CONTRADICTION AS THE WAY TO VISION IN ANSELM’S PROSLOGION
Date
2020-08-27T17:35:40Z
Authors
Griffin, Andrew
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Abstract
In the Proslogion’s quest for God, reaching vision of God is not a matter of
bridging subject and object, but of coming to see what is already present at the journey’s
beginning. The quest, as a single continuous explication of God as “that than which
nothing greater can be thought”, follows a pattern whereby the seeker finds God, loses
vision, and finds God again under a new form. The treatise depends upon distinctions
between three forms of apprehension: faith, reason, and intellect. Anselm establishes the
necessity and limitations of reason, which is essential to seeking. Intellect’s government
of reason means that the contradictions, incomprehensibility, and loss of vision into
which reason leads are not signs of the quest’s failure, but essential moments constitutive
of the journey into vision of God. The quest begins and ends in God who is indivisible
unity and supreme good, inclusive of otherness and infinity.
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Keywords
Anselm of Canterbury, Neoplatonism, Negative Theology, Augustine, Reason, Faith, Intellect, Medieval Philosophy, Ontological Argument, Contradiction, Faith Seeking Understanding