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{"id":17896,"date":"2016-02-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=2718"},"modified":"2016-02-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T00:00:00","slug":"what-anselm-didnt-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/02\/what-anselm-didnt-do\/","title":{"rendered":"What Anselm Didn’t Do"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Harnack didn\u2019t much like Anselm\u2019s Cur Deus Homo<\/em>. Toward the end of his summary and critique in History of Dogma, vol. 6<\/a>, he pays Anselm a back-handed compliment: \u201cperhaps no one can frame a better, who isolates the death of Christ from His life, and wishes to see in this death something else than the consummation of the \u2018service\u2019 which He rendered throughout His life<\/em>\u201d (70).<\/p>\n

For all his aversion to Anselm, his summary of the treatise is accurate, and especially helpful in laying out what Anselm did not intend to accomplish: <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is (1) no doctrine of reconciliation in the sense of showing how the opposition of will between God and sinful humanity is removed; it is (2) no theory of penal suffering, for Christ does not suffer penalty; the point rather at which penalty is inflicted is never reached, for God declares Himself satisfied with Christ\u2019s spontaneous acceptio <\/em>mortis<\/em>; just for this reason it is (3) no theory of vicarious representation in the strict sense of the term, for Christ does not suffer penalty in our stead, but rather provides a benefit, the value of which is not measured by the greatness of sin and sin\u2019s penalty, but by the value of His life, and which God accepts, as it weighs more for Him than the loss which He has suffered through sin (between sin, therefore, and the value of the life of Christ there exists only an external relation; both are infinite, but the latter is more infinite; hence it more than satisfies God); it is, finally (4), not a theory which guarantees to the individual that he really <\/em>becomes saved; it aims rather at only showing for all the possibility of their being saved<\/em>; whether they shall be saved depends \u2018on the measure in which men come to partake of so great grace, and on the degree in which they live under it,\u2019 i.e., on how they fulfill the commandments of holy scripture\u201d (63).<\/p>\n

Harnack\u2019s critique launches off from the last point, which he sees as the great flaw in Anselm: He cannot fulfill the \u201cfundamental question of religion,\u201d which is \u201cpersonal certitude of salvation\u201d (63). But the first points are worth contemplating, especially as Anselm is often seen as an advocate of penal substitution. For Anselm, though, satisfaction is not a fulfillment of the demand for punishment, but an alternative to punishment. Jesus restores God\u2019s damaged honor, so that punishment is not needed \u2013 not for Jesus or for anyone else.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"