Anselmus saw the relationship between faith and reason as complementary, and he attempted to prove the existence of God through reason. He argued that God is real through ontological proofs of God, but this logic was criticized by several philosophers.
Anselmus’ Reason: The relationship between faith and reason
Anselmus is often referred to as the father of Scholastic philosophy. However, Anselmus’ ideas are also controversial because he attempted to validate faith through pure reason alone by introducing reason into faith. Although this has been criticized, his philosophy can be interesting to non-believers from a modern perspective. In this article, we’ll take a look at the core of his thought: the philosophy of reason.
The relationship between faith and reason
Prior to Anselm’s introduction of reason into faith, reason was seen as a tool to aid faith. For example, Petrus Damianus said that “reason is the handmaiden of theology” and that religious truth is the only truth, and reason only helps us access that truth. Augustine’s “know in order to believe” can be understood in the same way: faith was the end goal, and reason was the means to that end.
In the 11th century, however, a position began to emerge that emphasized the role of reason in faith. Brangard of Tours argued that “reason is completely independent of faith,” and Damianus, mentioned earlier, opposed this position. It was Anselmus’ teacher, Lanfranc, who attempted to reconcile and balance the two positions. Lanfranc saw reason and faith as complementary. Anselmus took this position as well, but he placed a greater emphasis on reason, as he wrote in his Monologion, “The mode of proof does not depend at all on the authority of religious books, but on individual study and rational thought, which reveals the plainness of truth.” Of course, Anselmus didn’t deny faith, and he presupposed its authority and value, but he sought to prove it more clearly through reason.
Anselm’s rationalism can be characterized as ‘religious reason’ or ‘faith saving reason’. It is primarily concerned with religious defense against atheists or proving the existence of God. Anselmus argued that even those who believe that God does not exist have reason, and therefore can use it to prove the existence of God. According to him, atheists fail to use reason correctly, which he attributed to their lack of awareness or insufficient reason. He argued that the blindness to recognize God stems from self-thinking, and that proper self-awareness is necessary to get out of this state.
Anselmus saw reason and faith as independent: reason is not dependent on faith, but follows its own laws. But he also argued for the unity of reason and faith: he saw reason as trying to accomplish independently what faith shows, and he saw the relationship between the two as one in which neither is right or wrong, but in which they can have a unified view. He accepted Augustine’s “know in order to believe” view, but argued for his own “believe in order to know” view. The perception of God is only possible when reason and faith help each other, and with Anselmus, reason began to move from a secondary role to that of faith and to be used as a tool to explore the existence of God and more.
Anselm’s ‘ontological proof of God’ and its critics
Anselmus is best known for his ‘ontological proof of God’. This proof played an important role in the development of Scholastic philosophy. He argued that in proving God, ‘nothing can be a prerequisite but the healthy reason of man’. His proofs follow a few rules and must be logically simple and uncomplicated, meaning that even a non-believer with average reason can prove God.
Anselmus’ ontological proof of God is summarized in the following steps. First, it presupposes that there is “something greater than which nothing greater can be conceived.” Second, this something must be an existent object, not merely an object of thought, because if it exists only as an object of thought, it is a lesser object than an existent object. Third, therefore, God must exist in both thought and existence.
However, this method of proof has been criticized, most notably by Gaunillo’s rebuttal. Gaunillo was a monk who lived at the same time as Anselmus, and he refuted Anselmus’ proof on two grounds: first, the idea of God is not conceivable by humans. God is not a finite being that humans can conceive of. Second, existence cannot come from the idea of thought. Gaunillo sarcastically refutes Anselmus’s logic by using the example of the most beautiful island, saying that you can’t prove the existence of God from the idea of God.
In response to the first of these criticisms, Anselmus argued that we can conceive of God because the concept of God is itself “something greater than which we cannot conceive.” In response to the second, he said that his argument is only valid for God: the most beautiful island has no problem with not existing, but God does not. Therefore, the concept of God implies existence.
Thomas Aquinas criticized Anselmus in the Summa Theologiae: first, he argued that not everyone has the idea of God as Anselmus defines it; second, he said that even if one did conceive of God according to Anselmus’ definition, it would not exist, but only as a concept; and finally, he said that atheists would deny its existence, even if they acknowledged ‘something greater than it’.
Kant’s critique is also succinct and to the point. Kant saw Anselmus’ claim that we can fully comprehend the idea of God as outside the realm of the five senses as a fallacy in itself: since the idea of God transcends the five senses, he argued, we can neither affirm nor deny God. Furthermore, Kant emphasized that existence is not a property of entities, and assessed Anselmus’ argument as fundamentally flawed.
Finally, Douglas Gasking’s parody argument is introduced. Gasking attempted to use Anselmus’ logic to prove the non-existence of God by inversion. He argued that the most unfavorable condition a creator could face is non-existence, and therefore it would be an even more remarkable feat if the being that created the universe did not exist. This argument criticizes Anselmus’ logic as a straw man that can prove neither the existence nor non-existence of God.
Anselmus’s truth
For Anselmus, the highest purpose of cognition was to arrive at God, or truth. He made the unity of the human mind with divine truth the goal of apologetics, through which he hoped to find a similarity to God within himself. Anselmus distinguished between the concepts of thinking, contemplation, and meditation, clarifying the role of each: thinking is the thought of concrete objects in existence, while contemplation is a supernatural faculty of the mind, corresponding to the divine faculty. Contemplation is a form of thought acquired through the natural mental faculties and training of the human mind, which is essential when attempting to reach the essence of the divine.
Reason plays an important role in Anselmus’ apologetics: it is the highest faculty of the human mind, enabling us to realize our own ignorance, and is the key to proper self-awareness. He sought to find truth from within, rather than outside of man, and saw that reason must also be self-aware in order to grasp truth; hence, we can say that he sought to arrive at truth through pure reason.
Anselmus took reason as the starting point for the perception of truth, and argued that reason is at work in every process of perception. He saw “similarity” as the key to self-awareness, which he believed was the human mind’s imitation of the divine, and that it must reach that similarity. He believed that the human mind could only reach similarity if it identified its own source and went beyond it.
This idea of similarity extends to seeing God not as a transcendent being beyond the phenomenal world, but as already existing within the human psyche. The human mind takes steps to identify itself, to go beyond itself, and to recognize God. Reason is the source that makes these steps possible, and when reason moves toward God, it also moves toward itself. However, human reason cannot fully comprehend divine reason, and reason is only a possibility for the recognition of God.
Anselmus saw reason as having the ability to distinguish between good and evil, and he argued that this ability exists within reason. Reason already has a measure of rightness, which is the standard by which all truth is measured; therefore, in order to arrive at truth, one must recognize the measure of rightness within reason.
To summarize, Anselmus saw reason as grasping and contemplating all things, reaching self-awareness through self-reflection and meditation, which leads to the recognition of truth and God. These arguments can be assessed as closer to philosophy than to theology, and are similar to Plato’s process of “recalling forgotten truths.
