Key Note Speech
ST. ANSELM OF CANTERBURY (1033-1109)
“If you can find a place where God is not, Go there and sin with impunity.”
Meaning: God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, is everywhere. There is no place that one can sin with impunity...except in his mind...where the evil one is deceiving him. God sees and knows all and cannot be deceived. So, one cannot sin - even in the depths of his heart - without God knowing.
He was an Italian theologian and philosopher. He was also a priest who became the Archbishop of Canterbury. He too achieved sainthood, like St. Augustine his influence is significant in the study of western thoughts. He believed: That God exists by priori argument. God exist in reality and in the understanding of men but not physically.
To him natural theology and science have no connection. God’s existence is not to discover God’s existence by reason but just to use reason to understand what one believes in. Human mind is too limited to contain God’s profundity. It is sufficient to accept there is God.
Anselm maintained that faith must precede reason – one must believe in order to understand; faith, however, can be based on reason. For Christian dogmas were indisputable truth, he, however, held that they should be rationally understood, so as to strengthen the believer’s faith. In this way his rationalism was subordinated to fideism.
His Contributions:
1. Monologion (Sololiguz) and Proslogion (Discourse), these are various arguments proving God’s existence.
a. Monologion (Sololiguz)
The Monologion, written in 1077, includes an argument for God’s existence, but also much more discussion of the divine attributes and economy, and some discussion of the human mind.
The Monologion proof argues from the existence of many good things to a unity of goodness, a thing through which all other things are good. He argues that "things" are called "good" in a variety of ways and degrees, which would be impossible, were there not some absolute standard
“If you can find a place where God is not, Go there and sin with impunity.”
Meaning: God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, is everywhere. There is no place that one can sin with impunity...except in his mind...where the evil one is deceiving him. God sees and knows all and cannot be deceived. So, one cannot sin - even in the depths of his heart - without God knowing.
He was an Italian theologian and philosopher. He was also a priest who became the Archbishop of Canterbury. He too achieved sainthood, like St. Augustine his influence is significant in the study of western thoughts. He believed: That God exists by priori argument. God exist in reality and in the understanding of men but not physically.
To him natural theology and science have no connection. God’s existence is not to discover God’s existence by reason but just to use reason to understand what one believes in. Human mind is too limited to contain God’s profundity. It is sufficient to accept there is God.
Anselm maintained that faith must precede reason – one must believe in order to understand; faith, however, can be based on reason. For Christian dogmas were indisputable truth, he, however, held that they should be rationally understood, so as to strengthen the believer’s faith. In this way his rationalism was subordinated to fideism.
His Contributions:
1. Monologion (Sololiguz) and Proslogion (Discourse), these are various arguments proving God’s existence.
a. Monologion (Sololiguz)
The Monologion, written in 1077, includes an argument for God’s existence, but also much more discussion of the divine attributes and economy, and some discussion of the human mind.
The Monologion proof argues from the existence of many good things to a unity of goodness, a thing through which all other things are good. He argues that "things" are called "good" in a variety of ways and degrees, which would be impossible, were there not some absolute standard