St. Anselm's Argument for the Existence of God: PROSLOGION The Nature of God Vol. I and II

St. Anselm’s Proslogion, which he wrote in 1078, has over the last nine centuries attracted both controversy and philosophical debate. Anselm’s approach to seeking the truth of God’s existence is with faith and reason inextricably linked, first meditating then contemplating what reason informs and faith reveals of the Highest Good. Anselm was convinced as he tells us in the Preface to the Proslogion that, following his previous work, the Monologion, a single argument, would suffice to demonstrate that God truly existed. The Argument’s a priori starting point has been and still remains today causal to differing thoughts by many commentators. Much debate has been centred on chapters II-IV of the Proslogion, which concerns exclusively God’s existence and Anselm’s celebrated concept “that than which a greater cannot be conceived.” It is the case, however, that the Proslogion’s remaining chapters V-XXVI concerning God’s nature reveal not only the anguish of Anselm’s spiritual journey even though he claimed in chapter IV that he had been graced by God’s illumination, but also the ultimate joy that enveloped him in the truth that cannot be denied and the hope and promise of eternal salvation.