Theological Comparisons
Anselm
Anselm, being perhaps the first theologian in 800 years to say so, did not find propitious, this theory of atonement which had an exclusive emphasis on ransom, thus facilitating his proposition of another theory. Anselm’s pioneering ideas in general proved to have influenced a 1000 years of atonement theology since his death. 55 years ago one philosopher described Anselm in this way.
The theology
of Anselm is so full of rational speculation that one of his historians has
labeled it a “Christian rationalism,”[i] Its
ambivalence is due to the fact that, expressing the inner life of faith that
seeks understanding, it is both overflowing with a religious feeling which
sometimes borders on mysticism and full of dialectical passion which translates
faith into terms of rational necessity. Hence its twofold influence in the
fields of theology and of philosophy.[ii]
Though this
sounds somewhat critical, the influence can’t be denied. He went so far as to
object to the contemporary trend of questioning the radical nature of the cross
because of its abject violence—why would the God of the universe chose to show
His love to His creatures in such a brutal way? Anselm was careful to point out
that this God could only incarnate the way that He did and that incarnation
could only lead to the end we observe through the narrative of the four
Gospels. Anselm put to his readers this hypothetical objection to God’s death
on a cross,
Therefore, if
he was willing to save the human race only in the way you described when he
could have done it by sheer will, to put it mildly, you really disparage his
wisdom. For surely, if for no reason a man did by hard labor what he could have
done with ease no one would regard him as wide. And you have no rational ground
for saying that God showed in this way how much he loved us unless you can show
that it was quite impossible for him to save man in some other way.[iii]
It’s not as
though God was forced to restore the relationship of His creatures and creation
to Himself after it had been broken by Adam’s sin, but when He chose to do so
He chose to reconcile some of mankind to Himself by not imputing the
consequence of Adam’s sin to them, thus forgiving them their debts and loving
them instead. But it is not as though this sin and offense—one we know is
infinite because it is an offense against an infinite God—no longer exists and
God has simple shrugged it off the way we do when we are actually asked to
forgive one another. On the contrary, the sins we have committed, the sin
nature we have inherited from Adam must be dealt with even if it is not counted
to our own debt. So Anselm postulated the representation of Christ as our sin
bearer, converse to our representation in Adam as he sinned and stored up guilt
for all his children to inherit. Christ on the other hand stored up positive
merit for our inheritance which should be counted to us by the Father in place
of our demerit.
[i]
H. Bouchitte, Le rationalisme chretien de
saint Anselme,—Anslem as “father of scholasticism”: M. Grabman, Geschichte
der schol. Meth., I, (Paris
[ii]
Etienne Gilson, History of Christian
Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York: Random House, 1955), 139.
[iii]
Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, in A Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham,
trans. and ed. by Eugene R. Fairweather, M.A., B.D., Th.D, (Philadelphia: The
Westminster Press, 1956), 107
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