Anselmian Atonement and Restorative Justice

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Abstract

Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo certainly is one of the most influential treatises on atonement theology in the history of reflection on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Since the Reformation Anselm’s “satisfaction” model of atonement came to be understood in terms of a ‘retributive’ philosophy of justice according to which the wrong of an offence can only be undone by making the offender to bear the appropriate punishment. The idea is that only by inflicting penal hardship on the offender will the balance of justice be restored. Reading Anselm’s “satisfaction” model of atonement in such retributive terms results in a logic according to which the sin of humankind against God can only be “atoned” for through the death penalty of sinful humankind, a penalty which Jesus Christ vicariously took upon himself.
I will argue that such a logic misconceives the view on justice endorsed by Anselm. For Anselm “satisfaction” is not identical to “punishment” and his arguments about God’s insulted honor, human debt, and the merit of Christ’s suffering have no background in an alleged medieval “feudalism,” but in Anselm’s Benedictine worldview. I will use insights from moral philosophy, philosophy of law, and moral psychology to explain and develop the conception of justice that grounds Cur Deus Homo. It will appear that this conception is much better grasped in terms of what is nowadays known as a restorative philosophy of justice, which understands atonement as at-one-ment, downplaying the role of retribution. I will argue that Anselm’s model, as it rests on Benedictine spirituality such as expressed in Saint Benedict’s monastic Rule, reflects such a restorative conception of justice, and not the retributive conception of “penal substitution atonement.”
Original languageEnglish
Article number4
Pages (from-to)67-92
Number of pages25
JournalThe Anselm Journal
Volume18
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2022

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