Chapter 1: A rousing of the mind to the contemplation of God Come now, insignificant mortal.

Leave behind your concerns for a little while, and retreat for a short time from your restless thoughts. Cast off your burdens and cares; set aside your labor and toil. Just for a little while make room for God, and rest a while in him. Speak now, my whole heart: say to God, I seek your face; your face, Lord do I seek (Psalms 27:8). Come now, O Lord my God. Teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you. Lord, if you are not here, where shall I seek you, since you are absent? But if you are everywhere, why do I not see you, since you are present? Truly you dwell in inaccessible light (1 Timothy 6:16). And where is this inaccessible light? How am I to approach an inaccessible light? I have never seen you, O Lord my God; I do not know your face. Lord, you are my God, and you are my Lord, but I have never seen you. You have made me and remade me, you have given me every good thing that is mine, and still I do not know you. I was created so that I might see you, but I have not yet done what I was created to do. (97) Let me look up at your light, whether from afar or from the depths. Teach me how to seek you, and show yourself to me when I seek. For I cannot seek you unless you teach me how, and I cannot find you unless you show yourself to me. Le me seek you in desiring you; let me desire you in seeking you. Let me find you in loving you; let me love you in finding you. I acknowledge, Lord, and I thank you, that you have created in me this image of you so that I may remember you, think of you, and love you. Yet this image is so eroded by my vices, so clouded by the smoke of my sins, that it cannot do what it was created to do unless you renew and refashion it. I am not trying to scale your heights, Lord; my understanding is in no way equal to that. But I do long to understand your truth in some way, your truth which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand in order to believe; I believe in order to understand. For I also believe that Unless I believe, I shall not understand (99). Chapter 2: That God Truly Exists [1] Therefore, Lord, you who grant understanding to faith, grant that insofar as you know it is useful for me, I may understand that you exist as we believe you exist, and that you are what we believe you to be. [2] Now we believe that you are something than which nothing greater can be thought. [3] So can it be that no such nature exists, since The fool has said in his heart, There is no God (Psalm 14:1; 53:1)? [4] But when this same fool hears me say something that which nothing greater can be thought, he surely understand what he hears and what he understand exists in his understanding, even if he does not understand that it exist [in reality]. [5] For it is one thing for an object to exist in the understanding and quite another to understand that the object exists [in reality]. [6] When a painter, for example, thinks out in advance what he is going to paint, he has it in his understanding, but he does not yet understand that it exists, since he has not yet painted it. [7] But once he has painted it, he both has it in his understanding and understands that it exists because he has now painted it. [8] So, even the fool must admit that something than which nothing greater can be thought exists at least in his

understanding, since he understands this when he hears it, and whatever is understood exists in the understanding. [9] And surely that than which a greater cannot be thought cannot exist only in the understanding. [10] For if it exists only in the understanding, it cannot be thought to exist in reality as well, which is greater. [11] So if that than which a greater cannot be thought exists only in the understanding, then that than which a greater cannot be thought is that than which a greater can be thought. [12] But that is clearly impossible. [13] Therefore, there is no doubt that something than which a greater cannot be thought exists both in the understanding and in reality (99-100).

Continuation of Anselms Ontological Argument Selection from Anselms Proslogion Chapter 3 That he cannot be thought to not exist This being exists so truly that he cannot be thought not to exist. For it is possible to think that something exists that cannot be thought not to exist, and such a being is greater than on that can be thought not to exist. Therefore, if that than which a greater cannot be thought can be thought to not exist, then that than which a greater cannot be thought is not that than which a greater cannot be thought; and this is a contradiction. So that than which a greater cannot be thought exists so truly that it cannot be thought not to exist. Objections to Anselms Ontological Argument 1. Guanilo of Marnoutier, Reply on Behalf of the Fool (found on pages 124-25 in the Williams translation of Anselms work). How is the fact fact that this greater being has been proved greater than everything else supposed to show me that it exists in actual fact? For I continue to deny, or at least doubt, that this has been proved, so that I do not admit that this greater being exists in my understanding or thought even in the way that many doubtful and uncertain things exist there. First, I must become certain that this greater being truly exists somewhere, and only then will the fact that it is greater than everything else show clearly that it also subsists in itself. For example, there are those who say that somewhere in the ocean is an island, which, because of the difficultyor rather impossibilityof finding what does not exist, some call the Lost Island. This island (so the story goes) is more plentifully endowed than even the Isles of the Blessed with an indescribable abundance of all sorts of riches and delights. And because it has neither owner nor inhabitant, it is everywhere superior in its abundant riches to all the other lands that human beings inhabit. Suppose someone tells me all this. The story is easily told and involves no difficulty, and

so I understand it. But if this person went on to draw a conclusion and say, You cannot any longer doubt that this island, more excellent than all others on earth, truly exists somewhere in reality. For you do not doubt that this island exists in your understanding, and since it is more excellent to exist not merely in the understanding, but also in reality, this island must also exist in reality. For if it did not, any land that exists in reality would be greater than it. And so this more excellent thing that you have understood would not in fact be more excellent. If, I say, he should try to convince me by this argument that I should no longer doubt whether the island truly exists, either I would think he was joking, or I would not know whom I ought to think more foolish: myself, if I grant him his conclusion, or him, if he thinks he has established the existence of that island with any degree of certainty without first showing that its excellence exists in my understanding as a thing that truly and undoubtedly exists and not in any way like something false or uncertain. 2. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, chapter11. ... granted that by the name God everyone understands that than which a greater cannot be thought of, it does not follow that there is something than which a greater cannot be thought of in the nature of things. For we have to posit the name and its interpretation in the same way. Now from the fact that it is conceived by the mind what is indicated by the name God, it does not follow that God exists, except in the intellect. Whence it is not necessary either that that than which a greater cannot be thought of exists, except in the intellect. And from this it does not follow that there is something than which a greater cannot be thought of in the nature of things. And so no inconsistency is involved in the position of those who think that God does not exist: for no inconsistency is involved in being able, for any given thing either in the intellect or in reality, to think something greater, except for those who concede that there is something than which a greater cannot be thought of in the nature of things. 3. St. Thomas Aquinas, The Basic Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. A.C. Pegis (New York: Random House, Inc, 1954). Perhaps not everyone one who hears this name God understands it to signify that than which nothing greater can be thought, seeing that some have believed God to be a body. Yet granted that everyone understands that by this name God is signified some something than which nothing greater can be thought, nevertheless, it does not therefore follow that he understands that what the name signifies actually exists, but only that it exists mentally. Nor can it be argued that it actually exists, unless it be admitted that there actually exists something than which nothing greater can be thought; and this precisely is not admitted by those who hold that God does not exist.