Voices from the Past: Meditations on the Person and Work of Christ
Anselm became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070 at the age of 56. He was born in 1033 in Aosta, a village hidden in the Italian Alps. Anselm made considerable contributions to theological thinking in a number of different areas. Regarding faith and knowledge he said, “I believe in order that I may know.” He also developed the ontological argument for the existence of God: everyone has an idea of a supreme being in his mind, which must necessarily correspond with reality. But it is his teaching on the doctrine of the atonement for which he is best known; in Cur Deus Homo he presents the “Satisfaction Theory” of the atonement and put to bed the Ransom Theory which had been held for so long. In this little book he brought together the incarnation and the death of Christ and taught that Christ paid the debt of sin that we had incurred and satisfied the justice of God.
Reading “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
Now we have found the compassion of God that appeared lost to you when we were considering God’s holiness and man’s sin; we have found it, I say, so great and so consistent with his holiness, as to be incomparably above anything that can be conceived.
For what compassion can excel these words of the Father, addressed to the sinner doomed to eternal torments and having no way of escape: “Take my only begotten Son and make him an offering for yourself”; or these words of the Son: “Take me, and ransom your souls.” For these are the voices they utter, when inviting and leading us to faith in the Gospel. Or can anything be more just than for him to remit all debt since he has earned a reward greater than all debt, if given with the love that he deserves?
Anselm of Canterbury: Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man)
