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This volume explores the work of Anselm of Canterbury, theologian and archbishop, in light of the communities in which he participated. Featuring thirteen essays from leading historians, theologians, and literary scholars, the collection ranges from Anselm’s immediate contemporaries to the reception of his work, and formation of his posthumous reputation, by later medieval readers. Individual essays consider the role of friendships in his career, his relations with students, correspondence with women, interventions in the political sphere, and influence as leader of the monastic communities at Bec and Canterbury. Together, these essays present a new profile of the archbishop, revealing an individual whose work emerged from a vibrant culture of debate, criticism, and collaboration. Contributors are: Giles E. M. Gasper, Bernard van Vreeswijk, David Whidden, Hiroko Yamazaki, Bernd Goebel, Thomas Barrows, Hollie Devanney, Stephanie Britton, Sally Vaughn, George Younge, Christian Brouwer, Daniel Coman, Margaret Healy-Varley, and Severin Kitanov.
In this book, Richard Campbell reformulates Anselm’s proof to show that factual evidence confirmed by modern cosmology validly implies that God exists. Anselm’s proof, which was never the “ontological argument” attributed to him, emerges as engaging with current philosophical issues concerning existence and scientific explanation. Because every observable thing has a beginning, it can be deduced that there is always in reality something than which a greater cannot be thought, which exists necessarily. It follows that its non-existence is inconceivable. Anselm then proves that this is the God in whom he believes, who alone so truly exists that He could not be thought not to exist. The contingent nature of the universe is therefore a consequence of the proven belief that God is the Creator of everything else.
This volume explores important aspects of the life and writings of Anselm of Canterbury. His is a world in which the created order with its hierarchies of natures and roles manifests a divine order that proceeds from the divine nature. Individual chapters examine Anselm’s understanding of rectitude, truth, justice, and redemption, the relationship of free will and grace and of faith and reason, whether and how we can speak of or reject the divine, Anselm’s approach to death, his understanding of the superiority of monasticism in the social and spiritual order, and the role that angels play in his metaphysical and theological arguments.
This book investigates the compatibility between the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS, hereafter) and divine free action primarily in the works of Avicenna and Anselm with an analytical approach. The book has three main objectives: (1) to thoroughly analyse both philosophers’ views on DDS, divine free will, and their compatibility; (2) to put them into the context of the contemporary discourse of the philosophy of religion, by investigating whether it is possible to have freedom without the ability to do otherwise (as proposed by both philosophers for divine free will) with a reference to the prominent contemporary discussions initiated by Harry Frankfurt’s counterexamples; and (3) to show the plausibility of the agent-causal view for divine freedom (as defended by Anselm and Avicenna) by briefly sketching an alternative account based on Anselmian intuitions (the meta-awareness account) which can avoid the reasons-explanation objection and the luck objection against the libertarian agent-causal view.
In A Historical Study of Anselm's Proslogion, Toivo J. Holopainen offers a new overall interpretation of Anselm’s Proslogion by providing a historical explanation for the distinctive combination of argument and devotion that this treatise exhibits. Part 1 clarifies Anselm’s outlook on the central arguments in the treatise by offering a careful analysis of the ‘single argument’, the discovery of which Anselm announces in the preface. Part 2 reassesses the conflicting views about faith and reason in the immediate background of the Proslogion (the Eucharistic controversy, the publication of the Monologion). Part 3 examines the Proslogion from a rhetorical perspective and argues that applying the ‘single argument’ in a devotional setting constitutes a subtle attempt to affect the audience’s ideas about method in theology.
Collectivistic Religions draws upon empirical studies of Christianity in Europe to address questions of religion and collective identity, religion and nationalism, religion and public life, and religion and conflict. It moves beyond the attempts to tackle such questions in terms of 'choice' and 'religious nationalism' by introducing the notion of 'collectivistic religions' to contemporary debates surrounding public religions. Using a comparison of several case studies, this book challenges the modernist bias in understanding of collectivistic religions as reducible to national identities. A significant contribution to both the study of religious change in contemporary Europe and the theoretical debates that surround religion and secularization, it will be of key interest to scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, political science, religious studies, and geography.
In Animal Rationality: Later Medieval Theories 1250-1350, Anselm Oelze offers the first comprehensive and systematic exploration of theories of animal rationality in the later Middle Ages.
This volume combines the results of recent excavations at Le Bec with fresh studies of documentary sources, breaking new ground in research on the organization of the monastic site and the cultural life of the community. By examining the abbey's prosperity in terms of its relations with its priories and its dealings with the powerful, especially its noble benefactors and the rulers of Normandy, this volume thus explains the unique importance of the abbey in the history of not only medieval Normandy, but also the Anglo-Norman world more broadly. Contributors are: Pierre Bauduin, Michaël Bloche, Grégory Combalbert, Fabrice Delivré, Gilles Deshayes, Jean-Hervé Foulon, Véronique Gazeau, Lindy Grant, Judith A. Green, Fabien Paquet, and Julie Potter.
This book argues that abbatial authority was fundamental to monastic historical writing in the period c.500-1500. Writing history was a collaborative enterprise integral to the life and identity of medieval monastic communities, but it was not an activity for which time and resources were set aside routinely. Each act of historiographical production constituted an extraordinary event, one for which singular provision had to be made, workers and materials assigned, time carved out from the monastic routine, and licence granted. This allocation of human and material resources was the responsibility and prerogative of the monastic superior. Drawing on a wide and diverse range of primary evidenc...