SOURCE: Brown, Montague. “Anselm's Argument for the Necessity of Incarnation.” Proceedings of the PMR Conference (1994): 39-52.

[In the following essay, Brown evaluates and ultimately rejects Anselm's rational claims in his Cur Deus Homo regarding the necessity of God's Incarnation as Christ in order to save humanity.]

In Cur deus homo, Anselm presents a rational argument for the necessity of the Incarnation, an argument suitable for convincing nonbelievers that the Incarnation is not only possible (that is, it does not involve a contradiction), but can be shown, by natural reason alone, to be necessary. Since there are many (believers as well as unbelievers) who do not think that reason can even prove the existence of God, such a claim as Anselm's is rather surprising. Is Anselm's claim credible? In our present inquiry, four subjects are involved—

(1) Anselm's overall project.

(2) The principles of Anselm's method in Cur deus homo.

(3) The outline of Anselm's argument for the necessity of the Incarnation. This argument involves two distinct proofs: that human beings require salvation, and that salvation could only come through God becoming man, suffering, and dying for us. (I shall touch on this second point briefly, but my focus will be on the first proof).

(4) Evaluation of Anselm's success in demonstrating the necessity of God becoming man.

I

What is Anselm's general project in Cur deus homo? In the short preface, Anselm indicates his intention to answer the objections of nonbelievers to the Incarnation, suffering, and death of Christ as God's way of saving us. Their main objection is that attributing such activities to God is an injustice and a dishonor to him.¹ If one says that this is the only way God could save us, one seems to be denying God's omnipotence.² If one will not deny his omnipotence and admits that God could have saved us another way, then one must deny his wisdom, for to go through all this suffering when a simple act of will would have been enough does not seem like a wise decision.³ If one says that he manifests his love for us by suffering and dying in such a manner, one must explain the appropriateness of these works.⁴ And finally, if one claims that God saves us by condemning an innocent man to death, it seems that God is not just and therefore not good.⁵ Asserting that “the will of God is never irrational,”⁶ Anselm believes that all these objections can be given reasonable answers without denying God's omnipotence, wisdom, or justice. Although Anselm himself, through his faith, is ready to accept the wisdom of God's actions, he does not think that a nonbeliever is without justification in asking such questions. So confident is Anselm in the reasonableness of Christ's Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection that he claims reasons sufficient to convince a nonbeliever that he should become a Christian. In short, his project is to show “how the death of the Son can be proved reasonable and necessary.”⁷

Anselm's arguments are founded on natural reason, without reference to Christ. The boldness of the project is striking. For how can natural reason prove something that is a free act of grace by the Creator? After all, Anselm admits that God can do things beyond our comprehending.⁸ Is it not misguided or even blasphemous to try to answer the questions of nonbelievers? Not necessarily! There is nothing wrong with asking questions; indeed, it is natural to be inquisitive. Questions cannot be evaded! If we suspect that God's actions cannot be defended, but continue to have faith in such a God, then we are in danger of blasphemy and idolatry. For to worship a being whom we suspect might not be all-powerful, all-wise and all-good is to worship an idol—a thing we must never do. To believe beyond all reason, simply because it is absurd, is to open up the possibility of pledging oneself to a being who may be of limited strength (and hence unable to save us), of limited wisdom (again unable to save us) or evil (then certainly not going to save us). Faith in God may reach beyond what we comprehend, but it must not contradict what we hold to be really wise and good; if it does, we are intentionally choosing ignorance and evil, and such a choice can never be justified.

Anselm himself is well aware of the dangers inherent in his project. He says in the preface that he only began the work because others entreated him so persistently, and that he had to finish it more quickly than he would have liked, in order to ensure that what has been copied and distributed would not be misunderstood. Beyond this he places his work under the jurisdiction of higher authorities.⁹ Anselm was not condemned for heresy. On the contrary, he was made saint and doctor of the Church. But is his argument for this central doctrine of the faith cogent?

II

Toward the middle of the first book Anselm lays out the basic principles of his intellectual method. As he is addressing the arguments of those who think that Christianity is unreasonable, Anselm presents the following principles not as theological guides but as the very stuff of natural reason.

I wish to have it understood between us that we do not admit anything in the least unbecoming to the Deity, and that we do not reject the smallest reason if it be not opposed by a greater. For as it is impossible to attribute anything in the least unbecoming to God; so any reason, however small, if not overbalanced by a greater, has the force of necessity.¹⁰

The first principle assumes that there is a God and that we know something about Him, at least what would be inappropriate to say about him. The second principle is a more general one about the nature of reason and demonstration.

Since the project of the Cur deus homo is to provide reasons for God becoming man, what are the reasons for believing that God exists? Anselm presents his demonstrations for God's existence in Monologion and Proslogion. In Monologion, Anselm traces out a basically Platonic argument for the existence of God.¹¹ Thus we are confronted in our experience with a hierarchy of good things. But things are said to be more or less good by being compared to something which is the highest good. Therefore, there is a highest good, which is the cause of goodness in all things, and which is good in itself.¹² Unlike Plato, however, Anselm goes on to attribute to this greatest being the status of creator.

Therefore, not only are all good things such through something that is one and the same, and all great things such through something that is one and the same; but whatever is, apparently exists through something that is one and the same.¹³

Thus, through our awareness of a variety of things at different levels of perfection, we come to know that there is a perfectly good being who is the source of everything else.

The argument in Proslogion is founded on the same insight into the hierarchy of actually existing things as the argument in Monologion. Recall the formulation of the first premise of the argument: “we believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived.”¹⁴ The very possibility of our understanding the term “greater” lies with our having an experience of things that vary in greatness. The idea of our having this notion a priori is doubtful. If I begin with myself alone, with no other object with which to compare myself, I shall not come up with a notion of “greater” on which I could base an argument such as Anselm's. And in the chapter following the formulation of the argument, Anselm says: “To thee alone, therefore, it belongs to exist more truly than all other beings, and hence in a higher degree than all others.”¹⁵ In short, it is prerequisite to saying that there is a “being than which none greater can be conceived” that one has recognized that there are other beings ranking in an order of perfection (greater and lesser) that one has conceived. And what more immediate storehouse is there than our experience of the things of this world? To quote Anselm from Monologion: “Since there are goods so innumerable, whose great diversity we experience by the bodily senses, and discern by our mental faculties, must we not believe that there is some one thing, through which all goods whatever are good?”¹⁶ Thus, we know of God that he exists as the perfectly good creator of all things. Reason has shown us this, and if we would be true to reason, we must not say anything that would be incompatible with there being a good creator.

When we turn to the second basic principle of Anselm's method, we are presented with a statement that overflows with confidence in reason: “Any reason, however small, if not overbalanced by a greater, has the force of necessity.”¹⁷ Elsewhere, Anselm goes so far as to speak of “infallible reason.”¹⁸ But why such unbounded confidence? Has Anselm not heard of all the reasons why we should doubt reason? Anselm's response to this aspect of the modern critical spirit would be to turn the question around and ask why the modern lack of confidence in reason? For, of course, there cannot be any good reasons to doubt reason. If reason is defective, then my propositions which say as much must also be called into question, for they are propositions of reason. Thus, exhaustion, or fear, or some other malaise—not rigorous thinking—gives rise to modern methodic doubt.

There are, as Anselm would certainly agree, grounds for caution in reasoning procedures. If, for example, we begin with the wrong facts through some defect in the senses, such as color-blindness, or if our capacity of reasoning is disrupted by some chemical imbalance in the brain or a blow to the head, then certainly we cannot accept as certain the conclusions of our reason. And of course passions can interrupt or skew our reasoning, as can also laziness or weariness. But it is reason that tells us that these are problems. They are not problems with reason itself, but with things getting in the way of reason.

Anselm would have no problem agreeing that our reason is not comprehensive. In speaking of the Incarnation, he writes: “Who, then, will dare to think that the human mind can discover how wisely, how wonderfully, so incomprehensible a work has been accomplished.”¹⁹ And later he says: “God can certainly do what human reason cannot grasp.”²⁰ But again, it is reason itself which tells us this. Reason tells us that God is the infinite source of all truth and that he is our creator. No creature can be infinite. Thus, the comprehensiveness of any creature's knowledge will of necessity be limited. But to say that human reason cannot comprehend all that is intelligible is not the same thing as saying that reason is defective. Recognizing that there really do not seem to be good reasons to doubt the faculty of reason itself, we can better understand the enthusiasm Anselm has for what he calls “infallible reason.”

Granted that reason on its own terms is infallible, there are many who would say that some of the conclusions of reason are merely fitting arguments while others are demonstrations. Typically, the division would be drawn between arguments which claim to prove the essential dogmas of the faith, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation (these are called fitting arguments), and those which claim to prove things that are not unique to the faith, such as mathematical proofs or metaphysical proofs of the existence of God or the immortality of the human soul (these are called demonstrations). Now it is quite obvious that Anselm does not draw the distinction between arguments of fittingness and demonstrations along the lines of what can be known about the faith and what can be known about the natural world. However, he does make a distinction between fitting arguments, which he says are just pictures, metaphors, “painting upon a cloud,”²¹ and rational arguments where reasons are given. The former are not sufficient to command our assent since they are not derived by logical analysis from evidence; but the latter, which are derived by logical analysis from evidence, should command our assent so long as there is no weightier evidence to the contrary. The challenge presented by Boso and the nonbelievers and taken up by Anselm is to provide a foundation in demonstration for the many beautiful pictures, and “harmonious proportions” of the faith.

Therefore, the rational existence of the truth must be shown, I mean, the necessity, which proves that God ought to or could have condescended to those things which we affirm. Afterwards, to make the body of the truth, so to speak, shine forth more clearly, these harmonious proportions, like pictures of the body, must be described.²²

The arguments he presents are not, to his mind, arguments of fittingness—but demonstrations. But are they philosophically respectable?

III

Laying out his argument shortly after the enunciation of his two principles, Anselm states: “Be it agreed between us that man was made for happiness, which cannot be attained in this life, and that no being can ever arrive at happiness, save by freedom from sin, and that no man passes this life without sin.”²³ Here Anselm makes two points: (1) man was created for happiness and (2) because of sin man cannot attain such beatitude. These assumptions are the premises of his argument which concludes by saying that the Incarnation, suffering, death and Resurrection of Christ were necessary. While Anselm puts off the discussion of the first premise (that man was made for happiness) until Book II, it is appropriate to look at the philosophical justification of this premise first since it is the major premise in the argument.

Anselm begins with the observable fact that human beings seek what is true and good. This is obvious, and to say such a thing does not seem too surprising. However, Anselm goes on to say that since we seek the true and the good, we shall find the ultimate truth and the ultimate good,²⁴ or at least some of us will.²⁵ A rational desire to know the good does not end until it reaches the ultimate good, for if a good is recognized as being a means to another good, we want the other good, or if a good is only a partial good, then we want the whole good. Now the good that is good in itself and wholly good is God. Therefore, we desire to know and love God.

Accepting this conclusion, nevertheless we must ask why, given our natural desire for God, we should achieve the object of our desire. Anselm's argument is curiously reminiscent of Aristotle's argument in De caelo where Aristotle says that nature does nothing in vain.²⁶ The difference is that Anselm, as might be expected since he believes in a creator and designer of nature, says that God (not nature) does nothing in vain. Why does Anselm say this? Surely, God is not under any compulsion at all to create anything, nor to bring things to fulfillment. While Anselm will grant this,²⁷ he does not think that there is any reason to believe that God will not bring his creatures to fulfillment, and he thinks that there are good reasons to believe that he will, based on the natures he has created. In fact, it is precisely because God creates under no compulsion, and precisely because his will is all-powerful, and his wisdom infinite, that human nature will achieve happiness. There is nothing in God's creation that takes him by surprise. One cannot even say that God is surprised by our sin. Thus, if he freely created us to be what we find ourselves to be, i.e., creatures who desire happiness which, for a rational creature, is to be in God's presence, there is no reason to believe that he will not fulfill his design. Nothing can stop him, not even our sin, and since he is perfectly wise and good, we have no reason to doubt that he wills the perfection of what he has made. In Anselm's own words:

It would not be proper for him to fail in his good design, because wanting nothing in himself he began it for our sake and not his own. For what man was about to do was not hidden from God at his creation; and yet by freely creating man, God as it were bound himself to complete the good which he had begun.²⁸

We turn now to sin, and the relation between sin and God's will and ability to save us (as Anselm puts it, the “necessity” of God saving us). Having established the fact that the human being was made for happiness, Anselm goes on to show that, because of sin, happiness is presently unavailable to the human being. Anselm does not attempt to answer the question “Do we sin?” probably because he takes this as immediately evident. No one always does what he knows he should. Anselm defines sin as “not to render to God his due.”²⁹ And what is due to God? Anselm answers that we owe everything to God. Since all that exists is created by God, everything is his. It is not that God needs anything, or that we hurt him in sinning. Perfect in himself and first cause of everything, God is not affected by his creatures. To sin is to hurt oneself. Anselm avers that the only thing we take from God is the good he had planned for us,³⁰ that is, our happiness.

While our sin does not hurt God, sin is nonetheless a disorder in creation, and it is unsuitable that God (who is perfect) should allow any disorder to exist in what he has made.³¹ Therefore, either restoration must be made, or man is to be eternally punished. Otherwise, God cannot be just, nor man happy.³² The trouble is, the enormity of the sin (judged by the object sinned against, i.e., God) is infinite, and man cannot give God anything which is not already due to God, let alone something infinitely valuable.

Since man cannot pay, one might object that he is not unjust in not paying, for one is only obliged to do something which one can do. To this objection, Anselm answers that it is man's own fault that he cannot pay. Thus, he is doubly unjust, first, because he violated the good will that God had given him, and secondly, because he cannot repay his debt: “By his own fault [he] disabled himself, so that he can neither escape his previous obligation not to sin, nor pay the debt which he has incurred by sin.”³³ If we say that God could just forgive man's iniquity without repayment, we are suggesting that God is either unable to obtain payment (since man cannot pay) in which case we impugn his omnipotence, or we are suggesting that he is not just, since God would be making man happy on account of his sin.

Having said that man was made for happiness, but due to his own fault has made his achievement of that end impossible, Anselm asks who it is that could pay the debt and restore man to happiness. Anselm's answer is, of course, the God-man. Only the one who owes the debt ought to make the payment, and only someone who could give something to God could make the payment.³⁴ The payment must be infinite, since the affront of sin is infinite, and only God is infinite. To make a gift of satisfaction to God, one must have something to give, that is, something that is not already God's by justice. But all creatures are God's. The only thing that is not God's is God himself. Hence God must make the payment as man: “No man but this one ever gave to God what he was not obliged to lose, or paid a debt he did not owe.”³⁵ What Christ gave to God was obedience, perfect obedience unto death. It is not that God required death, but that he required the man Jesus to be good. Jesus was perfectly good, and he was killed for it. In his divinity—that is, the perfect power, wisdom, and goodness of God—Christ's humanity was made perfect, even in the jaws of death. Christ did not offer himself by necessity; as God he was not constrained to obedience. Rather, he offered himself for his own honor. As Anselm says, he gave “his humanity to his divinity.”³⁶ In this act all humanity is given the divine grace of forgiveness.

IV

Has Anselm succeeded in showing the necessity of God becoming man? At best, Anselm has only partially succeeded in his task. Granted that humanity must be saved, Anselm's arguments for the Incarnation as the way of salvation are persuasive. However, there are two good reasons not to grant the necessity of our salvation. First, the evidences in favor of our salvation are only ones of formal and final causality based on human nature, and not of efficient causality based on direct knowledge of the divine will. Second, there is the deeper problem of sin.

The reasons Anselm gives for the necessity of our salvation are based on the natural end of the human being, which is to achieve perfect happiness in knowing the true and the good. The reasons are not based on a necessity placed on God's will, for as first cause, he is not under any higher cause. Anselm's argument is that, since God made man for man's own sake (for if God is perfect, then he does not create to perfect himself), and since God is omniscient and omnipotent such that he knew man would sin and yet sin could not defeat God's plan for man, God is necessitated by his own will to save this jewel of his creation. In Anselm's own words, there is no “antecedent” necessity for God to save man, but a “subsequent” necessity based on God's free choice to create such a creature.³⁷ Antecedent necessity would be in the realm of efficient causality, subsequent necessity in the realm of formal and final causality. God's will is not coerced, but there are reasons, based on the formal structure and dynamism of the intellectual creature which God freely chose to create, to believe that human beings are made for happiness.

As far as they go, these arguments based on subsequent necessity are strong arguments, but they are insufficient to prove that God must save. For, God's intention in creating, which we do not know, is prior to the formal and final requirements of human nature. It is not that we find any evidence that God will not fulfill what human nature requires, just that we do not know all that he wills. In a way, Anselm is right to leave the question of God's secret intentions out and include only what we know of the natural scheme of things, for we cannot know what those intentions are, while we can know about human nature. However, we do know that God has intentions and that we cannot comprehend them. Thus, this objection is one of caution, not of contrary evidence.

Contrary evidence does come into play with the consideration of sin. Anselm himself uses the fact of sin in the second premise of his argument to explain why human beings could not have saved themselves and so needed a savior in the form of the God-Man; but the fact of sin also counts against the first premise, which holds that God made man for happiness. The problem is not so much that God could not in his mercy save us from sin. God who is omnipotent can bring good out of evil. The problem comes in with judging when God is necessitated to do this. Why is it that God must save us from our sin when evidently he did not have to prevent us from sinning? For certainly God could have prevented us from sinning just as easily as he could save us after we had sinned. He did not have to let us sin any more than he had to let us wallow in sin for eternity.

The formal and final exigencies of human nature were the same before the fall as they are after the fall. If anything, the advent of evil in human choices provides an additional reason for God not to save us, since in justice we who have sinned do not deserve to be forgiven and saved. If one answers that God allowed us to sin so that he could bring good out of evil, why not apply the same principle to the loss of human nature as a whole? Perhaps God could bring good out of this, as well. Granted that there are good reasons, based in human nature's ordering to infinite happiness, for God to complete his evident intention in creating such a nature, these good reasons were also operative before the fall. It is not evident to us through natural reason why God should allow evil in one place and irradicate it in another. Or granted that there are no good reasons to believe that God would allow his creation of human nature to perish, it is also true that there are no good reasons, if one means by “reasons” evidences which we can understand by natural reason, for God to allow human beings to sin when he could easily have prevented it. Since sin is clearly bad for us, such a permissive act on God's part is not a clear manifestation of his loving nature.

Anselm's own answer to why God did not prevent us from sinning is decidedly weak. He claims it was “because it was neither possible nor right for anyone of them [angels or our first parents] to be the same with God, as we say that man was.”³⁸ But there is no reason why there could not be creatures, in their limited natures unequal to God, who did not sin. As to why there was no Incarnation before man sinned, Anselm says it is “because reason did not demand any such thing then, but wholly forbade it, for God does nothing without reason.”³⁹ But neither did reason demand that we sin (do evil) so that we may be saved (good may come). Anselm is not necessarily to be faulted for not having good answers to these questions, since there are none. Such issues are mysteries at the heart of the Christian faith. They cannot be proved to be absurd, but neither can they be shown to be necessary conclusions of natural reason.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Anselm is right to have great confidence in reason, and right to think that there is evidence, open to natural reason, which indicates that God would save us; but there is evidence, again open to natural reason, which counts against his argument. As noted earlier, there can be no good reasons not to have confidence in reason. And placing our confidence in reason, we do find that there are arguments, based on God's free creation of a creature whose nature is only fulfilled by perfect happiness, which indicate that God would save us. God did not need to create, but did so for the good of his creatures. In his perfect wisdom and power, nothing could prevent him from bringing his plan to fruition. However, there are two reasons not to accept Anselm's claim that God must save us. In the first place, there is no external necessity on God to act nor any way for us to know directly what God's providence is. In the second place, there is the problem of why God will not allow us to remain under sin yet permits us to sin in the first place, since sin is certainly not good for us. These are the key reasons for rejecting the overall sweep of Anselm's claim to prove the necessity of the Incarnation. Anselm has meditated deeply and fruitfully on the requirements implied in the formal and final characteristics of human nature. But it is those mysterious shadows which we meet when we attempt to spell out the hidden meaning of God's providence, or understand the darkness of sin, that keep us in wonder at the salvific mercy of the Incarnate God, a mercy beyond what the heart or mind of man could ever have guessed or hoped for.⁴⁰ And it is these shadows which diminish Anselm's claim to have proved by necessary reasons that God had to become man.

Notes

1. Cur deus homo I,3. All references are to the works of Anselm as they appear in S. Anselmi Opera Omnia, ed. F. S. Schmitt (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann Verlag, 1968) Volume I: Monologion and Proslogion, Volume II: Cur deus homo. Latin texts will also be from this work.

2. Ibid. I,6; I,8.

3. Ibid. I,6; I,8.

4. Ibid. I,6.

5. Ibid. I,8.

6. “Voluntas namque dei numquam est irrationabilis.” Cur deus homo I,8 (p. 59). The translation is from St. Anselm: Basic Writings, trans. S. N. Deane Lasalle, Illinois,: Open Court Publishing Company, 1962, p. 190. All translations will be from Deane.

7. “… qualiter mors illa rationabilis et necessaria monstrari possit.” Ibid. I,10 (p. 66); Deane, p. 200.

8. Ibid. II,17.

9. “But I wish all that I say to be received with this understanding, that, if I shall have said anything which higher authority does not corroborate, though I appear to demonstrate it by argument, yet it is not to be received with any further confidence, than as so appearing to me for the time, until God in some way make a clearer revelation to me.” (… sed eo pacto quo omnia quae dico volo accipi: Videlicet ut, si quid dixero quod maior non confirmet auctoritas—quamvis illud ratione probare videar—non alia certitudine accipiatur, nisi quia interim ita mihi videtur, donec deus mihi melius aliquo modo revelet.) Ibid. I,2 (p. 50); Deane, 181.

10. “… volo tecum pacisci, ut nullum vel minimum inconveniens in deo a nobis accipiatur, et nulla vel minima ratio, si maior non repugnat, reiciatur. Sicut enim in deo quamlibet parvum inconveniens sequitur impossibilitas, ita quamlibet parvam rationem, si maiori non vincitur, comitatur necessitas.” Ibid. I,10 (p. 67); Deane, p. 200.

11. Cf. De trinitate VIII,ii,3ff. Anselm himself tells us that he wanted to do no more in Monologion than present a precis of what he found in De trinitate. See Frederick Van Fleteren, “The Influence of Augustine's De trinitate on Anselm's Monologion,” to appear in Proceedings of the Anselm Conference, Paris 1991.

12. Monologion I. It should be noted that Aquinas's Fourth Way is much like this argument.

13. “Denique non solum omnia bona per idem aliquid sunt bona, et omnia magna per idem aliquid sunt magna, sed quidquid est, per unum aliquid videtur esse.” Ibid. III (p. 15); Deane, p. 41.

14. “… credimus te esse aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari possit.” Proslogion 2, (p. 101); Deane, p. 7.

15. “Solus igitur verissime omnium, et ideo maxime omnium habes esse. …” Ibid. 3 (p. 103); Deane, p. 9.

16. “… Cum tam innumerabilia bona sint, quorum tam multam diversitatem et sensibus corporeis experimur et ratione mentis discernimus: estne credendum esse unum aliquid, per quod unum sint bona quaecumque bona sunt, an sunt bona alia per aliud?” Monologion 1 (p. 14); Deane, p. 38.

17. “… quamlibet parvam rationem, si maiori non vincitur, comitatur necessitas.” Cur deua homo I,10 (p. 67); Deane, p. 201.

18. “ratio inevitabilis,” ibid. II,9 (pp. 105-06); Deane, p. 251. Also, “immutabilis ratio,” ibid. II,21 (p. 132); Deane, p. 287.

19. “Quis ergo praesumat vel cogitare quod humanus intellectus valeat penetrare, quam sapienter, quam mirabiliter tam inscrutabile opus factum sit?” Ibid. II,16 (p. 117); Deane, p. 266.

20. “… deus facere potest, quod hominis ratio comprehendere non potest.” Ibid. II,17 (p. 126); Deane, p. 278.

21. “super nubem pingere,” ibid. I,4 (p. 52); Deane, p. 184.

22. “Monstranda ergo prius est veritatis soliditas rationabilis, id est necessitas quae probet deum ad ea quae praedicamus debuisse aut potuisse humiliari; deinde ut ipsum quasi corpus veritatis plus niteat, istae convenientiae quasi picturae corporis sunt exponendae.” Ibid. I,4 (p. 52); Deane, p. 184.

23. “… constet inter nos hominem esse factum ad beatitudinem, quae in hac vita haberi non potest, nec ad illam posse pervenire quemquam nisi dimissis peccatis, nec ullum hominem hanc vitam transire sine peccato, …” Ibid. I,10 (p. 67); Deane, p. 201.

24. Ibid. II,1.

25. Ibid. II,16. Anselm wants to avoid saying that all will be saved since this is not implied by Scripture. However, it is difficult to see how he can avoid saying this on his principles since his reasons for saying that some will be saved should equally imply universal salvation, for every human being has an intellect with a dynamism toward perfect happiness, and no individual human being is reducible to being merely part of the species. Anselm's argument does not provide a suitable answer to this problem.

26. Aristotle, De caelo II, 2 (291b14).

27. Cur deus homo II,5.

28. “… non deceat eum a bono incepto deficere … quia hoc propter nos, non propter se nullius egens incepit. Non enim illum latuit quid homo facturus est, cum illum fecit, et tamen bonitate sua illum creando sponte se ut perficeret inceptum bonum quasi obligavit.” Ibid. II,5 (p. 100); Deane, p. 244.

29. “… non reddere deo debitum.” Ibid. I,11 (p. 68); Deane, p. 202.

30. “Did not man take from God whatever He had purposed to do for human nature? (Nonne abstulit deo, quidquid de humana natura facere proposuerat?) Ibid. I,23 (p. 91); Deane p. 232.

31. Ibid. I,20.

32. Ibid. I,19.

33. “… sua culpa deiecit se in hanc impotentiam, ut nec illud possit solvere quod debebat ante peccatum, id est ne peccaret, nec hoc quod debet, quia peccavit, inexcusabilis est.” Ibid. I,24 (p. 92); Deane, p. 234.

34. Ibid. II,6.

35. “Nullus umquam homo moriendo praeter illum deo dedit quod aliquando necessitate perditurus non erat, aut solvit quod non debebat.” Ibid. II,18 (p. 127); Deane, p. 280.

36. “humanitatem suam divinitati suae,” ibid. II,18 (p. 129); Deane, p. 283.

37. “praecedens, sequens,” ibid. II,17 (p. 125); Deane, p. 276.

38. “Quoniam nec debuit nec potuit fieri, ut unusquisque illorum esset idem ipse qui deus, sicut de homine isto dicimus.” Ibid. II,10 (p. 108); Deane, p. 255.

39. “… quia ratio tunc fieri nullatenus hoc exigebat, sed omnino, quia deus nihil sine ratione tacit, prohibebat.” Ibid. II,10 (p. 108); Deane, p. 255.

40. Along these lines there is a kind of explanation (clearly not a necessary demonstration) that can be given for God's permitting and forgiving our sin. For if God created us for our own sake, and it is good for us to know the fountain of all truth and goodness, i.e., God, then it can be said that, in the mystery of sin and redemption, we learn that God is unfathomable love. For it is a love beyond what we could imagine or hope which not only gives us existence through creation when we do not deserve it, but gives us a share in the divine life through redemption when we deserve eternal death.