Review of Ian Logan's Anselm

7/29/2019 Review of Ian Logan's Anselm

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Christ (Godmanhood), but the living out of this event both personally and socially inthe promise of a life wholly patterned after Him in the Church, the Kingdom of God,and the task of fulfilling this promise through elevating, transubstantiating all socialand political forms into that Kingdom (p. 156).

Brandon GallaherRegents Park CollegeUniversity of OxfordPusey Street, OxfordUK OX1 [email protected]

Reading Anselms Proslogion: The History of Anselms Argument and ItsSignificance Today by Ian Logan (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009) + 220 pp.

For centuries, philosophers have disagreed considerably when it comes to determin-ing the purpose of the argument for Gods existence that Anselm presents in hisProslogion and whether it is plausible. According to this argument, a being thanwhich no greater can be conceived (X) necessarily exists in reality if He exists inthought, else He would not be X. Since God is X, the logical inference is that God existsand indeed cannot be thought not to exist.

In the introduction to his book, Ian Logan of Blackfriars, Oxford readily acknowl-

edges the controversies this argument has caused and delineates a three-fold plan formaking his own contribution to efforts to interpret it. In this plan, the first priority isto conduct a careful translation and analysis of the primary text; the second is to traceits late Medieval and modern reception; the last is to determine what the significanceof the argument actually is.

On Logans account, much of the confusion over the argument results from ascholarly failure to attend to the actual message Anselms text communicates. As aresult of this tendency, Anselms argument has been misunderstood and criticized onthe basis of misapprehensions. One of the basic assumptions Logan admits to makingin his book is that a proper rendering and analysis of the Latin and English text is thekey to deciphering its meaning. Operating on that assumption, Logan bypasses the

existing critical edition of Anselms Opera omnia and turns straight to the text onwhich the edition itself is based, that is, to a manuscript titled MS Bodly 271.By transcribing and translating the Latin text of the Proslogion this manuscript

contains, Logan presents the primary source in unadulterated form and thereby takesthe first step towards understanding it. His translation is followed by a line-by-linecommentary on the text, which elaborates the meaning of key Latin phrases. Thecommentary is succeeded in turn by an investigation of the added support for hisargument Anselm gives in his reply to the objections of Gaunilo.

After devoting more than the first half of the book to these textual considerations,Logan turns to evaluate the reception of the Proslogion. In discussing the relevantthirteenth-century developments, Logan makes the important but rare observation

that Anselms argument came to be understood during this time, for the first time, inthe way it is commonly construed today, namely, as an argument according to whichGods existence is per se notum (self-evident) such that knowledge of Him is a priori

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Thomas Aquinas, who rejected the innovative aprioristic interpretation of Anselmsarguments some of his contemporaries were propounding.

From this point, Logan proceeds to describe how variations on the argumentwere subsequently championed and challenged on the basis of the assumption

that it is what it in fact is not, namely, an ontological proof in which evidencefor the existence of God is derived from the very definition of God and thereforepurely rationally, without recourse to revelation or experience. In the last five pagesof his book, Logan turns to identify the significance of Anselms argument. Onhis account, what is important about the Proslogion is not simply that it provesthat God exists but that it further proves that human minds are made in Godsimage, inasmuch as it establishes that the thought of Gods non-existence isunthinkable. For those that realize it is unthinkable, namely, the people of faith,Anselms argument reveals that the unknowable God grounds the human abilityto engage in acts of reasoning, to wit, reflect His image, and thereby indirectlyexperience Him.

Although the conclusion Logan draws concerning the purpose of Anselms argu-ment is certainly true, it is reached rather abruptly. The statements made at thebeginning of the book lead one to believe that the textual and historical analyses theauthor undertakes in the better part of the book will ultimately contribute in a majorway to clarifying what this significance is. In the end, however, the bearing thoseanalyses have on the effort to define the purpose of the argument is not brought intosharp relief. Those analyses are nonetheless useful, however. Ever attentive to detail,Logan illuminates textual nuances in his translation and commentary. Moreover, herightly emphasizes in a way that others who have given accounts of the modernreception of Anselms argument do not often do that what was received in moder-

nity was not in fact Anselms argument, but some mutation that was the product oflate Medieval thought.Recently, this point has also been stressed by Scott Matthews in his book, Reason,

Community, and Religious Tradition: Anselms Argument and the Friars. There, Matthewsextensively demonstrates something Logan only suggests, namely, that the transfor-mation of Anselms argument was wrought by Franciscan friars who were seeking toaccount for and vindicate St. Francis of Assisis intuitive and unbroken connectionwith God. With Logan, Matthews underscores the fact that Dominicans such asThomas Aquinas were not criticizing Anselm so much as the new (Franciscan)rendering of Anselm, which was subsequently taken to be Anselms own argument.

In calling attention to the mistaken nature of this assumption on which so many

interpretations and objections to Anselms argument are constructed, Logan helpsclear the ground for efforts to identify the purpose of Anselms argument. In his ownattempt to do this, he makes the crucial point that part of the purpose of the argumentfor God is to raise the human minds awareness of its creation in Gods image.Ultimately, however, the author does not elucidate the implications of this observationin a way that clearly conveys what the argument is introduced to accomplish andwhether it succeeds.

In order to do just that, it seems essential to stress that Anselms argument reiteratesthe thought of God as the supreme good that was forgotten at the fall, as Anselmhimself affirms in the prologue to the Proslogion. According to the Monologion, He issuch a good because He is the source of all the good things the world contains and for

that very reason transcends the world. Although He is unknowable by the worldsinhabitants as a result, He made them in His image to indirectly know Him byknowing after His own manner that is to consider the things they can know in light

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When they forgot about Gods great goodness and their creation in His image,human beings became predisposed to consider themselves rather than God as ulti-mate beings to be pleased. Consequently, they began to regard finite goods as ultimateones with the power to make or break their happiness. In staking all hopes for

happiness in the attainment of desires for things that are either fleeting or hard to findin fallen circumstances, they not only set themselves up for disappointment but alsofor conflict with one another.

With his argument, Anselm gives his readers the resources they need to unlearnthis fallen tendency and thus recover Gods image. He does so by summarizing theChristian teaching that the God who is uncreated rather than any created being isultimate, and by extrapolating the implications of that teaching for human patterns ofthought. Since existence in thought and reality is one and the same with God bydefinition, Anselm implies, the same should be true of those who profess belief inHim. These, in other words, should think and act in reality in accordance with theassumption that God is supreme and that temporal circumstances cannot thereforemake or break their happiness.

Although it is foolish inAnselms opinion to hear of God and refuse to believe in Himwhose existence accounts for the existence of reality and the possibility of reasoningabout it, it is also foolish or at best inconsistent, to hear of God, assent to belief in Him,and proceed to act like what is believed is not really true. The apparent purpose ofAnselms argument is to promote the efforts of those who claim to believe in God to actlike they believe in Him, that is, to reflect the image that was lost at the fall, reinstatedthrough faith in Christ, and that is renewed each time they reason in the light of faithin Gods supremacy. To interpret Anselms proof as a conceptual tool for undergoingthe gradual restoration of the image of Godfor becoming the living proof of His

existence that can scarcely help but be persuasivewould be to complete the story ofthe arguments significance that Logan so carefully and insightfully begins.

Lydia SchumacherInstitut Catholique de Paris21 Rue dAssasParis [email protected]

Scriptures Doctrine and Theologys Bible: How the New Testament ShapesChristian Dogmatics, edited by Markus Bockmuehl and Allan J. Torrance(Grand Rapids MI: Baker Academic, 2008) + 240 pp.

This is a collection of revised papers from a seminar held at the University ofSt. Andrews, in Scotland in 2007. The broad theme of the seminar is reflected in thesubtitle. These thoughtful papers, in various ways, all contribute to a lively andongoing discussion about interpreting Scripture theologically. The book is dividedinto three parts.

In Part I, Scriptures Doctrine, the essays focus on particular issues arising from the

work of biblical scholars that should (and often do not) exert some role on the workof theologians. J. Ross Wagner probes questions around the role and status of theSeptuagint particularly in the light of the work of the late Brevard Childs Wagner

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