Abstract

The two interpretations with which La Croix is dissatisfied are 1) the traditional view, which focuses exclusively on St. Anselm’s argument for the existence of God in Proslogion II; and 2) the newer view, championed by Hartshorne and Malcolm, which claims that the argument in Proslogion III supercedes the material in Proslogion II, and is immune from the traditional criticisms. Neither view is correct, La Croix argues, because both assume that Proslogion II and III are logically separable. La Croix places extreme emphasis on Anselm’s assertion in the Preface to the Proslogion that he found "one argument" by means of which he could prove both that God exists and that God possesses the traditional divine attributes. According to La Croix, the overall structure of the Proslogion is to show first, in chapters II and III, that that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived exists, and then, in the subsequent chapters, that that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived is God, i.e., has the various perfections traditionally ascribed to God. The major task of the book is to argue that neither chapter II nor chapter III contains a "logically complete and independent" argument for the existence of that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived, but that taken together, they provide the premises for the propositions that that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-conceived exists, cannot be thought not to exist, and cannot not exist. Moreover, La Croix argues that there are no new arguments presented in Anselm’s Reply to Gaunilo: all the apparently new arguments merely make explicit what was left implicit in the Proslogion. As one can guess from these few remarks, there is much to quarrel with in La Croix’s book, but that is a never-ending feature of historical interpretation, and one can certainly sympathize with La Croix’s complaints against the other two interpretations. Unfortunately, La Croix relies on the Charlesworth translation of the Proslogion and the Reply, a translation which is not to be used without great care.—W. E. M.