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Necessity and Unfittingness in Anselm's Cur Deus Homo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Michael Root
Michael Root
Affiliation:
Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, South Carolina 29203
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Extract

In his Cur Deus Homo Anselm of Canterbury immediately tells the reader the question he is seeking to answer. The first chapter of the first book is entitled: ‘The central problem governing the entire work’ [Questio de qua totum opuspendet 47.4 (49)]. In the first speech of this chapter, the problem is succinctly stated:

I mean the following problem: For what reason and on the basis of what necessity [qua scilicet ratione vel necessitate] did God become a man and by His death restore life to the world (as we believe and confess), seeing that He could have accomplished this restoration either by means of some other persons (whether angelic or human) or else by merely willing it? [48.2–5 (49)].

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , May 1987 , pp. 211 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1987

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References

1 Hereafter referred to as CDH. References to CDH will indicate the book and chapter number, the page and line number in S. Anselmi Opera Omnia, Vol. II, ed. Schmitt, F. S. (Edinburgh: 1946, Thomas NelsonGoogle Scholar) and in parentheses the page number in the English translation cited, Anselm of Canterbury, Vol. III, ed. and trans. Hopkins, Jasper & Richardson, Herbert (Toronto: Edwin Mellen Press, 1976Google Scholar).

2 As Hopkins, Jasper, A Companion to the Study of St Anselm (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972), p. 50Google Scholar, note 28, states, Anselm uses convenit and decet interchangeably for ‘it is fitting’. Oportet ‘appears to be used sometimes as a substitute for necesse est and sometimes as a substitute for convenit and decet’.

3 See, e.g., McIntyre, John, St Anselm and his Critics: A Reinterpretation of the Cur Deus Homo (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1954), p. 59Google Scholar; and Kohlenberger, Helmut, Similitudo und Ratio: Ueberlegungen zur Methode bei Anselm von Canterbury, Münchener philosophische Forschungen, 4 (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, 1972), p. 70Google Scholar.

4 von Harnack, Adolf, History of Dogma, 6, tr. Buchanan, Neil (Boston: Little, Brown, 1899), p. 71Google Scholar.

5 Roques, René, ‘La Methode de Saint Anselme dans le <Cur Deus Homo>’, Aquinas, 5 (1962), 16Google Scholar. The same conclusion is reached by Hammer, Felix, Genugtuung und Heil: Absichl, Sinn und Grenzen der Erloesungslehre Anselms von Canterbury, Wiener Beitraege zur Theologie, XV (Wien: Verlag Herder, 1967), p. 109Google Scholar; by Kessler, Hans, Die theologische Bedeutung des Todes Jesu: Eine traditions-geschichtliche Untersuchung (Dusseldorf: Patmos Veriag, 1970), p. 147Google Scholar; by Haubst, Rudolf, ‘Anselms Satisfaktionslehre Einst and Heute’, Anakcta Anselmiana, IV, 2, ed. Helmut Kohlenberger (Frankfurt: Minerva, 1975), p. 150Google Scholar; and by Kienzler, Klaus, Glauben und Denken bei Anselm von Canterbury (Freiburg: Herder, 1981), p. 359Google Scholar. G. R. Evans has argued convincingly that rational necessity for Anselm has less to do with syllogistic demonstration than with ‘seeing’ the rightness of a theological principle. See ‘St Anselm's Analogies’, Vivarium 14 (1976), 81–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘The Cur Deus Homo: The Nature of St Anselm's Appeal to Reason’. Studia Theologica, 31 (1977), 33–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anselm and Talking about God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 134, 158Google Scholar; Anselm and a New Generation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 63, 98Google Scholar. A similar argument is made by von Balthasar, Hans Urs, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, Vol. II, Studies in Theological Style: Clerical Styles, trans, by Louth, Andrew, McDonagh, Francis, and McNeil, Brian, ed. by Riches, John (San Francisco: Ignatius Press; New York: Crossroad, 1984), p. 222fGoogle Scholar.

6 See previous note.

7 The one place where Anselm apparently moved from fittingness to necessity is in II, 8. Anself there presents a complex argument involving elements of unfittingness, selfevidence, and fittingness. The argument runs: (1) It is unfitting, and thus impossible, for the incarnate God who makes satisfaction not to take his humanity from the race of Adam. (2) It is self-evidently more pure and honorable to derive from a man alone or woman alone than from sexual intercourse. (3) Since God has already made a human from a man alone (Eve from Adam) ‘nothing is more fitting’ [nil convneientius; 104.7 (105)] than for God to display the divine power by now making a human from a woman alone. (4) It is self-evidently worthier to derive from a virgin than a non-virgin. Thus, ‘we must affirm, without any doubt, the fittingness of the God-man's being born from a virgin’ [sed sine omni dubitatione asserendum est quia de virgine deum-hominem nasci oportet; 104.10–11 (105)]. Anselm then echoes the discussion of necessity and fittingness in I, 4 by asking Boso: ‘Is what we have said something solid [solidum]? Or is it like a cloud, the empty kind of thing for which you said unbelievers reproach us?’ [104.13–14 (106)]. Boso replies: ‘Nothing is more solid’ [Nihil solidius; 104.15 (106)]. Anselm then states: ‘Therefore, do not paint on an empty fiction [fictam vanitatem] but paint on the solid truth [solidam veritatem] and affirm that the following is especially fitting’ [valde convenit; 104.16–17 (106)]. A series of typologies follows. Boso concludes the chapter with: ‘These pictures are very beautiful and reasonable’ [valde pulchrae et rationabiles; 104.28 (106)]. While here Anselm does blur the necessity/fittingness distinction, one must remember that the ‘something solid’ is the entire argument, of which fittingness is only one part. While language of ‘solid truth’ is employed that echoes 1, 4, necessity is not explicitly ascribed to this argument. More significantly, the chapter affirms the basic distinction between typological fittingness and the something solid which it requires as a foundation. The chapter affirms the distinction even while it blurs it.

8 That in relation to God considerations of unfittingness produce necessary arguments but considerations of fittingness do not has been noted by Hopkins, p. 51, and Kohlenberger, pp. 71, 213, note 50. Nevertheless, Hopkins does little with this observation. Kohlenberger–s brief discussion produces a highly schematic picture of the relation of fittingness, unfittingness, and necessity in which the first two are no more than signs of the latter, which cannot be constituted by either fittingness or unfittingness. Kohlenberger's scheme elaborates the logical structure that we might produce if we systematized Anselm, but it is not clear that this is the structure that Anselm himself provides. What is striking in CDH is how often Anselm takes it as selfevident that a particular state of affairs can only be unfittingly applied to God. Kohlenberger's scheme loses the aesthetic overtones noted by Evans and Balthasar that ‘unfittingness’ introduces into necessity.

9 In the development of his understanding of God and creation, we see that Anselm's argument is dependent on a wide range of presuppositions. In no meaningful sense is the argument a priori. On the role of presuppositions in Anselm's argument, see Roques, p. 4; Hammer, p. 98; Hopkins, p. 69. Even F. S. Schmitt, who contends that ‘Voraussetzungslosigkeit’ is a mark of Anselm's method, must admit that such does not obtain absolutely in CDH. (See ‘Die wissenschaftliche Methode in Anselm's “Cur Deus Homo”’, in Spicilegium Beccense, I, Congrès International du IXe Centenaire de L'Arrivéee D'Anselme au Bee [Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1959], p. 356). In CDH, as elsewhere, Anselm argues from premises he believes are accepted by both himself and the intended audience. (See Mclntyre, pp. 38, 48.) In CDH these assumptions appear to be those shared with a theist who believes that humanity is created for some sort of beatitude. Roques (pp. 22ff.) argues convincingly that the disputants for whom Boso stands proxy are Jews and Muslims, not unbelievers in a general or classical sense. Whether or not Anselm believed that all presuppositions appealed to in CDH were derivable from reason alone, he did not in fact so derive them but simply assumed them.

10 Fairweather, Eugene R., ‘“Iustitia Dei” as the “Ratio” of the Incarnation’, in Spicilegium Beccense, I, p. 328Google Scholar.

11 In the Monologion Anselm spells out the God-world relation that forms the basis for this idea. See ss. 10, 12, 35, 36 (Anselm of Canterbury, Hopkins & Richardson, Vol. I, pp. 19, 21, 51, 52). On the rectitudo of the world reflecting that of God, see Crouse, R. D., ‘The Augustinian Background of St Anselm's Concept of Iustitia’, Canadian Journal of Theology 4 (1958), 111–119Google Scholar.

12 Anselm of Canterbury, Hopkins, and Richardson, , Vol. II, p. 96Google Scholar.

13 The concept of iustitia is thus derived by Anselm from his ontology. This derivation was outlined by Hermann, Rudolf, ‘Anselms Lehre vom Werke Christi in ihrer bleibenden Bedeutung’, Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie 1 (1923), 376–396Google Scholar. See also Komonchak, Joseph A., ‘Redemptive Justice: An Interpretation of the Cur Deus Home’, Dunwoodie Review 12 (1972), 35–55Google Scholar.

14 CDH, I, 11 (68.12 [67]); De Veritate, §10, in Anselm of Canterbury, Hopkins & Richardson, II, p. 91.

15 The interweaving of justice and blessedness is clear in the opening line of CDH, Book II: ‘We ought not to doubt that God created rational nature just in order for it to be happy [beata] through enjoying him’ [97.4–5 (98)]. This aspect of iustitia is particularly well discussed by Hans Kessler, p. 120.

16 The exceptions come when Anselm directly derives necessity from immutability in II, 5 (100.24–28 [102]) and II, 10 (108.8 [110]). The positive statement on the basis of the divine attributes would seem to be logically prior in that any explanation of why change or failure is unfittingly ascribed to God would need to appeal to it. At this point, then, Kohlenberger's assertion that considerations of fittingness remain signs of a distinct and more fundamental logical relation (see note 8 above) would be correct. Anselm himself, however, does not seem concerned to spell out such a derivation. The best explanation seems to be that by stating the argument in the negative form Anselm makes it congruent to the many negative arguments from unfittingness that play a decisive role throughout CDH.

17 See the excellent discussion of Anselm's hypothetical method in CDH in Evans, Anselm and a New Generation, 175–186.

18 Anselm is concerned in these chapters with this narrowly specified problem, not the more general problem of the relation of justice and mercy as divine attributes. The more general problem Anselm had already addressed in Proslogion §§9–11. The general solution there proposed, however, does not solve the particular problem posed in CDH 1, 12.

19 While the language of unfittingness is not explicitly used here, the argument is similar. Boso accepts as obvious that the pearl should be cleaned before being placed in the jewel chest. He ‘dare not deny’ (85.24) the similarity [similitudinem] to God restoring humanity. Boso's conclusion is couched in the language used in previous arguments from unfittingness: God would seem either to fail or to regret the original intention (85.25–27) if the disorder is not righted.

20 That these are the only two options Anselm takes to be self-evident.

21 Here the distinction made above between the restoration of the right order of creation and the realization of the intent to bless humanity is important. Considered only in relation to the former, punishment and satisfaction are equally possible alternatives.Punishment is excluded because, as Anselm defines it, it necessarily blocks the divine plan to elevate humanity to the Heavenly City.

22 In 1, 5 Anselm had already noted that if some other creature were to redeem us, we would then be that creature's servant. ‘And if so, then man would not at all have been restored to the dignity which he would have had if he had not sinned. For man … was meant to be the servant only of God’ (52.20–22 [54]). Again, the criterion is that the original creative intent must be realized without compromise.

23 Anselm's impatient response to Boso's request for further elaboration (1, 25; 95.18–96.5 [96f.]) supports the reading of Book II as a redescription of what Anselm believes he has already shown in Book I.

24 Anselm has not shown the necessity of this means of satisfaction. He has eliminated the other obvious candidates and shown that this candidate meets the requirements, but he has not shown that all other logically possible candidates have been excluded. Perhaps he senses this, for immediately following the quoted paragraphs he spins out a series of typologies to show that ‘this view agrees with reason’ (rationabiliter convenieat; 111.6, 85–14 [113]).

25 Satisfaction is a necessary but not sufficient condition of this elevation for Anselm. If it were a sufficient condition, then all of humanity would be redeemed (see Kessler, p. 104). The individual must now draw near to God. That Christ plays a role in our drawing near can be seen in Anselm's Prayer to Christ [ see The Prayers and Meditations of St Anselm, trans. Ward, Benedicta Sr. (New York: Penguin, 1973), p. 94Google Scholar: ‘My soul waits for the inbreathing of your grace in order to be sufficiently penitent to lead a better life’ In CDH the post-satisfaction role of Christ is almost entirely limited to that of an example (II, 18; 127.17–22 [130]). However, over a century ago Ritschl, Albrecht, A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, trans. Black, John S. (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1872), p. 34Google Scholar, noted the shift in the last pages of CDH from the concept of satisfaction to the subtly but significantly different concept of merit. Hans Kessler (pp. 105, 114) finds in one reference to merit the role of Christ in aiding the Christian to imitate him: ‘They would imitate Him in vain if they would not share in His merit’ [II, 19; 130.31–32 (134)]. In context, however, it is at best unclear whether Anselm is here referring to Christ's aid in our life or to the pointlessness of imitation unless satisfaction is first made. What is clear, however, is that satisfaction is not the entirety of Anselm's soteriology, even if it is its heart, as the Meditation on Human Redemption shows.

26 On this sense of divine freedom in Anselm, see Mclntyre, p. 149.

27 This second sense is stressed in discussions of Anselm on divine freedom by Hermann, p. 382, and by Kessler, p. 93.

28 On the narrative structure of most Christian soteriologies, see my ‘The Narrative Structure of Soteriology’, Modern Theology, 2 Jan., 1986), 145–158.

29 This problem is discussed in Kessler, pp. 126, 148, and Ott, Heinrich, ‘Anselms Versoehnungslehre’, Theologische Zeiischrift 13 (1957), 193Google Scholar.

30 I received helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay from William C. Placher and James J. Buckley.