ABSTRACT
In the preface to the Cur Deus Homo, Anselm makes a few remarks about the circumstances surrounding the work. In the Cur Deus Homo, the idea of satisfaction, though given Christian content, is an idea borrowed from feudal society. Gustav Aulen has argued strenuously that the Fathers' 'classic' idea of the atonement was dominant in the early church precisely because it is the correct view of the atonement. Anselm carries on to speak of the incarnation and atonement of Jesus as a true revelation of God and a certain declaration of his true humanity. God used the product of a tree – the cross – to counter the effects of the fruit by which the Devil introduced sin into humanity. Anselm's appeals to fittingness, his understanding of justice, his perpetual accent on right order and his eye for balance and symmetry are what make his theory of the atonement lively and persuasive.
