QUOMODO ET CUR VIDETUR ET NON VIDETUR DEUS A QUAERENTIBUS EUM.
The Soul Finds God
The soul discovers that it has found God as the highest good, the source of life, light, wisdom, and eternal blessedness.
Have you found, my soul, what you were seeking? You were seeking God, and you have found him — found him to be the highest of all things, than which nothing better can be conceived; and this is life itself, light itself, wisdom itself, goodness itself, eternal blessedness and blessed eternity; and this is present everywhere and always.12
The Paradox of Finding Without Feeling
Anselm probes the tension between the soul's intellectual discovery of God and its failure to experience or feel God's presence.
For if you haven't found your God, how is he what you found, and how did you understand him with such certain truth and true certainty? But if you have found him, what is it that you don't feel what you found? Why doesn't my soul feel you, Lord God, if it has found you?
Seeing Through Light and Truth
Anselm reasons that the soul could only have understood God through God's own light and truth, and nothing about God can be known apart from them.
Doesn't the one who finds that you are light and truth find you? How, after all, could the soul have understood this unless it had seen the light and the truth? Or could it have understood anything at all about you apart from your light and your truth?
Partially Seen, Not Fully Known
The soul has seen God through light and truth, yet it has not seen God fully—only partially, not as God truly is.
So if that person has seen light and truth, then they have seen you. And if they have not seen you, they have not seen light or truth. Is what they have seen both truth and light, and yet they have not yet seen you — because they have seen you only partially, but have not seen you as you truly are?3
A Prayer for Purer Sight
Anselm prays for fuller vision and reflects that the soul sees nothing beyond what it has already seen except its own darkness, not darkness in God.
Lord my God, my maker and my restorer, tell my longing soul: what else are you, except what it has already seen, so that it may now see purely what it desires? It strains itself to see more, and beyond what it has already seen it sees nothing but darkness — or rather, it does not see darkness, since there is no darkness in you at all, but it sees that it cannot see any further because of its own darkness.
Darkened by Weakness, Dazzled by Brightness
The soul's inability to see more of God is traced both to its own smallness and to the overwhelming immensity of God's light.
Why this, Lord, why this? Is its eye darkened by its own weakness, or dazzled by your brightness? But certainly it is darkened in itself, and dazzled by you. Truly, it is obscured by its own smallness, and overwhelmed by your immensity. Truly, it is hemmed in by its own narrowness, and overcome by your vastness.
The Immensity of God's Light
Anselm exalts the boundless greatness of God's light, truth, and the divine simplicity that beholds all creation, surpassing every creature's comprehension.
How great is that light, from which you shine on every truth that illuminates a rational mind! How vast is that truth, in which everything that is true exists, and outside of which there is nothing but nothingness and falsehood! How immense is that One who with a single glance sees all things that were made, and from whom and through whom and how they were made from nothing! What purity, what simplicity, what certainty and splendor is there! Surely more than any creature can comprehend.4
Read the original Latin
An invenisti, anima mea, quod quaerebas? Quaerebas deum, et invenisti eum esse quiddam summum omnium, quo nihil melius cogitari potest; et hoc esse ipsam vitam, lucem, sapientiam, bonitatem, aeternam beatitudinem et beatam aeternitatem; et hoc esse ubique et semper.
Nam si non invenisti deum tuum: quomodo est ille hoc quod invenisti, et quod illum tam certa veritate et vera certitudine intellexisti? Si vero invenisti: quid est, quod non sentis quod invenisti? Cur non te sentit, domine deus, anima mea, si invenit te?
An non invenit, quem invenit esse lucem et veritatem? Quomodo namque intellexit hoc, nisi videndo lucem et veritatem? Aut potuit omnino aliquid intelligere de te, nisi per "lucem tuam et veritatem tuam"?
Si ergo vidit lucem et veritatem, vidit te. Si non vidit te, non vidit lucem nec veritatem. An et veritas et lux est quod vidit, et tamen nondum te vidit, quia vidit te aliquatenus sed non vidit te sicuti es?
Domine deus meus, formator et reformator meus, dic desideranti animae meae, quid aliud es, quam quod vidit, ut pure videat, quod desiderat. Intendit se ut plus videat, et nihil videt ultra hoc quod vidit nisi tenebras; immo non videt tenebras, quae nullae sunt in te sed videt se non plus posse videre propter tenebras suas.
Cur hoc, domine, cur hoc? Tenebratur oculus eius infirmitate sua, aut reverberatur fulgore tuo? Sed certe et tenebratur in se, et reverberatur a te. Utique et obscuratur sue brevitate, et obruitur tua immensitate. Vere et contrahitur angustia sua, et vincitur amplitudine tua.
Quanta namque est lux illa, de qua micas omne verum quod rationali menti lucet! Quam ampla est illa veritas, in qua est omne quod verum est, et extra quam non nisi nihil et falsum est! Quam immense est, quae uno intuitu videt quaecumque facta sunt, et a quo et per quem et quomodo de nihilo facta suntl Quid puritatis, quid simplicitatis, quid certitudinis et splendoris ibi estl Certe plus quam a creatura valeat intelligi.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin quiddam summum omnium, quo nihil melius cogitari potest echoes Anselm's famous ontological formula. Rendered 'the highest of all things, than which nothing better can be conceived' to preserve that philosophical weight without paraphrasing.
- 2 ↩The polysyndetic et...et...et construction is rendered with natural English rhythm rather than a mechanical 'and...and...and,' using apposition ('life itself, light itself...') to carry the cumulative force.
- 3 ↩aliquatenus conveys a partial, limited degree of vision; rendered as 'only partially' to capture the contrast with seeing God sicuti es (as God truly is).
- 4 ↩The source text contains 'suntl' and 'estl' — likely scribal errors or OCR artifacts for 'sunt' and 'est'. The translation renders the intended sense ('were made', 'is there') without preserving the anomalous forms.
Proslogion (Address / Discourse on the Existence of God) companion
One chapter of historic wisdom, every day
Chosen Portion delivers works like the Proslogion as short daily readings with a prayer — free on iOS.
Anselm designed the Proslogion to be read slowly as prayer, and the Chosen Portion app serves it exactly that way — one short portion per day.
- Finish the entire Proslogion in 14 days at about 10 minutes a day
- Modern-English rendering of all 27 chapters, no Latin required
- Each reading paired with Anselm's own prayers so study ends in worship