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  • From: "John Brand" <jbrand AT gvsd.mb.ca>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Corpus-Paul] Paul and the Divine Justice: Anslem of Canterbury
  • Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 22:57:59 -0500

Tim wrote:
> Au contraire, you are radically misreading my position.  As I have
> indicated more than once, Torah was never supposed to function as a
> hypothetical means of achieving life.

John responds:
As I have connsidered some of your thoughts on the subject of Paul and his view of the law, I am reminded of Anselm's interpretation of the justice of God which becomes the basis for the Satisfaction Theory of the Atonement. The idea became the basis for the Reformation view of the imputation of Christ's righteousness which might be summarized by the Westminster Confession of Faith.XI.i:

‘Those whom God effectually calleth he also freely justifieth, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting their persons as righteous: not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Chirst’s sake alone: not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience, to them as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith: which faith they have not of themselves; it is the gift of God.”

It appears also in the Heidelberg Catechism which begins by asking "What is your only comfort in life and death?" (Q/A 1) and answers by saying that we belong to our saviour Jesus Christ who has "fully paid for all [our] sins." Anselm's concept of justice and Christ's satisfaction is developed in Q/A 1219:  "God demands that his justice be satisfied.  Therefore we must make full payment, either by ourselves or through another." (A.12)

Do you find yourself in agreement with Anselm's basic syllogism as follows?

In Cur Deus Homo.I.xi Anselm introduces his concept of justice to the discussion:  To render to God what is due him. The introduction of this concept follows closely on the heels of the presuppostions which he lays down in chapter x regarding the chief end of man and what hinders him from attaining this end (recall Westminster Catechism 'What is the chief end of man?).  The esssential syllogism is as follows:

P1  Man was made for happiness.
P2  No being can ever arrive at happiness, save by freedom from sin.
P3  No man passes this life without sin.

Conclusion:  In order that man may attain happiness, remission of sins is necessary.

In chapter xi he continues by discussing what it means to sin and to make satisfaction for sin:

If man or angel always rendered to God his due, he would never sin ... to sin is nothing else than not to render to God his due.  [The debt which we owe to God is that] every wish of a rational creature should be subject to the will of God ...This is the debt which man and angel owe to God, and no one who pays this debt commits sino but every one who does not pay it sins.  This is justice, or uprightness of will, which makes a being just or upright in heart, that is, in willo and this is the sole and complete debt of honor which we owe to God, and which God requires of us.

The solution which Anselm proposes is that a mediator must be sought who is both man and God so that God's honor can be satisfied on the one hand and man's sin can be covered on the other.  His proposal is that Christ became the substitute for man so that God's justice could be satisfied.

Thanks for the clarification.
John Brand
B.A. Bib Stu (Providence College, Otterburne, MB, Canada, 1980)
M.Min. (Providence Seminary, 1991)
jbrand AT gvsd.mb.ca



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