Anselm's Commercial Atonement - An Outstanding Theory?

There have been quite a few theories to explain the Biblical doctrine of the Atonement in church history. In this blog post, we will examine Anselm’s theory and see why it ought to be rejected.

Anselm argued that because of our sin we have brought great dishonour to God. Because of this, man had to either restore to God His honour that he had besmirched and offer compensation; or God would show that He was still Lord over man, and thus protect His honour by subjecting man to punishment. However, there was a problem. What could man offer to God as compensation? Anselm argued that man could only offer as compensation something that is not already owed by the person compensation is being paid to. But there is nothing man has that is not owed by God. He cannot offer obedience, as this is demanded by God. Nor could he offer repentance, as this too is demanded by God. What man could have offered was his life; however, Anselm says that man has forfeited his life through sin. 

This is where the need for the Atonement comes in. Because Christ was sinless, He did not owe His life to God as a debt and therefore could freely offer it to God as satisfaction. Moreover, because of the worth of a divine life, it was more than adequate compensation to cover the sins of the whole world.

There are many objections that can pitted against Anselm’s theory. There, is, however a common one that is no good. We will examine this first. It is said by some that Anselm is portraying God as a feudal monarch whose wounded ego demands some sort of satisfaction before he can forgive those that have offended His honour. The critics argue that it would be far greater if God magnanimously forgave the insult without demanding satisfaction. After all, are we not encouraged in the Bible to forgive those who have harmed us, even without reparations? 

However, this criticism will not work for two reasons. First, as has been noted by William Lane Craig (See his Cambridge Elements book on the Atonement), the fundamental concern of Anselm is not with God’s honour but with God’s justice and its moral demands. Indeed, sin is something that brings dishonour to God; yet, the reason why God cannot just overlook the offence is because it would be unjust to do so. Anselm says that if sin goes passed unpunished ‘there will be no difference between the guilty and the not guilty; and this is unbecoming to God.’ (I.12) It would make ‘injustice like God.’ The reason, therefore, why God cannot just compassionately forgive sin is because ‘such compassion on the part of God is wholly contrary to the divine justice, which allows nothing but the punishment as the recompense of sin’ (I.24). But how is it that justice determines what God does? Why does God, who is all powerful, not just ignore justice and forgive the injury done to Him? In response to this question, Anselm says that ‘There is nothing more just than supreme justice, which... is nothing else but God Himself.’ In other words, Anselm declares God to be justice itself, and God cannot be inconsistent with Himself. (I.12) 

Second, even if we grant the critics the possibility of God forgoing justice that He may forgive, this would not deal with the problem of shame. Now, there are some (See Stump’s work on the Atonement) that would claim that Anselm’s theory is not concerned with shame. I disagree. There are certainly implicit references to shame in his Cur Deus Homo (see Ch. XIV), and more explicit references in his other work: Anselm’s Meditations and Prayers make mention to shame. And this would make sense given the honour-shame culture Anselm was writing in. 

If God were to just forgive us without exacting punishment, then we would still feel ashamed. We would know that we had wronged God and His honour and had not done anything to make reparations. This would make it unbearable to dwell in God’s presence. The sacrifice of Christ allows us to offer to God something as a reparation for our sin and thus deal with the shame that we feel for having wronged God. And this is something that cannot be dealt with if God just forgives us without reparation, unless we adopt some counterintuitive position, such as God wiping our memories etc.

  

There are, however, real concerns with Anselm’s theory of the Atonement. To begin, Anselm's theory is viewed in entirely a commercial framework. What is unjust on Anselm’s theory is that there is a debt to be paid to God; God has been deprived of something that was His and justice demands that this is restored: ‘and this (what is just) is the sole and complete debt of honour which we owe to God’ (I.11 - Parenthesis Mine). This can be illustrated via the following analogy. Suppose that I steal £50 from Timothy. Now, on the restorative theory of justice advocated by Anselm, justice demands that I pay back Timothy the £50 that I stole and offer a bit more to make amends for the losses to him that were caused by my theft of the £50; as long as I restore and fix the damages caused, justice as been served.

Anselm is not without Biblical support for this ‘commercial view’ of the Atonement. Various Biblical passages liken the substitutionary atonement of Christ to debt or pecuniary payment. The Bible speaks of man being ransomed by Christ (1 Tim. 2.6), that man was bought with a price (1 Cor. 6.20), and that God removed the ordinances [which some interpret as debts] that stood against us (Col. 2.16). The question is how far are we to push this language? For pecuniary language can be used metaphorically, as when we speak of a criminal sentenced to gaol ‘paying for his crime’. So, are these verses to be taken literally, or metaphorically referring to some penalty or punishment that Christ had to pay? The issue with taking these verses literally, as Anselm does, is that God’s justice is then just concerned with the payment of debt — the balancing of scales — and not with condemnation being expressed against the act of the crime itself. In other words, Anselm’s theory fails to take into account the need for punishment for sin. Yet, there are many places in the Bible that portray the retributivist nature of God, and God’s displeasure at the act of sinning: ‘And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity’. (Isaiah 13.11; c.f. Psalm 5.5) 

A further consequence of Anselm’s lack of emphasis on punishment is that it does not adequately take into account the need of Christ’s suffering on the cross. Anselm does attempt to offer a reason for why the suffering of Christ was necessary. Anselm’s reason is that because man fell so easily, it is only fitting that Christ suffer and pay compensation with difficulty. Although, it is not immediately clear how this follows. On the commercial view that has been presented by Anselm, it seems that what matters is that God’s honour is restored with compensation, and that this is done by offering something up of great value voluntarily - a divine life in the case of Christ. But how this is done should be irrelevant. Going back to our previous example, if I owe Timothy £50, plus compensation, what matters is whether or not the sum is paid, not how it is paid. (We will assume I am not breaking the law, like robbing a bank etc. in order to pay Timothy.)

Now, it might be said that it brings more honour to God if Christ offers up something with difficulty than not with difficulty. Indeed, it is a greater honour to me if a low value gift is given to me by someone who had to spend a great part of his income to provide for it, than if it was given to me by someone with great wealth for whom the gift was a mere drop in the ocean of his income. The problem with this, however, is that Christ is worth such an infinite value that the offering of His death alone would be enough to satisfy the honour of God, without the need for the death to be difficult and painful. To argue that Christ’s life is not enough unless He suffers with pain and difficulty undermines His infinite value. Moreover, close reflection reveals that the reason why we value those who do things for us that are difficult is because they chose to still do that thing for us despite the fact that the act was difficult, and not because the act was difficult per se. It brings me no greater honour if my friend decides to do me a favour and makes it purposely difficult for himself than if he just took an easier option available to him. If I ask my friend to buy milk for my fridge — because I am too busy writing an essay to go myself — I will not be more thankful to him if he chose to walk to the grocers three miles away when he could have gone to the grocers half a mile away. Similarly, if it was possible for Christ to offer His life up in a simpler, easier way, it is not more honourable if He chooses to offer His life with great difficulty.

Another problem with Anselm’s "debt" theory of the Atonement is that it falls prey to Socinian objections. Faustus Socinus, the leader of this movement and from whom it derives its name, forwarded the following two objections against a commercial view of the Atonement, in his work On Jesus Christ Our Saviour (1578). 

First, he argued that if we view the Atonement as a debt, then it becomes difficult to see why anything is demanded of us once Christ has paid it. If Christ’s death was the payment for sin, then why do we need to repent and profess faith in Christ? The debt has already been paid and I should be free to go to heaven without God requiring repentance. (Gnomes 1990, III.9) Going back to our analogy, if Daniel pays Timothy my debt of £50, then Timothy has no right to demand any more money in relation to this debt from me. 

Second, he objected that a purely commercial view of the Atonement weakens the love and forgiveness of God: if all the Atonement does is pay my debt, then there is no forgiveness on God’s behalf - it is just a balancing of the scales. When I pay a creditor my debt, he does not forgive me. (Gnomes 1990, III.9) Yet, the Bible speaks of God as forgiving our debts: in the parable of the two debtors, the debt is not paid but forgiven by the master. (Lk. 7.36-50) 

It is likely that it is because of these problems that Anselm moved away from pressing his commercial view of the Atonement too hard and instead, inconsistently, moved to argue that what Christ paid was not literally our debt and the compensation required; but rather that we are to view Christ as offering something to God that was not demanded of Him, and because of this, He gains a reward for His service, and that because Christ as part of the Triune Godhead is in need of nothing, wishes that God gives this reward to mankind in the form of absolving him of his guilt.

This understanding, however, does not fit in with the rest of Anselm’s system, viz. Christ became man to pay off man’s debt and restore honour to God. If Christ’s death is not a payment of our literal debt but an earning of a reward that can be applied to anyone, then it becomes irrelevant whether Christ was man or not. Why did God have to become a man for the reward to be passed onto man? We could also ask why this reward could not have been given to the fallen angels. Anselm argues that this reward cannot be passed onto angels because Christ did not take the nature of an angel. (Ch. II.19) But how does this follow? If I earn a reward for a service I do, surely I should be able to bestow it upon whom I like whether it be a fellow human being or my pet cat, Miaow. Of course, it may be the case that the reward is specific to a particular class. A reward of a new book is not going to be much use to Miaow - at least not in the sense it is intended to be. However, it is difficult to see how the reward of having one’s debt canceled is specific to any particular class. An angel can make use of this reward just as much as I can. 

Additionally, it is unjust that a debt that justice dictates must be paid can be forgiven because of an action, which is not the paying of this debt, performed by another person. Again returning to our analogy, if justice dictates that I should pay Timothy back my £50 I owe him, then it would be unjust for him to wipe this debt as a reward for something his loyal servant decided to do. 

As we have seen, then, while Anselm’s theory might have prima-facie Biblical support, for the Bible does speak of the Atonement in pecuniary terms, it has serious problems when examined at a deeper level. These problems mean that Anselm’s theory of the Atonement, as presented in Cur Deus Homo, is inadequate. There may be amendments that can be made to his theory to mitigate these problems, but it is beyond this blog post to discuss such attempts here or other theories of the Atonement that might be offered as an alternative.