Quotation
Last reviewed:
“We believe that you are something than which nothing greater can be thought.”
Anselm of Canterbury · Scholasticism · Medieval · 1077–1078
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the sentence as the premise Anselm says faith already holds, spoken to God, from which he will argue that such a being cannot exist in the understanding alone. The we believe matters: the argument is faith seeking understanding, not a neutral hypothesis. A rival reading treats the address as decoration around a purely logical trick, but the Proslogion is a prayer, and the belief is part of the premise as he states it. Chapter 2 is the argument; Chapter 3 will press a stronger claim about necessary existence.
Did Anselm of Canterbury really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A standard English of the prayer's wording in Proslogion, chapter 2, addressing God. It is the faith-formula from which the argument proceeds, close to the shorter definition already in this library and not identical with it. The Latin is secure. This wording is a translation.
Where it comes from
Proslogion 2
Approximate date: 1077–1078.
How to use it
A working group in a diocese in Durham that writes down what it already says it believes, and then notices that the wording has consequences it had not drawn, is closer to his procedure than a group that pretends to start from nowhere. The consequences may be rejected by rejecting the wording. What he does not do is hide the belief; A policy paper that buries its premise and then acts surprised by the conclusion is a worse version of the same machine.
A mindset reading
The sentence is almost the same as the famous definition, and the difference is the belief and the address. Quoting only a definition of a maximal being, as if nobody had to believe anything to start, is a modern reconstruction. It may be a sharper argument; It is not this sentence; Gaunilo's reply still applies to the content; The prayer-form does not make the logic immune.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is something than which nothing greater can be thought, the formula of the Proslogion. Chapter 2 argues from that formula, held as belief, to existence in reality. The shorter sentence elsewhere in this library states the definition. This one states it as an address; The Latin is Anselm's; Later chapters of the same little book become a meditation on God's attributes, which readers skip when they mine only the proof.
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FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the sentence as the premise Anselm says faith already holds, spoken to God, from which he will argue that such a being cannot exist in the understanding alone. The we believe matters: the argument is faith seeking understanding, not a neutral hypothesis. A rival reading treats the address as decoration around a purely logical trick, but the Proslogion is a prayer, and the belief is part of the premise as he states it. Chapter 2 is the argument; Chapter 3 will press a stronger claim about necessary existence.
Did Anselm of Canterbury really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A standard English of the prayer's wording in Proslogion, chapter 2, addressing God. It is the faith-formula from which the argument proceeds, close to the shorter definition already in this library and not identical with it. The Latin is secure. This wording is a translation.
Which work is it in?
Proslogion 2 Approximate date: 1077–1078.