Description
Anselm's Pursuit of Joy attempts a sustained, chapter-by-chapter textual analysis of the Proslogion, and offers the first effort to situate Anselm's doctrine of heaven in Proslogion 24-26 as the climax of the earlier themes of Anselm's work. Gavin Ortlund suggests that the basic purpose of Anselm's argument in the Proslogion is to seek the visio Dei that he articulates as his soul's deepest desire (Proslogion 1). While Anselm's argument for God's existence (Proslogion 2-4) is an important piece of this effort, it is only one step of a larger trajectory of thought that leads Anselm to meditate further on God's nature as the highest good of the human soul (Proslogion 5-23), and then to anticipate the joy of possessing God in heaven (Proslogion 24-26). In other words, the establishment of God's existence is only the penultimate consequence of Anselm's famous formula "that than which nothing greater can be thought"-his ultimate concern is with the infinite creaturely joy that is entailed by his existence. The Proslogion is, far more than an argument for God's existence, a meditation on God as the chief happiness of the human soul.
About the Author
Gavin Ortlund is Senior Pastor, Frist Baptist Church, Ojai, Ca.
Book Information
ISBN 9780813232751
Author Gavin R. Ortlund
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint The Catholic University of America Press
Publisher The Catholic University of America Press
Weight(grams) 500g