Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) is often referred to as the “Father of Scholasticism” for his use of dialectics in his theological works, a method that would later become standard practice for scholastic writers. His ability to view issues from multiple perspectives and develop arguments reconciling seemingly contradictory presuppositions is on display in On the Fall of the Devil, one of Anselm’s most comprehensive analyses of evil. Anselm’s treatment of evil in this book provided a foundation for generations of subsequent thinkers as they wrestled with the problem of evil.
In On the Fall of the Devil, Anselm dialogues with a student on the nature and existence of evil in an attempt to understand the fall of Satan. Anselm suggests that evil appears to have a quasi-existence, but goes on to argue that it is better understood as the lack of—or destruction of—that which is good. To illustrate, Anselm offers the example of blindness, which, in our grammatical use of the word, is a description of something. Anselm points out, however, that blindness is actually the lack of something; namely, the lack of sight. Similarly, evil can really only be understood by recognizing it as the absence or destruction of that which is good.
Excerpts from On the Fall of the Devil
10. How evil seems to be something
Student. When you say that evil is the privation of the good, I agree, but none the less I see that good is a privation of evil. And just as I perceive in the privation of evil something else comes to be that we call good, so I note that in the privation of the good something comes to be that we call evil. Wherefore although evil can be shown by some arguments to be nothing, since evil is only vice or corruption, which are only in some essence, and the more they are there, the more toward nothingness they turn it, and if the same essence came wholly to nothing, vice and corruption would be found to be nothing; although, I say, in these and other ways evil can be proved to be nothing, my mind cannot agree except on the basis of faith alone, unless we can eliminate the difficulties that prove to me on the contrary the reality of evil.
For when the word ‘evil’ is heard, our hearts irrationally tremble at what they understand in the meaning of this word, if it means only nothing. Again, if this word ‘evil’ is a noun, it is significant. But if it is significant, it signifies. But it can only signify something. How then can evil be nothing if its name signifies something? Finally since there seems to be such tranquillity and repose while justice remains, in many instances justice seems nothing more than the quieting of evil, as with charity and patience, whereas when justice goes, such diverse and onerous and multiple feelings occupy the mind which like a cruel master forces this poor homunculus to be concerned with so many laborious and base actions and to take on the grave burden of these actions: if it is thus, it will seem strange that nothing gives rise to all these.
11. That evil and nothing cannot be shown from their names to be something but only a quasi-something
Teacher. I do not think it is absurd for you to say that nothing is something, since no one can deny that ‘nothing’ is a noun. If it cannot be shown that nothing is real just because there is the word ‘nothing’, how would one think to prove that evil is real just because there is the word ‘evil’?
S. An example that solves a problem by raising another is worthless, but I do not know what this nothing itself would be. If you want to show me what I understand evil to be, show me first what I understand nothing to be, then you can deal with the other arguments rather than those having to do with the word ‘evil’ that lead me to think it is something.
T. Since for nothing to be does not differ from something is not, how can we say what it is for something not to be?
S. If there is not anything signified by this word, it does not signify something. But if it does not signify something, it is not a noun. But it is a noun. Therefore, although no one says that nothing is something, but we are always driven to say that nothing is nothing, still no one can deny that the word ‘nothing’ is significant. But if this noun does not signify nothing but something, what it signifies seems to be something and not nothing. But if what it means is something and not nothing, how can it be signified by the word ‘nothing’? Indeed, if ‘nothing’ is used correctly, nothing truly is, and therefore it is not something. Wherefore if what is signified by this word is something and not nothing, it follows that it is falsely and incongruously named by ‘nothing’. But if, following common opinion, what is called ‘nothing’ is truly nothing and is not in fact real, the necessary consequence is that the word ‘nothing’ does not signify something and then it does not signify nothing. How is it then that the word ‘nothing’ is not devoid of meaning and signifies some thing, and does not signify some thing, that is, something real, but signifies nothing?
T. Perhaps there is no contradiction between signifying nothing and something.
S. But if there is no contradiction, either the word ‘nothing’ signifies nothing and something as taken differently, or we must find the reality that is something and nothing.
T. And if both conclusions can be affirmed, that is, if there are different ways of understanding the meaning of the word and that the same reality is both something and nothing?
S. Let us look at both.
T. It is clear that the word ‘nothing’ in no way differs in meaning from the expression ‘not something’. Moreover it is evident that ‘not something’ indicates that every thing, whatever expresses any reality, should be excluded from the mind nor anything whatsoever of its meaning be retained. But since the negation of a thing must necessarily include in its meaning the thing negated—no one could understand what is meant by non-man unless he understands what man is—this term not-something, by negating what is, signifies something. Since then taking away everything that is something signifies nothing, it makes up the essence that must be retained in the mind of the listener: therefore ‘not-something’ signifies no thing or reality.
The expression ‘non-being’ then, according to these diverse considerations, in a way signifies reality and being and yet in no way signifies reality and being, for it signifies them by way of denial and not positively. Thus the word ‘nothing’ which does away with everything that is something and by so doing does not signify nothing but something, does not do so positively. So it is not necessary that nothing be something just because its name in a certain way signifies something; rather, it is necessary that nothing be nothing, because its name signifies something in this way. Similarly, there is nothing against the word ‘evil’ being meaningful if it thus signifies something by excluding it and positively signifies nothing.
S. I cannot deny that, following your argument, the word ‘nothing’ in some way signifies something, but it must be understood that the something which in this way is signified is not called ‘nothing’, nor when we hear the word do we take it for the reality that is signified in this way. So I ask why this name is spoken, and what do we understand when we hear it: what I want to ask is, what is it? This is what the word properly signifies and since a word is because it signifies it, not because in the way stated above it signifies by denying something. Indeed it is accounted a name of its signification, which is called ‘nothing’. I ask how that can be something if it is properly called ‘nothing’, or how it is nothing if its name signifies something, or how something and nothing can be the same. That is what I am asking about ‘evil’ and of what it means and what ‘evil’ is the name of.
T. And you rightly pose this problem because although by the foregoing argument both ‘nothing’ and ‘evil’ signify something, evil and nothing are not what they signify. But there is another argument according to which they signify something and that something is signified, but not a true but a quasi-something.
There are many cases where the grammatical form does not correspond with the reality signified. For example, ‘to fear’ is an active verb, grammatically speaking, but in reality to fear is passive. So too ‘blindness’ grammatically indicates some thing, but in reality it is nothing positive. Just as we say that someone has sight and that sight is in him, so we say that he has blindness and that blindness is in him, although blindness is not something real but the lack of it, and to have blindness does not mean to say one has something but rather is deprived of it. In fact blindness is nothing other that non-sight or the absence of sight where it ought to be found. But non-sight or the absence of sight is certainly no more real where it ought to be found than where it ought not to be found. Many other things are expressed as reality from the point of view of the form of discourse, because we speak of them as if they existed, when no positive reality is involved.
It is in this way that ‘evil’ and ‘nothing’ signify things, that is, what is signified is not something in reality but only in grammatical form. ‘Nothing’ signifies simply non-being or the lack of all that is real. And evil is only non-good or the absence of good where good ought to be found. But that which is only an absence of reality is certainly not real. Hence evil in truth is nothing and nothing is not real, and yet in a way evil and nothing are something because we speak of them as if they were real, as when we say, ‘He did nothing’ and ‘He did evil’, that is, that what he did was nothing or evil—in the same way that we say ‘I did something and I did a good thing’. So we deny that what someone says is in any way something: ‘What you say is nothing.’ For ‘what’ or ‘this’ which are properly said only of realities, here are not said of realities but of quasi-realities.
S. You have satisfied me with respect to ‘evil’ from whose meaning I sought to prove that it signifies something.
26. What horrifies us about the word ‘evil’ and the works that injustice is said to do if both are nothing
S. Although you have responded to all my questions, I still wait for you to explain what horrifies us when we hear the word ‘evil’ and what causes the actions of injustice such as in theft, and lust—if evil is nothing.
T. I will reply briefly. That evil which is vice is always nothing; the evil that is suffering is sometimes without doubt nothing, as with blindness, and sometimes real, like sadness and sorrow, and we always detest the suffering that is something real. When then we hear the word ‘evil’ we do not fear the evil that is nothing, but that which is something real and follows the lack of the good. Many sufferings follow on injustice and blindness and those in fact are nothing, but these sufferings are evil and are something real and it is these we fear when we hear the word ‘evil’.
When we say that injustice causes theft or that blindness causes a man to fall in a ditch, we do not intend to say that injustice and blindness cause something real, but that if justice were in the will and sight in the eye, theft would not come about and one would not fall in the ditch. It is as when we say that the absence of the pilot causes the ship to go aground, or the absence of a bridle makes the horse run off, which are equivalent to: if the pilot and bridle had been present the wind would not have taken the ship nor the horse run off. For as the ship is governed by the pilot, so is the horse by the bridle; so too a man’s will is governed by justice and his feet by sight.
S. You have satisfied me with respect to the evil that is injustice, such that all that this question raised in my mind has been clarified. The question concerning this evil seems to arise from the fact that, if it were some essence, it would be caused by God, from whom it is necessary that every thing that is comes, and from whom it is impossible that injustice and sin come. But the evil that in some way is something seems to cause difficulties for the true faith.
27. How evil came to an angel when he was good
S. So would you please reply briefly to my fatuous request, so that I can reply to one who asks me. It is not always easy to reply wisely to the questions of the unwise. So I ask you whence comes for the first time that evil which is called injustice or sin in the angel who was created just.
T. Tell me whence comes the non-being in something real.
S. That which is nothing neither comes nor goes.
T. Then why do you ask where the evil that is injustice comes from?
S. Because when justice departs from where it was, we say that injustice has come.
T. Speak more clearly and properly, and ask me about the departure of justice. A well-formed question is easier to answer, whereas the ill-formed one makes it more difficult.
S. Why does justice depart from the just angel?
T. Speaking properly, it does not depart from him, but he abandons it by willing what he ought not.
S. Why does he abandon it?
T. When I say that by willing what he ought not he abandons it, I show openly why and how he abandons it. He abandons it because he wills what he ought not to will, and in this way it is by willing what he ought not that he abandons it.
S. Why does he will what he ought not?
T. No cause precedes this will except that he can will.
S. And he wills because he can?
T. No. Because the good angel could will similarly yet does not. No one wills what he can will because he can, without some other cause, although if he is unable to will he never does.
S. Why then does he will?
T. Only because he wills. For this will has no other cause by which it is forced or attracted, but it was its own efficient cause, so to speak, as well as its own effect.
Anselm of Canterbury, “On the Fall of the Devil,” in The Major Works, eds. Brian Davies and G.R. Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).