By John R. W. Stott (1921–2011)
In his book The Cross of Christ (IVP Books, 1986), John Stott gives a “layman’s introduction” to the monumental work Cur Deus Homo? (“Why Did God become Man?”), written by Anselm (1033–1109), the archbishop of Canterbury. Perhaps no book in history made the connection between Christmas and Good Friday, the Incarnation and the Atonement, more strongly than this one! Stott reminds us that though Anselm’s scholastic reasoning caused him at times to wander beyond the boundaries of the biblical revelation, his ideas continue to be of great importance for serious Christians today. The following article is taken from pages 118–120 of Stott’s book and has been slightly abridged and edited.
In the eleventh century, Anselm of Canterbury offered a fresh approach to understanding the atonement. In his important book Cur Deus Homo? he made a systematic exposition of the cross as a satisfaction of God’s offended honor. James Denney called Anselm’s book “the truest and greatest book on the atonement that has ever been written.”
Anselm was a godly Italian who first settled in Normandy and then in 1093, following the Norman Conquest, was appointed archbishop of Canterbury. He has been described as the first representative of medieval “scholasticism,” which was an attempt to reconcile philosophy and theology, Aristotelian logic and biblical revelation. His overriding concern was to be “agreeable to reason.”
In Cur Deus Homo? Anselm’s great treatise on the relationship between the Incarnation and the Atonement, he agrees that the devil needed to be overcome, but rejects the patristic ransom theories on the ground that “God owed nothing to the devil but punishment.” Instead, humans owed something to God, and this is the debt that needed to be repaid. Anselm defines sin as “not rendering to God what is his due,” namely the submission of our entire will to his. To sin is, therefore, to “take away from God what is his own,” which means to steal from him and so to dishonor him. If anybody imagines that God can simply forgive us in the same way that we are to forgive others, he has not yet considered the seriousness of sin. Being in inexcusable disobedience of God’s known will, sin dishonors and insults him, and “nothing is less tolerable than that the creature should take away from the Creator the honor due to him, and not repay what he takes away.” God cannot overlook this. “It is not proper for God to pass by sin thus unpunished.” It is more than improper; it is impossible. “If it is not becoming to God to do anything unjustly or irregularly, it is not within the scope of his liberty or kindness or will to let go unpunished the sinner who does not repay to God what he has taken away.”
So what can be done? If we are ever to be forgiven, we must repay what we owe. Yet we are incapable of doing this, either for ourselves or for other people. Our present obedience and good works cannot make satisfaction for our sins, since these are required of us anyway. So, we cannot save ourselves. Nor can any other human being save us, since “one who is a sinner cannot justify another sinner.” Hence the dilemma with which Book One ends: “man the sinner owes to God, on account of sin, what he cannot repay, and unless he repays it he cannot be saved.”
Near the beginning of Book Two, the only possible way out of the human dilemma is unfolded: “there is no-one who can make this satisfaction except God himself. But no-one ought to make it except man.” Therefore, “it is necessary that one who is God-man should make it.” A being who is God and not man, or man and not God, or a mixture of both and therefore neither man nor God, would not qualify. “It is needful that the very same Person who is to make this satisfaction be perfect God and perfect man, since no-one can do it except one who is truly God, and no-one ought to do it except one who is truly man.” This leads Anselm to introduce Christ. He was (and is) a unique Person, since in him “God the Word and man meet.” He also performed a unique work, for he gave himself up to death—not as a debt (since he was sinless and therefore under no obligation to die) but freely for the honor of God.
The greatest merits of Anselm’s exposition are that he perceived clearly the extreme gravity of sin (as a willful rebellion against God in which the creature affronts the majesty of his Creator), the unchanging holiness of God (as unable to condone any violation of his honor), and the unique perfections of Christ (as the God-man who voluntarily gave himself up to death for us).
This article was first published in The High Calling, November-December 2018 issue.