Proslogion - including Gaunilo Objections and Anselm`s Replies

Written for his brother Benedictine monks around 1077, Anselm's Proslogion is perhapsthe best-known partially-read book of the Middle Ages. Many readers are familiar onlywith Anselm's well-known argument for God's existence in Chapters 2-4, which is oftencalled the "ontological argument," a misleading appellation coined centuries later byImmanuel Kant. In this argument Anselm begins with the thought of "something thanwhich nothing greater is able to be thought," and subsequently he leads the reader to seethat such a reality necessarily exists and cannot be thought not to be. This argument -which is, to be sure, crucial to the work constitutes - but a small portion of the whole.Preceding it is a profound but oft-overlooked opening chapter in which Anselmcontemplates his all-too-human condition and disposes the reader to receive aptly hisargument for God's existence in the next three chapters. And following this argument are20 chapters in which Anselm artfully unfolds the depth and breadth of God's trueexistence as that than which nothing greater is able to be thought, showing God to be(among other things) able-to-sense, pity-hearted, just, good, and uncircumscribed.Indeed, if the reader is willing to give himself over to the work as whole, he will becompelled, under Anselm's deft guidance, to "endeavor to straighten up his mindtoward contemplating God," which is how Anselm describes his own role in the work inhis prefatory remarks. This edition provides a faithful yet readable English rendering of the wholeProslogion, the objections raised to Anselm's argument by his contemporary Gaunilo, andAnselm's replies to those objections. (After responding to Gaunilo, Anselm himselfrequested that these objections and replies be included in subsequent editions of theProslogion.) This edition also includes an introduction that contextualizes theProslogionwithin the monastic, pre-Scholastic age in which it first made its appearance. Inaddition, by means of notes and commentary, this edition articulates how tocontextualize Anselm's famous argument in theProslogionas a whole and in light of hisreplies to Gaunilo, how to appreciate the artistry whereby Anselm knit theProslogiontogether into a coherent and concise unity, and how the work may be taught effectivelyto interested students. These features set this affordable English edition of theProslogionapart from those currently available, which too often fail to capture accurately the beautyof Anselm's prose, which often treat the work through the lens of either laterScholasticism or contemporary analytic philosophy of religion, and which take little noteof the craftsmanship whereby Anselm constructed this masterfully integrated work thatis remembered too often for too few of its 24 chapters. Matthew Walz has taught in the interdisciplinary program at Thomas Aquinas College inCalifornia, and since 2008 he has been a professor in the Philosophy Department of theUniversity of Dallas.