Anselm's Monologion Argument

today I want to talk about an Psalms argument in the monologue in the monolog ian is a work that he produced before writing the famous pro's Logan the pro slogan in fact is something like a UH almost a summary of some of the things that go on earlier in the monologue Ian but in the monologue and he gives an argument in the first several sections that is somewhat different from the argument that he gives in the prose Logan it's not exactly the famous ontological argument though in some ways it has a similar character and so a plate inist is interested in trying to establish the idea that God's existence is something that can be established purely on the basis of understanding the concept of God so he's trying to give us an opera or a argument for God's existence but in the monologue Ian he doesn't do it by talking about God as that the greater-than which cannot be conceived instead it's a more directly more explicitly platonic argument so he's assuming that there are something like mind independent forms these properties these abstract objects and he's interested in those specifically that we reflect excellences or greatnesses or perfections so we're going to be talking about power about knowledge about wisdom about greatness about goodness about things that really it is better to have not than not to have in fact that seem excellent to have so whether this argument will work and require us to have an extensive theory of forms is not so clear it will require us to have one or more forms for excellence for perfection now let's take a look at how the argument goes he starts with the definition of God but it's a definition of God that is somewhat different from that that we find in the prose logia he says God is a being first of all with one nature and a nature that is supreme you can see here the inspiration for how he characterizes God in the press love iane has that the greater-than which count thought but here the idea is that there is a nature of God as a supreme and self-sufficient being one moreover that gives all things their being in goodness through its own existence and perfection so God has a single supreme self-sufficient nature that overflows and gives everything else its being its goodness all of its excellence now that is a somewhat more complex characterization that he gives us later and now I want to say Anselm's argument proceeds in a couple of stages the first is what I call the core argument here it's going to be conducted with respect to goodness but we're going to go through this for a number of different perfections or excellences so let's start with goodness we begin with the simple observation and you might think this is one that actually is empirical and makes this a kind of a posteriori argument there are good things so we'll start with that as our basic premise there are good things moreover some of those things are better than others you can see here how this is I think the inspiration for Aquinas is fourth way some things are good in fact some are better than others third premise is the degrees involve more or less of a single thing goodness so we've got a scale if we've got not only good things and some things being better than others there must be a scale on which these things are being compared it is a scale in this case of goodness and platonically we're thinking of there being a form of goodness now that those good things have in common and that goodness establishes a scale by which we can measure their goodness now goodness is that through which all things are good this is a metaphysical notion now we are not saying that God is something like an efficient cause of good things we're saying that goodness is rather that through which all things are good and so again we have this platonic characterization of what's going on something is good to the extent that it participates in goodness well five goodness alone is good through itself we've got a distinction operating here between things that are good through themselves and things that are good through other things good things in this world of sense are good by virtue of their participation and goodness there is one thing and one thing alone then that can be good all by itself simply through itself not through participating in goodness in an independent way and that is goodness itself so goodness is good through itself everything else that's good is good by virtue of participating in goodness and so everything else that is good is good through something else namely the form of goodness premise six anything good through itself is better than anything good through something else if you rely on something else for your goodness then well that's not as good as being good entirely through yourself something that is good you know entirely self-contained way entirely self-sufficient way it's good in a way that nothing else is good and so really is in some sense better than they are so the form of goodness is the best possible thing seven goodness then is supremely good it is something like the maximally good thing it is that that is good entirely through itself not in any way that depends on anything else not through anything else it is good through itself so it is better than other things it is the best possible thing well what we've just done as that core argument going from the existence of a form of goodness and good things and comparatives that some things are better than others we've concluded there is a form of the good and that form of the good by virtue of being good through itself rather than good through something else is the best thing it serves as the source of the scale and therefore in a sense as the maximal thing on that scale and we'll come back to whether that's a good assumption but in any case some things exist in two at least some things are more independent than other things there must be a scale event of independent existence of dependencies you might say of existence and things are more or less independent depending on their participation in the form of independent existence self-sufficient existence well that form of self-sufficient existence independent existence then must exist more truly than anything else that exists merely through another thing rather than through itself well so far we've got an argument for a scale of goodness at a maximal point on that scale a scale of greatness at a maximal point on that scale a scale of independent existence at a maximal point on that scale but of course so far those might be different points what brings them together why should we think there is one thing that is maximal in all those respects it doesn't look as if greatness is just the same as goodness is just the same as independent existence much less that those are the same thing as being powerful for example or being knowledgeable or being wise so how could we bring these things together and some does have an argument he says independent existence is greater than anything that doesn't exist through itself now notice what's happened here we've said the form of greatness is something that is great through itself rather than through something else other things are great to the extent that they participate in the form of greatness what we said in the core argument applied to independent existence is that independent existence exists more independently than anything else why because everything else exists to whatever degree of sufficiency it has only by virtue of participating in self-sufficient or independent existence and so only self-sufficient or independent existence exists independently or self-sufficiently through itself but now he's linking two of these together he's saying actually independent existence is a great mate making feature of a thing it is greater to exist entirely self-sufficiently than to exist through something else so the claim is that independent existence is greater than anything that doesn't exist through itself well if greatness didn't exist independently then you could say independent existence would be greater but we already proved that the form of greatness is the greatest possible thing but wait a minute independent existence is greater than anything that doesn't exist through itself so the form of greatness must exist through itself and now independent existence that form must be great through itself those two Maxima have to be the same thing greatness alone is supremely great independent existence alone exists independently so it's going to follow that independent existence is just the same as greatness the maximal points of those two scales must converge to the same thing well now we do the same thing with goodness we say independent existence seems better than existing merely through something else and so we can say yeah kind of like Mel Brooks it's good to be the king we think it's good to exist independently the independent existence is better than existence through something else but now we're in a very powerful position if goodness didn't exist independently well it would be better to be like goodness but existing independently and so goodness would not be the best thing but we've already shown that goodness is the best thing so goodness has to exist self-sufficiently ah but that means that independent existence is the same thing as goodness but we already said that it's the same thing as greatness so now independent existence greatness and goodness are all the same thing all of those skills converge into great as possible best possible most self-sufficient possible thing and that thing is God so God exists God exists in fact more truly more independently more self-sufficiently than anything else God is maximally good God is maximally great and those are pretty powerful conclusions moreover those are all the same thing and some has an argument here not only for God's existence but for God's simplicity the fact that all of these excellences become one excellence and not only one excellence in God really constitute God God is the greatest possible thing God is the ultimate self-sufficient thing God is the thing that is better than anything else moreover we can say this means that God is the measure of goodness God is the measure of greatness God is the measure of existence and self-sufficient existence so God sets the standard in other words we have here not only a concept of God as existing and God a self-sufficient god is great God is good but God as establishing a normative standard for all of those things for greatness for goodness even for existence itself this argument is heavily platonic and so it really relies on the idea that there is an independent form of greatness an independent form of existence an independent form of goodness that's part of the reason I think that Aquinas can't accept this argument as it stands and tries to run it rather differently in his forth way but in an so there's no worry about that the forms exist what do you mean the forms exist where are they he has a simple answer one that derives from thoughts of Philo of origin Augustine their ideas in the mind of God and so it's not problematic that there are forms the standard is there in God's mind in fact what we're doing is in a sense showing that the forms are not only ideas in God's they are God they are constituting what it is to be God God is the standard of goodness God is the standard of greatness God is the standard of existence and so there's a sense in which and some is really going further it's not enough to say these are merely ideas in God's mind that God is establishing the standard in that sense God is the very standard and that takes his position beyond what Philo or origin or Agustin would say to saying there really is an identity between God and the standard of excellence whatever that excellence is God is the being that has all those excellences and sets the standard in fact is the standard for greatness for goodness for everything else that is any kind of perfection at all now let's consider a possible objection to that argument can we show that God similarly is identical to any other property consider something that seems irrelevant like sadness can we show that God is sadness God is sorrow well no he would say can we even more dramatically show that God is evil that God sets the standard of evil and in fact is evil itself those would be terrible conclusions if we can do this for any property at all so it's pretty important to defending Anselm's position to say look this works for excellences it doesn't work for things like that but how can he establish that how can he show that well there are a number of places where you could stop the argument for example we've started out saying some things are good and in fact some things are better than others should we admit that some things are sad or that some things are evil we could take the Augustinian position that actually nothing is evil that evil is merely a lack and absence a question of something not being in the world and if we have that position we say no nothing is really evil everything that is is good it's just that well there is a gap between what is and the perfect thing and that gap is what we call evil we could say similarly that nothing is really sad or at least nothing is sad in itself things are sad because of the way they affect us so we might say that's a sad movie or a sad story or a sad state of affairs but we mean it affects us in a certain way it produces a certain emotional reaction in us and so we seem to be the standard for that it's not a property of the thing in itself so we could step off the book right at the beginning and to deny those things but suppose we thought there really is sadness or there really is evil or there really is something else that isn't mad merely a secondary quality of how something affects us well we could say a number of things the key premise seems to be this that independent existence is greater for example or is better than other things that don't exist independently it's good fact it's great to exist self-sufficiently can we say it's sad to exist self-sufficiently or it's evil to exist self-sufficiently well no self-sufficiency is a good thing it's a great thing it's not evil it's not sad it's not square it's not red it's not any of those types of things it is excellent and so here is a place where an tom can say this is something that applies to excellences and excellences alone the idea has to be that self-sufficient existence is better than is greater than is more excellent than a state of existence that is an existence through something else consequently this won't work for every property it works only for properties that self sufficiency exhibits and that is going to be something that involves an excellence it's good it's better it is great it is greater it is not something that has other assorted properties

Channel: Daniel Bonevac

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Length: 17min 35sec (1055 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 22 2020