Monologion

A treatise of eighty chapters, written around 1075–1076 at Bec for monks who wanted a meditation on God that relied on reason alone, not on the authority of scripture. Anselm begins with arguments from degrees: things are good to different extents, so there must be something good through itself, through which all other goods are good, and the same holds for greatness and for being. This supreme nature exists through itself and made everything else from nothing. Anselm then asks how it made things, and answers that it first expresses them inwardly, in its own word or utterance. Since the supreme spirit remembers, understands and loves itself, he finds in it a likeness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, drawing on Augustine. The last chapters argue that the rational soul exists to love this supreme being, that it is therefore immortal, and that it must live by faith, hope and love.

It shows a medieval thinker trying to reason about God without leaning on authority, and its arguments from degrees of goodness anticipate the fourth of Aquinas's five ways.