Welcome to the Deep Dive, the place where we
analyze complex source material, distill its
most essential knowledge, and provide you with
those profound aha moments you need to feel truly
well -informed. Today we are immersing ourselves
in the life of a, well, a towering figure from
the 11th century, Anselm of Canterbury. Right,
and he's this incredible character. Imagine a
single individual who is hailed as the father
of scholasticism. You know, the movement that
tried to rationalize Christian theology. But
at the same time, he was such an uncompromising,
fierce political figure that he brought the might
of the English crown to a standstill, not once,
but twice. And that tension, that's really what
we're digging into today. The profound philosophical
theorist versus the brutal, high stakes political
operator. It's what makes his story so relevant.
It is. We have some really dense source material
covering his origins, his revolutionary theological
arguments, and just the sheer political drama
of his life as archbishop. So our mission for
you, the learner, is to get a quick handle on
the driving force behind all his actions. Yeah,
Anselm's unwavering belief in absolute truth,
a truth he thought was derived from both absolute
faith and crucially rigorous reason that dictated
his every single move. We're going to extract
the knowledge nuggets that explain how this brilliant
theologian survived two separate exiles to, well,
to fundamentally reshape both Western philosophy
and the political structure of the English church.
We've structured this deep dive into three major
pillars. First, we're going to trace his origins.
It's an unlikely trajectory from the political
turmoil of Aosta in Italy to becoming this intellectual
cornerstone of Beck Abbey in Normandy. Then second,
we'll dissect his major theological innovations,
the big ones. the groundbreaking ontological
argument for god's existence and his really powerful
satisfaction theory of atonement and finally
we'll dive right into the decade -long bruising
political conflict that we know as the investiture
controversy and see how he faced off against
two very powerful english kings okay so let's
unpack this journey where do we start we have
to start right at the beginning the turbulence
of his birth Anselm was born in Aosta around
1033 or 1034. And when we think of these great
minds of the Middle Ages, we often picture them
emerging from, you know, centers of stability.
But Aosta. Aosta was anything but stable at the
time. No. And that political context is absolutely
vital to understanding him. The region, Upper
Burgundy, had only recently been annexed by the
formidable Emperor Conrad II. So this wasn't
a settled kingdom. Not at all. It was a fragmented,
politically charged environment. Our sources
highlight that this area was a crucial strategic
choke point in the Alps. A crucible, really.
For the rise of a major new European power structure.
Yes. The sources point directly to the burgeoning
power of Humbert the White -Handed. He was the
Count of Morienne. And he was the one laying
the groundwork for what would become the Savoy
dynasty, right? Exactly. He made his name during
the succession conflicts of the time. So Anselm
grew up in a place where old political orders
were just collapsing and new ones were being
forged through, frankly, ruthless maneuvering.
And his family seems to have been caught right
in the middle of all that upheaval. They were.
His father. Gundolf was a Lombard noble, and
his mother, Erminberge, came from a much wealthier
local family. A family with connections to the
old guard, the bishops and heirs who were marginalized
by Conrad's annexation. Yes, and by the rise
of the House of Savoy, the marriage was likely
intended as some kind of political tool. you
know, to consolidate or maintain local influence.
It failed. It seems to have failed completely.
The sources suggest they were part of what's
called the dispossessed nobility. So people with
status, but they'd lost their actual political
leverage under the new regime. Precisely. This
meant young Anselm was raised seeing the direct
cost of instability and political failure, and
that's a perspective he would never, ever shake.
And his home life? Well, that just added a layer
of personal instability to the regional chaos.
It really did. We're told his mother, Ermin Berge,
was devout and the patient administrator of the
family estates. But his father, Gundolf, was
volatile. Described as having a harsh temper
or sometimes just being overgenerous or careless
with his wealth. Which strained the family finances
considerably. And that spiritual tension was
there from the beginning. At just 15, Anselm
felt a clear, strong call to the monastic life.
But the local abbot refused him. Why? Because
the abbot was reluctant to accept him without
his father's consent, and Gundulf refused to
give it. Anselm took this refusal badly. Very
badly. Following that intense spiritual disappointment,
he plunged into what the sources call a carefree
life for a period, as if he was trying to suppress
the spiritual calling that had been denied to
him. And that period ended pretty dramatically
with the death of his mother. Yes. Ermin Burge
was the spiritual anchor of the family. Her death
was followed by a change in his father. Gundulf
repented his earlier ways and embraced faith.
But with such uncompromising severity that Anselm
found it utterly unbearable. So he endured his
father's harsh piety for a time. But at 23, he
just reached his breaking point. He left. He
departed Ayosta with a single attendant, crossed
the Alps, and essentially spent three years in
self -imposed exile just wandering through Burgundy
and France. This isn't just a young man seeking
an education. No, this is a man trying to find
a spiritual and intellectual home that his blood
family could no longer provide. He was searching
for clarity. And the person who provided that
clarity was L 'Enfranc of Pavia. Precisely. Anselm
was drawn across the continent to Normandy by
the booming reputation of his countryman, L 'Enfranc,
who was then the prior of the esteemed Benedictine
Abbey of Beck. So Anselm arrives in 1059 and
consults L 'Enfranc, still unsure of his path.
He had three options in his mind. Should he become
a hermit? Should he return to Aosta to reclaim
his estates? Or should he join the monks at Beck?
L 'Enfant sent him to the local Archbishop of
Rouen, who ultimately told him to join the community
at Beck as a novice. So at the age of 27, in
1060, the wandering stopped and the real foundation
of his thought began. The Rule of St. Benedict
was the tool that reshaped his entire intellectual
apparatus over the next decade. It really was.
He wrote his first philosophical work, De Grammatico,
which tackles Latin paradoxes, likely within
his first year there. He was clearly a mind that
just immediately absorbed and processed complex
systems. And he didn't stay a novice for very
long. Not at all. Just three years after joining,
in 1063, L 'Enfranc was elevated and left Beck
for Post and Kane. And Anselm, despite his relative
youth, was elected prior. It's an astonishingly
quick elevation, and it really shows the immediate
regard his intellect commanded. And it's during
his time as prior that we get that really illuminating
anecdote about his methods of leadership, which
directly informed his later philosophy. I'm talking
about the story of the young monk Osborne. Yes.
Osborne was hostile towards Anselm, completely
resistant to discipline. And we know from the
sources that a neighboring abbot dealt with difficult
monks through, well, physical violence. He beat
them night and day. Anselm saw that as a total
failure of pedagogy. He believed that true obedience
and correction must proceed from affection and
understanding. So his strategy was... Well, it
was fascinatingly manipulative, but very effective.
It was. He started by praising, indulging, and
privileging Osborne in all things until he gained
the young man's affection and trust. And only
once that personal loyalty was secured did he
gradually begin to withdraw the privileges and
apply the standard strict discipline of the rule.
And the method worked perfectly. Obedience was
achieved without violence, but through a deeply
psychological approach rooted in understanding
the nature of the will. This anecdote perfectly
illustrates his later theological motto. Intellect
as understanding precedes faith's faithful obedience.
It was a pedagogical masterclass. Absolutely.
The result was that by 1078, when Anselm was
unanimously elected abbot of Beck, the abbey
had become recognized as the foremost seat of
learning in Europe. He was drawing students not
only from France, but even from his native Italy.
And he proved his leadership extended to worldly
affairs as well. The sources note his spirited
defense of the Abbey's independence, battling
lay figures and even the Archbishop of Rouen,
who tried to impose control. This experience
was foundational for him, wasn't it? It established
his principle that spiritual authority must be
independent of temporal control. A direct foreshadowing
of what was to come. He learned to fight kings
and barons over the control of church lands and
prerogatives right there in Normandy. It set
the stage for his epic battles in England. Definitely.
And it was here, amidst the relative peace of
the Abbey, that he truly began to wrestle with
the nature of God, producing the monologian,
and shortly after, the work that would make him
immortal. the proslogian. So the move from monastic
leader to intellectual giant, it hinges entirely
on one foundational principle. It does. When
we talk about Anselm, we are immediately talking
about the start of scholasticism, that major
movement in the medieval universities that sought
to rationalize Christian faith using classical
philosophy. And Anselm gives us the definitive
slogan for the entire movement. Fides querens
intellectum, faith -seeking understanding. You
really cannot analyze Anselm without starting
right there. Okay, let's break that down because
it sets the strict boundary for his entire life's
work. He states it so clearly. He says, and I
do not seek to understand that I may believe,
but believe that I might understand. And he continues,
for this too I believe, since unless I first
believe, I shall not understand. This is such
a crucial distinction. Anselm is arguing the
divine truth. revealed through scripture and
tradition, is the starting point. It's the absolute
premise. You accept the truth of Christianity
first through faith. That part is non -negotiable.
It's not about rationalizing your way into faith.
It's about applying reason after faith is firmly
held. So once you have that absolute confirmation
in faith, reason then becomes a kind of spiritual
obligation. It becomes a necessity, yes. To fail
to apply the rigorous force of intellect is,
in his own words, negligence. to render Christian
tenets, like the Trinity or the Incarnation or
the Atonement, not just as matters of blind belief,
but as internally coherent, necessary, and rational
systems. He wanted to show that the Christian
worldview was, in fact, the only possible rational
worldview. And this principle leads us directly
into his most famous, and maybe his most perpetually
debated, contribution to philosophy, the ontological
argument for the existence of God, which he detailed
in the Proselysian. The context for the proslogion
is important here. He had already written the
monologion, which offered multiple arguments
based on a posteriori evidence. So reasoning
from the effects you see in the world back to
a cause. Inductive reasoning. Exactly. And he
found this cumbersome and, frankly, unsatisfying.
He was hunting for a pure, singular, deductive
proof. He wanted, as he put it, A single argument
that needed nothing but itself alone for proof.
Yes. No empirical input, no looking at the world,
just pure logic. Okay, let's walk through the
logic of this argument. It's mainly in Chapter
2 of the Proselytion, and it starts with a definition,
which is the cornerstone of the whole thing.
The definition is, God is irko nihilamayes kajetare
poset. That which nothing greater could exist,
or you could say, the greatest conceivable being.
Right. Now, Anselm argues that even the skeptic,
the atheist, whom he calls the fool from the
Psalms, can understand this concept in their
mind. They can form the idea of the greatest
conceivable being. Okay, and here is the logical
pivot. If this greatest conceivable being only
exists in the mind, just in the understanding,
then we can immediately imagine a greater being.
And what is that greater being? It's one that
exists both in the mind and in reality. Exactly.
Therefore, if God is truly that than which nothing
greater could exist, God cannot only exist in
the understanding. The concept itself demands
existence in reality. Otherwise, the concept
would be contradictory. God must necessarily
exist. It's clean, it's airtight, and it is a
pure piece of deduction. But wait a minute, how
does he justify that leap? I mean, that's the
part that always gets me. The logic is audacious,
for sure. But if the definition already assumes
existence, isn't that just begging the question?
Well, that is the exact question that Gognilo,
a monk of Marmottier, posed immediately after
the Proselysian was published. Gognilo wrote
a powerful rebuttal titled Liber Pro Incipiente.
Which means, a book in behalf of the fool. And
Gognilo's objection is famous for its thought
experiment involving the perfect island. Right.
He argued that if Anselm's logic were sound,
he could simply conceive of an island greater
than which nothing can be conceived. An island
with unparalleled treasure, beauty, and resources.
And following Anselm's logic, since we can conceive
of this ultimate island, it must exist in reality.
Otherwise, we could conceive of a greater island,
one that actually exists. But we know that's
not true. Merely conceiving of a perfect island
doesn't make it real. Gonilla's point was that
you cannot just leap. from the realm of thought
to the realm of physical reality based on an
arbitrary definition. So how does Anselm counter
this analogy in his response, the responsio?
Because this philosophical leap is what makes
the argument so famous and so controversial.
Anselm's counter is subtle. but for his purposes,
devastating to Gagnolo's island. He argues that
the definition applies only to a being whose
non -existence is inconceivable. So a single,
unique, necessarily existing entity. Exactly.
We need to clarify this difference between contingent
existence and necessary existence. The island
is a contingent being. It is possible to think
that the perfect island does not exist. You can
imagine it sinking or never having been created.
Its existence depends on other things. God, however,
is a necessary being. By definition, that than
which nothing greater can be conceived, God's
existence cannot be separated from his essence.
So if you could conceive of God not existing,
then... He wouldn't be the greatest conceivable
being, which is a contradiction within the initial
definition itself. It's like saying, I can conceive
of a square circle. The very phrase is nonsense.
The argument only applies to this one unique
category of being. Anselm argued Gunnyla's island
is inherently contingent, so the logic doesn't
apply to it. And this single argument wasn't
just to prove existence, was it? He extended
it. Oh, absolutely. Throughout the postlogian,
he used it to argue that God must necessarily
possess unity, wisdom, omnipotence, and mercy,
because a being that lacked any of those things
would be less great than one that possessed them
perfectly. It's a comprehensive theological system
built on one single phrase. Moving from God's
existence to Christ's role, we find Anselm's
second major theological pillar, the satisfaction
theory of atonement, which he detailed in Cur
Deus Homo. Why God was a man. Right. This work,
written during his first exile, was his attempt
to provide a purely rational explanation for
why the incarnation was necessary. Why God had
to become human and die. And it completely changed
Christian doctrine for centuries to come. He
starts with the idea of sin offending divine
justice. But it's not just breaking a rule, is
it? It's impairing God's infinite dignity. And
that's the critical piece of the puzzle. Sin
is not infinite because of who commits it, a
finite human, but because of whom it is committed
against an infinite God. Therefore, divine justice
demands infinite restitution or recompense for
that offense against his honor. And if the debt
is infinite, well, that poses a problem for humanity.
Right. Why can't humanity simply try harder to
repay it, you know, through good works or sacrifice?
Because Ansem argues that all human actions Our
obedience, our good works, our very existence
are already completely and permanently obligated
to God's glory. So we can't perform any action
that is extra. There's no action that goes above
and beyond our moral duty that could be applied
toward paying down the infinite debt of sin.
If we perform good works, we are simply doing
what we ought to have done anyway. So humanity
is stuck. Justice demands infinite payment, but
humanity is incapable of providing anything beyond
zero because all our actions are already owed.
The only solution, therefore, had to be a being
who could provide the infinite worth required
for the recompense. That being had to be fully
divine to provide the infinite worth. And fully
human, so that the sacrifice could be made on
humanity's behalf by one who shared their nature.
This being, of course, is Jesus. The sacrifice
of a sinless god -man possessed infinite worth,
which perfectly matched the infinite dignity
that was offended. This was revolutionary. Earlier
theories, like the ransom theory that was popular
in the East, focused on Christ's death as a kind
of contractual payment to Satan to free humanity
from bondage. Anselm completely cut Satan out
of the equation. He does. It shifted the theological
focus inward, focusing purely on God's internal
need to uphold his own infinite necessary justice,
while at the same time displaying infinite mercy.
It's a stunning piece of intellectual rigor that
allowed justice and mercy to be completely compatible.
And that framework remains foundational for much
of Western doctrine even today. It does. But
now we have to transition from that rarefied
air of theological inquiry to the muddy fields
of high stakes political conflict. Because when
Anselm was dragged into the world of English
politics, he applied that same absolute rigor
to the issue of authority. Which led to one of
the greatest conflicts in medieval England. This
all started in 1089 with the death of Anselm's
mentor, Lanfranc, who was the archbishop of Canterbury.
And the subsequent power move by King William
II, who we know as William Rufus. Exactly. William
Rufus kept the incredibly wealthy Canterbury
see vacant for four long years. Why? He was essentially
appropriating all its vast revenues, the income
from its estates, the feudal dues, the spiritual
fees directly into the royal treasury. A common
practice, but one that was financially. ruinous
to the church and deeply offensive to reform
minded clergy. Anselm, for his part, deliberately
avoided England, knowing the political quicksand
that lay beneath the surface. He was lured over
in 1092 by a plea from the gravely ill Hugh,
the Earl of Chester. And the irony is he recovered.
But in March 1093, William II himself fell critically
ill and facing what he truly believed was his
deathbed. Terrified for his soul given as avarice
toward the church, he made a public show of repentance.
He issued a proclamation promising to govern
justly, he confessed his sins, and critically,
he nominated the most revered spiritual figure
in Europe, Anselm, to fill the vacancy at Canterbury.
Anselm, who had been avoiding this post for years,
knew exactly what the price of this promotion
would be. He fought the appointment for months.
He famously compared the church under William
Rufus to a plow pulled by two unequal oxen. The
spiritual, himself, and the temporal, the king,
where the two forces were just pulling in opposite
directions. He was eventually forced into the
role by public pressure, with clerics physically
carrying him to the church to accept the nomination.
But he refused to accept it without conditions.
And these conditions were the agenda of the most
radical religious movement of the day. The Gregorian
Reform. Precisely. This was the pan -European
movement, championed by the papacy, that was
seeking to centralize church authority under
Rome and free the church. from lay or royal control.
So what were his demands? He demanded three things.
First, the return of all seized church lands.
Second, the king must accept Anselm's spiritual
counsel in all matters. And third, the king must
recognize Pope Urban II, who was the Gregorian
candidate over the anti -Pope Comet III. These
were demands that aimed to fundamentally reorganize
the balance of power in England. Absolutely.
Installing the papacy as the ultimate spiritual
authority. William Rufus consented only to the
first point, and even that was immediately suspended.
So Anselm was enthroned without the pallium,
the woolen strip signifying papal authority,
which just set the stage for battle. And the
conflict began immediately. Initially, it centered
on money. William II demanded 1 ,000 pounds for
the sea, a massive sum, basically a feudal payment
known as annates. Anselm offered 500 pounds,
arguing that the rest of the money was needed
to enforce new canon law and fill the other vacancies.
Many of which William was still holding for revenue.
Right. When courtiers suggested the king might
settle for less, Anselm delivered one of the
most memorable insults of the Middle Ages. He
had already given the 500 pounds to the poor,
and he announced he disdained to purchase his
master's favor as he would a horse or ass. That
phrase instantly crystallized the enmity between
them. It placed the archbishop on a moral high
ground, refusing to be treated like a mere temporal
servant. And William's reaction confirms the
deep offense. Oh, it was explosive. He said,
I hated him before, I hate him now, and shall
hate him still more hereafter. That was their
relationship, established within months. The
actual crisis, though, the one that forced Anselm
into exile, was the pallium crisis. Yes. William
refused to recognize Urban II, the legitimate
pope. He insisted that the king, not the church,
had the right to determine which pope would be
acknowledged in England. This meant Anselm couldn't
travel to Rome to receive the pallium. Which
was necessary for him to properly exercise his
authority as a metropolitan archbishop. The whole
situation came to a head at the Council of Rockingham
in 1095. The king ordered the English bishops
to renounce Anselm as their primate because he
dared to adhere to Urban. And the bishops, fearing
the king, largely sided with Rufus, advising
him to depose and exile Anselm. But the nobility
hesitated. They did. This wasn't just a religious
spat. It was a jurisdictional fight, and the
nobles didn't want to grant the king such absolute
authority over the church. This led to a critical
deadlock. William, seeing he couldn't win outright,
resorted to deep political intrigue. He secretly
petitioned Pope Urban II to send a legate with
the pallium, hoping the legate would depose Anselm
in exchange for the king's public acknowledgement
of Urban. A spectacular political miscalculation.
A huge one. The legate, Bishop Walter, arrived,
secured William's public acknowledgement of Reuben,
a massive papal victory, but flatly refused to
depose Anselm. William then tried desperately
to monetize his loss. He tried to sell the pallium,
then demanded Anselm pay him for it. And finally,
he attempted to personally bestow the pallium
on Anselm. Which Anselm absolutely refused. To
receive it from the king would have symbolized
that his spiritual authority flowed from the
crown, not from the church. So a compromise was
reached. The pallium was laid on the altar at
Canterbury, and Anselm took it from there in
June 1095, symbolizing he received his authority
directly from God via the church. This was a
temporary truce. The core issue of who held ultimate
authority remained. And in 1097, William charged
Anselm with providing insufficient knights for
a Welsh campaign and tried to fine him. Anselm,
realizing the king would never truly permit the
Gregorian reforms, resolved to appeal to Rome.
William gave him the cold choice, exile or total
submission. Anselm chose exile. And William,
predictably, seized all of Canterbury's revenues
and Anselm left England in October 1097. But
his exile was far from wasted. Not at all. While
in Rome, Pope Urban II commissioned Anselm to
defend the Western doctrine of the Filioque before
an assembly of bishops at the Council of Bari
in 1098. The Filioque doctrine addresses the
procession of the Holy Spirit. The Western Church
asserted the Spirit proceeds from the Father
and the Son. While the Eastern Church insisted
the spirit proceeds only from the father, Anselm's
subsequent arguments, compiled in De Processione
Spiritus Sanctae, became the definitive defense
of the Western position. Proving his intellectual
commitment was independent of his political circumstances.
And critically, he completed Cur Deus Homo while
in exile. Even when banished, his mind was still
constructing these theological fortresses. Then
the political landscape shifted dramatically
in 1100. William II died unexpectedly in a hunting
accident. His younger brother, Henry I, seized
the throne quickly, usurping the claims of his
elder brother, Robert Curcos, who was away on
the First Crusade. Henry's position was weak
and tenuous. He was a usurper. He needed clerical
legitimacy to secure the throne. He desperately
needed the moral and political weight of the
church to stabilize his reign. So what does he
do? He immediately invited Anselm back to England.
But the peace only lasted until Henry felt secure.
The moment the immediate threat subsided, Henry
demanded that Anselm perform homage for his estates
and receive symbolic investiture, the ring and
crozier anew from the king. This was a violation
of the newly hardened canonical law of the investiture
controversy. Right. Though Anselm had performed
homage to William years before, he now refused
based on principle and the new Gregorian standards
set by the pope. Henry, however, refused to relinquish
a traditional right held by his predecessors.
So the investiture controversy in England began
in earnest. It did. Yet, despite this massive
jurisdictional dispute, Anselm publicly threw
his weight behind Henry I against Robert Curtis's
invasion claims in 1101. He was a brilliant strategist.
He really was. Anselm secured the throne for
Henry by emphasizing religious oaths of loyalty
and threatening Robert with excommunication,
a move that severely undermined Robert's support
among the English barons and populace. It demonstrates
that for Anselm, the immediate stability of England
which allowed for the possibility of church reform,
was strategically necessary, even if he opposed
Henry's investiture claim. But the conflict over
investiture couldn't be ignored. Henry sent envoys
to Rome in 1102, who returned and falsely claimed
that Pope Pascal II had approved of Anselm's
submission. Anselm, suspicious of the deception,
traveled to Rome himself in 1103. Pascal responded
by excommunicating Henry's deceptive counselors,
though he strategically held back from excommunicating
Henry himself. And Henry retaliated by forbidding
Anselm's return, which led to the second exile.
This second exile was the turning point. Anselm,
now even more resolved, threatened to excommunicate
Henry I himself. Which would have been politically
catastrophic for the king. Utterly. This threat
forced Henry to meet Anselm at Lagal in 1105.
And this meeting produced the foundational compromise
that would define church -state relations in
England for centuries. The Lagal Compromise.
It was a subtle... brilliant balancing act. It
was. It was a major papal victory because Henry
agreed to formally forsake lay and vestiture,
giving up the right to bestow the spiritual symbols,
the ring and the crozier. But the king won a
crucial concession. thanks to Anselm's negotiating
skills. He did. Anselm secured papal permission
for newly invested clerics to do homage to the
king for their lands and estates. So the spiritual
power, the appointment and consecration belong
solely to the church. But the temporal and feudal
obligation, the homage for the land that generated
the revenue, remained with the king. Exactly.
It resolved the conflict by clearly demarcating
spheres of influence. It allowed Henry to retain
feudal control over his most powerful landholders
while granting the church the spiritual independence
it demanded. And Henry also had to restore all
seized church revenues. And exempt married clergy
from a deeply unpopular tax. The agreement was
formally ratified in the Concordat of London
in 1107. Henry formally renounced the right of
English kings to invest bishops, definitively
ending the investiture controversy in England.
A huge triumph for Anselm in the Gregorian reform
movement. A massive one. Anselm spent his final
years defending Canterbury's primacy, asserting
its authority over the Archbishop of York and
the Welsh bishops. He achieved a brief, significant
victory there, though our sources are quick to
note that subsequent popes would later reverse
that specific decision. He died in 1109, and
his final moments were overshadowed by one regret,
leaving unfinished a theological treatise on
the origin of the soul. He spent his life dedicated
to absolute truth. Navigating the political world
only when necessary to secure that truth. So
when we look at Anselm's full body of work, we
see a foundational figure. He didn't just contribute.
He set the intellectual framework for those who
followed. His philosophical roots lie deep in
Neoplatonism, primarily synthesized through the
work of St. Augustine and Boethius. Yes, and
this reconciliation of classical philosophy with
Christian theology is precisely why he is credited
with inaugurating one of the most brilliant periods
of Western philosophy. He was laying the tracks
that thinkers like Thomas Aquinas would later
run on. And his pedagogical approach, which we
saw earlier with the monk Osborne, is evident
throughout his philosophical writings. They're
often presented as dialogues between an inquisitive
student and the teacher. Two of these lesser
-known dialogues, in particular, showcases relentless
application of reason to universal concepts.
The first is to veritate on truth. And it provides
a sweeping definition of what truth fundamentally
is. He defines absolute truth not merely as logical
correctness, but as correctness across three
domains. Correctness in will, correctness in
action, and correctness in essence. And he identifies
this absolute correctness with God. Exactly.
God is the fundamental source of all truth, because
God is the essential nature of correctness itself.
Therefore, all things that exist, exist according
to a divine, correct plan. The concept that everything
that is, is rightly, flows from this. It's a
comprehensive statement on the necessity of divine
order. It is. And the second dialogue, written
late in his life, tackles one of philosophy's
oldest and most persistent problems. the concordia,
or on harmony. And this addresses the apparent
incompatibility of divine foreknowledge, predestination,
and human free choice. That is the ultimate tension,
isn't it? How can we be held responsible for
our choices if God already knows with absolute
certainty what we are going to do? Doesn't God's
absolute knowledge negate our freedom? Anselm's
solution is brilliant, and it involves fundamentally
changing how we understand God's relationship
with time. He resolves the paradox by explaining
that God views all time in an eternal... present.
What does that mean exactly? He argues that time,
as we experience it, past, present, and future,
is a human contingent construct. God transcends
that sequence. The source quotes him, explaining,
although nothing is there except what is present,
it is not the temporal present, like ours, but
rather the eternal, within which all times altogether
are contained. It's like imagining a film reel
laid out flat. We, the viewer, can only experience
the real one frame at a time, moving sequentially
from beginning to end. But God is the one holding
the entire real, seeing all frames, past, present,
and future simultaneously in one single eternal
moment. So God doesn't foresee the future in
a temporal sense. He beholds all time in one
cohesive, eternal present. And our actions are
still freely chosen within the moment they occur,
but they are also always present to God's eternal
knowledge. This reconciliation preserves both
God's omniscience and human responsibility. It's
a high -level conceptual tool that profoundly
influenced later medieval metaphysics. We should
also touch upon his lesser -known contribution
to Marian doctrine into Conceptu Virginale. While
he actually denied the Immaculate Conception,
his principles sort of paved the way for it.
He did. He argued that it was fitting or proper
that Mary should be so pure that no pure being
could be imagined apart from God. And crucial
to later theology, He defined original sin not
as being transmitted by the physical act of procreation.
but as a change in human nature after the fall,
a defect that parents were incapable of reversing
in their children. By separating the mechanics
of sin transmission from the mechanics of conception,
he opened the door for later theologians to argue
that divine grace could intervene to preserve
Mary's nature at the very moment of her conception.
And he is venerated for this. It earned him the
title Dr. Magnificus and the Dr. Marianus. Now
Anselm was eventually canonized and proclaimed
a doctor of the church. So his official image
is one of piety and profound scholarship. But
we have to address the fascinating scholarly
controversy that divides historians today regarding
his political identity. Right. This scholarly
divide centers on his sincerity. The traditional
or southern view, often supported by his biographer
Edmer, sees him as the genuinely pious, reluctant
church leader, horrified by worldly advancement.
In this view, he was the sheep forced to fight
the wolves. Forced into political conflict only
by the avarice of the kings. But the critical
view championed by modern scholars paints a very
different picture. They see him as an incredibly
shrewd, highly adept political operator. One
who used that carefully nurtured image of simple
holiness as a strategic tool to gain leverage.
I mean, if we look at the facts. Refusing to
be treated like a horse or ass, systematically
dismantling royal control over investiture, securing
the throne for Henry I, and threatening excommunication
twice, you have to ask, was he truly reluctant?
Or was he brilliant enough to feign reluctance
while achieving immense political results for
the church? He was either a genuine saint forced
into politics or a master strategist who used
spiritual authority as a weapon. There's not
much middle ground. And the final strange footnote.
to the life of this man of absolute truth concerns
his physical remains. It leads us to an astonishing
anecdote of 18th century cynicism. This is a
great story. In 1752, hundreds of years after
his death, King Charles Emmanuel of Sardinia,
who was also the Duke of Aosta, requested permission
to translate Anselm's relics back to his birthplace
in Italy. This prompted a highly amusing and
highly cynical internal exchange among the English
clergy. The Archbishop of Canterbury at the time,
Thomas Herring, wrote a blunt, revealing letter
to his dean. And Herring clearly had no spiritual
reverence for Anselm's political identity. He
wrote that parting with the rotten remains of
a rebel to his king, a slave to the popedom,
and an enemy to the married clergy would be no
great loss to the Church of England. And here's
the truly incredible part, showing the casual
irreverence of the era. Herring was perfectly
willing to deceive the Sardinian ambassador.
He casually suggested he should make no conscience
of palming on the simpletons any other old bishop
with the name of Anselm. A completely fabricated
body just to satisfy a royal whim and get rid
of an inconvenient rebel saint. Fortunately,
for historical accuracy, the plan stalled. The
Sardinian ambassador insisted on witnessing the
excavation, which never took place because there
was massive resistance from the local clergy.
And most importantly, the exact location. of
Anselm's relics had been uncertain ever since
a fire swept through Canterbury Cathedral back
in the 1170s. The body of the great doctor remains
lost to this day. What a strangely fitting, darkly
humorous end to the story of a man who pursued
truth so relentlessly, only for his own remains
to become a subject of cynical 18th century fakery.
Indeed. It brings us back to his most common
attribute in religious imagery, a ship. It represents
the spiritual independence of the church, a goal
he literally sailed into exile twice to achieve.
We've covered a tremendous amount of ground today.
Our key takeaways from Anselm of Canterbury are
clear. The intellectual power of Fides Quirin's
intellectum faith seeking understanding, which
made the rigorous application of reason a non
-negotiable spiritual duty. We've understood
the rigorous logic of the ontological argument,
defining God as the necessarily existing greatest
conceivable being, and how he defended that unique
concept against the idea of contingent reality.
And the moral necessity of Christ under the satisfaction
theory, driven by the need for infinite recompense
for infinite offense against God's dignity, which
redefined the doctrine of the atonement. And
finally, his immense political success in leveraging
the Gregorian reform agenda to define the terms
of church power. against the crown, forcing two
English kings, William II and Henry I, to concede
major ground through the critical investiture
settlement of 1107. So here is our final provocative
thought for you to carry away from this deep
dive. Anselm's ultimate goal was to establish
the pure, spiritual, autonomous independence
of the church symbolized by that ship of faith.
But, as his life proves through decades of brutal
negotiation, the repeated threats of excommunication
and the two exiles is true spiritual independence
in the complex real world of high politics achievable
only through decades of brutal worldly conflict.
A question of means and ends that is truly timeless.
Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into
the philosopher -archbishop. We hope you feel
thoroughly well informed.