We had a great conversation in yesterday's class on chapter ii of St. Anselm's Proslogion. Keep in mind that Anselm starts from a position of faith and is wrestling with the idea of God and its reasonableness. Faith in God is reasonable. Fides et ratio inform one another.
The frustration with the argument is legitimate and I remember feeling the same frustration when I read this for the first time as an undergraduate. The important thing to keep in mind with Anselm and all of these authors is to try not only to understand the words and meanings of their thoughts and writings but also--in the words of the late great Thomist, Fr. Leo Sweeney, S.J. (1918-2001)--to "inner-stand" them. A goofy word, I admit, but one that seems to capture what your job is as a student.
That job is to give the authors that you are reading a fair hearing. Ask yourself: who is this guy? what are his influences? what is the culture he is living in? what are the cultural assumptions of his time? Likewise, in addition to these questions, we must have the courage to leave aside some of our own 20th-21st century cultural assumptions (e.g., "Equality," understood popularly today as egalitarianism, was not understood that way in the 11th century.) The preoccupation with higher things--i.e., God, His nature, our life with Him, how to live well--was much more a part of an 11th century man's mind than ours today. This robust "life of the mind" is very instructive to us moderns and, indeed, as it is simply human, shows us the way. As a friend of mine once said (and I paraphrase), "sometimes the answer to the question you are asking has already been given; you just have to have the courage to open up a 900 year old book to find it!"
So keep wrestling with these authors; give them a fair shake; see them as good guys who are trying to find the right answers to life's questions; and remember to thank "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" for the great gift of your intellect to know and understand.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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