the point of view of a person who investigates things that he does not yet know, whereas the Proslogion is composed from the viewpoint of a person who strives to elevate his mind to the contemplation of God and seeks to understand what he believes. The original title of the treatise, Fides quaerens intellectum, ostensibly refers to the last-mentioned aspect of the perspective chosen. The title that Anselm invented some years later, Proslogion or Alloquium (An Address), is related to the circumstance that the person who speaks in the treatise addresses God and his own soul in turn.
In the Proslogion, Anselm discusses God’s existence (Ch. 2-4) and the properties of the Divine Essence (Ch. 5-23) within a devotional exercise. (Altogether there are 26 chapters.) Philosophical commentators have largely concentrated on the part on God’s existence (Ch. 2-4) and especially on Ch. 2. This chapter counts among the most famous pieces of philosophical text written in the Middle Ages: it includes the inference known as ‘‘Anselm’s ontological argument’’ or simply ‘‘Anselm’s argument.’’ It is taken to be the earliest formulation of the ontological argument for God’s existence.
Anselm’s argument is based on the characterization of God as ‘‘something than which a greater cannot be thought’’ (aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit). Anselm uses various slightly differing formulations of this expression; we shall abbreviate it X. Basically, the argument runs as follows. We believe that God is X. One can doubt whether there is any such being, because the Fool of the Psalms (Ps. 14: 1, 53: 1) denies God’s existence. But when the same Fool hears the expression X being used, he understands what he hears, and whatever is understood is in the understanding (in intellectu). Therefore, X exists at least in the understanding. However, it cannot be the case that X exists only in the understanding. For if it existed only in the understanding, it could be thought to exist also in reality (in re), which is greater. Therefore, if X existed only in the understanding, it would not be something than which a greater cannot be thought, that is, X would not be X. This is impossible. Therefore, X exists not only in the understanding but also in reality.
The name ‘‘ontological argument’’ goes back to Immanuel Kant. He was not familiar with Anselm and thought of some later thinkers instead. Some commentators insist that the name ‘‘ontological argument’’ should not be used of Anselm’s inference because it is different from, say, Descartes’ argument. This depends on what is taken to be essential to the ontological argument. Anselm’s inference is different from some later versions in that it does not appeal to the ‘‘concept’’ or ‘‘definition’’ or ‘‘essence’’ of God. However, it is an a priori argument that seeks to deduce the existence of a being starting from an expression signifying that kind of being, and it derives the force it has from the meaning of the expression that is used.
Soon after the publication of the Proslogion someone, traditionally identified as the monk Gaunilo of Marmoutier, wrote a short text Pro insipiente (On Behalf of the Fool) criticizing Anselm’s argument. Anselm appended the critique and his rejoinder, often called Responsio (Reply), to the end of the Proslogion. The considerations that Anselm presents in the Responsio elucidate his argument in many ways. A well-known part of Gaunilo’s critique is the Lost Island counterexample: it is possible to use Anselm’s strategy to argue for the existence of an island that is in every way excellent. Anselm rejects the counterexample as inappropriate and lets us understand that his argument does not apply to anything other than X, but he fails to offer any extended analysis of the matter.
There has been extensive dispute about the correct interpretation of the argument in the Proslogion. The traditional reading maintains that Anselm meant to introduce a strictly rational proof for God’s existence. This view has been challenged by fideistic and mystical interpretations of the treatise (see Hick and McGill 1967). The proponents of these interpretations can appeal to the fact that the Proslogion is a devotional exercise in which a believer strives to elevate his mind to the contemplation of God in prayer. Related to this, Anselm introduces the idea that God is X as a thing that ‘‘we believe’’ (credimus). The fideistic interpretation claims that Anselm’s aim in the Proslogion was to show the internal consistency of the Christian view by deducing articles of faith from other articles of faith, and this is said to be what the dictum ‘‘faith seeking understanding’’ actually means (Barth 1960).
Any adequate interpretation of the Proslogion needs to take the devotional character of the treatise seriously. From this it follows, among other things, that the common supposition that Anselm wrote the Proslogion in view of the Fool needs to be forsaken as absurd. Nevertheless, the traditional idea about the rational nature of Anselm’s proof can be shown to be correct.
Anselm makes it clear in the Preface that the argument that he will introduce in the treatise, the ‘‘single argument,’’ serves to prove God’s existence and ‘‘whatever we believe about the Divine Essence.’’ It is the single argument, and not the inference in Proslogion 2, that really deserves to be called Anselm’s argument. There is no scholarly consensus about what exactly Anselm refers to by the phrase ‘‘single argument.’’ It is clear, though, that a strategy of deriving divine attributes from the notion X is centrally related to it. Namely, Anselm believes that God’s attributes are of a kind that makes their bearer greater or more excellent: the Divine Essence is good, eternal, just, and ‘‘whatever it is better to be than not to be’’ (see Monologion 15; Proslogion 5; Responsio 10). Because of this, X can be proved to have any of the divine attributes, for if it lacks any such attribute, then it will not be X. Further, Anselm asserts that the ability to make correct value judgments belongs to the essence of rationality (Monologion 68). Consequently, on Anselm’s assumptions it should be possible to present, starting from the notion X, a strictly rational demonstration for the existence of a being that has all the attributes that the Divine Essence is believed to have.
Anselm does not explain why he chose to introduce the single argument by using it in a devotional exercise. One possible explanation is that his aim was to mold the attitudes of a conservative monastic audience toward the rational analysis of faith. In the Proslogion, Anselm does not yet say that understanding is ‘‘a middle-way between faith and sight’’ (cf. above), but the devotional exercise in the Proslogion in effect puts the search for rational arguments in this kind of framework (see Holopainen 2009).
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