Anselme of Canterbury or holy Anselme was born with Aoste in 1033 (or 1034 according to the sources) and died the April 21st 1109. It is also sometimes named Anselme of Aoste , or Anselme of the Nozzle , according to whether one wants to insist on his Italian origin or his long presence in France. Proclaimed Doctors of the Church in 1720.

Biography

It was first of all Abbé with the Abbaye Notre-Dame of the Nozzle, Monastère Bénédictin of the Nozzle-Hellouin, in Normandy in 1078, where it had as a pupil Anselme de Laon.

Council of Rockingham

It became Archevêque of Canterbury in 1093. In February 1095, Anselme was shown by Guillaume of Saint-Calais to have violated its wish of fidelity to the king with the Council of Rockingham. This Council was called by the king Guillaume II the Russet-red after an argument opposed it to the archbishop. Anselme wanted to go to Rome to receive its Pallium of the pope Urbain II. This last was opposed to the Antipape Clément III, and the king had not recognized any of both. Guillaume II the Russet-red one thus showed the archbishop to want to seize a royal prerogative, which was to recognize a pope or not. Anselme retorted that it at all did not intend to give up its allegiance with Urbain II. The furious king protested that Anselme placed its honesty at the pope above his honesty at its sovereign. Anselme thus required a council bringing together the bishops and abbots of the kingdom in order to decide if it were possible for him to reconcile allegiance with the pope and the king. In case impossibility, it would leave the kingdom until the king recognizes Urbain II, because there was no question for him of giving up its allegiance with the vicar of Rome. It was forced with the exile by the king.

Coloman Viola note that it " refuse" to send men of the kingdom of Holy Land England , while advising in addition with his/her brother-in-law and his nephews to take part so that one will call later the “Croisade”.

It composed a great number of works on the Théologie and the Métaphysique, and had a broad influence on the Théologie and the Philosophie of its time. Its theological work (primarily the Proslogion and the Monologion ) seeks to found the Christian faith rationally. Its the ontological proof most famous of the existence of God is: “We have the idea Être perfect; the perfection comprises the existence; thus the perfect Being exists”. He is the author of several other evidence of the existence of God, including two others based on a cosmological base and teleological.

He is celebrated the April 21st.

Ontological proof of the existence of God

In the Proslogion , Anselme is expressed as follows:

We believe that you are something of such as nothing larger can be thought. Is what such a nature does not exist, because the foolish one said in its heart: Doesn't God exist? But at least this foolish, by hearing what I say: something of such as nothing larger can be thought, includes/understands what he hears; and what it includes/understands is in its intelligence, even if it does not understand that this thing exists. Another thing is to be in the intelligence, another thing to exist. And certainly the Being which is such as nothing larger can be thought, cannot be in the only intelligence; even, indeed, if it is in the only intelligence, one can imagine a being as him which also exists in the reality and which is thus larger than him. If thus it were in the only intelligence, the being which is such as nothing larger can be thought would be such as something of larger could be thought

This argument consists in considering that the existence is a perfection: God the being which one can design of larger. If such a being exists only in the spirit of that which thinks it, then one can always design a similar being which would have sucroît the property to exist. Such a being would be thus “taller” than that which does not exist and is only imagined. To say that God does not exist is thus contradictory with the concept even of God: if there does not exist, which is “such as nothing larger can be thought” is such as something of larger can be thought.

This type of argument which consists in considering the existence as a property of the objects thereafter will be very criticized in contemporary philosophy (Kant, Frege).

The objective of a rational proof of the existence of God was in particular for Anselme to convince the incroyants, as the mention of “the foolish one shows it” which denies the existence of God. If the step anselmienne is followed, it is indeed irrational to deny the existence of God, since would be to support a logical contradiction.

Quotation

• I do not seek to include/understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to include/understand. Because I believe this - unless I believe, I will not include/understand.

See too

• Gaunillon

• Roscelin
• Arguments for the existence of ontological God
• Argument

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