Anselm
About This Book
Thomas Williams's volume in Oxford University Press's Very Short Introductions series is a compact guide for readers who want a quick foothold in an unfamiliar subject. Its subject is Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), who was the leading philosopher-theologian of the Latin West in the period between Augustine and the thirteenth century. Much of Anselm's life was spent in public office, most notably as Archbishop of Canterbury, where he wrote to kings, nobles, popes, and bishops. These letters reveal something of his personality and show how his abstract ideas bore on practical church and political affairs. He worked when a revived interest in logic encouraged rigorous argument, but before the full reception of Aristotle loaded philosophical debate with dense technical vocabulary, so his prose remains remarkably clear. Williams takes up the ideas for which Anselm is best known. These include the earliest clear statement of a libertarian view of free will, on which choices cannot be fixed by an agent's inner states or by outside forces; the ontological argument for God's existence, which still provokes discussion and dispute; his conception of God within classical theism or perfect-being theology, a framework that continues to shape philosophy of religion and analytic theology; and his account of the Atonement, a question theologians still wrestle with. Part of a series of hundreds of pocket-sized titles across almost every field, this volume is written by a specialist who aims to make a demanding subject approachable without sacrificing its complexity.
ISBN: 9780192897817
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