Anselm, c. 1033-1109, was a monk who became Archbishop of Canterbury. Although most famous for his ontological argument for God’s existence and his satisfaction account of the atonement, Anselm’s theological contribution extends much further. His thoughts on the atonement have been very influential – on those who follow him and on those who seek to distance themselves from him as much as possible. Cur Deus Homo, translated as Why the God-Man?, is a significant work in theology, dealing with sin, the incarnation, and the atonement. Anselm felt he was forced to complete this work too quickly, but nonetheless it remains worthy of attention even today, despite some weak areas and despite some difficulties arising from its distance from us in history. In Why the God-Man?, Anselm has in view critics who believe in

God, in his goodness, love, mercy, and justice, as well as in man’s sinfulness and debt to God – however, they do not believe that God had to become incarnate and take care of the debt, and they doubt that God did these things in the historical person of Jesus. So he argues remoto Christi – that apart from anything we might know about Christ, he believes he can show that his opponents’ own commitments require them to accept that there must be an

incarnation and atonement. It’s not that the Christian faith can be proven from the discoveries of reason, apart from revelation (as some accuse Anselm of doing), but that, given some accepted premises, certain details of the Christian faith are implied thereby. Anselm tries to really understand the why, namely, why incarnation and atonement, and why they are as they are. Generally, the theological question of atonement is this: despite

sin, how can humans be made right with God? Anselm’s important work is an attempt to explain how atonement is only available through Christ, whereas up to that point such a careful and intentional account was largely absent. The argument, in short, is this: only a person who is both God and man – a God-Man – could ever save humanity because humans owe the debt to God for sin, but only God could ever make such recompense. Before going any further, we should say a few words of expla-

nation about some of the key terms Anselm uses. Society in his time was a complex hierarchy of obligations and debts, and this feudalism is often seen as the source of his terms like ‘satisfaction’, ‘debt’, and ‘honour’. The more lowly owed a certain debt or obligation to those over them, and to violate this obligation offended their honour; recompense was then required to bring satisfaction to the honour of the one offended, and only then could things get back to the way they were before. However, to interpret Why the God-Man? as a superficial translation of this societal reality into the theological realm would be irresponsible (although it is all too common). Certainly, society at this time influenced his thinking in some way, but it seems much more likely that he adopted these terms and concepts only to change their meaning subtly when applied to things like the seriousness of sin against God and God as the greatest conceivable being. We will now look at some of these terms in more detail. ‘Debt’ is the same Latin word in Anselm’s writing as is used in

the Lord’s Prayer (‘forgive us our debts’) in the Latin Bible he read. For Anselm, creatures have certain responsibilities to God their Creator that cannot be ignored if they are to fulfill the purpose he gave them and thus be happy. Failure to meet any of these responsibilities creates a debt that the creatures then owe God above and beyond the responsibilities they already owe God by being his creatures. Debt is very much an idea that is internal to the

creature; this is very different than the way debt worked in feudal society. ‘Honour’ is a term that in the Bible is often linked with ‘glory’, and it is better to think that Anselm, a monk who read Scripture regularly, took his meaning there more so than from society around him. Against a mere feudal meaning of the term, for Anselm, showing God honour was not about placating someone who, in the system, has been upset by some violated law; rather, it is for the creature to give proper respect and worship to the Creator, whom the creature has let down by failing to do and be what a creature should. ‘Satisfaction’ is achieved when one has done enough, which would be determined by the context in question. So Anselm’s theological satisfaction would be different than satisfaction in the feudal system – for Anselm, the ‘doing enough’ in order to satisfy was not just whatever would pacify the one offended; rather, it is what is required to objectively make things right. When we add God into the equation, Anselm will argue that man can never make things right on his own. For Anselm, there is an order and a beauty in creation that God

has put there, and, being who he is, he will always act to restore this order and beauty if it should be compromised. This idea does some important work in Anselm’s thinking because it is simply unreasonable – illogical – for God to do something that is not consistent with his nature and being, that is in his words ‘unfitting’. The doctrine of God that Anselm works with is important for us to understand. God is just, merciful, and all-powerful, and, particularly, God exists a se. This aseity is very important. For Anselm, sin does not harm God because he does not depend in any way on creatures for his existence or for any of his attributes. Sin lessens the honour done to God by creation, but not God’s actual dignity itself. Sin threatens the right ordering of creation. A brief note on the use of the word ‘man’ – throughout this

chapter, it should be understood to mean ‘mankind’ or ‘humanity’, just as Anselm would have used the term. It does not refer to the male gender, ‘man’, over against the female gender, ‘woman’.