Skip to main content
Log in

Anselm on praising a necessarily perfect being

  • Articles
  • Published:
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. “Duty and Divine Goodness,” inAnselmian Explorations (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 1987), p. 27. (Originally published in theAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984): 261–268.)

  2. Some philosophers assume that if the creature must have freedom in the libertarian sense, then so must the Creator. Thomas O. Flint, for example, says that if we are to allow the Free Will Defense we must hold to a libertarian account of divine freedom. (“The Problem of Divine Freedom,”American Philosophical Quarterly 20 (1983): 255.) This does not follow. The Free Will Defense only requires that we posit a libertarian sort of freedom for rational creatures. It is the evil choice of the creature which is the problem, and for which God must not be held responsible.

  3. De libertati arbitrii III.

  4. Monologion XVI.

  5. De casu diaboli XVIII. Augustine will deny libertarian freedom to men and angels, even before the first sins, precisely because he cannot accept the conclusion which Anselm embraces, i.e., that creatures could make themselves better on their own. SeeDe civitate dei XII, IX and theOpus imperfectum contra Julianum V, LVII (PL 45).

  6. Morris, op. cit., p. 36.

  7. Ibid., pp. 38–40.

  8. In an article entitled “Absolute Creation,” (Anselmian Explorations, pp. 161–178, also published inAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 23 (1986): 353–362) Morris (with Christopher Menzel) suggests that a universal such as ‘good’ may be a necessary creation of God's. The collection of divine attributes (‘good’ etc.) that is God's nature is a divine creation on which God depends logically though not causally. That God's nature could be a creature is a concept which I find quite opaque, but in any case, Morrisdoes seem to hold that God is the ultimate source of good. What is unclear is whether for Morris it is God's nature as good which provides the absolute standard for other goods. This is the position of Anselm, Augustine and Aquinas.

  9. Aquinas seems to assume this point in ST I, 925, art. 6, ad 3. A recent discussion of this issue and its relationship to the view that God's nature is the standard of value can be found in Mark D. Linville, “On Goodness: Human and Divine,”American Philosophical Quarterly 27 (1990): 143–152.

    Google Scholar 

  10. “The Probabilistic Argument from Evil,”Philosophical Studies 35 (1979): 9.

  11. See David Basinger, “Must God Create the Best Possible World: A Response,”International Philosophical Quarterly 20 (1980): 339–342 and “Divine Omniscience and the Best of All Possible Worlds,”Journal of Value Inquiry 16 (1982): 143–148.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Robert Adams holds that since creation is an undeserved act of divine grace we cannot say that God is somehow obligated to His creatures in such a way that He is morally required to create the best world (“Must God Create the Best?”Philosophical Review 81 (1972): 317–332). This argument misses the mark, though, because Anselm does not say that God must create the best world because it deserves to be created. God must create the best not becauseit is the best, but becauseHe is.

  13. Cur Deus Homo, I, XVIII.

  14. The criticism that if this world is the only actualizable world then “best” loses all meaning is easily answered by allowing that other less good worlds are conceivable. See Morris's parallel argument in “The Necessity of God's Goodness” inAnselmian Explorations, pp. 44–46, originally in theNew Scholasticism 59 (1985).

  15. Morris makes this point in “The Necessity of God's Goodness” inAnselmian Explorations, pp. 51–52.

  16. The iguana example is used by Flint (op. cit., p. 261) who argues that it is implausible to hold that ours is the best and hence the only actualized world. Flint finds it unlikely that one iguana more or less could be relevant to the value of a possible world. However, Flint seems to see value only in terms of the moral choices of free creatures. If good meansmorally good then he is right. It is hard to see how just this many iguanas could promote the maximum virtue. Anselm, of course, will see good more broadly. The iguanas are good in themselves and it is having this many iguanas, along with that many parrots, etc. which makes the entire interrelated system of the universe the best possible world. After all, if God concerns Himself with every sparrow and each hair on our heads, why shouldn't He take an interest in iguanas?

  17. “Properties, Modality and God,”Anselmian Explorations, p. 89. (Originally published inPhilosophical Review 93 (1984): 35–55.) How God can always know what He would do under any conceivable future circumstances and yet be free in the libertarian sense is unclear to me.

  18. A further sacrifice is required if we deny that ours is the best actualizable world. We must give up the principle of sufficient reason. Hartshorne (apparently willing to give up sufficient reason) explains, ‘Unless one possibility is best, actuality cannot have a reason.’ (Anselm's Discovery (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1965), p. 189.) Time forbids a discussion of this issue here, but Anselm, at least, would certainly defend the principle. It is, in fact, the cornerstone of his philosophic method. A related question worth exploring in this context is the subject of the principle of plenitude (‘no genuine potentiality of being can remain unfulfilled,’ A.O. Lovejoy,The Great Chain of Being). I take it that this means there are no merely possible kinds of beings, a point which is relevant to whether or not this is the best world on Anselm's analysis of value. R.H. Kane argues that the principle of sufficient reason entails the principle of plenitude, and that we may want to retain the latter principle even if we jettison the former. This move, he argues, is part of the method of contemporary physics. (“Nature, Plenitude and Sufficient Reason,”American Philosophical Quarterly 13 (1976): 23–31.)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Rogers, K. Anselm on praising a necessarily perfect being. Int J Philos Relig 34, 41–52 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01316979

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01316979

Navigation