Proslogion
Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogium (Discourse on the Existence of God)
Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury
“Faith seeking understanding.” He nearly called it that, and it is the better title.
- Catch rate
- 15 / 255
- Base research
- 172
- Stat total
- 294
Base stats
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
Why these numbers
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
A few pages. Anselm had already written the long cumulative case and deliberately threw it away for one argument that stands on its own.
It aims at the fool of Psalm 14 and uses his own understanding as the lever: to deny the idea he must first hold it. Very little in this game contends harder for its size.
Answered in Anselm’s own lifetime by Gaunilo, and argued over ever since. A book that has been under fire for nine hundred years and is still standing defends well.
Almost every philosopher since has had to say something about this argument. It takes the floor instantly.
Cited for this book
Anselm’s own preface says what he was after: a single argument that would need nothing but itself for its proof. His answer to the mercy-and-justice puzzle in chapters 8–11 is the same method turned on a difficulty in his own doctrine rather than on an unbeliever — he presses where it looks like a contradiction instead of asserting past it.
Development
A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.
Moves learned
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Than Which Nothing Greater | Rationality | Argument | 82 | 90% | 5 |
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 34 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 36 | Answer the Catholic | Ethics | Argument | 52 | 100% | 10 |
| 37 | Compassionate and Passionless | Theology Proper | Argument | 70 | 100% | 15 |
| 39 | Take Back the Island | Rationality | Argument | 78 | 100% | 10 |
| 41 | Greater Than Can Be Conceived | Theology Proper | Argument | 76 | 100% | 10 |
Read it: That Than Which Nothing Greater
The passages the Scriptorium holds on screen, word for word from a public-domain translation. Written in Latin.
“And indeed, we believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived… But, at any rate, this very fool, when he hears of this being of which I speak… understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his understanding.”
Anselm, Proslogium 2 (trans. Sidney Norton Deane, 1903, public domain), elided.
“Therefore, O Lord, thou art not only that than which a greater cannot be conceived, but thou art a being greater than can be conceived.”
Anselm, Proslogium 15 (trans. Deane, 1903, public domain).
“How art thou compassionate, and, at the same time, passionless?”
Anselm, Proslogium 8 (trans. Deane, 1903, public domain).
“But how dost thou spare the wicked, if thou art all just and supremely just? For how, being all just and supremely just, dost thou aught that is not just?”
Anselm, Proslogium 9 (trans. Deane, 1903, public domain).
Anselm’s own preface says what he was after: a single argument that would need nothing but itself for its proof.
Chapters 8 to 11 turn the same method onto a difficulty in his own doctrine — how mercy and justice hold together in God — instead of onto an unbeliever. He presses where it looks like a contradiction rather than asserting past it.