Abstract

Interpretation of Saint Anselm's Proslogion has traditionally divided across analytical and nonanalytical boundaries, either focusing on the analytic argument of Chapters 2 and 3 isolated from the rest of the text, or focusing more generally on the text's social, historical, literary, or theological contributions. Interpretations may vary significantly, but the lines of interpretation continue along these divisions thus propagating the distinction. Alternative tools, however, expose difficulties of such a division of the Proslogion. This investigation presents such alternative tools that permit analytical assessment of claims and intuitions leaning toward nonanalytically based approaches, thus implicating a more complex reinterpretation of the presuppositions supporting the isolation of Chapters 2 and 3. ;Based on an approach to reading developed from semiotics and text linguistics, this investigation argues that the Proslogion has a structure different from previously identified ones. The investigation will demonstrate a Christian argument for the Trinity, built on a structure of three architectonic concepts reticulating across three framings, in turn containing triadic sub-frames. Analyzing the Proslogion's textual structure suggests strongly different conclusions about the core significance, utility, and meaning of the "single argument", about the modalities of interpretation surrounding the text, and about Anselm's philosophical and theological contribution. Textual evidence demonstrates that Anselm's "single argument" is a Christian argument for the Trinity