Confessions of a Rational Mystic

Part III. The Proslogion

~ HA R RE : IThe Proslogion I Praying for Insight As we mentioned at the outset, Anselm did not begin his writing career with a philosophical treatise but with a set ofprayers and meditations of a rather more spiritual variety. In a strange way, the uniqueness ofthe Monologion resides, at least in part, in its lack of religious fervor or of any obvious devotional character. Ifanything, its dispassionate rationality displays a philosophical devotion that is to provide an example ofa new sort ofmeditation on the ground of faith. Consequently, after our account ofthe Monologion, one may wonder what warrants our speaking of mysticism at all, given its apparently-indeed, all but unprecedentedly-thoroughgoing rationalism ; even as one might imagine that the brethren may have been disappointed, ifnot confused, by the work for similar reasons. In the Proslogion, however, these two dimensions of Anselm's thought come together in one text in a way they had not before and never would again in his corpus-perhaps never would again in the history of Western thought. For the Proslogion is a distinctive kind ofwork, is, we might say, a kind ofphilosophical prayer book, and thus it offers a form of writing better suited to the rational mysticism that is intent upon securing a vision of God than any of the other works Anselm would write. The format ofthe Proslogion itselfindicates the extent to which Anselm stands between traditions; for its alternation between prayer and proof shows the signs of the monasticism to which he was heir moving hand in hand with the scholasticism to which his thought would eventually lead. It is this ability to incorporate the impassioned excesses of spiritual devotion with the cool and calculating moderation ofa philosophical rationality-and in such a way that they work together to achieve a single result-that allowed the I 97 ~ HA R RE : IThe Proslogion I Praying for Insight As we mentioned at the outset, Anselm did not begin his writing career with a philosophical treatise but with a set ofprayers and meditations of a rather more spiritual variety. In a strange way, the uniqueness ofthe Monologion resides, at least in part, in its lack of religious fervor or of any obvious devotional character. Ifanything, its dispassionate rationality displays a philosophical devotion that is to provide an example ofa new sort ofmeditation on the ground of faith. Consequently, after our account ofthe Monologion, one may wonder what warrants our speaking of mysticism at all, given its apparently-indeed, all but unprecedentedly-thoroughgoing rationalism ; even as one might imagine that the brethren may have been disappointed, ifnot confused, by the work for similar reasons. In the Proslogion, however, these two dimensions of Anselm's thought come together in one text in a way they had not before and never would again in his corpus-perhaps never would again in the history of Western thought. For the Proslogion is a distinctive kind ofwork, is, we might say, a kind ofphilosophical prayer book, and thus it offers a form of writing better suited to the rational mysticism that is intent upon securing a vision of God than any of the other works Anselm would write. The format ofthe Proslogion itselfindicates the extent to which Anselm stands between traditions; for its alternation between prayer and proof shows the signs of the monasticism to which he was heir moving hand in hand with the scholasticism to which his thought would eventually lead. It is this ability to incorporate the impassioned excesses of spiritual devotion with the cool and calculating moderation ofa philosophical rationality-and in such a way that they work together to achieve a single result-that allowed the I 97 98 I THE PROSLOGION Proslogion to initiate a form ofthought that has, at least implicitly, kept it alive in the minds of Western thinkers quite beyond, we would argue, the explicit interest in the reasoning ofAnselm's argument . For within the Proslogion itself, the ontological argument appears as something other than an exercise in rational cleverness insofar as we encounter in it a consummate unity oflogical precision and mystical insight, in which each extreme moderates and enhances the other. And we would eventually like to show why these seemingly opposed elements must work together to legitimate Anselm's historic founding ofrational theology. It is not surprising, then, that the Proslogion, unlike the Monologion, would begin with a prayer: "An excitation ofthe mind to the contemplation ofGod."l In this initial chapter, we find the first indication...