He is better who is good to the righteous and the wicked than he who is good to the righteous alone. Although God is supremely just, the source of his compassion is hidden. God is supremely compassionate, because he is supremely just.
He saves the just, because justice goes with them; he frees sinners by the authority of justice. God spares the wicked out of justice; for it is just that God, than whom none is better or more powerful, should be good even to the wicked, and should make the wicked good. If God ought not to pity, he pities unjustly. But this it is impious to suppose. Therefore, God justly pities. BUT how do you spare the wicked, if you are all just and supremely just?
For how, being all just and supremely just, do you anything that is not just? Or, what justice is that to give him who merits eternal death everlasting life? How, then, gracious Lord, good to the righteous and the wicked, can you save the wicked, if this is not just, and you do not anything that is not just? Or, since your goodness is incomprehensible, is this hidden in the unapproachable light wherein you dwell?
Truly, in the deepest and most secret parts of your goodness is hidden the fountain whence the stream of your compassion flows.
For you are all just and supremely just, yet you are kind even to the wicked, even because you are all supremely good. For you would be less good if you were not kind to any wicked being. For, he who is good, both to the righteous and the wicked, is better than he who is good to the wicked alone; and he who is good to the wicked, both by punishing and sparing them, is better than he who is good by punishing them alone. Therefore, you are compassionate, because you are all supremely good.
And, although it appears why you do reward the good with goods and the evil with evils; yet this, at least, is most wonderful, why you, the all and supremely just, who lacks nothing, bestows goods on the wicked and on those who are guilty toward you.
The depth of your goodness, O God! The source of your compassion appears, and yet is not clearly seen! We see whence the river flows, but the spring whence it arises is not seen. For, it is from the abundance of your goodness that you are good to those who sin against you; and in the depth of your goodness is hidden the reason for this kindness. For, although you do reward the good with goods and the evil with evils, out of goodness, yet this the concept of justice seems to demand.
But, when you do bestow goods on the evil, and it is known that the supremely Good has willed to do this, we wonder why the supremely just has been able to will this. O compassion, from what abundant sweetness and what sweet abundance do you well forth to us! O boundless goodness of God how passionately should sinners love you! For you save the just, because justice goes with them; but sinners you do free by the authority of justice. Those by the help of their deserts; these, although their deserts oppose.
Those by acknowledging the goods you has granted; these by pardoning the evils you hate. O boundless goodness, which do so exceed all understanding, let that compassion come upon me, which proceeds from your so great abundance! Let it flow upon me, for it wells forth from you.
Spare, in mercy; avenge not, in justice. For, though it is hard to understand how your compassion is not inconsistent with your justice; yet we must believe that it does not oppose justice at all, because it flows from goodness, which is no goodness without justice; nay, that it is in true harmony with justice.
For, if you are compassionate only because you are supremely good, and supremely good only because you are supremely just, truly you are compassionate even because you are supremely just. Help me, just and compassionate God, whose light seek; help me to understand what I say.
Truly, then, you are compassionate even because you are just. Is, then, your compassion born of your justice? And do you spare the wicked, therefore, out of justice? If this is true, my Lord, if this is true, teach me how it is. Is it because it is just, that you should be so good that you can not be conceived better; and that you should work so powerfully that you can not be conceived more powerful?
For what can be more just than this? Assuredly it could not be that you should be good only by requiting retribuendo and not by sparing, and that you should make good only those who are not good, and not the wicked also. In this way, therefore, it is just that you should spare the wicked, and make good souls of evil.
Finally, what is not done justly ought not to be done; and what ought not to be done is done unjustly. If, then, you do not justly pity the wicked, you ought not to pity them. And, if you ought not to pity them, you pity them unjustly. And if It is impious to suppose this, it is right to believe that you justly pity the wicked.
How he justly punishes and justly spares the wicked. BUT it is also just that you should punish the wicked. For what is more just than that the good should receive goods, and the evil, evils? How, then, is it just that you should punish the wicked, and, at the same time, spare the wicked? Or, in one way, do you justly punish, and, in another, justly spare them?
For, when you punish the wicked, it is just, because it is consistent with their deserts; and when, on the other hand, you sparest the wicked, it is just, not because it is compatible with their deserts, but because it is compatible with your goodness. For, in sparing the wicked, you are as just, according to your nature, but not according to ours, as you are compassionate, according to our nature, and not according to yours; seeing that, as in saving us, whom it would be just for you to destroy, you are compassionate, not because you feel an affection affectum , but because we feel the effect effectum ; so you are just, not because you requite us as we deserve, but because you do that which becomes you as the supremely good Being.
In this way, therefore, without contradiction you do justly punish and justly spare. How all the ways of God are compassion and truth; and yet God is just in all his ways. BUT, is there any reason why it is not also just, according to your nature, O Lord, that you should punish the wicked? Surely it is just that you should be so just that you can not be conceived more just; and this you would in no wise be if you did only render goods to the good, and not evils to the evil.
For, he who requites both good and evil according to their deserts is more just than he who so requites the good alone. It is, therefore, just, according to your nature, O just and gracious God, both when you do punish and when you sparest. Truly, then, all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth Psalms xxv. And assuredly without inconsistency: For, it is not just that those whom you do will to punish should be saved, and that those whom you do will to spare should be condemned.
For that alone is just which you do will; and that alone unjust which you do not will. So, then, your compassion is born of your justice. For it is just that you should be so good that you are good in sparing also; and this may be the reason why the supremely Just can will goods for the evil.
But if it can be comprehended in any way why you can will to save the wicked, yet by no consideration can we comprehend why, of those who are alike wicked, you save some rather than others, through supreme goodness; and why you do condemn the latter rather than the former, through supreme justice.
So, then, you are truly sensible sensibilis , omnipotent, compassionate, and passionless, as you are living, wise, good, blessed, eternal: and whatever it is better to be than not to be. God is the very life whereby he lives; and so of other like attributes. BUT undoubtedly, whatever you are, you are through nothing else than yourself. Therefore, you are the very life whereby you live; and the wisdom wherewith you are wise; and the very goodness whereby you are good to the righteous and the wicked; and so of other like attributes.
How he alone is uncircumscribed and eternal, although other spirits are uncircumscribed and eternal. But he is himself everywhere and always. He alone not only does not cease to be, but also does not begin to be. BUT everything that is in any way bounded by place or time is less than that which no law of place or time limits.
Since, then, nothing is greater than you, no place or time contains you; but you are everywhere and always. And since this can be said of you alone, you alone are uncircumscribed and eternal. How is it, then, that other spirits also are said to be uncircumscribed and eternal? Assuredly you are alone eternal; for you alone among all beings not only do not cease to be but also do not begin to be. But how are you alone uncircumscribed?
Is it that a created spirit, when compared with you is circumscribed, but when compared with matter, uncircumscribed?
For altogether circumscribed is that which, when it is wholly in one place, cannot at the same time be in another. And this is seen to be true of corporeal things alone. But uncircumscribed is that which is, as a whole, at the same time everywhere. And this is understood to be true of you alone. But circumscribed, and, at the same time, uncircumscribed is that which, when it is anywhere as a whole, can at the same time be somewhere else as a whole, and yet not everywhere.
And this is recognised as true of created spirits. For, if the soul were not as a whole in the separate members of the body, it would not feel as a whole in the separate members. Therefore, you, Lord, are peculiarly uncircumscribed and eternal; and yet other spirits also are uncircumscribed and eternal.
HAS you found what you did seek, my soul? You did seek God. You have found him to be a being which is the highest of all beings, a being than which nothing better can be conceived; that this being is life itself, light, wisdom, goodness, eternal blessedness and blessed eternity; and that it is every where and always.
For, if you have not found your God, how is he this being which you have found, and which you have conceived him to be, with so certain truth and so true certainty? But, if you have found him, why is it that you do not feel you have found him? Why, O Lord, our God, does not my soul feel you, if it has found you? Or, has it not found him whom it found to be light and truth?
For how did it understand this, except by seeing light and truth? Or, could it understand anything at all of you, except through your light and your truth?
Hence, if it has seen light and truth, it has seen you; if it has not seen you, it has not seen light and truth. Or, is what it has seen both light and truth; and still it has not yet seen you, because it has seen you only in part, but has not seen you as you are? Lord my God, my creator and renewer, speak to the desire of my soul, what you are other than it has seen, that it may clearly see what it desires.
It strains to see you more; and sees nothing beyond this which it has seen, except darkness. Nay, it does not see darkness, of which-there is none in you; but it sees that it cannot see farther, because of its own darkness. Why is this, Lord, why is this? Is the eye of the soul darkened by its infirmity, or dazzled by your glory? Surely it is both darkened in itself, and dazzled by you. Doubtless it is both obscured by its own insignificance, and overwhelmed by your infinity.
Truly, it is both contracted by its own narrowness and overcome by your greatness. For how great is that light from which shines every truth that gives light to the rational mind?
How great is that truth in which is everything that is true, and outside which is only nothingness and the false? How boundless is the truth which sees at one glance whatsoever has been made, and by whom, and through whom, and how it has been made from nothing? What purity, what certainty, what splendor where it is? Assuredly more than a creature can conceive. For, since it can be conceived that there is such a being, if you are not this very being, a greater than you can be conceived.
But this is impossible. TRULY, O Lord, this is the unapproachable light in which you dwell; for truly there is nothing else which can penetrate this light, that it may see you there. Truly, I see it not, because it is too bright for me.
And yet, whatsoever I see, I see through it, as the weak eye sees what it sees through the light of the sun, which in the sun itself it cannot look upon. My understanding cannot reach that light, for it shines too bright.
It does not comprehend it, nor does the eye of my soul endure to gaze upon it long. It is dazzled by the brightness, it is overcome by the greatness, it is overwhelmed by the infinity, it is dazed by the largeness, of the light.
O whole and blessed truth, how far are you from me, who am so near to you! How far removed are you from my vision, though I am so near to yours! Everywhere you are wholly present, and I see you not.
In you I move, and in you I have my being; and I cannot come to you. You are within me, and about me, and I feel you not. In God is harmony, fragrance, sweetness, pleasantness to the touch, beauty, after his ineffable manner.
STILL you are hidden, O Lord, from my soul in your light and your blessedness; and therefore my soul still walks in its darkness and wretchedness. For it looks, and does not see your beauty. It hearkens, and does not hear your harmony. It smells, and does not perceive your fragrance. It tastes, and does not recognize your sweetness. It touches, and does not feel your pleasantness.
For you have these attributes in yourself, Lord God, after your ineffable manner, who hast given them to objects created by you, after their sensible manner; but the sinful senses of my soul have grown rigid and dull, and have been obstructed by their long listlessness. God is life, wisdom, eternity, and every true good. In God wisdom, eternity, etc. AND lo, again confusion; lo, again grief and mourning meet him who seeks for joy and gladness.
My soul now hoped for satisfaction; and lo, again it is overwhelmed with need. I desired now to feast, and lo, I hunger more. I tried to rise to the light of God, and I have fallen back into my darkness. Nay, not only have I fallen into it, but I feel that I am enveloped in it. I fell before my mother conceived me. Truly, in darkness I was conceived, and in the cover of darkness I was born.
Truly, in him we all fell, in whom we all sinned. In him we all lost, who kept easily, and wickedly lost to himself and to us that which when we wish to seek it, we do not know; when we seek it, we do not find; when we find, it is not that which we seek.
Do you help me for your goodness' sake! Lord, I sought your face; your face, Lord, will I seek; hide not your face far from me Psalms xxvii. Free me from myself toward you. Cleanse, heal, sharpen, enlighten the eye of my mind, that it may behold you.
Let my soul recover its strength, and with all its understanding let it strive toward you, O Lord. What are you, Lord, what are you? What shall my heart conceive you to be? Assuredly you are life, you are wisdom, you are truth, you are goodness, you are blessedness, you are eternity, and you are every true good.
Many are these attributes: my straitened understanding cannot see so many at one view, that it may be gladdened by all at once. How, then, O Lord, are you all these things?
Are they parts of you, or is each one of these rather the whole, which you are? For, whatever is composed of parts is not altogether one, but is: in some sort plural, and diverse from itself; and either in fact or in concept is capable of dissolution.
But these things are alien to you, than whom nothing better can be conceived of. Hence, there are no parts in you, Lord, nor are you more than one. As we have seen, the five chapters beginning with Proslogion XIV, emphasize the difficulty of thinking about God and the futility of any pretension to exhaustive knowledge.
However, the first obstacle is somehow vanquished, and Anselm went on to speculate about God qua Supreme Good, the Trinity, the state of the blessed, and his hopes for the possession of overflowing joy in the eschaton. None the less, this comparison should not be abused. Clement seemed to equate reason with Greek philosophy, a far from outrageous notion.
But it did rather embarrass him as it has to be incorporated, it appears somewhat arbitrarily, into a hierarchy of which the gnosis of Christ is the highest leve1. As previously noted, faith is expanded into understanding, understanding generates love, and love strives for the possession and fruition of the beloved, God.
Let us then return to the Proslogion, and, in the light of previous discussion, point to those features which perhaps have gone unnoticed. First of all, the emphasis Anselm placed on the continuity between the present and the future life might be considered.
Here, he was stating in another, more ample manner his belief that understanding is the mean between faith and vision, that the more a person advances in understanding the closer he approaches vision. The movement of reason regarding God, taking place, as it does, under the aegis of faith, is itself a sort of prayer as it gives witness to the truth. Thought and prayer are not completely separate activities but form part of the one movement towards the possession and fruition of God.
Leclercq was mistaken in faulting Anselm with a slightly ingenuous, possibily exaggerated, confidence in reason and viewing him as a disgruntled rationalist who was forced to turn to prayer. Quite the opposite is true. Prayer and rational argument do not meet in the Proslogion as opposing forces, each struggling to supplant the other, but are found together as integral parts of one process.
Reasoning about God has the same goal as prayer-to incite the mind to love of God. Nonetheless, this rules out a rigorously mystical interpretation of the argument, such as that presented by Dom Anselme Stolz, 84 and rejected by Gilson.
The Proslogion is not a piece of mystical theology. Although Dom Anselme was right in emphasizing the spiritual nature of the argument-the passage from faith to vision 85 -still, this transition does not take place within the Proslogion itself but is merely given as a future possibility and the object of the theological virtue of hope. In the Proslogion, there is a transition, but one from the existence of God to His nature and the consequent centering of attention on Divine Goodness.
Existence dominates the first section of the Proslogion, while the good is emphasized after the fifth chapter. That the Proslogion was intended both as a meditation for the believer and a proof for the unbeliever has become a commonplace of Anselmian scholarship, 87 and is certainly true as far as it goes. The very nature of a meditatio, a hybrid form in which prayer and speculation merge, which Anselm was instrumental in shaping, is more to the point at hand. Meditatio occurs very rarely in the Benedictine rule and refers to monastic activities such as learning the Psalter and preparing the lessons for the Office.
In this, it reflected the gradual disappearance of monastic culture as a speculative force under the increasing pressure of scholastic culture which reached its apogee in the thirteenth century. The quasi-geometrical structure of the Summae simply did not admit of the literary style and experience-oriented form of the meditation. Demonstration would ultimately purge itself of the last traces of spirituality which would be relegated to the province of mystical theology.
But the Proslogion is much more than a speculative form. Once we have come this far and look back so as to collect our previous observations, we find some interesting conclusions.
First of all, Anselm postulated that thinking rigorously about God is an approach of the whole man to God, that real understanding is a step towards ultimate fruition. A thinking about God lacking this direction would not be a true understanding, but a mere simulacrum limited to an order in which it remains unfruitful, in open contradiction with its own purpose and function.
To put it bluntly: thought in regard to God which is not a sort of prayer, is not true thought. Secondly, thought has an eminently practical nature. In contradistinction to the classic theoria it is supereminently useful, acting as the medium of access to the goal of human life.
We are already familiar with the movement from thought to judgment to love to fruition; theoria is not abolished but is ensconced within the moral order. This does not mean that the atheist or immoralist can not possess to some extent, knowledge concerning God. The problem resides in the negative and isolated character of this knowledge.
Not directed towards vision, prisoner within the cognitive realm, it can only stagnate if not activated by grace. Thirdly, viewed under the perspective of gnosis, the Proslogion can be demonstrated only eschatologically, there where the fullness of knowledge, love and joy are encountered. In this sense, the argument escapes the usual canon of demonstration and transcends philosophy understood as an antiseptically rational undertaking.
To view the Proslogion as gnosis may well raise serious objections but it is only by doing so that the fullness and dignity of the argument can be duly appreciated. Not to do so would reduce it to a caricature of itself.
This does not in any way minimize the properly philosophical aspect of the argument but suggests that even this aspect can be considered within a wider context. Demonstration may know nothing of an eschatological verification, but if the argument does reach out towards ultimate vision, it must do so by way of truth. Hegel, Lectures in the Philosophy of Religion N. LXIX , pp. Gramont and monks of the Abbaye Notre-Dame du Bec. I , Vol. Ii , Vol. III Flasch; G.
Geyer; H. Kohlenberger; C. Anselm argues that whatever one person of the Godhead is, so is the Godhead altogether To summarize, the Word the Son is true as the Father is true, and the Spirit which proceeds from them both is nothing less than what They are Finally, Anselm reflects on just how great this supremely good God is Furthermore, how many blessings await those who love this God ? First, it is a study in how to approach theology from a place of humility. As Anselm said, the person who desires to understand God must believe in Him first.
By appealing to the mind, Anselm demonstrates that a belief in God is actually far more rational than a belief that God does not exist. Finally, Proslogion is also a beautiful reminder of the glory that is to come for believers.
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