Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look and an ever-changing culture through the lens of

unchanging truth.

With the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Well this month marks the 915th anniversary of the death of Anselm of Canterbury, one of the most influential theologians

and apologist of his millennium.

As the theologian, Anselm is known for advancing the satisfaction theory of atonement, a precursor to the ideas about

sin and salvation that would later be championed by the Protestant reformers.

And as an apologist, Anselm argued that faith and reason do not stand opposed but rather work together in the pursuit of truth.

Reason is not an obstacle to faith.

Faith is not an obstacle to reason.

Knowledge, he believed, is really, quote,

faith seeking understanding.

Well, Anselm's perhaps best known

for the ontological argument for the existence of God.

It was published in his work the Proslogan in it and

Psalm set out to construct and I quote here a single argument which would require

no other for its proof. Now the argument can seem confusing but at its hard it's rather

simple. God by definition is the greatest possible being humans can imagine, greater

than which nothing else can be imagined.

However, if God were only an idea in our minds,

he would not be the greatest possible being

imaginable because the greatest possible being

...