Modern Theology 17:1 January 2001 ISSN 0266-7177

ARGUING ANSELMS ARGUMENT

JOHN OVERTON

Introduction This paper seeks to challenge a major analytic line of interpretation surrounding Saint Anselms celebrated Proslogion.1 The line of reasoning proposed herein sympathetically aligns with an alternative line of interpretation that has demonstrated persistent interest in Anselms position, but which more often emphasizes historical, phenomenological, devotional, and other components of the argument, rather than the analytic components of the text as it can be established. Such an alternative line of interpretation includes positions as widely ranging as Bonaventure, Leibniz, Barth, Stolz, Evans, and Marion.2 The resources of this paper emphasize analytical components of the argument without emphasizing traditional philosophical tools of analysis. This paper will attempt to demonstrate that these new tools for textual analysis have direct bearing on both sides of interpretation, and thus potentially applies to both groups of interests. More specically, traditional philosophico-deductive interpretations have implied a segmentation and textual structure of the Proslogion, usually in terms of the logical argument(s) contained in Chapters 23. By applying strict criteria of encompassing the text in a theory of its poetic architecture, however, it is possible to see Anselms purport as a structured communication that does not so much describe a logical position, as provide a ritualized invocation of Christian joy, love, and illumination. With this line of reasoning, I shall argue that the logical formulations of Chapters 23 are subordinate to a larger, deliberate architecture that is organized by three nested orders of global framing: Chapters 126 enclosing Chapters 225, in turn enclosing Chapters 24. Discovering these frames indeed requires of us a shift in theoretical predisposition.
John Overton The Divinity School, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
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John Overton

Demonstrating this framing requires analysis based on some concepts new to conventional theological and philosophical analysis. These concepts permit us to analyze a variety of texts (not just philosophical and theological texts) in a rigorous yet non-reductionist fashion, and to discuss them across a wide variety of disciplines. Results and implications of this form of semiotic analysis are far reaching, both specically for reading Anselms Proslogion, and more generally for approaching other texts. As a product of our analysis, our rst proposal is the discovery of a core architecture for the Proslogion. Why and how can such a conclusion be so bold, 900 years after its original distribution? Because, as we shall see, the texts regularity reinforces a particular message through a repeated structure. Our more general proposal is that, since this form of analysis provides tools which are not propositional and not content-focusedbut still analyticit is applicable to reading other kinds of texts. Before approaching the proposal specically, let us call attention to three general considerations facing the introduction of any new position. First of all, as we all may recognize, sometimes the necessary technical breakthroughs well-suited for one eld may arise in a related but separate eld, or arise in an unanticipated way in an unrelated eld. Similarly, one disciplines advances may align with another disciplines advances, creating important but initially unobvious possibilities. For example, theology has beneted from interaction with research in history and several traditions of philosophy. Philosophy has beneted from work in physics. Or consider the impact of metaphors from science which have become self-sustaining in the humanities. Discoveries from such interactions can provide new answers to old questions, and new questions to old answers. In all cases, even when moving rapidly, introducing discoveries, principles, and methods takes time to travel through social space. That a discovery is fundamental both may slow its initial progress precisely because it is obvious, and guarantee its ultimate success precisely because it is useful. Secondly, while generally educated persons would likely have read or would likely be familiar with at least some of the foundational work supporting this analysis, such as that of C.S. Peirce and of Roman Jakobson, few scholars of religion would likely know about contemporary developments in Semiotics, Linguistics, and Anthropology, and the important contemporary figures advancing the issues of these disciplines. Fewer may realize the potential contributions that these elds offer to work in philosophy and theology specically, and to work in the humanities generally. And still fewer of us may realize how these disciplines can legitimately and tangibly advance our own interests. Regardless, our initial unfamiliarity should not be sufficient reason to reject the possibilities. Thirdly, positions advocating change often involve some degrees of difculty for the initiator. We need only recall the early difficulties in understanding Husserls phenomenology. Yet despite these difficulties, through
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Arguing Anselms Argument 5 the years many communities of theology and the philosophy of religion have come to see the importance and fruitfulness of the very same technical innovations which were initially challenging. A positions merit should rest not on the rst moment of contact, ultimately, but on its persistent adequacy to reveal subtleties, introduce problems, clarify issues, resolve confusions, structure conversations, etc. We must assess the burden of learning any new position against the warrant of its contribution. New positions may require certain initial industry, and only some are worth it. We must decide with scrutiny and care which positions are worth their imposition into our time. With these considerations in mind, we will see that our position provokes a discernible shift in perspectivea shift in theoretical predisposition. The tools simply formalize procedures that can analyze linguistic and semiotic patterns in ways that duplicate the interpretative intuitions we already experience, but which we normally do not consider explicitly and in sufficiently systematized fashion. Each reader must him or herself assess overtly and consciously this methodological proposals assistance for clarifying interpretation of the Proslogion. Methods To understand the overall architecture of the Proslogion we need to introduce two conceptscotextuality and textual metricality,3 that allow us to provide a working model of poetic structure.4 Cotextuality and Metricality Now we will examine each core concept in turn, and then provide a brief conclusion outlining their combined signicance for discovering poetic structure in the Proslogion. Though achieving an interpretation of a text is a trial and error process, in effect we reconstruct this achievement as the equivalent of imposing a structure onto a textcotextual relations subsumed by an architecturein which the architectures form is metrical in nature. Cotextuality: Following Jakobsons (and others) usage, poetic in our sense of the term will mean a heightened dependence on and effect of how textual form is constituted out of mutually-placed signs, which are by implication also mutually-cooccurrent within an architecture. In technical terminology, such relations would be analytically expressible as indexicality. Thus, in a structure of textual forms, cotextuality is the property of particular signs pointing at (or indexing) one another, each pointing at others from a determinate placement one with respect to determinate others within a framework of form. Heuristically, cotextuality leads us to interpretation by guiding our ability to focus on the selection and combination of given signals one with another, in turn leading us toward new patterns which lead us to new meanings. Thus, though often difficult properly to achieve, the task facing
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interpretation is at least conceptually speciable: to align a set of signals into a maximally descriptive order of coherence, under an interpretation working from the same set of signals. More plainly stated, we select and combine elements of a text in our process of understanding that text. Minima of cotextuality guide us, sometime intuitively, to signicant segmentations of the textual architecture. Such order, in this plane of understanding a text, we commonly experience as structured coherence. Metricality: In order to recognize textual relations and structure and to see cotextuality at playbeyond each interpreter with his or her intertextual biographyit is necessary to project poetic metricality. By poetic metricality, we mean the multiple arrangement of signs in different orders of recurrent multiples. The property of poetic metricality implies our analytic ability to divide (subdivide, subsubdivide, etc.) signal and textual segmentation, on the basis of knowing the grammar, the literal values of words and expressions, and of being able to gure out the recurrences of tropic usages of them with respect to the overall metricality. Of course, this is nothing we do not already do in communicating, interpreting, and understanding. Thus, in introducing these tools, we are merely formalizing a familiar processjust with greater exactitude. This means, then, that to establish a poetic metricality, one must segment the text into manageable units, of which there can be as many kinds as contribute to the various potential overall interpretations. For example, unit propositions in a text, word repetitions, line order or rhyme scheme in poetry, sentence order, and/or chapter relations, could all be guides to principles of segmentation of a text; the overriding criterion is the return on a metrical organization of coherent patterns. Indeed, there may be many laminated layers in the constructed segmentation. Moreover, this metricality is, in effect, heuristically reconstructed by any interpreter. Segmenting the Proslogion: Applied to Anselms Proslogion, we will discover the texts poetic structure, through our awareness of cotextuality and metricality. In specic terms we will segment (meter) units of cotextual signaling by the beginning and ending of chapters, to show how these meters clarify and amplify the texts message. The additional discipline required to peruse the cotextual threading, arranged by orderly metering of the text, will allow us to see a heretofore undiscovered internal regularity of the Proslogion. This orderliness can be precisely analyzed, and yet it does not depend upon the description or propositional evaluation of layering as such. Indeed, our position locates the Proslogion not only within its celebrated philosophical importance, reading certain sections as propositional language use, but proposes why and how it could become a centerpiece of Christian theology of a different sort. We can show why and how the philosophical arguments are compatible and yet also subordinate to numerous classical
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Arguing Anselms Argument 7 Christian claims, which in turn are harmoniously congruent with Anselms allegiance to Christian traditions and his Benedictine heritage. While rigorous philosophical readings may struggle to accomplish these conclusions without lessening their analyticity or sensitivity (possibly both), our position can provide a bridge between normative divisions of interpretationand it can do so without compromising the spirit and integrity of these positions. With such a position we move from prescriptive theorizing of how Anselm could have done this or that better, to what Anselm actually did do better. Construed in terms of poetic structure, we will highlight textual features of the Proslogion architecture which were seemingly included by design at its writing, but which have been unreceived during the subsequent 900 years of interpretation. Argument Having briey introduced cotextuality, metricality, and poetic structure, now let us apply these new tools. Our results will illustrate a striking regularity and repetition of a deliberate structure, exactly conforming to the assumptions and concepts that we have introduced. Introduction Our analysis of the texts poetic structure will show that the traditions isolation and grouping of Proslogion 23 is wrong. Chapters 24 are the correct framing for the initial philosophical argument, which itself is nested in a still larger global argument. Specically, the Proslogion consists of two strongly marked architectures: A Global Architecture that shows three nested organizing structures traversing the entire Proslogion (Chapters 126, 225, 24). An Argument Architecture that shows a specically theological argument (Chapters 41526). The global architecture reveals a tripartite global argument, and the argument architecture reveals a tripartite theological argument. The argument architecture cannot be considered without rst understanding the global architecture, since the argument architecture represents a subset of issues subsumed by the global architecture. In the current investigation, we will analyze the poetic structure that is uncovered by the global architecture. Indeed, our efforts will disclose a very different argument than traditionally presumed. Global Architecture Let us now approach the three global frames specically, which segment the Proslogions global poetic structure: Chapters 126, 225, and 24.
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Introduction In using our principle of textual metricality previously introduced, chapter divisions provide an obvious metering to approach the Proslogion, since Anselm himself provided these divisions. Further derivative of textual metricality, we will nd it helpful to consider hierarchical relations among chapters. Still further considering chapters by sentence, and then sentence location within chapters (e.g., beginning, middle, end), we shall nd additional architecture relations within and among chapters. Finally, in combining frame relations, we in turn will see a dense poetic structure. Each move is obvious, given our tools, focus, and expectations, but let us illustrate these moves concretely. Specic use of our tools make them quite tangible. Frame 1: Chapters 126 In the rst sentence of Chapter 1 which addresses God, the narrator requests Gods help to teach my heart: Eai nunc ergo tu, domine deus meus, doce cor meum ubi et quomodo te qurat, ubi et quomodo te inveniat.5 In the rst sentence of Chapter 26, the last chapter, what the narrator asked for in Chapter 1 has been givenand more. The narrators complete faculties are lled with joy: Deus meus et dominus meus, spes mea et gaudium cordis mei, dic anim m, si hoc est gaudium de quo nobis dicis per lium tuum: petite et accipietis, ut gaudium vestrum sit plenum [John 16:24]. Inveni namque gaudium quoddam plenum, et plus quam plenum. Pleno quippe corde, plena mente, plena anima, pleno toto homine gaudio illo: adhuc supra modum supererit gaudium.6 By the last chapter teaching of the heart has been fullled. Specically, multiple human capacitiesheart, mind, soul, and personare lled with joy. Frame 2: Chapters 225 Rather than to teach the heart as in Frame 1, the rst sentence of Chapter 2 begins by a request that God give the narrator understanding to faith: Ergo, domine, qui das dei intellectum, da mihi, ut quantum scis expedire intelligam, quia es sicut credimus, et hoc es quod credimus.7 In the last two sentences of Chapter 25, the second to last chapter, the narrator closes Chapter 25 by describing what it means for God to give understanding to faith. The believers heart will experience a surfeit of love, leading to a fullness of joy: Et utique quoniam quantum quisque diligit aliquem, tantum de bono eius gaudet: sicut in illa perfecta felicitate unusquisque plus amabit sine
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Arguing Anselms Argument 9 compartatione deum quam se et omnes alios secum, ita plus gaudebit absque existimatione de felicitate dei quam de sua et omnium aliorum secum. Sed si deum sic diligent toto corde, tota mente, tota anima, ut tamen totum cor, tota mens, tota anima non sufficiat dignitati dilectionis: profecto sic gaudebunt toto corde, tota mente, tota anima, ut totum cor, tota mens, tota anima non sufficiat plenitudini gaudii.8 The believer will experience pure love of angels and holy men, love of God more than love of self, which, as powerful as these experiences are, are not as powerful as the greater joy God gives. And joy, we have seen, with which Chapter 26 concludes, closes Frame 1. Frame 1 organizes teaching the heart which God may fulll in joy, while Frame 2 organizes the believers experience of faith, which God may fulll in love. Frame 3: Chapters 24 As we have seen in the opening of Frame 2, the narrator asks God to give understanding to faith. While descriptions of Gods rewards end Frames 1 and 2, no such description ends Chapter 3, as we would expect according to the traditions philosophical grouping of Chapters 2 and 3. In fact, Chapter 3 ends with a rhetorical question the topic of which Chapter 4 immediately resumes, making it clear that Chapter 3 requires Chapter 4. But still more striking, Chapter 4 ends by explicitly thanking God for the understanding requested in Chapter 2, specically grouping Chapters 24, not Chapters 23 (as traditional philosophical interpretations have done). For ease of comparison, we repeat the rst sentence in Chapter 2: Ergo, domine, qui das dei intellectum, da mihi, ut quantum scis expedire intelligam, quia es sicut credimus, et hoc es quod credimus. Now consider the last sentence of Chapter 4 which answers the rst sentences request of Chapter 2. Understanding to faith is given through illumination: Gratias tibi, bone domine, gratias tibi, quia quod prius credidi te donante, iam sic intelligo te illuminante, ut si te esse nolim credere, non possim non intelligere.9 God is thanked for the gift of illumination. Rather than receive joy (Frame 1) or love (Frame 2), Chapter 4 gives thanks for illumination. Frame 3 organizes another experience of understanding to faith, in addition to love (Frame 2), illumination of the mind. Frame Relations Frame Summaries: We may summarize three global frames that reveal the denotational texts largest poetic structure, noting the cotextuality of dei intellectum. That is, although occurring a single time, dei intellectum is used
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twice; once in Frame 2 and once in Frame 3. Through cotextuality, a single print expression provides two simultaneous signals. Consider the following summaries: Frame 1 (Chs. 126) is marked by a request in Chapter 1 for teaching of the heart (instruction in faith), which God fullls by Chapter 26. Beyond human capacity, God may ll the person with joy. Frame 2 (Chs. 225) is marked by a request in Chapter 2 for understanding to faith, which God fullls by Chapter 25. Through understanding to faith God may give the believer love. Frame 3 (Chs. 24) is marked by a request in Chapter 2 for understanding to faith, which God fullls by Chapter 4, for which thanks is given. Through understanding to faith, in addition to love, God may give illumination. Hierarchy: Further examining these preliminary conclusions (Frame Summaries) reveals a poetic structure of hierarchically related relations between the three global frames. Consider Table 1: A pattern of requestfulllment is propagated across all three frames in a structure of hierarchical nesting, with the asymmetrical variant thanks of Frame 3. Inner nests (layers) presuppose outer nests. So 225 (love) presupposes 126 (joy), and 24 (illumination) presupposes 225 (love) and 126 (joy).
Table 1 Poetic Structure Hierarchy 1. Request for teaching of the heart 2. Request for understanding to faith 2. Request for understanding to faith 4. Thanks for illumination of the mind 25. Fulllment by love in the heart 26. Fulllment by joy in the person

In other words, having the experience of joy, one may (or may not) descend to the next level (love), and only then one may descend to the next level (illumination); and having illumination, one may reascend to new levels of love, and then joy. This framing device thus meters the Proslogion. Let us be explicit on the relations we are proposing. Gods action, not Anselms writing, brings about for the reader changes of human reality. The denitive clue is tucked away in the deepest nest (Frame 3), marked by its slight asymmetry, which thanks God for providing (the gift of) illumination. By hierarchical implication, thus, the deeper the religious experience, the more complete Gods gift. This clue is repeated and developed through the argument frames, which I elsewhere develop. Reciprocally, as Gods action may descend the hierarchy, so Gods action may ascend the hierarchy as
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Arguing Anselms Argument 11 well. So one may request teaching (Frame 1), understanding (Frame 2), understanding (Frame 3), but only God gives joy (Frame 1), love (Frame 2), and illumination (Frame 3). With deeper devotion comes deeper recognition of Gods gift, deeper integration of reason and faith, and from these still deeper love and joy. (We will develop these relations even more explicitly in a moment, visually depicting the relations in Table 2 Poetic Structure Focus, page 11.) This means, then, rather than developing a proof for Gods existence, Anselm is developing a thanksgiving; devotional exercise; or possibly a prayer involving the whole human capacity (heart, mind, and person). In any case, only a small portion of this exercise is designed for rational signication. This is no surprise, of course, if we recall Anselms monastic heritage and commitment.10 Moreover, our reading no longer faces possible conicts between reason and devotion. They are intertwined in illumination: more devout is more rational; and likewise, more rational is more devout. At the deepest level of illumination, both reason and devotion are required. Anselm saw no soul-wrenching conict here. But we still may question how, in which capacities, and by which faculties, are the frames that we have proposed different from one another? Why do Frames 2 and 3 both open with the same request: understanding to faith? Why the duplication? This cooccurrence provides no insignicant clue, brought to our attention by our expectations of cotextuality and metricality, according to our model of poetic structure. Focus: Table 2 Poetic Structure Focus provides another view of the poetic structure that helps answer the questions we have raised. As we have seen, through increasing understanding the believer moves toward illumination, based on a hierarchy of presuppositions (the nested relations). To receive illumination already assumes a superseding/preceding relationship to the previous frame (i.e., Frame 1 > Frame 2 > Frame 3). So before the believer may have illumination of the mind, the believer must have experienced joy and love. And similarly, understanding in faith hierarchically rst occurs through love, and then through illumination; or otherwise stated, illumination is a subset of love, and both love and illumination are modalities of understanding in faith. Table 2 below shows the tropic focus of the matrical relations more clearly, delineated by and characterizable through vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and frame movement relations. These relations create structures in which, through selection and combination, any number of interactional texts can be created.
Table 2 Poetic Structure Focus 1. (heart) 2. (faith) 3. (faith) teaching understanding understanding [126] [225] [24] joy (person) love (heart) illumination (mind)

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Now let us evaluate the specic forms of relations: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and frame relations. Vertical. Note vertical relations by reading from top to bottom of each column. The heart holds faith, and the person holds the heart and mind. Similarly, teaching leads to understanding of the heart, which leads to understanding of the mind. Joy leads to love, which leads to illumination. Horizontal. Reading from left to right, horizontal relations index Frames 13: Frame 1: Teaching occurs in the heart (note, not the [Enlightenment] mind), and joy occurs in the person. Frame 2: Understanding occurs in faith, one type of faith of which occurs in the heart. Love occurs in the heart. Frame 3: Understanding occurs in faith, another type of faith of which occurs in the mind. Illumination occurs in the mind. Diagonal. In a diagonal direction, reading from left to right and right to left, three relations traverse the middle brackets of Table 2 (e.g., across [225]). The interactant (e.g., believer) moves: Relation 1: From teaching in the heart to love in the heart, and from understanding in faith to illumination in the mind. We may summarize this relation as movement from teaching to love, and from understanding to illumination. Relation 2: From joy in the person to understanding in faith, and from love in the heart to understanding in faith. We may summarize this relation as movement from joy to understanding, and from love to understanding. Relation 3: From teaching in the heart to illumination in the mind, and from joy in the person to understanding in faith. We may summarize this relation as movement from teaching to illumination, and from joy to understanding. Frame Movement. Frame 1 moves from the most general, to Frame 3 the most specic. Frame 1 (i.e., the whole Proslogion) is addressed to the believer capable of joy (agent: person). Frame 2 is addressed to the believer capable of love (agent: heart). Frame 3 is addressed to the believer capable of illumination (agent: mind). Or imprecisely one might say that Frame 1 is for beginners, Frame 2 for intermediates, and Frame 3 for the advanced believers. Frames 13 provide spiritual exercises. Conclusion: Let us make several implications more explicit. This poetic structure reticulates relationships across triads of traditional theological categories: (1) faith, teaching, understanding, (2) joy, love, illumination, and (3) person, heart, and mind. The combinations alone permit 27 (33) major categories of relations, thus providing in specic structural terms, exible but traditionally acceptable boundaries for devotional experience. It is
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Arguing Anselms Argument 13 beautiful and not less remarkable than one would expect from one of the core theological and philosophical texts of history. Indeed, we propose that precisely this structure has facilitated the texts transmission through history by providing (a) the frame and context in and through which to propose the logical exercises of Chapters 23, and (b) diverse but traditional connections to a wide set of Christian themes. The remarkable density and diversity produced by such a strategy is now easily seen. Conclusion The metrical structure of the global architecture reveals a textual and mental coordinate system that provides mnemonic access to the entire Proslogion, through three simple global frames: 126 (joy), 225 (love), 24 (illumination). But we may still ask why such a structure would be used? And we may ask how this is related to the adequacy or inadequacy of the philosophical parsing of the Proslogion, and its focus on Chapters 23? Conclusion Let us review what our analysis has revealed about the denotational and interactional texts, the role of propositionality in the argument, and Anselms strategy, message, and contribution. Denotational & Interactional Texts: The denotational text of the Proslogion provides for a variety of interactional texts. In a given moment any number of relations can be selected and combined to construct coherent interactional texts. In Table 2 Poetic Structure Focus (page 14), we illustrated the formal possibilities of engaging the Proslogion architecture: through a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal relation; subsets of these; or through combinations of relations. Not seeing the structure of the various components and frames does not eliminate the participatory possibilities of the Proslogions poetic structure, of course: cognitive apprehension is not required for social coherence to exist for a given use of the text. The more poetic structure available, the more potential exists for greater social, religious, theological, and intellectual engagement of the text; with better poetic structure comes more versatile coherence. This is not a general claim: our analysis demonstrates how the Proslogions poetic structure organizes its interactional possibilities. The reader can become involved in, through, and with the text, for greater potential contact with joy, love, and illumination. The text analytically and concretely facilitates richer and deeper experience. By better understanding the possibilities of the texts structure the reader is lead to richer and more profound engagement and interaction with the textto increasing Christian joy, love, and illumination. An interactional text is determined more specically by selecting segmentations that organize textual structures, and still more specically by
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selecting a coherent collection from the Proslogions poetic structure. Such possibilities occur right here and now: in disclosing the structure we engage it; and in engaging it, we make it tangible. Any part of the structure can generate its own interactional text and coherence, but the overall possibilities expand through the complexity of possible ways in which to engage the text. We easily can extrapolate that the greatest possible relations, thus, will be supplied by the greatest possible interaction among the component parts of the Proslogions poetic structure. The more well structured, diverse, and exible the denotational components, the more comprehensive can become the interactional possibilities. Construed this way, the restrictions and limitations of traditional propositional (philosophical) construals of textuality in general, and of the Proslogion in specic, become rapidly apparent. Let us support and illustrate these claims recalling our analysis more specically. Questioning Propositional Primacy: In such a scenario of increasing denotational and interactional complexity, anchored to and disclosed by the Proslogions poetic structure, the philosophical arguments of Chapters 23 have roles to playand have played roles. But the philosophical arguments also play subordinate roles to the larger textual possibilities, we have seen, since their propositional content represents a subset of the denotational and interactional complexity available to the Proslogions poetic structure. Case-in-point, Table 2 (page 11) illustrates such subset restrictions. A philosophical parsing organizes Frame 3 relationships between (1) understanding to illumination, implying (2) the relationship of faith to mind. However, such a philosophical construal that attends only to the logical argument, also omits Frame 1 teaching to joy (implying the relationship of heart to person), and Frame 2 understanding to love (implying the relationship of faith to love). Except through textual implication of the poetic structure in which case the relation is no longer strictly propositional, since it includes non-propositional componentsa traditional philosophical construal omits attention to heart, person, teaching, joy, and love. Such philosophical construal reduces the forms of possible relations, since only horizontal relations are possible, and only a single Frame (Frame 3)thereby omitting the diagonal, vertical, and cross-combinations of relations illustrated in Table 2. Such a philosophical construal restricts the texts message by insufficiently attending to its channels and clarity of communication: cited benets of propositionallybased analysis. The philosophical-propositional construal is important, of course, but textually, denotationally, and interactionally incomprehensive. It is not exclusively important to Anselms primary intention, and specically is a sub-component of Anselms overarching argument, which is a Christian argument. Our analysis shows this textually, specically, and in structural repetition.
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Arguing Anselms Argument 15 Considering Propositional Adequacy: Not only is the primacy of propositional construal in question, but our results would suggest that the adequacy of such an interpretive disposition should be reconsidered as well. Unless the tradition decides that what Anselm did do, and what Anselm did intend to do, is less important than the traditions commitment to propositional reasoning, our results strongly suggest that the predominant line of reasoning surrounding the Proslogion has been missing important claims, with provocative possibilities, for quite some time. As the poetic structure exhibits repeatedly, in a tight, indexical structure, Anselm would never have imagined interpretation to pivot around Proslogion 23, as a major line of interpretation has insisted. We must recall that Chapter 4 concludes the argument, not Chapter 3. Moreover, the poetic structure shows that Chapters 24 never intended to provide an abstracted rational proof of Gods existence, but in fact offered a highly contextualized subordinate relation, hierarchically nested within a larger poetic structure for a Christian understanding.11 This structure relates human faculties and modalities of relations such as love and joy, in addition to illumination. Thus, and rather, Chapters 24 were intended to provide, for those most capable, a devotional exercise in the process of religious illumination, which must lead to deeper love and joy of the divine, through a textual and religious coordinate system in and through which to negotiate the Proslogion. So carefully wrought, indeed designed to traverse history, it is unfortunate that the Proslogion architecture has been forced to travel through time in isolated and disjoint form, through implication. But so carefully wrought, it has survived passage. Our account suggests how and why. Anselms Strategy: Why would Anselm create such a construction? And why would we not have seen it until now? First of all, the text may have dropped out of wide circulation, or circulation in the monastery system, for a generation or two following Anselms death.12 Since the poetic structure relied on oral propagation, sufficient time would have passed to lose the oral tradition that would have made the text clear to Anselms audience. Or the mechanism of propagation could have been weakened, with the text not being circulated through the Benedictine monastery system, in which the oral tradition would have been originally clear. In any case, when the Proslogion has resurfaced more centrally, in many periods it has been the Chapter 2 philosophical argument which suited that times contemporary needs, and which has been emphasized.13 Secondly, even as a visionary of his time, Anselm would not likely have envisioned the innovation of the printing press, and with it wide and easy transmission of texts. In such a social and technological environment, the Proslogion poetic structure provided an ingenious solution to a challenge of conceptual and textual availability for Anselms position. He created a mechanism for readers personally to carry along the primary elements of the
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entire Proslogion, in content and through devotion, through the coordinate system of the frame relations, using the very components of the argument to assert numerous classical Christian claims: teaching, faith, understanding, joy, love, illumination, person, heart, and mind. In such a construction form and content, mechanism and message, channel and signal, are mutually reinforcing. It is difficult to imagine a more elegant strategy to transmit Anselms Proslogion messagethrough a Benedictine community into a Christian civilizationthan a simple three-part coordinate system of joy, love, and illumination, in a time when personal copies of the text would have been unlikely. Neither would Anselm have been ignorant of the possibilities that such a coordinate system could plausibly facilitate: the Proslogion to travel through the Benedictines into western civilization. Anselms Contribution: Finally, we must recognize, and now in explicit terms, that only the nal stage of religious illumination required activity of the mindand this was necessary only after having passed through the spirituality of heart and person. By necessity, religious illumination required faith, understanding, person, heart, and (and then) mind. Religious illumination required full human capacity, not simplyor merelyhuman rationality. Confusing this move toward illumination with the construction of the socalled proofs plainly misapprehends the Proslogion poetic structure, and in compelling likelihood, Anselms argument for Christian joy, love, illumination, and their harmonious relationships. Time is long past due again to argue Anselms argument, for his textand for ours.

NOTES I wish to thank David Tracy and Michael Silverstein for their persistent support in bringing the argument and concepts of this work into responsible convergence. Many thanks also go to Adam Rose for important early discussions about the global framing. Mike Locher helpfully reviewed an early form of the argument, and Douglas Glick helpfully reviewed several drafts. Jeff Hayes provided a helpful sounding board for ideas and presentation at various times. Paul Dehart provided crucial comments on matters of nal presentation. And not least, I wish to thank my Latin teacher, Susanne Degenring. 1 Consider positions such as A. Beckaert, Une justication platonicienne de largument a priori, in Spicilegium Beccense (Paris: J. Vrin, 1959), pp. 185190; Bertrand Russell, General Propositions and Existence, Logic and Knowledge, edited by Robert Charles Marsh (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1956 [1918]), pp. ???-???; Gilbert Ryle, Back to the Ontological Argument, Mind, Vol. XLVI no. 181 (January 1937), pp. 5357; Norman Malcolm, Anselms ontological arguments, The Philosophical Review Vol. LXIX no. 1 (January 1960), pp. 4162; and Charles Hartshorne, Anselms Discovery: A Re-examination of the Ontological Proof for Gods Existence (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1965). John Hick provides a helpful introduction to the philosophical traditions of interpretation. See the Introduction to chapter 9 in Hicks The Many Faced Argument (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1967), pp. 209 212, in addition to other excerpted positions from The Many-faced Argument: Recent Studies on the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God, edited by John Hick and Arthur McGill, (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1967). See also the collection of philosophical essays, The Ontological Argument, edited by Alvin Plantinga (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1965). Finally,

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see Graham Oppys recent work, including bibliography: Ontological Arguments and Belief in God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). See especially G. R. Evans, Anselm and Talking about God (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978); G. R. Evans, Anselm and A New Generation, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980); Benedicta Ward, Inward feeling and deep thinking: The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm Revisited, in Signs and Wonder: Saints, Miracles and Prayers from the 4th Century to the 14th, Collected Studies Series CS361 (Hampshire, UK: Variorum 1992 [1983]), pp. 177183; Benedicta Ward, Anselm of Canterbury: A Monastic Scholar, in Signs and Wonder: Saints, Miracles and Prayers from the 4th Century to the 14th, Collected Studies Series CS361 (Hampshire, UK: Variorum, 1992 [1973]), pp. 220; and Benedicta Ward, The Place of St. Anselm in the Development of Christian Prayer, in Signs and Wonder: Saints, Miracles and Prayers from the 4th Century to the 14th, Collected Studies Series CS361 (Hampshire, UK: Variorum, 1992 [1973]), pp. 7281. Note also the proceedings of the Castelli conference on the ontological argument in LArgomento Ontologico, Vol. LVIII (13), edited by Marco M. Olivetti, (Rome: Cedam, 1990). Among the key essays are: Paul Ricoeur, Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Antcdents Bibliques, pp. 1942; Jean-Luc Marion, LArgument Relve-t-il de LOntologie?, pp. 4369; Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak, Le Proslogion DAnselme Aprs Hegel, pp. 335352; Xavier Tilliette, Quelques Dfenseurs De LArgument Ontologique, pp. 405420; Michel Henry, Acheminement vers la Question de Dieu: Preuve de Ltre ou preuve de la Vie, pp. 521 531; and Jan Sperna Weiland, La Fascination par Les Preuves, pp. 733743. Other examples of this line of interpretation include Beckaert, Une justication platonicienne de largument a priori; Russell, General Propositions and Existence; Ryle, Back to the Ontological Argument; Malcolm, Anselms Ontological Arguments; and Jean-Luc Marion, Is the ontologial argument ontological? The argument according to Anselm and its metaphysical interpretation according to Kant, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 30 (1992), pp 201218. See also John Overton, See(k)ing God through the icon: A semiotic analysis of Jean-Luc Marions Dieu sans ltre, in Semiotica, Vol. 110(1/2) (1996), pp. 87126, 9899 for other related terminology in the analytic proposal I am developing. There, one can nd discussions of interactional texts, denotational texts, indexical, and agent, among other terms. For the purposes of this argument, we provide approximate glosses of assumed terms used by this analysis. By interactional text, we will mean communicative events characterized by a particular, inhabitable set of rulesfor example a two party dispute. By denotational text, we will mean a text characterized by traditionally recognized mechanisms of textual coherence, such as meanings of words and of phrases, sentences, and paragraphs built up of them by grammar. By indexical, we will mean a relationship of one occurring thing to another. And by agent, we will mean the intentionality inhabiting a textual (or other) role. Jakobson developed poetic function, from which we develop poetic structure as a mixture of cotextuality and metricality. Roman Jakobson, Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics, in Style in Language, edited by Thomas A. Sebeok (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1964 [1960]), pp. 350377. See also various developments of this point of view in the collection edited by Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban, Natural Histories of Discourse, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996), such as Michael Silversteins and Greg Urbans, The Natural History of Discourse; Michael Silversteins, The Secret Life of Texts; Vincent Crapanzanos, Self-Centering Narratives; and Judith Irvines Shadow Conversations: The Indeterminacy of Participant Roles. See also Michael Silverstein, The Improvisational Performance of Culture in Realtime Discursive Practice, in Creativity in Performance, edited by R. Keith Sawyer (Greenwich, CT: Ablex Publishing, 1998). These positions apply tools similar to those employed in this essays argument. Saint Anselm, Proslogion, in Opera Omnia Vol. 1, edited by Franciscus Salesius Schmitt, (Graz: Austria, 1938), p. 98. Therefore now you, O lord, my god, teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how it may nd you. Italics added. Of the English texts, one may wish to consult Charlesworths translation, St. Anselms Proslogion, edited by M. J. Charlesworth (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979 [1978]), but the following translations are mine. Anselm, Proslogion, pp. 120121. My god and my lord, my hope and joy of my heart, tell (my) soul if this is the joy of which you speak to us through your son: ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be full [John. 16:24]. Indeed I found that joy complete, and more than complete. Of course (I have found that when) the heart is full, the mind is full, the soul is

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full, the whole person is full with that joy: yet beyond measure joy will (still) exceed. Italics added. Ibid., p. 101. Therefore, O Lord, you who gives understanding to faith, give to me, in order that I may understand as much as you know to be advantageous, because you are just as we believe, and you are this what we believe. Italics added. Ibid., p. 120. And by all means since as much as everybody loves another, so he will rejoice about his good: just as every single one in that perfect happiness will love god without comparison more than himself and all others with him, so he will rejoice more without his (own) estimate about the happiness of god than over his own (happiness) and (the happiness) of all others with him. But if they will love god thus with (their) whole heart, whole mind, whole soul, yet (their) whole heart, whole mind, whole soul is not sufficient for the grandeur of (this) love: thus they assuredly will rejoice with (their) whole heart, whole mind, whole soul, so that (their) whole heart, whole mind, whole soul is not sufficient for the fullness of (their) joy. Italics added. Ibid., p. 104. Thanks to you, good Lord, thanks to you, because what before I believed through your gift, now thus I understand through your illumination, so that if I did not want to believe that you exist, I should (still) not (fail) to understand (that You exist). Italics added. Indeed, scholars such as Evans, Ward, Anselm Stolz, Anselms Theology in the Proslogion, in The Many-faced Argument: Recent Studies on the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God, edited by John Hick and Arthur McGill (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1967 [1933]), pp. 183208; Karl Barth, Anselm, Fides Qurens Intellectum: Anselms Proof of the Existence of God in the Context of his Theological Scheme, Pittsburgh Reprint Series, No. 2. (London, SCM, second edition, 1985 [1958]); Barth, Fides Qurens Intellectum: Anselms Beweis der Existenz Gottes im Zusammenhang seines theologischen Programms, Vol. 4 (Munchen: Theologischer Verlag Zrich, second edition, 1981 [(1931]); and R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 [c1990]); R. W. Southern, St. Anselm and His Biographer: A Study of Monastic Life And Thought, 10591130 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1963), have drawn agreeable conclusions, but conclusions not analytically grounded. For example, Evans argues that Anselm did present an argument, but one which was a theological practicum designed to lead to contact with the divine rather than to logical proof of Gods existence. Ward asserts still more pointedly that Anselms position was a prayer rather than a proof, substantiated through his monastic commitments and roles. Stolz builds an interesting interpretation based on literary genres, arguing that the Proslogion provides a mystical theology, specically challenging Barths assertions that Chapters 23 provide a theological argument. In turn, Barth argues that Anselms position provides a noetic formula, not a proof, focused on intellectus dei. Barth emphasizes that intelligere strictly follows from faith, not the reverse. In contrast, Southerns position emphasizes that Anselms Proslogion position was not a proof of Gods existence, but rather a proof that the essences of attributes, such as Goodness, Truth, Justice, etc., were the necessary attributes of God, and that such attributes must cohere in a single Being. While these positions provide agreeable interpretations of the Proslogion position, none develop their conclusions with formalized analytic tools. However provocative, thus, such positions are subject to challenges asserted on analytic grounds. In contrast, our interpretation congenially falls in line with such positions, but additionally is supported by formalized analytical procedures, claims, and conclusions. In light of such poetic structure, it may be worthwhile to reconsider diverse interpretations, such as provided by Stolz, Barth, Evans, Ward, and even analytic-philosophical positions such as provided by Hick, among others. See A. Danielss classic argument, Quellenbeitrage und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Gottesbeweise, in Dreizehnten Jahrhundert Beitrge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Vol. 8 (12) (Munster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1909), pp. 111 131ff.; and also J. Chatillon, De Guillaume dAuxerre S. Thomas dAquin: LArgument de S. Anselme chez les premiers scolastiques du XIIIe sicle, in Spicilegium Beccense (Paris: J. Virin, 1959), pp. 209231. Rovighi alternatively argues that the Proslogion may have had some inuence on thinkers in the twelfth century, but that Anselms philosophical work other than the now named ontological proof was more signicant to the period. The moral doctrine and doctrine of freedom, for example, not the Chapter 24 argument, seem

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to have had wide inuence, S. Vanni Rovighi, Notes sur Iin uence de Saint Anselme au XIIe sicle: suite et n, Cahiers De Civilisation Mdivale, Vol. 8 (Janvier-Mars, 1965) pp. 4358. See also Ward. Among many possible illustrations, consider Aquinas and Kant. Consider also that it is now commonly held that neither actually read the germane Proslogion texts themselves.

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