A Historical Study of Anselm’s Proslogion

Download or read book A Historical Study of Anselm’s Proslogion written by Toivo J. Holopainen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-08-03 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In A Historical Study of Anselm's Proslogion, Toivo J. Holopainen offers a new overall interpretation of Anselm’s Proslogion by providing a historical explanation for the distinctive combination of argument and devotion that this treatise exhibits. Part 1 clarifies Anselm’s outlook on the central arguments in the treatise by offering a careful analysis of the ‘single argument’, the discovery of which Anselm announces in the preface. Part 2 reassesses the conflicting views about faith and reason in the immediate background of the Proslogion (the Eucharistic controversy, the publication of the Monologion). Part 3 examines the Proslogion from a rhetorical perspective and argues that applying the ‘single argument’ in a devotional setting constitutes a subtle attempt to affect the audience’s ideas about method in theology.