Anselm's reply to Gaunilo, as
illustrated in the Prosologion is,
in effect, a restating of his earlier remarks in a slightly clearer
manner. By this it is meant that the interpretation of Gaunilo's
objections that Anselm uses portrays Gaunilo as saying, “... That
something than which a greater cannot be thought is in the
understanding no differently than from that which cannot be be
thought according to the true nature of anything at all...{and} that
it does not follow (as I say it does)that that than which nothing
greater can be thought exists in reality as well simply because it
exists in the understanding...”1In
response to this thesis on the part of Gaunilo, Anselm replies that,
“Furthermore, if it can be thought at all,
it necessarily exists.”2
Therefore the reader can assume that according to Anselm, any thing
can be thought of of which nothing greater can be thought, that it
must exist.
The
philosophical principle behind this lays in many different sources
but Anselm argues that, in accordance with divine simplicity, if you
can think of God (i.e. that than which nothing greater can be
thought) he must exist have always existed because otherwise you
would have brought the idea of God into existence thereby giving God
a beginning. However God is the essence of Beginninglessness because
he is a perfect being. Therefore if God does not have a beginning
then God would have existed before you thought of Him, thereby making
Him a Necessarily Existent being.
Anselm
goes further in saying that it is absurd to think that than which
nothing greater can be thought could exist only in the understanding.
In order for that than which nothing greater can be thought to exist
in the understanding it exists there because it is understood,
comprehensible. He supports this by saying that if the idea exists in
the understanding then it must have been thought. For a person to
have something that they do not understand in their understanding is
a negation. From there he lays out the idea that if it were to exist
solely in the understanding then it is not that than which nothing
greater can be thought but rather that than which something greater
can be thought.
At
this juncture he refers to the lost island idea. He says that it is
impossible for someone to think of a lost island, the most perfect
island in existence, as not existing because when it is described to
a person they understand what it is. If they were thinking of
something that than which nothing greater can be thought, they would
be thinking something that cannot be thought. Therefore he says they
would in essence not be thinking at all.3
Because of this that than which nothing greater can be thought cannot
be thought not to exist.4
Anselm's
final argument in support of his idea for the existence of that than
which nothing greater can be thought to exist in reality, he says
that the argument that that than which nothing greater can be thought
is impossible to think due to our lack of understanding is not
correct. He points out that when we think of good we compare goodness
based on things that are familiar to us and that we understand. We
use these understandings to formulate the highest good. He says that
the same thing applies when we think of anything in relation to God.
1Hyman,
Arthur, James J. Walsh, and Thomas Williams. "Proslogion."
Philosophy in the Middle Ages: the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish
traditions. 3rd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2010. 161-181.
Print. p. 176a
2ibid
3Ibid
pp 177b
4ibid
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