Sublime

Saint Anselm was, like Lanfranc, an Italian, a monk at Bee, and archbishop of Canterbury (1093-1109), in which capacity he followed the principles of Gregory VII and quarrelled with the king. He is chiefly known to fame as the inventor of the “ontological argument” for the existence of God. As he put it, the argument is as follows: We define “God”

Truth recognised; that is to say that he was not convinced by what he read but simply recognised its conformity with what he already intuitively knew.

“The divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches,” announced Thomas Aquinas in the philosophical argot of his time. And he drew the personal consequences: “He knows God best who acknowledges that whatever he thinks or says falls short of what God really is”

Theology is second-order reflection on first-order language about God and faith. Theology is not faith, nor does it require faith. It may sometimes be, in that traditional phrase, “faith seeking understanding” (fides quaerens intellectum). But for me theology is simply showing how statements of faith and belief can be seen as rational, sensible, an

Stanley E. Porter,