BASA

The Foolish of the de Utilitate Credendi 139 The above remarks seem to disprove both Hayen's and Barth's contentions. Anselm, contrary to Barth's opinion, can and in fact does incline to find an intellectual agreement with the Pool, precisely by meeting him on his own ground. Otherwise, the whole of the Proslogion would at best be a travesty, unworthy. of Anselm's genius. There is truth to be found in a reason not illumined by faith and he is there to display it and manifest its inner exigencies directed towards a follet reality. At the same time, it is not, at least in Hayen's sense, a 'theology of conversion'. Anselm is engaged, first of all, in so far as the Pool is concerned, in clarifying the seed of meaning, preparing the ground for a possible encounter with grace, not a vapid effort at 'dialogue'. The Pool's early exit from the Proslogion can only by understood as Anselm's delicate tribute to the mystery surrounding God's action on man. Reason unaided by faith has gone as far as it can. Perhaps a few words about the believer and his thinking is in order. The understanding which is a mean between faith and vision is indeed unique. A good case can be made that the Proslogion illustrates this type of thought, in which the boundaries between reason and spirituality, thought and prayer, tend to disappear. The movement of reason in regard to God taking place under the aegis of faith is itself a sort of prayer, giving witness to Truth. Thought and prayer do not seem to be separate activities but form part of the one movement towards the posses3ion and fruition of God: it is a praying in thought. Augustine, in De Utilitate Credendi, made the point that the more purified the spirit is, the greater is its love of God, and the easier its intuition of truth. There is no other way to arrive at true wisdom and salvation. 19 Anselm proceeds on the assumption that to think rigorously about God mirrors the approach of the whole man to God, that real understanding is directed towards ultimate fruition. A thinking about God lacking these characteristics would not be a true understanding but a mere simulacra, in open contradiction with its own purpose and fonction . 19 De Utilitate Credendi, 16, 24. I bid., 17, 35.