BASA

Anselm's debate with Gaunilo 43 such argument but rather as indicating (once Proslogion 2 has established the fact of God's existence) how really and certainly God exists. Nevertheless, the arguments of Chapters 2 and 3, together with the deductions he makes about God's attributes beginning with Chapter 5, are all aspects of the one line of reasoning. In last analysis, unum argumentum indicates all that is derivable from the formula « N ». « For the significance of this utterance [ « N »] contains so much force that what is spoken of is, by the very fact that it is understood or thought, necessarily proved really to exist and to be whatever must be believed about the Divine Substance ». 41 Accordingly, even the reformulations presented in Reply 1 are variants of the single line of reasoning. Bence, the question of whether Anselm has one, two, three, four, or more different versions of the ontological argument in the Proslogion (and the Reply) is not settled by referring to the phrase unum argumentum and commenting that Anselm intended to be setting forth only one argument for God's existence. For even aside from the fact that a philosopher might intend to formulate only a single argument but in fact word his formulation in such way that there were really two (or more) distinct arguments, Anselm never claimed to have only one argument. He claimed only that the various arguments were derivable in accordance with a single unique descrip– tion. Indeed, someone might even extend this single line of reasoning by observing that the description « N » entails the descriptions ens perfectissimum, ens realissimum, and ens necessarium, and develop new ontological arguments à la Gottfried W. von Leibniz, Christian Wolff, and Immanuel Kant, whose formulations are different from Anselm's. 42 with N since « N » entails the list of attributes traditionally ascribed to God. (This assumption is made more explicit in Proslogion 4). Then he goes on in Proslogion 2 to prove, to his own satisfaction, that N exists. Chapters 5 and following demonstrate what was assumed - viz., that N is God - by exhibiting the list of attributes derivable from « N ». Hence, the proof of God's existence in Proslogion 2 depends, in some final sense, upon the further proofs in Chapters 5 and following, as Richard La Croix rightly recognizes (Proslogion II and III: A Third Interpretation of Anselm's Argument. Leiden : E. J. Brill, 1972). 41 Reply 10 (SI, 138:30-139:3). La Croix is misled by Charlesworth's translation of « prolatio » as « proof », instead of as « utterance ». See La Croix, 38. 42 Kant, of course, in rejecting the soundness of the ontological argument, is dealing with the construals of Leibniz and Wolff.