Proslogion

Proslogium · Fides quaerens intellectum

Anselm of Canterbury · 1077–1078 · Latin

Major work
Philosophy & apologetics
Catholic
Scholasticism
Theology & doctrine
Spirituality & mysticism

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What it is

A short meditation, written as a prayer, in which Anselm seeks a single argument for God's existence: God is that than which nothing greater can be thought, and such a being must exist in reality and not only in the mind. It ends in reflection on the joy of knowing God.

Why it matters

The source of the "ontological argument", attacked and defended by philosophers from Aquinas and Descartes to Kant and beyond. Its original title, "faith seeking understanding", sums up the scholastic project.

Reading it

About 30 pages.

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CCEL (Deane translation)

Influenced by1

Built on
On the Trinity · Augustine of Hippo · c. 400–420s
Anselm offered his meditations on God as in line with Augustine's On the Trinity, telling critics to read Augustine's books first; the Proslogion continues that project.
Monologion, Preface; Proslogion, Preface

Influenced2

Responds to it
Summa Theologiae · Thomas Aquinas · 1265–1273 (unfinished)
The Summa rejects the Proslogion's argument: Aquinas denies that God's existence is self-evident from the idea of 'something than which nothing greater can be thought', though he doesn't name Anselm.
Summa Theologiae I, q. 2, a. 1, obj. 2 and ad 2
Built on it
Church Dogmatics · Karl Barth · 1932–1967 (unfinished)
Barth said his book on the proof in Anselm's Proslogion was 'a vital key, if not the key' to the method of the Church Dogmatics.
Barth, Fides Quaerens Intellectum (1931), preface to 2nd edition

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