Monologion: A Soliloquy on the Reasons of Faith

1. Introduction

Anselm of Canterbury’s Monologion: A Soliloquy on the Reasons of Faith is an eleventh‑century Latin treatise that systematically reflects on the existence and nature of God using natural reason rather than scriptural authority. Written as a continuous internal discourse or “monologue,” it aims to show how a thinking person, starting from everyday observations about goodness, being, and value, might be led to affirm one supreme and self‑sufficient source of all reality.

The work is often described as an early and influential exercise in natural theology, undertaken from within a Christian monastic context but methodologically bracketing explicit appeal to revelation. It thus occupies a distinctive place between meditative spirituality and philosophical argument.

Key features commonly highlighted in scholarship include:

• Its opening sequence of arguments from degrees of goodness and being to a single supreme good.
• The development of a metaphysics of self‑subsistent being and participation, in which all finite creatures depend on and imitate a necessary source.
• An elaborate treatment of divine simplicity, according to which all divine attributes are one reality.
• A sustained attempt to give a rationally structured account of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) while maintaining the unity of the divine essence.

Because the Monologion predates Anselm’s more famous Proslogion, it is frequently read as the first major formulation of his program of fides quaerens intellectum—faith seeking understanding—and as a laboratory in which he experiments with forms of argument that later medieval thinkers would refine, adopt, or contest.

Central aims in brief

2. Historical and Intellectual Context

The Monologion emerged in the late eleventh century, a period of intellectual renewal in Western Europe sometimes described as the “long twelfth‑century renaissance.” Monastic schools—especially the Benedictine abbey of Bec in Normandy, where Anselm was prior—were important centers for biblical exegesis, grammar, and emerging philosophical reflection.

Intellectual background

Anselm’s thought in the Monologion stands at the intersection of several traditions:

Though Anselm likely had limited direct access to the full Aristotelian corpus, he knew Aristotle through Boethius and shared interests with later scholastic metaphysics, such as the distinction between necessary and contingent beings.

Theological and ecclesial setting

The Monologion was composed in a Latin Christian world shaped by:

• The Carolingian and post‑Carolingian legacy of rational theology (e.g., Eriugena).
• Ongoing debates about divine predestination, the Eucharist, and Trinitarian doctrine, which encouraged sharper conceptual tools.
• The monastic ideal of combining contemplation and study, in which rational investigation was valued as a form of service to faith.

Some scholars see the work as anticipating the later scholastic method of the schools, while others stress its continuity with earlier monastic theology, noting its meditative tone and lack of formal disputation.

Relation to contemporaries

The Monologion has been compared to:

In this context, the Monologion represents a significant step toward integrating systematic philosophical reasoning within Western Christian theology, while still firmly rooted in the spiritual life of a Benedictine monastery.

3. Author and Composition

Anselm of Canterbury

Anselm (c. 1033–1109) was a Benedictine monk, prior, abbot of Bec, and later archbishop of Canterbury. He is widely regarded as one of the formative figures of medieval Latin theology and philosophy. His intellectual profile combines:

• Monastic spirituality, emphasizing prayer, humility, and contemplation.
• Philosophical acuity, deployed to clarify and defend Christian doctrines.
• The programmatic idea of fides quaerens intellectum, which frames rational inquiry as motivated and guided by faith.

Circumstances of composition

The Monologion was written while Anselm served as prior of Bec, around 1076. According to the traditional account, preserved in Anselm’s preface and later reports, the work arose at the request of fellow monks who asked him to provide:

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“…a model of meditation on the divine essence, carried out by the method of rational investigation, without appealing to the authority of Scripture.”

— Paraphrase of Anselm’s preface to the Monologion

Anselm agreed, with the stipulation that the resulting text be understood as an exercise in reasoning available to anyone who reflects carefully, not as a replacement for revelation.

Composition process and title

The title “Monologion” (literally, “monologue”) reflects both form and intention:

• The text is framed as a single speaker reasoning step by step.
• It avoids dialogical objections and responses, in contrast to later scholastic disputations.
• Anselm characterizes it as a “soliloquy” of the mind before God, attempting to trace the inner path of reflection.

Some manuscript traditions append to the title the phrase “de ratione fidei” (“on the reason of faith”), highlighting its orientation toward articulating how faith can be supported by rational arguments.

Relation to Anselm’s other writings

The Monologion precedes the Proslogion, in which Anselm shifts from multiple converging arguments to a more unified strategy. Scholars debate whether the Monologion should be read as:

• A preliminary exploration, testing a variety of arguments and clarifications.
• A self‑standing treatise, complete in its own aims.
• A work later reframed by Anselm himself in light of the Proslogion.

In any case, it marks Anselm’s earliest extensive attempt to set out a rationally ordered doctrine of God.

4. Purpose, Audience, and Method

Purpose

The Monologion is explicitly designed as a rational meditation on God. Its immediate purpose, as Anselm explains, is to furnish monks with a pattern of reflection by which they might:

• Move from created goods to the recognition of a supreme Good.
• Clarify, as far as reason permits, what may be said about God’s being, attributes, and triune life.
• See how faith’s content can be explored and “intelligibly” articulated.

A broader purpose, identified by many interpreters, is to demonstrate that belief in the Christian God is not irrational, even when reason alone is employed.

Intended audience

Though written in Latin within a monastic context, the work’s method targets a more universal audience of rational inquirers:

Anselm himself stresses that the arguments are framed so that “even an unbeliever” could, in principle, follow them, insofar as they rely on general features of experience and thought rather than ecclesial authority.

Methodological stance

The Monologion adopts a distinctive method:

• Abstention from scriptural proofs within the argument proper, though the author’s commitments are Christian.
• Stepwise reasoning from common notions—such as degrees of goodness, causal dependence, and the distinction between necessary and contingent beings.
• Use of reductio-style reasoning: showing that denying a supreme source leads to incoherence.
• A meditative structure, where each conclusion becomes the premise for further reflection, rather than a set of isolated proofs.

This stance has been characterized in different ways:

Debate continues over how strictly “philosophical” the method is, but there is broad agreement that the Monologion is a pioneering attempt to articulate doctrinal themes by systematic argument grounded in shared rational experience.

5. Structure and Organization of the Monologion

The Monologion consists of a sequence of relatively short chapters that form a continuous argumentative progression. While numbering varies slightly in editions, the work moves through identifiable thematic stages that correspond broadly to the outline of parts given in modern analysis.

Overall progression

(Exact chapter ranges differ slightly among editions; the table reflects the general flow of topics.)

Organizational features

• Cumulative reasoning: Each chapter typically begins from conclusions previously reached, which function as premises for further argument.
• Thematic clustering: Several consecutive chapters may address a single theme (e.g., eternity, omnipresence), exploring implications and removing apparent contradictions.
• Transitional chapters: Certain chapters explicitly summarize earlier results and signal a shift—for instance, from discussing God’s attributes to God’s inner life as Trinity.

Relation to the parts listed in this entry

Modern commentators often group the chapters into conceptual “parts”:

This organization is not signaled by section headings in Anselm’s own text but is reconstructed by interpreters to make the logical architecture of the Monologion more transparent.

6. Argument from Degrees of Goodness and Being

The opening argument of the Monologion starts from the observation that things in the world display varying degrees of goodness, greatness, and being. Anselm proposes that such gradations point to a single maximal standard by reference to which they are intelligible.

Basic line of reasoning

Though formulations differ slightly, commentators often reconstruct the argument in roughly these steps:

1. Many things are called good (or great, or existent) to different degrees.
2. When we compare degrees, we implicitly measure them by some standard or norm of that perfection.
3. It would be incoherent for there to be an infinite regress of ever‑greater goods with no ultimate standard.
4. Therefore, there must exist one thing that is supremely good and great and has goodness not by participation in something else, but by its very essence.
5. All other good things are good by sharing in, or being caused by, this supreme Good.

Anselm then identifies this supremely good reality with God, though he presents the preceding steps as not presupposing revelation.

Conceptual background

The argument draws on a broadly Platonic and Augustinian framework:

• Degrees of perfection suggest participation in a more perfect exemplar.
• The highest degree of a perfection is thought to be self‑subsistent, not derivative.
• Created goods are thus seen as imitations of an uncreated, infinite Good.

Interpretive debates

Scholars differ on how to read the logical force of this argument.

Supporters maintain that the argument, properly understood, expresses a general metaphysical principle: ordered degrees of a property that is intrinsically “perfection‑like” (e.g., goodness) are best explained by reference to a unitary source and measure. Critics contend that one could instead posit multiple independent standards, or explain comparisons without reifying an ultimate maximum.

In the Monologion, this initial argument functions as a starting point: once the existence of a supreme Good is posited, Anselm proceeds to explore what such a reality must be like, leading into his account of self‑subsistent being.

7. God as Self‑Subsistent Being and Source of All

Building on the conclusion that there is a supreme Good, Anselm next argues that this reality must be a self‑subsistent being (esse per se) and the ultimate source of everything else.

From goodness to self‑subsistent being

Anselm reasons that if the supreme Good were good by participation in something else, that “something else” would be a higher source of goodness. To avoid regress, there must be a being whose goodness is identical with its very being. Hence:

• This being exists through itself, not through another.
• It is necessary, not contingent: it cannot fail to exist.
• All other beings exist through it, either directly or indirectly.

Contingent beings and the causal hierarchy

The treatise contrasts contingent beings (which might not have existed and which depend on causes) with the necessary self‑subsistent being.

Anselm develops a hierarchical picture of causality: everything that exists either is the supreme being or derives its being from it. Intermediate causes may exist, but their causal power is wholly dependent on the first cause.

Relation to classical theism

This line of thought aligns the supreme Good with the classical theistic notion of a necessary, uncaused cause. Commentators often see here an anticipation of later metaphysical arguments:

• The contingency argument, inferring a necessary being from contingent realities.
• The participation argument, where finite beings share imperfectly in being itself.

Points of discussion

Interpretive debates concern:

• Whether Anselm’s move from “supreme Good” to “self‑subsistent being” is strictly deductive or assumes a prior metaphysical framework.
• How his notion of “existing through oneself” relates to later distinctions between essence and existence (e.g., in Thomas Aquinas).
• Whether his account allows for a plurality of necessary beings, or decisively establishes a single unique source (Anselm argues for uniqueness, but some modern readers scrutinize the assumptions involved).

Within the Monologion, the result is clear: there is one being whose essence is to exist and to be good, and all other beings receive both existence and goodness from this source, a conclusion that sets up Anselm’s ensuing exploration of divine attributes and simplicity.

8. Divine Simplicity and the Unity of Attributes

Having argued for a self‑subsistent, supreme being, Anselm examines how multiple divine attributes—goodness, greatness, justice, wisdom, omnipotence—can be predicated of a God who is absolutely one and simple.

Core thesis of divine simplicity

Anselm maintains that in God:

• There is no composition of parts, whether physical, metaphysical, or logical.
• There is no real distinction between essence and existence.
• Distinct attributes are not really different “things” in God but are identical with the single divine essence.

Thus, God is goodness, greatness, life, wisdom, justice, etc., rather than merely having these perfections.

Reasoning behind the thesis

Several lines of thought support this:

1. Self‑subsistence and unity: If God’s goodness were one thing and God’s wisdom another, then God would be dependent on a composition of distinct constituents, contradicting self‑subsistence.
2. Supremacy: Any being composed of distinct elements would be less than supremely simple; one could ask what unites its parts, suggesting a higher principle.
3. Transcendence: God’s being is unlike that of creatures; created multiplicity of attributes cannot be projected directly into the divine case.

Consequently, our multiple predicates about God reflect different ways finite minds grasp the same simple reality, not different realities in God.

Conceptual handling of multiple predicates

Anselm’s approach entails that:

• Terms like “just,” “merciful,” “powerful” pick out the same divine essence under distinct conceptual aspects.
• Apparent tensions between attributes (e.g., justice vs. mercy) must be reconciled by understanding them as perfectly unified in God, even if not fully comprehensible to us.

Critical perspectives

Later thinkers and modern scholars have both developed and questioned this doctrine.

Within the Monologion, divine simplicity functions as a central constraint: all subsequent discussion of God’s relation to the world and of the Trinity must respect the conviction that there is only one indivisible divine essence.

9. Creation, Participation, and the Order of Creatures

In the Monologion, Anselm develops a metaphysics in which all creatures receive being and goodness from God and are organized into an ordered hierarchy. This is articulated through the notions of creation ex nihilo, participation, and a graded order of creatures.

Creation and dependence

Anselm argues that since the supreme being is self‑subsistent and the source of all, everything else must be:

• Created by God, not co‑eternal with God.
• Dependent on God not only for its coming into being but for its continued existence.
• Such that, if God were to withdraw sustaining causality, it would return to nothing.

This aligns with the Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing, though Anselm articulates it primarily in metaphysical terms of dependence rather than narrative scriptural motifs.

Participation in being and goodness

Creaturely realities are said to participate in God’s perfections:

Participation explains how creatures can be genuinely good and real, yet not equal to God. Their perfections are reflections or imprints of the divine exemplar, not autonomous sources.

Hierarchical order of creatures

Anselm envisions a ladder of being:

• Some creatures (e.g., rational beings) more fully reflect divine attributes like intellect and will.
• Others participate in more limited ways (e.g., merely existing, or being alive but not rational).
• The universe thus forms a structured whole, ordered toward God as its source and end.

This hierarchical ontology is intended to make sense of empirical differences in dignity, power, and nobility while preserving a fundamental dependence of all on the one source.

Interpretive issues

Commentators have discussed:

• How Anselm’s participatory scheme relates to Platonic and Augustinian precedents.
• Whether his metaphysics allows for genuine creaturely autonomy, or tends toward occasionalism (most agree he preserves real secondary causality, though always grounded in divine causation).
• How his account of order anticipates later medieval theories of the “great chain of being”, yet remains focused on the ascent of rational creatures to contemplation of God.

Within the Monologion, this doctrine of creation and participation forms the backdrop for Anselm’s treatment of divine ideas and for his exploration of how rational creatures can know and love their source.

10. The Divine Intellect, Word, and Exemplar Ideas

After establishing God as supreme being and source, Anselm turns to God as supreme intellect, in whom reside the exemplar ideas according to which all things are made, and to the concept of a divine Word.

God as supreme intellect

Anselm reasons that:

• The supreme Good must also be supreme wisdom: it would be less than perfect if it lacked understanding.
• All true wisdom and knowledge in creatures must derive from a higher intelligible source.
• Therefore, God is not only being and goodness but also intelligent and knowing, indeed the very form of wisdom.

Exemplar ideas in the divine mind

Borrowing from Augustine and Platonic tradition, Anselm holds that:

• The patterns or “reasons” (rationes) of all things pre‑exist in the divine intellect.
• These exemplar ideas serve as models according to which God creates and orders creatures.
• They are not separate entities, but identical with God’s own understanding of himself and of what can be made.

This framework explains both the intelligibility of the world and the possibility of scientific and philosophical knowledge: in knowing things, rational creatures participate in God’s own knowledge.

The divine Word

From the notion of God as intellect, Anselm moves to the idea of an internal word (verbum). He suggests that:

• An intellect that knows itself produces an inner expression or concept of itself.
• In God, this inner word is a perfect and complete likeness of the divine essence.
• This Word of God is thus eternal, uncreated, and consubstantial with the source intellect.

Within the Monologion, this concept still operates at the level of philosophical analysis of intellect and self‑expression, though it prepares for the subsequent, more explicitly Trinitarian identification of this Word with the Son.

Scholarly perspectives

Interpreters have emphasized different aspects:

• Some see this section as primarily a metaphysics of intelligibility, connecting God’s self‑knowledge with the rational structure of creation.
• Others focus on its role as a bridge to Trinitarian doctrine, showing how internal distinctions can be conceived in a simple God.
• Debates concern how literally one should take the language of “ideas” and “word”: as metaphors, as logical constructions, or as referring to real intra‑divine relations.

In Anselm’s overall project, the account of divine intellect and exemplar ideas ensures that the world is not only causally dependent on God but also rationally ordered in accordance with an eternal wisdom.

11. Rational Reflection on the Trinity

The final portion of the Monologion offers a rationally structured exploration of the Trinity, building directly on the earlier analysis of God as intellect, word, and love. Anselm’s stated aim is not to prove the Trinity independently of revelation, but to show that, once affirmed, it is not contrary to reason.

The Son as Word and perfect likeness

From the notion of an internal Word produced by the divine intellect, Anselm argues:

• God’s self‑knowledge yields a perfect image or likeness of the divine essence.
• This internal Word is of the same nature as the source, not a creature.
• The relation between source and Word is thus characterized as a kind of generation: the Word is “begotten” but co‑eternal and consubstantial.

This rational model undergirds the Christian doctrine of the Son as the eternal Word.

The Holy Spirit as love of Father and Son

Anselm further notes that:

• Between the source intellect (often described as “Father”) and the internal Word (the “Son”), there is mutual love.
• This love is so perfect and substantial that it, too, is not a creature but shares the same divine essence.
• He characterizes the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the mutual love of Father and Son, while remaining one with them in being.

Unity of essence and distinction of persons

To respond to worries about tritheism or mere verbal distinctions, Anselm stresses:

• The three are one simple essence; there are not three gods but one.
• The distinctions lie in relations of origin—begetting and proceeding—not in different substances or natures.
• Any attribute predicated of God (e.g., omnipotence) is predicated of each person fully, since all possess the same undivided essence.

Interpretive and critical discussions

Scholars have debated:

Within the Monologion, this Trinitarian reflection concludes the ascent from created goods through divine attributes to the inner life of God, framed as an exercise in reasoning consonant with, but not replacing, faith’s confession.

12. Philosophical Method and Use of Natural Theology

The Monologion is frequently cited as an early and self‑conscious exercise in natural theology—reasoning about God based on general experience and metaphysical reflection, apart from explicit appeals to revelation.

Features of Anselm’s philosophical method

Key methodological traits include:

• Non‑scriptural argumentation: Within the main body of the text, Anselm refrains from citing biblical passages as premises, even though he writes from a Christian standpoint.
• Stepwise inferential structure: Arguments proceed from broadly accessible observations (degrees of goodness, causal dependence) to more specific claims (self‑subsistent being, divine attributes).
• Cumulative strategy: Rather than relying on a single decisive proof, Anselm offers a series of converging arguments that reinforce one another.
• Use of reductio and conceptual analysis: He often shows that denying some conclusion leads to contradiction or incoherence in our judgments about goodness, being, or causality.

Relation to “natural theology”

Interpretations vary regarding how to classify the work:

Anselm’s own preface suggests he intends the arguments to be available to “any” rational mind, but he also frames the work as serving believers’ meditation.

Methodological legacy and critiques

Later thinkers drew different lessons from Anselm’s method:

• Medieval scholastics, such as Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, saw in Anselm a forerunner of systematic theology that integrates philosophical arguments.
• Some modern theologians (e.g., those influenced by Karl Barth) question whether such natural‑theological projects unduly autonomize reason from revelation.
• Philosophers of religion have revisited Anselm’s strategies as early examples of cosmological and axiological arguments, evaluating their logical structure by contemporary standards.

Critiques target issues such as:

• The strength of the premises (e.g., whether degrees of perfection require a maximal exemplar).
• The transition from conceptual analysis to ontological claims.
• The potential circularity if faith‑shaped intuitions guide what counts as “reasonable.”

Nonetheless, there is broad agreement that the Monologion represents a significant attempt to discipline theological claims by sustained philosophical reasoning, influencing subsequent debates over the scope and limits of natural theology.

13. Manuscript Tradition and Textual History

Early circulation

The Monologion was composed in the late eleventh century and initially circulated in manuscript within monastic and ecclesiastical contexts. It was often transmitted together with:

• The Proslogion.
• Anselm’s other theological and devotional treatises.

Early readers were primarily members of the Benedictine and related monastic communities, especially at Bec and, later, Canterbury.

Manuscript transmission

No authorial autograph survives; knowledge of the text depends on copyist manuscripts.

Some manuscripts include a preface in which Anselm explains the work’s origins and method; others transmit a slightly different paratextual frame, leading to discussion among editors about the original form of the preface and title.

Printed editions

The editio princeps (first printed edition) appeared in Nuremberg, 1491, in a collection of Anselm’s writings. Subsequent early modern editions further standardized the text and chapter numbering, though critical control over variants remained limited.

The modern standard critical edition is:

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F. S. Schmitt (ed.), S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, vol. 1, Seckau–Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1938.

Schmitt’s edition collates major manuscripts and offers a critical apparatus noting significant textual variants, emendations, and alternative readings.

Textual issues and scholarly discussion

Textual scholars have examined:

• Title variations: Some manuscripts add “de ratione fidei” to “Monologion,” raising questions about how Anselm and his earliest readers conceived the work’s focus.
• Chapter divisions: Manuscripts exhibit differing systems of capitulation, affecting how later interpreters map arguments to sections.
• Preface authenticity and placement: The presence or absence of the preface in different manuscripts has prompted debate regarding its original status and whether it reflects later editorial framing.

Overall, despite the normal challenges of medieval transmission, the textual state is relatively secure, with major editions and translations broadly agreeing on the substance of the work. Remaining questions center less on the reconstruction of the text itself than on how paratextual elements shape its interpretation.

14. Reception, Criticisms, and Debates

Medieval and early reception

In the centuries following its composition, the Monologion was respected in monastic and emerging scholastic circles, though often overshadowed by the Proslogion. It influenced:

• Discussions of divine attributes and simplicity.
• Approaches to rational reflection on the Trinity.
• The use of philosophical argumentation in theology.

Some contemporaries, however, expressed unease about its explicit effort to reason about God without invoking Scripture, prompting Anselm (or later redactors) to clarify in prefaces that the text is intended as a devotional meditation rather than a replacement for revealed doctrine.

Major lines of criticism

Scholarly and theological critiques have focused on several aspects:

Debates in modern scholarship

Contemporary interpreters continue to debate the philosophical strength and theological appropriateness of Anselm’s positions.

• Defenders of Anselm’s project emphasize its role in showing the coherence of Christian theism and its capacity to stimulate deeper understanding of doctrines within faith.
• Critics influenced by neo‑orthodox or post‑liberal theology question whether the project of grounding or clarifying theology by autonomous reason is itself problematic.
• Analytic philosophers of religion have revisited Anselm’s arguments as early versions of cosmological, axiological, and perfect being arguments, often reformulating them in formal terms and testing their validity and soundness.

Comparative evaluations

The Monologion is frequently assessed in relation to the Proslogion:

These debates shape ongoing scholarly interest in the Monologion both as a historical document and as a resource for contemporary reflection on faith, reason, and the doctrine of God.

15. Legacy and Historical Significance

The Monologion holds a prominent place in the history of Western thought as one of the earliest sustained attempts to develop a systematic, rational doctrine of God within Latin Christianity.

Influence on medieval theology and philosophy

The work contributed to shaping:

• The scholastic synthesis, by modeling how theological questions could be addressed through structured argument.
• Later discussions of divine simplicity, attributes, and participation, influencing figures such as Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus (even when they modified or critiqued Anselm’s formulations).
• The metaphysical vocabulary of necessary vs. contingent being, and the notion of God as self‑subsistent ipsum esse (being itself), which became central to later medieval metaphysics.

Its rational exploration of the Trinity also forms part of the broader Augustinian tradition of psychological analogies, which would be appropriated and debated throughout the Middle Ages.

Role in the development of natural theology

The Monologion is often cited as an important precursor to later natural‑theological projects. It influenced:

• The idea that one can, at least to some extent, “prove” or rationally justify belief in God’s existence and attributes.
• The expectation, common in scholastic curricula, that theology students engage with philosophical arguments for God’s existence alongside scriptural and doctrinal study.

Subsequent debates over the legitimacy and limits of natural theology frequently take Anselm’s work—together with the Proslogion—as a historical reference point.

Modern reception and interdisciplinary relevance

In modern scholarship, the Monologion is studied in several fields:

Some modern thinkers critique its rationalism; others draw on it to defend renewed forms of classical theism. Regardless of evaluative stance, there is broad agreement that the Monologion plays a key role in the genealogy of Western reflections on the relationship between faith and reason, and that it helped set the agenda for many subsequent debates about God, creation, and the structure of reality.