1077–1078

Anselm: The Proofs of God's Existence in the Monologion and the Ontological Argument of the Proslogion

In the Monologion (1077) Anselm proves God's existence from degrees of goodness: since we distinguish degrees of good, there exists an absolute Good, the highest of all beings; Lane notes the Platonist presupposition and that Augustine had put forward something similar. In the Proslogion (1078), trying to understand why Psalm 13 calls the one who denies God a "fool," Anselm proposed the "ontological proof": everyone has a concept of "the greatest conceivable being"; if it existed only in the mind, one could conceive a greater one existing in reality as well – which is contradictory. "And this being You are, O Lord our God." González stipulates that the argument is valid only under certain assumptions.