Anselm of Canterbury’s Why God Became Man? is one of the most significant theological treatments of the atonement in the medieval era for a number of reasons.[1] First, it grounded the satisfaction view of the cross, which the church had always affirmed, but which had not been argued at length.[2] Second, it was one of the first major attempts to give a rational and theological account of the atonement by reflecting on the necessity of the cross. Third, it argued the theocentric nature of the cross more precisely, emphasizing that the proper object of the cross is God himself and not merely our sin, death, or Satan, although, contrary to popular opinion, it affirmed that as a result of the cross, sin, death, and Satan were all defeated.
1. Anselm, Why God Become Man? in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works. Oxford World’s Classics, ed. Brian Davies and G. R. Evans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
2. On this point, see Benjamin Wheaton, Suffering, Not Power: Atonement in the Middle Ages (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2022).
Anselm’s work is often criticized for being too influenced by his 11th-century culture. As the story goes, the transition from the Patristic era to the medieval/feudal era over-emphasized legal relationships by focusing on the concept of honor that required exact satisfaction to restore a person’s dishonored name. Seeking to interpret the cross within this feudal-legal(istic) framework, Anselm argued that Christ provided the exact payment or satisfaction for our sin.
However, this critique is simply false. Although Anselm lived in a feudal society, he wasn’t indebted to it in his understanding of the cross. Anselm didn’t view sin as merely a wrong done against an abstract principle or arbitrary law. Anselm spoke of sin as dishonoring God because God is the greatest of all Beings, the Creator and Lord of the universe. Thus, when Anselm speaks of God’s honor, he basically means God’s glory, as he grounds God’s glory/honor in God’s self-sufficiency (aseity) and holiness. For this reason, what is more significant to grasp about Anselm’s view of the cross is not his feudalism but the central role the doctrine of God plays in his view that the cross is a sacrifice that expiates our sin, propitiates God’s wrath, and satisfies God’s righteous demand against us, thus reconciling God to us and us to God (1.12-15).
We should not, therefore, treat Anselm as merely a cultural artifact of the medieval age. His work is a timeless expression of biblical truth and is still valuable for understanding the atonement today as a profound exercise in “faith seeking understanding.” In this article, I will attempt to capture his overall argument in five points before evaluating its strengths and weaknesses.
A Brief Summary of Why God Became Man?
First, Anselm’s treatise is written in the form of a dialogue between himself and his student, Boso, which seeks to answer the following question: “By what logic or necessity did God become man, and by his death, as we believe and profess, restore life to the world, when he could have done this through the agency of some other person, angelic or human, or simply by willing it?” (1.1) Ultimately, Anselm’s answer is that God cannot forgive our sin by a mere man or angel or by simply willing it. Instead, God can only forgive our sins by the provision of himself in his divine-human Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone can satisfy God’s righteous demand against our sin by his obedient life and the payment of our sin. In the remainder of the book, Anselm sets out to give a rational and theological accounting of why this is so.
Second, in Book 1, Anselm argues against the popular ransom theory of Satan by demonstrating that: (1) the only necessity for Christ’s death is due to Christ’s willingness to endure the cross for our redemption; and (2) humans and Satan belong to God. As such, it is not Satan who must be satisfied but God (1.8).
Third, Anselm develops with more precision than anyone before him the idea that the atonement is first a satisfaction made to God. Anselm argues that there is a need for satisfaction because sin dishonors God’s name in the rejection of his majestic glory by the image-bearers that God created to rule under his sovereign authority. Anselm writes, “Everyone who sins ought to render back to God the honor he has taken away, and this is the satisfaction which every sinner ought to make to God” (1.11). Why can God not overlook the dishonor done to him and freely forgive humans without the demand for satisfaction? Anselm answers: Because of who God is as the moral ruler of the universe. For God to forgive without satisfaction would compromise his character and nothing could be “less tolerable in the order of things than that the creature should take away from the Creator the honor due to him, and not repay what he takes away” (1.13). In fact, if God were to forgive arbitrarily without satisfaction, God would annul the total moral order through which he has expressed himself in the world, and he would cease to be the most perfect being. Also, the sin in which humans are involved is our sin. We are responsible for not rendering to God the honor due to him and for our inability to do so (1.24). We have failed to satisfy the conditions of our existence and have brought dishonor to God. But God, the most perfect being, cannot allow his dishonor to go unpunished; he must restore the original creation to its balance and harmony.
Fourth, because of who God is and our responsible choices, there are two possibilities open for the satisfaction of God’s honor and the punishment of our sin: punishment must follow every sin or satisfaction must follow every sin (1.15). If God chooses punishment, he is vindicated but then his purpose for humans in creation is ultimately frustrated. Thankfully, God has chosen the more difficult way of satisfaction. But in choosing satisfaction for every sin, there is a major problem: humans must pay the debt of satisfaction, and yet we cannot because we have caused the dishonor and whatever we do in honoring God is only what we already owe. Besides, even if present debts could be paid, this would not compensate for past ones. Our human condition is this: “I have nothing to render to him [God] in compensation for sin” (1.20).
Fifth, in Book 2, Anselm argues that Jesus alone can save us because of who he is and what he does for us. Since our sin and debt before God is infinite, only God can pay it; but since we owe it, we must pay it: “There is no one, therefore, who can make satisfaction except God himself … But no one ought to make it except man: otherwise man does not make satisfaction” (2.6). The only solution to this dilemma is for the God-man to satisfy divine honor by paying for human sin. Thus, in order to redeem us, God the Son must become man to pay our debt as God in his life and death as man in which he fulfills the obligation we owe of perfectly obeying the Father. We come to benefit from the Son’s obedient life and death because, in Christ’s voluntary self-sacrifice, he wins an excess of reward—not for himself since he is sinless and perfect—but for sinners like ourselves (2.10; 2.19). Christ directs that his reward should be given to sinners to provide satisfaction for their sins, and the Father gives redemption, as a gift, to all who receive the Son (2.20).
A Critical Evaluation for the Church Today
In reflecting on Anselm’s monumental work, the main biblical-theological strength of his argument is twofold: it beautifully integrates the incarnation and atonement, and it locates the cross’s necessity in the nature of God. These points together provide greater precision in our understanding of the nature of the atonement, its necessity, and why Christ alone is Lord and Savior. Anselm clearly sees the centrality of God in the purpose of the cross and the problem of forgiveness: sin brings under God’s holy and just wrath the humanity he has promised to redeem. In these areas he is on solid biblical-theological ground, and we ignore these points to our peril.
Anselm’s argument, however, has at least two weaknesses.
First, Anselm does not fully explain how Christ atones for sin. Anselm explains how Christ satisfies divine honor, but what about sin? Is there still something we must do for our salvation? For Anselm, God says, “accept my only-begotten Son,” and Christ says, “take me and redeem thyself” (2.16) but this does not fully explain how Christ’s work is applied to us. What is missing is a strong emphasis on our covenantal union with Christ and Christ acting as our new covenant representative and substitute in his work for us. Could this be one of the reasons why later medieval theology took the idea of Christ meriting an excess of honor to argue for human merit and then inserted the church as the mediator of Christ’s work to sinners? Is it accidental that Thomas Aquinas moves in this direction? I don’t think so.
Aquinas interprets Christ’s excess of honor as a work of supererogation, i.e., a work that goes beyond what is required. As Gregg Allison explains, “For Anselm, this had meant that Christ’s infinite satisfaction through his death could be applied to the infinite penalty accumulated by humanity’s sin. But Aquinas viewed both the life and the death of Christ as a ‘superabundant atonement for the sins of the human race.’”[3] Also, in regard to how the atonement is applied to us, Aquinas argues that it is “through faith and charity and the sacraments of faith,”[4] which introduces human cooperation as necessary for salvation alongside Christ’s atonement. Specifically, the sacraments include baptism, which removes original sin and actual sins committed before baptism, and penance, which deals with our actual sins subsequent to baptism. In salvation, then, Christ’s superabundant work pays for our eternal punishment, but alongside his work, our actual sins are forgiven by our participation in the sacraments mediated by the church. In Aquinas, the church’s role fills the vacuum left unexplained by Anselm on how Christ pays for our sin and how it is applied through faith in Christ. As Allison rightly observes, it is not difficult to see “how this idea [of human merit] could turn into a system of human works designed to merit the grace and forgiveness of God.”[5]
3. Gregg Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 398. See Aquinas, Summa Theologica, pt. 3, q. 48, art. 2.
4. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, pt. 3, q. 49, art. 3.
5. Allison, Historical Theology, 398.
Second, and building on the first point, for all of Anselm’s stress on the incarnation he fails to “connect” Christ with his people. He fails to place Christ’s work within its biblical, covenantal context, and as such, he loses the sense of covenant representation and substitution. He doesn’t connect the life and death of Christ as the obedient incarnate Son who acts on our behalf as our mediator. By not thinking of Christ’s obedience as the head of the new covenant, Anselm loses the biblical rationale of how Christ’s righteousness becomes ours, how his death fully satisfies God’s righteous demands, and how we benefit from his entire work.
As noted, I am convinced that these latter points opened the door to the sacramental theology of Rome, which the Reformation thankfully countered. The Reformers returned to Scripture and placed Christ and his work within the biblical storyline and covenantal categories to reclaim the gospel of God’s grace in Christ via the Reformation solas—we are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Jesus Christ our Lord has acted for us as our covenant head, representative, and substitute. In solidarity with his people, Christ alone has accomplished and secured everything necessary and sufficient for our salvation. But with that said, Anselm’s work continues to this day as one of the most significant theological works on the atonement, and as such, it continues to be a “must read” for today’s church.
