Henry of Ghent on Anselm's Proslogion Argument

HENRY OF GHENT ON ANSELM'S PROSLOGION ARGUMENT Bv ROLAND J. TESKE In Summa theologiae la.2.1, St. Thomas Aquinas asked "whether that God exists is self-evident" and argued that it is not. His response is generally taken as a rejection of St. Anselm's argument for the existence of God in the Proslogion. In his Summa quaestionum ordinarium (hereafter SQO) 22, Henry of Ghent asks as his second question: "whether that God exists is naturally self-evident to a human being,"1 and like St. Thomas, he argues that the proposition that God exists is not self-evident. Neither Thomas nor Henry mentions the Archbishop of Canterbury in these questions, although they both use expressions that are clearly borrowed from the argument in the Proslogion. Moreover, both Thomas and Henry also cite in the arguments to the contrary St. John Damascene's statement in De fide orthodoxa that "the knowledge that God exists is naturally implanted in all,"2 as well as Aristotle's definition from the Posterior Analytics of what it means for a proposition to be self-evident. Henry, however, regards the Proslogion argument quite favorably and examines it at length in SQO 30.2 in an article on the immutability of God in which he asks whether God can be thought not to exist and argues that God cannot be thought not to exist, at least if one has a proper concept of God. Hence, Henry holds both that God cannot be thought not to exist and that the proposition that God exists is not naturally self-evident to a human being, and that would seem to be contradictory or at least to require some careful distinctions. Henry's view of the Proslogion argument is not merely interesting in itself and revelatory of his metaphysical position, but also throws light on the question of whether his metaphysical argument for the existence of God, which he presents in SQO 22.5, is a version of the Anselmian argument — a point that is 1 "Utrum Deus potest cogitari non esse" (Henry of Ghent, Summa quaestionum ordinarium 20.3 [Badius, fol. 179vK]). Since the new critical edition of Henry's Summa for these questions is not complete, one has to rely on the Badius edition (Paris, 1520), which was reprinted by The Franciscan Institute, St. Bonaventure, NY, in 1953. In citing the Badius edition I give the folio number, whether it is recto or verso, and the paragraph letter, all of which are also found in my translation of the articles. See Henry of Ghent's Summa: The Questions on God's Existence and Essence, trans. Jos Decorte and Roland J. Teske, S.J., Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations 5 (Leuven, 2005), and Henry of Ghent's Summa: The Questions on God's Unity and Simplicity, trans. Roland J. Teske, S.J., Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations 6 (Leuven, 2006). 2 "Omnibus cognitio existendi Deum naturaliter est inserta" (John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa 1.2, ed. Eligius M. Buytaert, O.F.M. [St. Bonaventure, NY, 1955], 14). 214TRADITIO disputed among students of Henry's philosophy.3 Hence, this article will first of all examine Henry's presentation of the Proslogion argument in SQO 30.2 and then return to his claim in SQO 22.2 that the proposition that God exists is not naturally self-evident to a human being. The final section will turn to the concept of God employed in Henry's metaphysical argument. The Proslogion Argument in SQO 30 In SQO 30.3 Henry first presents three arguments that God cannot be thought not to exist and then four that he can be thought not to exist before he tackles the resolution of the question. In the first argument that God cannot be thought not to exist, Henry presents the core of the Anselmian argument: "That than which nothing greater can be thought cannot be thought not to exist. God is such a being. Therefore, and so on."4 Henry claims that the minor premise is evident from the meaning of the term "God" and that the major premise is evident "because that which cannot be thought not to exist is necessarily better than...