Anselm and the method of scholasticism

Program / Course 12: Patristics and Historical Theology / Lesson 5.2

What you will learn

• Define scholasticism and describe its method of lecture, question and disputation.
• Explain Anselm’s motto, faith seeking understanding, and what it means.
• Summarize the argument of the Proslogion and the reply of Gaunilo.
• Describe Anselm’s account of the atonement in Cur Deus Homo and the main responses to it.

The big idea

Scholasticism was the way of studying theology in the medieval schools. It used careful definitions, objections and replies to examine what the church believes. Anselm of Canterbury (about 1033 to 1109) stands near its beginning. He began from faith and sought to understand it by reason, a program he summed up as faith seeking understanding. He gave the world a famous argument for the existence of God and a famous account of why God became man, and both are still discussed, admired and criticized.

Key terms

Scholasticism

The method and content of theology and philosophy taught in the medieval schools, marked by close reasoning, definition of terms and public debate.

Faith seeking understanding

Anselm’s description of theology: a believer, already trusting God, tries to grasp more fully what is believed.

Ontological argument

An argument that God’s existence follows from the very idea of God. The name was given later. Anselm himself called it a single argument in the Proslogion.

Satisfaction

In Anselm’s account of the atonement, the repayment owed to God’s honor for human sin, which Christ, being both God and man, was able to offer.

Quaestio and disputatio

Latin for question and dispute. The two formal methods of the medieval classroom.

Distinction

A scholastic tool for resolving a conflict by showing that a word has more than one meaning, so that two statements do not actually contradict each other.

Authority

In scholastic use, a trusted source such as Scripture, a council or a Father, whose statements carried weight in argument.

Background

Anselm was born around 1033 in Aosta, in the Alps, and became a monk at the abbey of Bec in Normandy, where he rose to be prior and then abbot. In 1093 he was made Archbishop of Canterbury, a post he held despite great reluctance. He quarreled with the English kings William Rufus and Henry I over the rights of the church and spent years in exile. He died in 1109.

His writings combine prayer and argument. He wrote the Monologion and the Proslogion in the 1070s, a dialogue on truth and others, and Cur Deus Homo, usually translated Why God Became Man, in the 1090s. He wrote as a monk, in the form of meditation, but his reasoning was close and precise, and it set a pattern for later scholastics.

Scholasticism as a school method took shape after him, and the thirteenth century is its high point. Anselm is a forerunner, not a typical example.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Faith seeking understanding

Anselm gave the Proslogion the first title Faith Seeking Understanding. He did not want to prove the faith to those outside, as if starting with doubt. He wanted to help believers see that what they hold is reasonable, and to taste the delight of understanding. He wrote that he did not seek to understand in order to believe, but believed in order to understand. This shaped Western theology: reason is not the judge of faith but its servant.

Step 2: The argument of the Proslogion

In chapter 2 of the Proslogion, Anselm defines God as that than which nothing greater can be conceived. Even the fool who says in his heart there is no God (Psalm 14:1) understands this phrase. So the idea exists in his mind. But something that exists in reality as well as in the mind is greater than something that exists only in the mind. If God existed only in the mind, then something greater could be conceived, namely a being that exists in reality. That contradicts the definition. So God must exist in reality.

A monk named Gaunilo replied on behalf of the fool. He argued that one could use similar reasoning to prove the existence of a perfect island, which is absurd. Anselm answered that the argument applies only to a being than which none greater can be conceived, and not to islands, which can always be improved. Philosophers have discussed the argument ever since. Aquinas rejected it, Descartes and Leibniz revised it, Kant criticized it, and modern philosophers such as Alvin Plantinga have defended a modal version. No agreement has been reached.

Step 3: Cur Deus Homo

In Why God Became Man, written as a dialogue, Anselm asks why God needed to become human to save the world. His answer starts from the idea of honor. Sin robs God of the honor due to him. Because the offense is against an infinite God, the debt is infinite, and no human being can repay it, yet it is human beings who owe it. Only one who is both God and man can offer something of infinite worth, by freely giving his life. That is Christ. So the incarnation and death of Christ make satisfaction for sin and open the way to forgiveness.

Anselm stresses that Christ’s death was not forced by the Father, nor a payment to the devil, a view found in some earlier writers. It was a free act of obedience that merits reward, which Christ passes to others.

Step 4: Responses to Anselm’s theory

Peter Abelard, a little later, argued that the cross shows God’s love in a way that moves people to love in return. This is often called the moral influence view. A twentieth century scholar, Gustaf Aulén, argued that the oldest Christian view was Christ’s victory over the powers of sin, death and the devil, and described Anselm’s view as a Latin departure. Some critics say that Anselm’s picture depends on a medieval world of feudal honor. Others reply that the theory is more about God’s justice and mercy than about feudalism.

Later Protestant writers developed penal substitution, in which Christ bears the penalty of sin. That differs from Anselm, who spoke of satisfaction, not punishment. Orthodox theologians generally prefer language of healing, victory and deification, and many are critical of satisfaction theories. Catholic theology has used Anselm and Aquinas’s refinement of his view. All major traditions affirm that Christ’s death was for sinners, but they describe how it works differently.

Step 5: The scholastic method in outline

After Anselm, the schools developed a standard pattern. A master read a text and commented on it. Difficult points were raised as questions. In a formal question, the master set out arguments on one side, then arguments on the other, gave his own answer, and finally replied to each of the first arguments. When authorities appeared to conflict, as in Abelard’s Sic et Non, the scholastic looked for a distinction that showed both could be true.

Critics, then and now, say this method can turn faith into a puzzle. Defenders reply that it trains honesty, because it requires stating the best objections before answering them.

1. What does it mean to begin from faith and then seek understanding?
2. Is the idea of a greatest conceivable being a coherent one? Why or why not?
3. What did Gaunilo’s island show, and did Anselm answer it?
4. Why would a theory of honor and debt feel natural in Anselm’s world and strange today?
5. Which account of the cross speaks most to you: satisfaction, moral influence or victory?
6. What are the strengths of stating objections before answering them?

Examples

Different perspectives

Catholic

Anselm is a saint and a Doctor of the Church. Catholic theology treats faith seeking understanding as a model, and Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio echoes the idea. Catholic teaching on the atonement draws on satisfaction while avoiding a narrow reading.

Orthodox

Many Orthodox theologians are wary of Anselm’s legal language and of the idea that God’s honor demands satisfaction. They emphasize the incarnation as healing human nature and the cross as victory over death. Some Orthodox scholars find more common ground than the contrast suggests.

Protestant

Reformed and many evangelical Protestants regard satisfaction as close to the biblical teaching, and they developed penal substitution from it. Many liberal Protestants prefer moral influence views. Anselm’s reasoning also influenced Protestant scholastics.

Philosophers and historians

Philosophers debate whether the ontological argument is valid and what it assumes. Historians discuss the extent of the feudal setting in Anselm’s thought. Some argue he was a rationalist, but most point to his insistence on faith first.

Why it matters

Anselm shows that a Christian can reason hard about God without turning faith into mere logic. His argument is still taught in philosophy courses, and his account of the cross is behind many sermons. Learning to see what is distinctive in his view also helps a reader notice what other traditions say differently.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. Is it necessary to believe before understanding, or can understanding come first?
2. What does it mean to speak of God as the greatest thing one can think of?
3. Which image of the cross have you heard most often in your tradition?
4. How do you feel about arguments that begin with objections?

Independent assignment

The argument in your own words

Read chapters 2 to 4 of the Proslogion. In your notebook, set out Anselm’s argument as a numbered list of steps, in your own words. Beside each step, mark whether you agree, disagree or are unsure, and write a sentence of explanation. End with a paragraph on whether the argument works as a prayer even if it fails as a proof. Aim for 400 to 600 words.

Further study

• Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion Read the preface and chapters 1 to 4.
• Anselm of Canterbury, Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man) Read Book 1, chapters 11 to 15, and Book 2, chapters 6 to 7.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Ontological Arguments A modern survey of the ontological argument and its critics.
• Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ Read selectively on how Christians have interpreted the cross.
• Psalm 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.
• Hebrews 10:10 Sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
• Romans 3:25 A propitiation through faith in his blood.