What follows are Paul Tillich’s remarks on Anselm’s Ontological and Cosmological proofs in “A History of Christian Thought”. I have taken the liberty to bold a few key sentences – Erik
Anselm’s theonomous thought is expressed in his famous arguments for the existence of God, or as I like to say, his so-called arguments for the so-called existence of God, because I want to show that they are neither “arguments” nor do they prove the “existence” of God. But they do something much better than this. There are two arguments, the cosmological and the ontological. The cosmological argument is given in his Monologion and the ontological argument in his Proslogion. I want to show that these arguments are not arguments for the existence of an unknown or doubtful piece of reality, even if it is called “God”. They are quite different from this.
The cosmological argument says: We have ideas of the good, of the great, of the beautiful, of the true. These ideas are realized in all things. We find beauty, goodness, and truth everywhere, but, of course, in different measures and degrees. But if you want to say that something has a higher or lower degree of participation in the idea of the good or the true, then the idea itself must be presupposed. Since it is the criterion by which you measure, it is not itself a matter of measure and degree. The good itself, or the unconditionally good—being or beauty—is the idea which is always presupposed. This means that in everything finite or relative, there is implied the relation to an unconditioned, an absolute. Conditionedness and relativity imply and presuppose something absolute and unconditioned. This means that the meaning of the conditioned and the unconditioned are inseparable. If you analyze reality, especially your own reality, you always discover in yourself elements which are finite, but inseparably related to something infinite. This is a matter of conclusion from the conditional to the unconditional, yet it is a matter of analysis which shows that both elements correspond to each other. Reality by its very nature is finite, pointing to the infinite to which the finite belongs and from which it is separated.
That is the first part of the cosmological argument. So far it is an existential analysis of finitude, and to this extent it is good and true, and the necessary condition for all philosophy of religion. Actually, it is the philosophy of religion. However, this idea is mixed with a metaphysical realism which identifies universals with the degrees of being. As we discussed before, medieval realism attributes power of being to the universals. In this way a hierarchy of concepts is constructed in which the unconditionally good and great, and being, is not only an ontological quality, but becomes an ontic reality, a being besides others. The highest being is that which is most universal. It must be one, otherwise another one could be found; it must be all-embracing. It other words, the meaning or quality of the infinite suddenly becomes a higher infinite being, the highest or unconditionally good and great being. The argument is right as long as it is a description of the way in which man encounters reality, namely, as finite, implying and being excluded from infinity. The argument is doubtful and yields a conclusion which can be attacked if it is supposed to lead to the existence of a highest being.
In the Proslogion Anselm himself criticizes this argument because it starts with the conditional and makes it the basis of the unconditional. His criticism is right with respect to the second part of his argument, but not with respect to the first, for in the first part of his argument he does not base the infinite on the finite, but analyzes the infinite within the finite. But Anselm wanted more than this; he wanted a direct argument which does not need the world in order to find God. He wanted to find God in thought itself. Before thought goes outside itself to the world it should be certain of God. This is what I really mean by theonomous thinking.
This is the argument; it is difficult to follow because it is extremely scholastic and far from our modes of thought. Anselm says: “Even the fool is convinced that there is something in the intellect than which nothing greater can be thought, because as soon as he (the fool) hears this, he understands it; and whatever is understood is in the understanding. And certainly, that than which nothing greater can be thought cannot be only in the intellect. If, namely, it were in the intellect alone, it could be thought to be in reality also, which is more. If, therefore, that than which nothing greater can be thought is in the intellect alone, that than which nothing greater can be thought is something than which something greater can be thought. But this is certainly impossible. Therefore, beyond doubt, something than which nothing greater can be thought exists in intellects as well as in reality. And this art Thou, our Lord.” Now this last sentence is remarkable because I have not read such a sentence in any of our logical treatises in the last few hundred years. After going through the most sophisticated logical argumentation, it ends with “And this art Thou, our Lord.” This is what I call theonomy. It is not a thinking which remains autonomous in itself, but a thinking which goes theonomously into the relationship of the mind to its divine ground.
I shall now attempt a point-by-point analysis of the meaning of this argument.
(1) Even the fool—the fool of Psalm 53, who says in his heart “there is no God”—understands the meaning of the term “God”. He understands that the highest, the unconditional, is conceived of in the term “God”.
(2) If he understands the meaning of God as something unconditional, then this is an idea which exists in the human mind.
(3) But there is a higher form of being, that is, being not only in the human mind, but being in the real world outside of the human mind.
(4) Since being both within and outside of the human mind is higher than being merely in the intellect, it must be attributed to the unconditional.
Each step in this argument is such that it can be easily refuted, and refutations were given already in Anselm’s time. For instance, the refutation is that this argument would be equally valid for every highest thing, say, for a perfect island. It is more perfect for it to exist in reality than only in the mind. Moreover, the term “being in the mind” is ambiguous. It means actually being thought, being intended, being an object of man’s intentionality. But “in” is metaphorical and should not be taken literally.
To the first criticism Anselm answered that a perfect island is not a necessary thought, but the highest being, or the unconditioned, is a necessary thought. To the second criticism he could argue that the unconditional must overcome the cleavage between subjectivity and objectivity. It cannot be only in the mind; the power of the meaning of the unconditional overcomes subject and object, embracing them both. If Anselm had answered in this way, the fallacious form of the argument would have been abandoned. Then the argument is not an argument for a highest being, but an analysis of human thought. As such the argument says: There must be a point at which the unconditional necessity of thinking and being are identical, otherwise there could be no certainty at all, not even that degree of certainty which every skeptic always presupposes. This is the Augustinian argument that God is truth, and truth is the presupposition which even the skeptic acknowledges. God is identical, then, with the experience of the unconditional which transcends subjectivity and objectivity. This is necessary, otherwise truth is impossible. Truth presupposes that the subject which knows truth and the object which is known are in some way in one and the same place.
However, it is impossible to conclude from this analysis to a separate existence. This touches on the second part of the argument. At this point we cannot follow medieval realism. The so-called ontological argument is a phenomenological description of the human mind, insofar as the human mind by necessity points to something beyond subjectivity and objectivity, and points to the experience of truth. If you go beyond this, you are open to a devastating criticism, as the whole history of the ontological argument proves. The history of this argument is dependent on the attitude toward form and content. If the content of the argument is emphasized as all great Augustinians and Franciscans until Hegel have done, the ontological argument is acceptable. If the argumental form is emphasized, as equally great thinkers from Thomas Aquinas to Kant have done, the argument must collapse. It is very interesting that this is an argument which has continued from Plato to the present. And its most classical formulation is that of Anselm.
How is it possible for the greatest of thinkers to be divided on this argument? One can hardly say that Thomas was more clever than Augustine, and Kant more clever than Hegel, or vice versa; they are all supreme minds, and yet they contradict each other. How can the phenomenon be explained that this argument is passionately accepted and rejected by the greatest thinkers? The reason can only be that each side is looking at something different. Those who accept the argument look at the fact that in the human mind, in spite of its finitude, something unconditional is present. The description of this unconditional element is not an argument. I am among those who affirm the ontological argument in this descriptive sense. On the other hand, people like Thomas, Duns Scotus, and Kant reject the argument because they say the conclusion is not valid. And certainly they are right. I try to find a way out of this world-historical conflict—whose consequences are greater than indicated by the scholastic form of it—by showing that these people are doing different things. Its advocates have the correct insight that the human mind, even before it turns to the world outside, has within itself an experience of the unconditional. Its opponents are right when they say that the second part of the argument is invalid because it cannot lead to a highest being who exists. Kant’s argument that existence cannot be derived from the concept is absolutely valid against it. So one can say: Anselm’s intention has never been defeated, namely, to make the certainty of God independent of any encounter with our world, and to link it entirely to our self-consciousness.