Читать книгу St. Anselme: Collected Works. Proslogium, Monologium, In Behalf of the Fool by Gaunilon & Cur Deus Homo онлайн

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“All this is pure Platonism. But, not content with spiritualising theism, Anselmus really discredits it when, like a new Carneades, he enumerates the difficulties which he finds in the conception. God is a simple being and at the same time eternal, that is, diffused over infinite points of time; he is omnipresent, that is, distributed over all points of space. Shall we say that God is omnipresent and eternal? This proposition contradicts the notion of the simplicity of the divine essence. Shall we say that he is nowhere in space and nowhere in time? But that would be equivalent to denying his existence. Let us therefore reconcile these two extremes and say that God is omnipresent and eternal, without being limited by space or time. The following is an equally serious difficulty: In God there is no change and consequently nothing accidental. Now, there is no substance without accidents. Hence God is not a substance; he transcends all substance. Anselmus is alarmed at these dangerous consequences of his logic, and he therefore prudently adds that, though the term ‘substance’ may be incorrect, it is, nevertheless, the best we can apply to God ‑‑si quid digne dici potest ‑‑and that to avoid or condemn it might perhaps jeopardise our faith in the reality of the Divine Being.