‘This may not be so difficult,’ said Beneditx. The two men were sitting at ease on the colonnade outside Palinor’s room, or between their rooms, rather, for on his return from the Galilea with a trunk of books Beneditx had settled himself into the rooms at the other end of the airy balcony. Joffre had set a table and chairs at the end of the space presently shaded from the sun, and Dolca had brought a jug of lemon juice and a basket of figs. Some time after she left them, her voice could be heard, mingling with the sound of tumbling water from below, where she knelt on a wet rock, washing Palinor’s shirt. She sang something wild and plangent, with a sweet high voice like a woodland bird.
‘There is an elegant short cut that might appeal to you,’ said Beneditx, eagerly opening his notes. ‘First you are to imagine God. You are to imagine, that is, a being possessed of every perfection. Can you do that?’
‘I am to imagine a being perfectly good, perfectly powerful, with perfect knowledge, and so on?’
‘Precisely. You are to imagine one than whom nothing more perfect can be conceived.’
Palinor leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. His eyelids, which were thickly fringed with dark lashes, were the colour of a purple tarnish, darker than the hue of his countenance, as though he had been made of fine bronze, differentially weathered in light and air. ‘Done,’ he said.
‘But now,’ said Beneditx, ‘how could you assert that this being that you imagine does not exist? For a being in all particulars exactly like the one you have imagined, but existing, would be more perfect, and therefore would be greater than the non-existent one. But you were to imagine the most perfect being possible. To have understood the definition of God correctly is to understand that he must exist, by definition, in the same way as a man who has understood what a triangle is must know that it has three angles equal to one hundred and eighty degrees.’
Palinor laughed. ‘I wish I had such power,’ he said, ‘as to call something into being simply by imagining it. Is this a serious proof?’
Beneditx hesitated. Should he admit at once that St Thomas did not think this proof held water? No; why should he blunt one of his own barbs? ‘It was offered by St Anselm,’ he said. ‘I don’t think he was joking.’
‘Well,’ said Palinor, ‘suppose I imagined a perfect outcome to this escapade: a ship from Aclar, coming to rescue me. And suppose I told you that this ship must exist, because a real one is more perfect than an imaginary one, would you run down to the harbour in expectations of seeing it coming?’
‘I do not believe in Aclar,’ said Beneditx. ‘I asked everyone at the Galilea, and nobody had ever heard of it. There is no such place.’
‘What exists when I imagine your most perfect God, or a ship from Aclar,’ said Palinor, ‘is an idea of the thing in my mind. But an idea in my mind is not a ship in the harbour. It is madness to get confused about that. You have proved to me that I can imagine what you mean by God. But I never denied that God could be imagined; it is only too clear to me that he can be.’
‘Well, this proof is notoriously contentious,’ said Beneditx. ‘I have always rather liked it myself, but I will not pursue it. There are other ways to come at the matter.’
‘Before we leave the sophistical St Anselm,’ said Palinor, ‘can I point out to you that it is a very different thing to prove something to the satisfaction of somebody who has never doubted it and to find a proof that overcomes doubt? This proof that defines God into existence – you say you like it. But it was not this that convinced you, I think. You believed already when you first heard it.’
‘Yes I did,’ said Beneditx. ‘Everyone on Grandinsula believes in God.’
‘I can agree that anyone who knows what a triangle is knows a good deal about the angles it contains,’ Palinor continued. ‘But that is not to know that anything in the real world is actually a triangle.’
‘You should grant me, I think,’ said Beneditx, ‘some authority about belief, since I come from an island rich in faith, and you from a country where it is hard to find.’
Palinor smiled at him. ‘I know more, perhaps, than you expect about ideas of God, since this sort of discussion is the delight of my circle of friends at home, and many of them believe in and worship God in some form or other; but it is whether these ideas correspond to anything in reality that is precisely the ground of our disagreement.’
‘You wouldn’t disagree if I said that there is such a thing as truth?’
‘No,’ said Palinor. ‘I’ll grant you that.’
‘That is self-evident,’ said Beneditx, his expression once more lit with eagerness. ‘For whoever denies the existence of truth asserts that truth does not exist. How, then, could such a one deny that the proposition “Truth does not exist” is true? But if there is anything true, there must be truth. God is truth itself. All discourse, therefore, all statements in all sciences, all refutations and disproofs contain the idea of God, because they contain the idea of truth. Even the notion of falsity contains the idea of truth. The existence of God is self-evident, everywhere assumed, even when men believe themselves to be talking of other things.’
‘Alas, my friend,’ said Palinor sweetly, ‘there is a flaw in your reasoning. I would say rather, if there is anything true, there must be truths. A very different statement from yours.’
‘Surely for a statement to be true, it must partake of the truth?’
‘I would not put it that way, Beneditx, and some of our difficulty in agreeing arises from the fact that we put things differently, and how you put things makes a considerable difference to how they seem.’
‘Well, tell me how you would put it,’ said Beneditx.
‘I would not think of truth as single, like a great ocean, but as multiple, like many rivers,’ said Palinor. ‘If I say to you that the bird singing on the branch there is a warbler, how would you discover the truth of my statement? The truth of a statement that names something could be confirmed in a book of names, or by asking a speaker of the language in which the name is uttered. If I tell you that my servant can swim, the truth of the statement can be discovered by throwing him in the river; if I tell you that in my country the sun sets at midnight on midsummer day you will need to travel there at the right season to confirm it, and so on. Each of these statements is true in a different way, and a different process of confirmation – or, of course, of refutation – is required for each, although the words “true” and “false” are used to describe the results of all the investigations. In the many different kinds of procedure needed to verify things, I would find evidence that truth is of many kinds: were there such a thing as “The Truth”, surely one way of investigating matters would always reveal it. You say that God is truth itself – could he be said to be truths?’
‘That doesn’t sound right at all,’ said Beneditx. ‘For God is one and unchanging.’
‘You see what a difference it makes when one uses a different way of speaking,’ said Palinor. ‘The existence of truths does not so easily lead one to say that there is one overriding truth for God to be. Of course, if you can lead me from truths to one truth, I will gladly follow you. All you will then need to do is to prove the identity of this one truth with the God of your belief.’
Like a chess player who has lost some small advantage in the opening game, Beneditx took the measure of his opponent, perceiving him formidable. Formidable, and unlike the opponents imagined in the books with which Beneditx was so familiar. There were warning words about the difficulty of dealing with men who did not accept the Scriptures in the opening words of the great Summa Contra Gentiles of St Thomas; Beneditx had quoted them to Severo. But Palinor was not like any kind of gentile envisaged by the saint, as far as Beneditx could see, except in the absence of shared ground on which to refute him. It was not so much that Beneditx really understood why Palinor should be so interested in the different means of checking the truth of things as to divide truth on account of them; he was not a practical man, and investigation was a word to him rather than a process. But he had seen at once that it would take some preparation and some deep consideration to embark on an attempt to prove that all truths were one. Instead, he decided to call a halt to the discussion for that day, and think further.
‘I am at your disposal,’ said Palinor, with ironic courtesy. ‘And, Beneditx, I am very bored.’ Seeing Beneditx’s expression, he added hastily, ‘Not in the least while we talk together, but in the long hours spent here without occupation. Would anyone mind, do you think, if I turned my attention to improving the flow of water through these gardens? Whose permission would I need?’
‘Severo’s, I imagine,’ said Beneditx. ‘I will mention it to him when I write; but I will take it upon myself to give permission meanwhile.’
Palinor thanked him and wandered off into the gardens, exploring the various streams and walking beside them against the direction of flow, learning their origin. As though to side with Beneditx against him they diverged from a single forceful spring that filled a deep basin on top of a tall cliff, overhanging the narrowing valley of the garden, and spilled in a waterfall of considerable force and height. The waterfall hit a tumble of rocks and was deflected into multiple streamlets. Though as a dialectician Palinor could make no use of such a flow, as an engineer he found it satisfactory, and he began to make drawings and seek from the gardeners to know where he might acquire clay pipes.