Cur Deus Homo by Saint Anselm

First published: 1098 (English translation, 1854-1855)

Edition used:Anselm of Canterbury: Major Works, edited by Brian Davies and G. R. Evans. Charlottesville, Va.: InteLex Corp., 1999

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Theology

Core issue(s): Atonement; God; guilt; Incarnation; sacrifice; sin and sinners

Overview

Within a few years of his appointment as archbishop of Canterbury in 1093, Saint Anselm found himself caught up in a number of theological controversies. One of these hinged on the following question: Why was it necessary that God become human and, through his death, redeem the world from sin, when it would seem that God in his omnipotence might have accomplished this saving act in any number of ways or simply by an act of divine will? This question reached Anselm from two sources: the so-called secular schools (nonmonastic Christian seminaries) of Northern Europe and a group of learned rabbis and Jewish scholars recently settled in London for whom the very idea of divine incarnation was an intellectual and theological affront.

For the secular schools, interest in the question was largely a matter of formulating a theology of the Incarnation in keeping with the dominant trend of the age, which was to place Christian doctrine on a more rational foundation. For the Jews, the question arose out of a concern with the nature of God. For them, the idea of the Incarnation was an assault on the dignity of the Supreme Being. How could an utterly transcendent being be required to suffer the ignominy of human suffering and death on a cross? While the Jews shared with Christians the view that humanity lived in a condition of Original Sin and was therefore in need of divine forgiveness, they could not accept the notion that human restoration to the perfection lost with the Fall could be accomplished only through God’s assumption of human flesh.

The key term in Anselm’s statement of the question is “necessary.” Earlier Christian apologists had assumed that God’s decision to take on the human condition was not governed by necessity but was simply an act of the divine will; God had merely chosen this manner of saving humanity by some mysterious preference but could have chosen some other method to achieve the same end. For Anselm this inherited notion that God’s assumption of human flesh was, in effect, a purely contingent act was unacceptable. It was a violation of the “rightness” (rectitudo) of things—that is, of the justice that is the essence of the created order. Thus, if fallen humans were to be restored to their original perfection, that could be accomplished only in conformity with the eternal moral order.

Because humans were created with freedom of will—their essential dignity—they could have fallen only by their own choice. In succumbing to the devil’s temptation, people failed to render to God what was owed him: perfect obedience freely given. This failure was a violation of God’s justice and of the fundamental moral order. Moreover, that same justice required that humans’ restoration be accomplished in a way that was consistent with the free will God had ordained for them. Thus, human redemption could be accomplished only by a sacrificial act of perfect human obedience. To use the biblical metaphor, by their failure of obedience, humans owed a debt to God that required payment. However, fallen humans are incapable—by virtue of the radical insufficiency that mars their nature as a result of Original Sin—of paying such a debt, of rendering to God the perfect obedience that was still possible before the Fall. Moreover, simply to absolve humans of their debt by fiat (by an arbitrary act of divine will) would not accord with God’s justice, because it would involve God’s perfection in an inconsistency—a contradiction in terms.

The Anselmian solution to this dilemma is paradoxical. The injustice done to God required “satisfaction” by humans, but fallen humans were incapable of paying such a debt. It is true that God might have restored the moral order by simply condemning fallen humans to an eternal punishment that would have “satisfied” God’s justice. Yet such a vindication would have required God to abandon his original purpose for humans and, more important, would have been inconsistent with the Christian view of God as infinitely merciful. Clearly, then, if humans are incapable of giving God what his justice required, then only God himself could accomplish that work of restoration. However, how could God do so in a way that was consistent with a moral order that required free human consent to God’s perfect authority? Only one answer was possible: God must assume the human condition and, through the agency of the Son, Christ Jesus, submit himself to the punishment of death. To the objection that God could not assume the human condition without abandoning his divinity, Anselm reasserts the traditional Trinitarian view that God suffered the indignity of suffering and death only in the person of Christ, while in his essence remaining transcendent. As for Christ, while he willingly subjected himself to death, he remained divine in the sense that his assumption of the human condition did not include sin. Had it done so, then truly God’s divinity would have been fatally compromised. So, also, would human salvation have been compromised, because only a perfect offering to the Father could compensate for the perfection that humans cast away in their original act of disobedience.

Christian Themes

The central theme in Cur Deus Homo is atonement (the reconciliation of humanity to God), which in turn can be divided into a number of subsidiary themes. Anselm brings a high degree of originality to his treatment of two of these: The first involves the question of humanity’s subjection to the devil; the second, the “necessity” whereby God became human. In the early part of the work, Anselm disposes of the traditional view that God became human because the sin of Adam had delivered the human race to Satan. In this understanding of atonement, the devil held “rights” over humanity that God was obligated to recognize. The Incarnation was seen as a kind of divine trickery because in conspiring to bring about Christ’s death, the devil forfeited his right of possession over humanity. Anselm’s refutation of this notion of Satan’s “rights” established what would be the cornerstone of his argument throughout Cur Deus Homo: The Fall of the human race in no way diminished God’s dominion over his creation. To accept the view that the devil possessed any “rights” whatsoever would have been to accept a compromised idea of God’s omnipotence. Both faith and a rigorous reason demanded that the devil be reduced to a minor player in the drama of atonement.

In diminishing the devil’s role, Anselm places atonement on a new doctrinal basis, one in which the central theme became the story of how God’s mercy is reconciled to his justice. In Anselm’s aesthetic vision, the perfectly ordered universe must reflect a flawless harmony of divine attributes: a perfection of power, justice, order, and beauty. If any of these attributes is diminished in the slightest degree, the harmony of the whole is distorted. Therefore, while God is a merciful God, an arbitrary act of divine mercy that failed to accord with God’s justice would be impossible. Even in his will to forgive, God cannot, of “necessity,” act inconsistently against his own rectitudo. To find scope for his mercy, then, it was “necessary” that God become human and be punished for humanity’s sin. For justice and for the universal harmony to be restored, compensation had to be made. Therefore Anselm introduced into the theological tradition a rational coherence that would shortly give rise to what is known as Scholasticism.

Sources for Further Study

Holmes, Stephen. “The Upholding of Beauty: A Reading of Saint Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo.” Scottish Journal of Theology 54, no. 2 (Spring, 2001): 189-203. Focuses on Anselm’s contribution to medieval debates concerning rational understanding of Christ’s Incarnation.

Leftow, Brian. “Anselm on the Necessity of the Incarnation.” Religious Studies 31, no. 2 (June, 1995): 167-185. Argues that while Anselm’s view of atonement seems to diminish God’s omnipotence, this is not so. “Necessity” in Anselm’s argument arises from God’s prior actions and does not restrict his power.

McMahon, Kevin A. “The Cross and the Pearl: Anselm’s Patristic Doctrine of the Atonement.” In Saint Anselm: His Origins and Influence, edited by John R. Fortin. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. Shows that, despite the usual claims that in Cur Deus Homo Anselm breaks radically with the tradition of the church fathers, he was in fact much influenced by them.

Southern, R. W. Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Contains a lengthy discussion of Cur Deus Homo within its historical context and stresses especially the aesthetic dimension of Anselm’s rationality.