Anselm of Canterbury - Writings

Writings

Anselm engages in philosophy, employing reasoning rather than appeal to Scriptural or patristic authority to establish the doctrines of the Christian faith. Stylistically, Anselm’s treatises take two basic forms, dialogues and sustained meditations. The dialogue form serves a pedagogical purpose. His great predecessor, Johannes Scotus Eriugena, was more speculative and mystical in his writings.

Anselm's motto is “faith seeking understanding” (fides quaerens intellectum), which for him means “an active love of God seeking a deeper knowledge of God.” He wrote, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam. Nam et hoc credo, quia, nisi credidero, non intelligam." ("Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this, too, I believe, that, unless I first believe, I shall not understand.") This is possibly drawn from Augustine of Hippo's Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John Tractate XXIX on John 7:14-18, §6: "Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that thou mayest understand." Anselm held that faith precedes reason, but that reason can expand upon faith.

The groundwork of Anselm's theory of knowledge is contained in the tract De Veritate, where he affirms the existence of an absolute truth in which all other truth participates. This absolute truth, he argues, is God, who is the ultimate ground or principle both of things and of thought. The notion of God becomes the foreground of Anselm's theory, so it is necessary first to make God clear to reason and be demonstrated to have real existence.

Anselm's world-view was broadly that of Neoplatonism, which he inherited from his primary influence, Augustine of Hippo, as well as from Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and possibly Scotus. He also inherited a rationalist way of thinking from Aristotle and Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius.