Sublime

He said that if God held out the truth in his right hand and the search for truth in his left hand and asked him to choose, he would select the left hand, on the grounds that the absolute truth itself was for God alone, while his own business was the search for truth.

Denys Turner writes, “In showing God to exist reason shows that we no longer know what ‘exists’ means.”

This rational capacity to think and to act in obedience to absolute or transcendental values constitutes a dependency of consciousness upon a dimension of reality found nowhere within the physical order. It is a capacity for something that nature cannot “see,” and a desire at once inexhaustible and often remarkably impractical.

faith and doubt.

Logical truth, in other words, is founded upon ontological truth.

In various areas, notably the doctrine of the atonement, he is the key orthodox theologian. In philosophy, his premise was, credo ut intelligam, I believe in order that I might understand. As against this, Abelard, an Aristotelian, sought to understand in order to believe. Whereas for Anselm faith precedes understanding, for Abelard (1079–1142) und

Making sense of one’s beliefs is a felt need only once practices have become the first realities.

What is fascinating in this argument is it comes back to metaphysics and assumptions about humans in their current state.