The Possible Present by Perone Ugo

Author:Perone, Ugo. [Perone]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781438437477
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2011-10-20T04:00:00+00:00

THE ONTOLOGICAL PROOF: EXISTENCE THAT HAS ALWAYS ALREADY BEEN THERE

The history of the ontological proof has already been written with great precision and erudition.7 I think that all of its possible variations have also been tried and explored. I am convinced that nothing can be added in such directions. Instead, it is better to return to Anselm and to his first saying as it has been fixed in the two titles of the decisive paragraphs, “That God Truly Exists” and “That God Cannot Be Thought Not to Exist.” As is clear, at the center of attention is existence. One would be mistaken, though, if one were to think that in Anselm's argumentation there might be an apologetic or controversial intent. Anselm's interlocutor dwells in monasteries and is a believer; otherwise, he is not a real interlocutor; likewise the fool in the Psalm, who in fact belongs to a same religious tradition but thinks he can detach himself from it. Ultimately, the fool plays a game with thinking because, anticipating a split that will become actual only in future centuries, he separates word from thing. In this sense the fool is a borderline figure, a mental experiment that has value not as an interlocutor to be convinced but rather as an a fortiori proof of the goodness of the unum argumentum [unique argument].

What constitutes the discovery of the proof from an Anselmian perspective? Although it is indubitable that the attention is on the question of existence, we should not make of this one single thing with the claim “God exists.” Such a formulation is in fact not reproduced as the title of the corresponding chapter. Where it appears, it occurs with the essential addition of “truly.” In the subsequent chapter, what it proposes is an essential inherence in the cogent form of a double negation—God cannot be thought not to exist. The impression one derives is not that God's existence is the primary content of the proof, but rather, precisely as suggested in the formulation of the first of the two chapters, that such an existence, which is believed, is now truly discovered by thought; that is, faith is given an intelligence of its object.

Thought that thinks God's nature comes across God's existence. This is the believing thought (although, as we have remarked, the same can be said also for the nonbelieving thought) that neither seeks nor needs to arrive at God's existence, but rather sinks into God's nature, and grasps existence itself precisely as God's most certain and in fact originary belonging. What echoes in it, as if in a counter-melody, is the evangelical exclamation that “Truly this was the son of God!” (Matt. 27:54) and, in an even more punctual manner, Luke's tale of Emmaus, when the unknown [person] reproaches the disciples for their being foolish indeed for not understanding what is in front of their eyes. Having explained the Scriptures, [the person] arouses such a desire in them that they themselves, the foolish disciples, ask him to stay, to become their guest, and to share their dinner.

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