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Anselm of Canterbury
(1033-1109)

In philosophy of religion Anselm is most widely known for his formulation of the ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT for the existence of God. Anselm sets out this approach in two distinct forms in the Proslogion 2-4. However, the title Proslogion denotes 'address', and especially in the first formulation, as BARTH among others insists, the supposed 'argument' is an address on the part of a Christian worshipper or believer expressing adoration, praise, and confession of faith to God. The significance of this mode may be stylistic (recalling the style of AUGUSTINE'S Confessions), but it may significantly shape how the 'argument' is meant to be understood. Moreover it reminds us that Anselm writes primarily as a philosophical theologian, and not simply as a philosopher. He stands in the broad tradition of Christian Platonism.

Anselm is known under three titles. He is sometimes called Anselm of Aosta, since he was born at Aosta in Italy. He is also known as Anselm of Bec, because prior to 1093 he served as a Benedictine monk at Bec in Normandy. However, in 1093 he became the second Norman Archbishop of Canterbury.

In his period at Bec Anselm wrote the two well-known philosophical works Monologion (Soliloquy, 1078) and Proslogion (Address (i.e. to God), 1079). The Monologion includes Anselm's version of the COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT for the existence of God, in which he infers the existence of the Source of all good things, the Supreme Being, from experience of that which is good within the world. The Proslogion (sects. 2-4) and the later Liber Apologeticus pro Insipiente include his two versions of the ontological argument for the existence of God. The heart of his first formulation is that God is 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived (a liquid quo nihil maius cogitari potest)'.

This gave rise to controversy, even in Anselm's day, represented by the monk Gaunilo's 'reply' to the effect that Anselm's application of maximal greatness to 'God' proved not the existence of God, but something about the status of the concept of God. (In more detail, see the entry on the ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT, and GOD, ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE of.) This led to a second formulation (Liber Apologeticus), the distinctiveness of which has been underlined in modern discussion by HARTSHORNE (The Logic of Perfection, La Salle: Open Court, 1962) and more broadly by PLANTINGA (The Nature of Necessity, Oxford: Clarendon, 1974). Maximal greatness cannot logically apply to such contingent examples as those cited by Gaunilo (Gaunilo's island), since these (unlike God) can be 'conceived not to be'.

During his period at Bec, Anselm also wrote treatises On Truth, On Freedom of Choice and On the Fall of the Devil (De casu diaboli). This last work is important for the problem of evil. Following Augustine, and anticipating Thomas AQUINAS, Anselm viewed evil as a lack, or privation of being. It denotes the absence of good. Injustice is a lack of harmonious justice. The identification of, for example, telling a lie with lack of truthfulness, or corruptibility as lack of perfection enables Anselm to ascribe to God maximal almightyness which also excludes the capacity to lie or the capacity for corruption, since these are negatives that detract from maximal flourishing.

The period of nearly twenty years from the Monologion (1078) to Anselm's consecration as Archbishop of Canterbury (1093) was one of mainly philosophical production. At Canterbury, however, Anselm produced one of the lasting

classics of Christian theology, Why God Became Man (Cur deus homo, completed in 1098). Anselm argues that atonement for human sin is a matter that concerns God as God, not merely humankind (Book I: 5). Redemption flows from divine grace as gift through the voluntary sacrifice of Christ (ibid.: 8, 9).

Sin, Anselm insists, is not mere failure, but failure to render to God 'what is due' (ibid., 11-15). God's 'honour' is therefore at stake, since loss of honour implies that 'God would seem to fail in governance'. On the analogy of 'satisfying honour', in a medieval feudal system, the greater is the lord, i.e. God, the greater the 'satisfaction' that is 'fitting' (ibid., 19-24; cf. 'maximal greatness' in Proslogion 2-4).

Book I, on atonement and satisfaction, leads on to Book II, on the incarnation of God in Christ as an INSTANTIATION of humankind (homo, human person, not vir, man). If the 'fitting' satisfaction is of infinite value, only God can offer it: 'No-one but God can make the satisfaction'; but it can be a satisfaction on behalf of humankind if it is offered 'only [by] the God-man', Jesus Christ (II: 6-9). This work on the cross is offered not by compulsion, but through the self-consistency of the God who is gracious, just, almighty and self-giving in love (ibid., 18-20).

This work takes its place as one of the major classic models of the atonement. Its importance, not only for theology, but no less for philosophy of religion, lies in its coherence with Anselm's understanding of the 'maximal greatness' and noncontingent aseity of God, from the Monologion and Proslogion (1076-8) to Cur deus homo (1098). For a specialist account of his life, see R.W. Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (rev. edn, Cambridge: CUP, 1990). Anselm's works appear in various editions.

anthropomorphism

The term denotes the projection of merely human qualities and characteristics onto God or gods by (often) an undue extension of ANALOGY. Human characteristics may also be projected onto objects, as when a small child describes the operation of vacuum brakes as a train's 'sneezing'. In word history the term is derived from the Greek anthropos, humankind, with morphe, form.

An over-ready, uncritical use of anthropomorphic imagery may be seen in animism, in which 'spirit' or 'soul' is read into inamimate objects, thereby endowing them with personal qualities. Edward B. Tylor notoriously ascribed to primitive religion the status of a pseudoscience which explained mechanistic processes by animistic causes. An incisive critique of Tylor has been offered by Robert A. Segal ('Tylor's Anthropomorphic Theory of Religion', Religion, 25, 1995, 25-30).

Traditionally philosophical theologians have been wary of attributing emotions to God as anthropomorphic, but the Hebrew Bible, or Christian Old Testament, often does this in spite of its sensitive awareness of divine otherness, or divine TRANSCENDENCE. MOLTMANN insists on the attribution of feeling and suffering to God, provided that this capacity is understood as the result of God's own free, sovereign decision to love in voluntary vulnerability and interpersonal rapport.

Hegel views anthropomorphism as part of a 'religious' use of language as it is applied to God by means of SYMBOL, MYTH, METAPHOR or 'representation' (Vorstellung) in contrast to the purer, more rigorous 'concept' of philosophy (Begriff), with its greater critical awareness. A constellation of such issues emerge in the work of TILLICH and in RAMSEY'S work on MODELS AND QUALIFIERS.

apologetics

The English term is derived from the Greek apologia, defence, or speech of defence. According to Acts 22:1 and 1 Corinthians 9:3, Paul the Apostle offers a reasoned defence to those who seek to criticize him. Traditionally apologetics has come to denote a reasoned defence of a belief-system (characteristically but not exclusively Christian THEISM, or theism in general) in the face of non-theistic, atheistic, or agnostic objections to such beliefs (see AGNOSTICISM; ATHEISM).

PLATO offers an account of the Apology of Socrates, and Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-90) wrote Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864) in defence of his own religious and theological journey. The name 'the Apologists' usually denotes the Christian writers of the second century who defended the coherence of Christian belief against non-Christian charges of falsity and inconsistency, e.g. Justin's Apology to the Emperor Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius.

In the modern era TILLICH (1886-1965) aimed to produce an apologetic or 'answering' theology, in which Christian theology sought to address the questions of philosophers or, more widely, of thinking people. He proposed a 'principle of correlation', whereby questions about reason, being, existence, ambiguity and history were 'answered' by five respective responses concerning revelation, God, Jesus Christ, the Spirit and the kingdom of God. Many have challenged whether these 'correlations' are genuine 'questions' and 'answers', even if, however, as Tillich insists, 'apologetics presupposes common ground, however vague it may be' (Systematic Theology, vol. 1, London, Nisbet, 1953, 6).

In many Protestant circles, especially in Barthianism and in PIETISM, the whole enterprise of apologetics is thought to rest too heavily on the persuasive powers of human reason. However, a long theistic and Christian tradition underlines the value of attempts to defend the coherence and REASONABLENESS of religious or Christian belief.

In the philosophy of religion, a theistic presentation of such issues as arguments for the existence of God, the currency of LANGUAGE IN RELIGION and issues about the problem of evil and the being of God overlap prominently with traditional theistic or Christian apologetics. To argue that a belief-system is not irrational does not necessarily entail an appeal to RATIONALISM. (See also LOCKE.)

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Tags: Religion and Spirituality

About the Author

Anthony Thiselton is Emeritus Professor of Christian Theology at the University of Nottingham, and Canon Theologian of Leicester Cathedral and Southwell Minster, UK. His academic career has involved fellowships in both the UK and the US, he has lectured around the world, and has published seven books and over 50 papers.