Prayer and Proof,Affect and Argument: The Role of Joy in St. Anselm’s Proslogion

Abstract

Anselm of Canterbury’s Proslogion is a Benedictine prayer-exercise that contains a famous argument for the existence of God. This article highlights how the argument is intertwined with the prayer. The article argues that since the understanding of God leads to a joyous affect, the logic of the argument must be causally connected with joy. While much of the secondary literature applies a division between ‘prayer’ and ‘proof’, this article suggests a reading of the Proslogion proof as a prayer-practice, and the prayer-practice is in turn analyzed through the logic of the proof. The result is a description of how contemplation of the argument drives affect, leading to the conclusion that the affect of joy achieves the intended result of the proof: the joy leads the mind to God. The article thus shows that the Proslogion is an intellectual affective prayer-practice.