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ANSELM ON TRUTH AND GOODNESS Anselmo sobre la verdad y el bien Alice Ramos St. John’s University, Queens (New York) ABSTRACT St. Anselm provides us with a metaphysics of the Logos, whereby things are true in relation to the Divine Intellect, or by the one first truth. This type of metaphysics has ethical implications, for the truth of man’s essence needs to be brought to completion through right action. Rectitude of the rational creature’s will is necessary for man’s doing the truth or standing in the truth. This paper shows that the actualization of man’s essence can only be achieved through the return of the rational creature to the Divine Truth, which is its exemplary and final cause. Keywords: the Word, exemplar, truth, rational creature, image of God, rectitude of will, order. RESUMEN San Anselmo desarrolla una metafísica del Logos, mediante la cual las cosas son verdaderas por su relación con el Intelecto Divino, que es a su vez la primera Verdad. Esta metafísica tiene implicaciones éticas, ya que la verdad de la esencia de la criatura racional debe llegar a su plenitud a través de la acción recta. La rectitud de la voluntad es necesaria para que el hombre haga la verdad o se mantenga en la verdad. La actualización de la esencia del hombre sólo puede realizarse a través del retorno a la Verdad Divina, que es su causa ejemplar y causa final. Palabras Clave: la Palabra Divina, ejemplar, verdad, criatura racional, imagen de Dios, rectitud de la voluntad, orden. Some contemporary philosophers and theologians recognize the relevance of ancient and medieval thought to current metaphysical and ethical questions. While the Aristotelian- Thomistic tradition is often invoked in such discussions, reference to St. Anselm of Canterbury and the Platonic tradition can also prove especially fruitful.1 In this paper we will consider first the question of the truth of creation. To speak of the truth or intelligibility of things is made possible in Anselm through the development of a metaphysics of the Logos, the type of metaphysics which relates things to the Divine Intellect. It is interesting to note that the question of the Logos and of the intelligibility of things has been a topic of reflection in the works of the twentieth century theologians Romano Guardini and Joseph Ratzinger. In this introduction I would like to make mention of the 1 Working in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition in the area of ethics, one has only to think of the magis- terial work of Alasdair MacIntyre. Perhaps less well known in the United States is the work of Josef Pieper whose books cover questions in metaphysics, ethics, and in other areas of philosophy as well, showing in a splendid way the contemporary relevance of Aquinas. Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval, 21 (2014), ISNN: 1133-0902, pp. 85-94 86 ALICE RAMOS Regensburg lecture given by Benedict XVI, now Pope Emeritus, in which he stressed the importance of the Logos, understood as reason and word, a reason which is creative and capable of communicating itself, precisely insofar as it is reason.2 In addition, the lecture insists that God acts with Logos and that it is contrary to the nature of God not to act according to reason. If God acts through the Logos when He creates, then all that is created is in fact intelligible and true. It may be said that the methodology of the sciences is based on the intelligibility of things, because modern scientific reason must accept as a given fact the rational structure of matter and the correspondence which exists between our mind and the rational structures of nature.3 A metaphysics of the Logos should thus be of particular interest to scientific reason since the latter accepts the intelligibility of things as a postulate for its task in the investigation of nature. Anselm’s metaphysics can therefore open new vistas to the scientific mind, provided the scientist’s reason is receptive to the light of faith and of grace. But, as we shall see, secondly in this paper, a metaphysics of the Logos also has ethical implications, for the Logos, which is the exemplary cause of things and thus measures the being and essence of things, is also the measure and norm of the finality of things. Anselm’s metaphysical thought cannot therefore be dissociated from his ethical thought for having been created true, things must also act in accordance with the truth of their nature in order to return to their origin. A treatment of the truth of creation, as presented here, will thus make reference to the Neoplatonic circulation motif, or to the exitus-reditus theme, according to which every effect turns back by nature to the cause from which it originates.4 In this return to the origin the rational creature has a particular role to play. Anselm conceived of creation as a copy or image of God. There is a form or likeness in the mind of God through which everything has been created and which is the supreme essence itself. While things were nothing before being made, as far as the reason of their maker is concerned, they were not nothing, for as Anselm says, «A maker makes something rationally if, and only if, there is already something there in his reasoning–as a sort of exemplar».5 The form that is in the maker’s reason is, according to Anselm, a kind of verbalization of the thing to be created. To better understand this, Anselm uses the example of a craftsman, who before making something by means of his craft, expresses the thing within himself through a mental conception.6 Of course, the inner verbalization of the Creator and the mental conception of the craftsman are infinitely different.7 The analogy nonetheless is a good one as it helps to understand what otherwise would remain obscure to us. According to Anselm the expression of things in the reason of the Creator is in effect the Word, the Image of God or the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity. The Word through which God the Father says Himself is the Son and it is through this same Word that the Father says all creatures. Anselm insists that it is by 2 See Schall, J. V., The Regensburg Lecture, South Bend, Indiana, St. Augustine’s Press, 2007. 3 Ibid. 4 See the excellent study on rectitude or right order by Pouchet, J. R., O.S.B., La rectitude chez saint Anselme: un itinéraire augustinien de l’âme à Dieu, Paris, Études augustiniennes, 1964; see also Rogers, K. A., The Neoplatonic Metaphysics and Epistemology of Anselm of Canterbury, Lewiston, New York, Edwin Mellen Press, 1997. In what follows of this article I will be making use of my previously published article, «Anselm on Truth», in the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, vol. 83 (2009), pp. 183-197. DOI:10.5840/acpaproc20098315. 5 Monologion IX. I am using the translations of Anselm’s works found in B. Davies, and G. R. Evans (ed.), Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998. The word «reasoning» here is used to translate Anselm’s ratio, which can also be rendered as reason. 6 Monologion X. 7 Monologion XI. Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval, 21 (2014), ISNN: 1133-0902, pp. 85-94 ANSELM ON TRUTH AND GOODNESS 87 «one and the same Word» that God says Himself and all that He makes.8 It may therefore be said that God expresses Himself in the Word and that the Word is the expression of the divine essence.9 Furthermore, the expression of the universe, of all creatures, is found in the Word. If we then consider creation as having its origin from the Word and as expressive of God, we will hold not only to the transcendence of the cause but also to a certain immanence of the cause in the effect. In the Word with which God says Himself every creature is expressed.10 Even before things are created, they exist according to Anselm in the Word, and are there original being and original truth, for they are what the Word is rather than what they are in themselves.11 Once made, however, creatures are «mutable essence, the product of immutable reason».12 And the more similar they are to the Word, to the «primary essence and the primary existential truth», the higher their degree of truth and excellence of existence.13 As creatures are but images and likenesses of God, of the simple and absolute essence, they are for Anselm but «pale imitations» of the creator.14 Because their existence is relational, that is, they exist in relation to the Word, it is only in and through the Word that they find their identity and completion. It is therefore only in relation to the Word that they will be perfected and will fully be what they are meant to be. The more similar creatures are to the Word, to the essence that exists supremely, the more excellent will they be. Anselm thus ranks creatures in such a way that living natures are above non-living, perceptive natures above non-perceptive, and rational natures above non-rational. According to Anselm, then, some natures may be said to exist more than others. For as he puts it, «A nature’s comparative existence is the comparative similarity of its essence to the supreme essence, in just the same way as its comparative excellence is its comparative proximity, through its natural essence, to superlative excellence».15 While there is a multiplicity of perfections found in created beings such as existence, life, and rationality, all of these perfections exist in a participated way in creatures whereas in their source they are unlimited.

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