INTRODUCTION 307
Anselm’s argument was attacked by a fellow monk named Gaunilo. Anselm’s
exchange with Gaunilo has been preserved and the key sections are reprinted here,
along with selections from Proslogion,in the John F. Wippel and Allan B. Wolter
translation.
Despite the fact that this argument has fascinated thinkers for more than nine
hundred years, a student’s first response to this passage is often one of confusion or
simple denial: “He can’t do that!” The student is not alone in being confused; the
history of the argument is full of misrepresentations and misinterpretations. To be
sure, careful thinkers such as Hume and Kant have attacked this argument. But it is
notoriously difficult to say exactly what is wrong with Anselm’s logic, and many
purported refutations have actually been refutations of arguments quite different
from Anselm’s.
In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the argument, with Charles
Hartshorne, Norman Malcom, and Alvin Plantinga claiming that it is successful.
There has also been a tradition, beginning with the medieval thinker Bonaventure
and continuing through Karl Barth in the twentieth century, that claims the
Proslogion, Chapters II to IV, is not a philosophical argument at all. These the-
ologians are convinced that Anselm is not “proving” anything, that he is simply
showing the implications of God’s self-revelation.
While the debate continues to rage, one fact is clear: Anselm raised some of
the most basic questions in the history of philosophy. Questions about modes of
existence, possible beings, necessity and contingency, as well as a range of issues
in logic, all emerge in discussions of this provocative passage.
For a study of the complete Proslogion, see M.J. Charlesworth,St. Anselm’s
Proslogion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). For the rest of Anselm’s major
works see, Anselm of Canterbury,The Major Works,edited by Brian Davies and
G.R. Evans, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). For a study of Anselm’s life
and times, see R.W. Southern’s books Saint Anselm and His Biographer
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963) and Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a
Landscape(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and William H.
Shannon,Anselm: The Joy of Faith(New York: Crossroads, 1999). Jasper Hopkins,
A Companion to the Study of St. Anselm(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1972), provides a comprehensive discussion of Anselm and his work. For
essays on Anselm’s thought, see Brian Davies and Brian Leftow, eds.,The
Cambridge Companion to Anselm(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
For further reading on the ontological argument, the best source is John Hick and
Arthur C. McGill, eds.,The Many-Faced Argument(New York: Macmillan, 1967).
Charles Hartshorne,Anselm’s Discovery: A Re-Examination of the Ontological
Argument for God’s Existence(LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1965); Alvin Plantinga,
The Nature of Necessity(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974)—and his “simplified”
version of this difficult work, Alvin Plantinga,God, Freedom, and Evil(Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977); and Richard Campbell,From Belief to Understand-
ing(Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1976), all defend the argu-
ment. For theological interpretations, see Karl Barth,Anselm: Fides Quaren
Intellectum,translated by Ian W. Robinson (London: SCM Press, 1960). (Key chap-
ters from this work are included in Hick and McGill’s The Many-Faced Argument.)