September 16, 2021

Necessary Joy: The Relationship between Anselm’s Ontological Argument and “Fullness of Joy” (Part 2)

September 16, 2021/ T.J. Gentry

Part Two: What Does Anselm Teach Regarding the “Fullness of Joy?”

Anselm’s teaching regarding the “fullness of joy” in his Proslogion is preceded by a discussion of God as the ultimate good. In transitioning to this discussion of God’s goodness, which, as Finley elucidates, “refers to what He is in Himself: to His own, possessed, internal ‘greatness,’” Anselm confesses to God that “You are nothing save the one and supreme good, You who are completely sufficient unto Yourself, needing nothing, but rather He whom all things need in order that they may have being and well-being.”[1] Anselm’s words at this point are significant insofar as they emphasize that the necessary and self-sufficient God is the source of not just a person’s being (i.e., existence), but his or her well-being; thus, human wholeness (i.e., well-being) necessarily comes from God.

Anselm goes on to discuss how the three Persons of the Trinity are indivisibly one and the same in terms of this ultimate goodness, leading him to challenge his own soul to “rouse and lift up your whole understanding and think as much as you can on what kind and how great this good is.”[2] Anselm asks, “For if life that is created is good, how good is the Life that creates? If the salvation that has been brought about is joyful, how joyful is the Salvation that brings about salvation?”[3]

Why does Anselm ask these questions? He is demonstrating that the S-t-w-n-g-c-b-t is not only the greatest and necessary being, but that the S-t-w-n-g-c-b-t is also the source of all goodness and true/full human life. To enjoy the things that come from God, such as life and salvation, raises the heart and mind to consider how great the source of these things must be. Anselm is, in a sense, inviting his readers to move with him from celebrating the gifts to celebrating the Giver; to recognize that the gifts are given not for their own sake but to draw the recipient to the Giver, who is Himself the ultimate gift. As Anselm explains, “Why, then, do you wander about so much, O insignificant man, seeking the goods of your soul and body? Love the one good in which all good things are, and that is sufficient. Desire the simple good which contains every good, and that is enough.”[4]

Later, following a litany of desires that one might have that are realized only in and through God (e.g., beauty, freedom, health and longevity, satisfaction, melody, pleasure, wisdom), Anselm describes how even friendship is ultimately found in God: “If it is friendship [they seek], they will love God more than themselves and one another as themselves, and God will love them more than they love themselves because it is through Him that they love Him and themselves and one another, and He loves Himself and them through Himself.”[5] Although complex, Anselm’s language here is richly describes the rewards of knowing God as the beginning and end of all of life.

Anselm concludes with this paradoxical thought, thereby introducing the discussion of joy that concludes the Proslogion:

[I]f they love God with their whole heart, their whole mind, their whole soul, while yet their whole heart, their whole mind, their whole soul, is not equal to the grandeur of this love, they will assuredly so rejoice with their whole heart, their whole mind, and their whole soul, that their whole heart, their whole mind, their whole soul will not be equal to the fullness of their joy.[6]

Anselm follows this thought with his consideration of whether or not the joy found in experiencing God as the ultimate source of all that humans desire is the same “fullness of joy” Jesus speaks of in John 16:24, “Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full,” and in Matthew 25:21, where Jesus rewards His servants with the directive to “enter into the joy of [the] Lord.”)[7] What is Anselm’s conclusion?

Anselm offers what may be described as a “now and not yet” answer: as for the “now” aspect, there is a sense in which great joy comes to those who give themselves wholly to know and love S-t-w-n-g-c-b-t; but there is also a “not yet” as to the depth of joy that is only known when it is experienced perfectly in heaven. Anselm describes the “now and not yet” tension, “For I have discovered a joy that is complete and more than complete. Indeed, when the heart is filled with that joy, the mind is filled with it, the soul is filled with it, the whole man is filled with it, yet joy beyond measure will remain. The whole of that joy, then, will not enter into those who rejoice, but those who rejoice will enter wholly into that joy.”[8] The last sentence of this quote captures the essence of the “now and not yet.” Yes, present joy is truly amazing; however, the fullness of that joy will not enter into the believer now, but the believer will enter into it in the eschaton. Anselm sees the believer’s joy in this life as a foretaste of the greater joy to come.

To summarize: 1) Anselm argues that the triune God is the greatest good, and that only in seeking Him will His creatures find their ultimate fulfillment and well-being; 2) Anselm discusses the depth of God’s goodness, leading to the question of whether or not seeking and experience God as the greatest good is the “fullness of joy” Jesus promises; 3) Anselm answers ‘Yes,’ and ‘No.’ ‘Yes,’ concludes Anselm, God is the “fullness of joy” that the believer experiences as a result of living life in relationship with Him. ‘No,’ the believer will not experience the “fullness of joy” Jesus promises until the culmination of all things in the coming eschaton. The next consideration is how the “fullness of joy” relates to the ontological argument.

[1] Finley, PHH 605 Lecture Notes for Week 11,” and Anselm, Proslogion, 99.

[2] Anselm, Proslogion, 100.

[3] Anselm, Proslogion, 100-101.

[4] Anselm, Proslogion, 101.

[5] Anselm, Proslogion, 101.

[6] Anselm, Proslogion, 102-103. Paradox is used here not in the sense of contradiction, but in the sense of an apparent contradiction that is, upon closer examination, mysterious but not contradictory.

[7] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible: New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982).

[8] Anselm, Proslogion, 103.

T. J. Gentry is the Executive Editor of MoralApologetics.com, the Senior Minister at First Christian Church of West Frankfort, IL, and the Co-founder of Good Reasons Apologetics. T. J. has been in Christian ministry since 1984, having served as an itinerant evangelist, youth minister, church planter, pastoral counselor, and Army chaplain. He is the author of numerous books and peer-reviewed articles, including Pulpit Apologist: The Vital Link between Preaching and Apologetics (Wipf and Stock, 2020), You Shall Be My Witnesses: Reflections on Sharing the Gospel (Illative House, 2018), and two forthcoming works published by Moral Apologetics Press: Leaving Calvinism, Finding Grace, and A Moral Way: Aquinas and the Good God. T. J. is a Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisor, holding board-certification as a Pastoral Counselor and a Chaplain. He is a graduate of Southern Illinois University (BA in Political Science), Luther Rice College and Seminary (MA in Apologetics), Holy Apostles College and Seminary (MA in Philosophy), Liberty University (MAR in Church Ministries, MDiv in Chaplaincy, ThM in Theology), Carolina University (DMin in Pastoral Counseling, PhD in Leadership, PhD in Biblical Studies), and the United States Army Chaplain School (Basic and Advanced Courses). He is currently completing his PhD in Theology at North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa (2021), his PhD in Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University (2022), and his PhD in Philosophy of Religion at Southern Evangelical Seminary (2024). T. J. married Amy in 1995, and they are blessed with three daughters and two sons. T. J.’s writing and other projects may be viewed at TJGentry.com.

September 09, 2021

Necessary Joy: The Relationship between Anselm’s Ontological Argument and “Fullness of Joy” (Part 1)

September 09, 2021/ T.J. Gentry

Part One: What is Anselm’s Ontological Argument?

Introduction

Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was a Benedictine monastic and the Archbishop of Canterbury.[1] A prolific writer, Anselm’s works include theological treatises, prayers, meditations, and numerous letters; all written, as Van Engen explains, so “that learning should serve the ends of the religious life.”[2] Anselm’s approach to learning and writing may be summarized in the following statement from the first chapter of the Proslogion, “For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand. For I believe this also, that ‘unless I believe, I shall not understand’ (Isa 7:9).”[3] In light of this commitment to the priority of faith in learning, Anselm presents his confession-like argument for the existence of God in a form discussed below that has come to be known as the ontological argument, providing thereby the starting point of his broader thought in the Proslogion, which moves from his consideration of God’s existence to his concluding thoughts on the “fullness of joy,” all presented in a manner that is “at once speculative and prayerful.”[4]

Our purpose in this three-part discussion will be to consider: 1) Anselm’s ontological argument for God’s existence; 2) Anselm’s discussion of the “fullness of joy;” and 3) the relationship between Anselm’s ontological argument and his discussion of the “fullness of joy.” I will argue that Anselm’s ontological argument provides the foundation for his discussion of the “fullness of joy,” and that the ontological argument and the discussion of the “fullness of joy” are two interrelated parts in forming the whole of an effective argument for God’s existence.

What is Anselm’s Ontological Argument?

Two questions are helpful in considering Anselm’s ontological argument. 1) What is the context in which Anselm presents his discussion of God’s existence? 2) What is the basic argument Anselm presents for God’s existence?

Regarding the context of Anselm’s discussion of God’s existence, consider two things. First, the broader concern of the Proslogion is, as Finley explains, “‘pumping up’ the spiritedness of the believer to work his understanding so as to see . . . what he already sees through the eyes of belief.”[5] This is clear from the trajectory of the Proslogion, a movement across twenty-six chapters beginning with an attempt at “rousing of the mind to the contemplation of God” in chapter one, and concluding in chapter twenty-six with a consideration of how such contemplation is related to “the ‘fullness of joy’ which the Lord promises.”[6] This movement is intentionally directed toward helping believers grow in their devotion to God; therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that whatever argumentation Anselm presents in the Proslogion assumes, rather than seeks to prove, the existence and knowledge of God. Anselm’s Proslogion is primarily an intrafamilial discussion among believers.

Second, Anselm’s basic approach in the Proslogion is to argue without the direct aid of special revelation. He is not opposed to the use of Scripture and sacred tradition, but Anselm’s fundamental presupposition is that the believer must cultivate the ability to discern and articulate matters of divine truth through the rational use of an intellect made in the image of God; in this sense Anselm may be considered (to use a descriptor anachronistically) a philosophical theologian.[7] Sweeney aptly portrays Anselm’s philosophical theological bent, describing Anselm’s goal for faith as “that which proposes the problems for reason to solve.”[8] Thus, in the Proslogion in general and the ontological argument particularly, Anselm appears to be about the task of exercising Christian reason in the cause of faith.

Moving from the context of Anselm’s work, what is his basic argument for God’s existence? In what Matthews and Baker describe as an argument of “elegant simplicity,” Anselm presents his argument in the form of a prayer that is both doxological and apologetic.[9] Early in his prayer, Anselm confesses, “Now we believe that You are something than which nothing greater can be thought.”[10] This description of God as “something than which nothing greater can be thought” (hereafter S-t-w-n-g-c-b-t) in then explained by Anselm with the following line of argumentation, as summarized by Finley.

(1) [A]nyone can understand in his mind S-t-w-n-g-c-b-t; that is, such a thing can exist in anyone’s mind. (2) But for this thing to really be S-t-w-n-g-c-b-t, it must exist in reality, for what has real existence is greater than what has merely mental existence. (3) Thus, since we do know that [S-t-w-n-g-c-b-t] exists in our minds, and that to be itself it must exist in reality, we conclude that in reality, [S-t-w-n-g-c-b-t] exists.[11]

Two conclusions may be drawn from this argument. First, as Anselm explains, even the fool who wants to deny the existence of God in his heart (cf. Ps 14:1) cannot really do so, since to conceive of God in one’s heart for the sake of denying Him is still to conceive of Him, and if God (i.e., S-t-w-n-g-c-b-t) can be conceived of He must exist, since “existence . . . is simply part of [God’s] greatness.”[12] Second, the argument Anselm presents for God as S-t-w-n-g-c-b-t is logically valid and, as Groothuis argues, even the “most common objections to Anselm’s . . . argument run aground because the following three propositions are sound: (1) The idea of a Perfect Being is conceivable. (2) Existence can function as a predicate for God. (3) It is better for a Perfect Being to exist than not to exist.”[13]

In summary, in the early chapters of the Proslogion Anselm provides a prayer/discussion that engages faith and reason in the pursuit of knowing God as “something than which nothing greater can be thought.”[14] In part two of our discussion we will focus on Anselm’s concluding chapter in the Proslogion, regarding the “fullness of joy.”

[1] J. Van Engen, “Anselm of Canterbury,” in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed., Walter A. Elwell, ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 66-67.

[2] Van Engen, “Anselm of Canterbury,” 66.

[3] Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion, in The Major Works, ed. by Brian Davies and G. R. Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 87.

[4] Van Engen, “Anselm of Canterbury,” 67.

[5] John Finley, “PHH 605 Lecture Notes for Week 11: Anselm on God’s Existence and Attributes.”

[6] Anselm, Proslogion, 83-84,

[7] Van Engen, “Anselm of Canterbury,” 66.

[8] Eileen C. Sweeney, “Anselm's Proslogion: The Desire for the Word.” For a discussion of how a modified version of Anselm’s argument is helpful in arguing for God’s existence, see Gareth B. Matthews, and Lynne Rudder Baker, "The Ontological Argument Simplified," Analysis 70, no. 2 (April 2010): 210-212.

[9] Matthews and Baker, "The Ontological Argument Simplified," 210.

[10] Anselm, Proslogion, 87. Malcolm and Hartshorne both argue that Anselm gave two versions of the ontological argument; the first in chapter two of the Proslogion, and the second in chapter three. See Norman Malcolm, Knowledge of Certainty: Essay and Lectures (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963), 149-150; and Charles Hartshorne, Anselm’s Discovery: A Re-examination of the Ontological Argument for God’s Existence (Chicago: Open Court, 1965). However, as Groothuis discusses, it is reasonable to conclude that Anselm’s discussion in chapter two focuses on God’s greatness and in chapter three focuses on God’s necessity (a corollary of greatness); thus, the second argument in chapter three amplifies the first argument in chapter two without presenting a new/different argument. See Douglas Groothuis, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2011), 194-195.

[11] Finley, “PHH 605 Lecture Notes for Week 11.”

[12] Anselm, Proslogion, 87, and Groothuis, Christian Apologetics, 193.

[13] Groothuis, Christian Apologetics, 194.

[14] Anselm, Proslogion, 87.

April 21, 2015

St. Anselm and the Perfection of God

April 21, 2015/ David Baggett

A late 16th-century engraving of Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury

April 21st is the birthday of a great philosopher, Jerry Walls. Also, and perhaps slightly more acclaimed, it is the anniversary of St. Anselm’s death celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church, much of the Anglican Communion, and in parts of Lutheranism. St. Anselm of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk, philosopher, and prelate of the Church, holding the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. He was born circa 1033 and died in 1109, 906 years ago.

After entering the priesthood at 27, he was elected prior of the Abbey of Bec, which, under his jurisdiction, became the foremost seat of learning in Europe. During his time there, Anselm wrote his first works in philosophy, the Monologion (1076) and the Proslogion (1077-8), followed by The Dialogues on Truth, Free Will, and Fall of the Devil.

Greatly influenced by Neoplatonism, Augustine, and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, he exerted a strong influence on Bonaventure, Aquinas, Scotus, and William of Ockham. His motto was “faith seeking understanding,” which for him meant “an active love of God seeking a deeper knowledge of God.” His academic work was notable for many reasons. Two of his most important contributions to theology were his satisfaction theory of atonement and his ontological argument(s) for God’s existence.

An Anselmian conception of God has largely come to be seen as the standard for classical theism—a God who is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and the like. Regarding God’s moral perfection, God is impeccable, essentially sinless, maximally loving; in God there is no shadow of turning. Irrespective of one’s take on the ontological argument, the idea that God is the ground of being, that on which all else depends for its existence, is central to theism classically construed.

On MoralApologetics.com we have argued at length that God, thus conceived, is uniquely able to provide the best explanation of objective moral values and duties, human rights, meaningful moral agency, the convergence of happiness and holiness, and the full rational authority of morality.

On occasion some suggest that God understood as the possessor of the omni-qualities is inconsistent with the God of the Bible. Yoram Hazony, author of, most recently, The Philosophy of Hebrew Scriptures, wrote an interesting and provocative opinion article for the New York Times a few years ago (“An Imperfect God,” November 25, 2012) in which he summarized in no uncertain terms his skepticism about the idea of a perfect God.[1]

Hazony suggests that there are various compelling reasons the God of classical theism and, thus, the perfect being theology of Anselm should be rejected. Hazony wishes to emphasize the need for tentativeness and provisionality in theology because our knowledge of God remains fragmentary and partial. He even pushes an ambitious and dubious interpretation of the great “I am” declaration of God to be, in virtue of being in the imperfect tense, an indication of God’s incompleteness and changeability, rather than, as seems the more straightforward meaning, God’s uncreatedness and ontological independence. In Hazony’s view, “The belief that any human mind can grasp enough of God to begin recognizing perfections in him would have struck the biblical authors as a pagan conceit.”[2]

But as Old Testament scholar Gary Yates puts it, “It seems a little odd that this would be the idea stressed if Yahweh is attempting to assure Moses when Moses is already fearful of the circumstances and the people's response to him. The imperfect conjugation does not actually have tense, so it can also be used to simply state something that is a present or even characteristic reality. Beyond that, there is debate as to what the term means, and if for example, this were a hiphil imperfect, it would stress that the Lord is the one who ‘causes to be.’”

Yates admits that Old Testament scholars tend to move away from some of the more abstract and philosophical understandings of the name and to see it in more concrete, covenantal terms as emphasizing Yahweh as the one who is present with his people in the midst of this circumstance and thus aware of their situation and able to act to help them, hear their cries, and deliver them. That would still most certainly comport with the ideas of God being uncreated and eternal but without necessarily focusing primarily on those more abstract and ontological ideas.

According to the Hebrew Bible, Hazony insists, God represents the embodiment of life’s experiences and vicissitudes, from hardship to joy; and although God is ultimately faithful and just, these aren’t perfections or qualities that obtain necessarily. “On the contrary, it is the hope that God is faithful and just that is the subject of ancient Israel’s faith: We hope that despite the frequently harsh reality of our daily experience, there is nonetheless a faithfulness and justice that rules in our world in the end.”[3]

He concludes his piece like this: “The ancient Israelites, in other words, discovered a more realistic God than that descended from the tradition of Greek thought. But philosophers have tended to steer clear of such a view, no doubt out of fear that an imperfect God would not attract mankind’s allegiance. Instead, they have preferred to speak to us of a God consisting of a series of sweeping idealizations—idealizations whose relation to the world in which we actually live is scarcely imaginable. Today, with theism rapidly losing ground across Europe and among Americans as well, we could stand to reconsider this point. Surely a more plausible conception of God couldn’t hurt.”[4]

Is it indeed theism that is “losing ground,” in the specified parts of the world, or rather a certain cluster of religious institutions? The recent phenomenon of “the New Atheists” as the current spokesmen for disbelief is of interest, but is meeting them halfway a sensible, or even possible tack for the religious to take? It’s certainly undesirable, since in any close reading of their rhetorically engaging works, it becomes clear to any serious student of theism that their conception of God is vastly less sophisticated and philosophically resilient than the concept of a perfect being that was so well captured by Saint Anselm, a man steeped in biblical thought.

What indeed does it even mean to speak of the Hebraic depiction of God as more realistic than the idea of God as altogether perfect? It is certainly more anthropomorphic, or to put it more precisely, anthropopathic—portraying God as if having human passions. But that is the natural outflow of the literary forms in the original biblical documents. The fact that they don’t explicitly present us with the precisely articulated conception of God that philosophers have seen suggested by the cumulative impact of its most exalted passages does not at all compromise the philosophical work of clarifying such a conception, nor does it render the effort artificial, or invalid.

The Greeks had no corner on the market of reason. Why is it merely a Greek notion that God possesses all the perfections? Plenty of Greeks—Euthyphro for example—believed in all sorts of rather morally deficient gods; we could return the favor and suggest that Hazony’s conception of God is more influenced by Greek ideas in this regard than by scripture.

The claim that a perfect God is a Greek convention incorporated into theology is an allegation that potentially overlooks the important role of what theologians refer to as general revelation. The Greeks had no corner on the market of reason. Why is it merely a Greek notion that God possesses all the perfections? Plenty of Greeks—Euthyphro for example—believed in all sorts of rather morally deficient gods; we could return the favor and suggest that Hazony’s conception of God is more influenced by Greek ideas in this regard than by scripture.

The fact remains, though, that the writers of the New Testament were deeply steeped in Old Testament teachings and theology and saw Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, and in the New Testament itself we find ample indications of a morally perfect and perfectly loving God. This happy convergence of the a priori deliverances of reason and the a posteriori deliverances of scripture should come as no surprise since one would expect harmonious resonance between the outcomes of special and general revelation. Nothing less than Anselm’s view of God can answer our deepest hopes.

Since it’s Jerry Walls’s birthday, it’s fitting we end with a quote from his latest book Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, an excerpt that deeply resonates with Anselmianism both in the sense of the deliverances of classical theism and the specific and startling claims of Christianity: “. . . [H]ere we can see what may be the most profound difference of all between those who believe that ultimate reality is love and those who do not; between those who believe love is stronger than death and those who do not; between those who believe in heaven and those who do not. It is the difference between believing that even the best things of life are destined to come to a tragic end and believing that even the worst things can come to a comic end.” [5]

Notes:

[1] http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/an-imperfect-god/?_r=0 (accessed April 11, 2015). Also see Yoram Hazony, The Philosophy of Hebrew Scriptures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

[2] Hazony, “An Imperfect God.”

[3] Hazony, “An Imperfect God.”

[4] Hazony, “An Imperfect God.”

[5] Jerry L. Walls, Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory: A Protestant View of the Cosmic Drama (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2015), p. 161.