Identity – Confluence – Transcendence Key Aspects for a Historic-Speculative Interpretation of St. Anselm’s Argument

Abstract

This article intends to demonstrate – by means of an interpretation of the context given by some key chapters of the Monologion – that the function of St. Anselm’s argument consists mainly in determining the terms from which it is possible to conceive a supreme being, on the basis of the absolute identity between the divine essence and everything that presents itself as proper to it. This identity should imply a confluence, not only of the properties into the divine essence, but first of all of being into thinking and viceversa. The transcendence of one activity into the other, understood as a reciprocal reference, allows to show the speculative context in which the absolute identity of the properties in the divine being are conceived, as well as the criteria according to which that, which is recognized as perfect in the creatures, can be considered as well as proper to God.