1
Jesus the Savior and Triune God
Lois Malcolm
THE WORK OF CHRIST: ANSELM, AULEN
ANSELM1
TASK: (Preface)
1. BOOK 1: Responses to the objections of unbelievers who reject Christian faith.
2. BOOK 2: “It is proved that it is necessary for this purpose [that humans should enjoy
immortality] for which man was made to be achieved, but only through a ManGod, and so that all the things we believe concerning Christ must necessarily take
place.” (p.100)
A. VS. THE OLD THEORY: TREATISE ON THE “RIGHTS OF THE DEVIL”
THEORY OF REDEMPTION (Book 1:1-10)
1. QUESTION AND INTRODUCTION (Chap.1,2):
 For what reason or necessity did God become man and, as we believe and
confess, by his death restore life to the world, when he could have done this
through another person (angelic or human), or even by a sheer act of the will?”
(p.101)
2. RESPONSES TO UNBELIEVERS (Chap.3-5)
3. ARGUMENT AGAINST THE “RIGHTS OF THE DEVIL” THEORY OF
REDEMPTION (Chap.6,7):
.
THE THEORY:
 “We also commonly say that God was bound to strive with the devil by justice,
rather than by force, in order to set man free. On this showing, when the devil
killed Him in whom there was no reason for death, and who was God, he would
justly lose his power over sinners. Otherwise God would have done unjust
violence to him, since he was justly in possession of man; after all, he did not
seize man by violence, but man handed himself over to him freely.” (p.108)
A’S CRITIQUE:
 “As for saying that he came to conquer the devil for you, in what sense do you
dare to assert that? Does not the omnipotence of God reign everywhere? How,
then, did God need to come down from heaven to defeat the devil?” (p.107)
 “If the devil or man belonged to himself or anyone but God, or remained in some
power other than God’s, perhaps it would be a sound argument. But the devil and
man belong to God alone, and neither one stands outside God’s power; what case,
then, did God have to plead with his own creature, concerning his own creature,
1
Anselm, Why God Became Man (Cur Deus Homo).
2
in his own affair, unless it was in order to punish his servant, who had persuaded
his fellow servant to desert their common master and go over to him . . .” (p.108)
B. SETS UP NEW THEORY: ESSAY ON SATISFACTION (Book 1:11-25)
1. DEFINITION OF SATISFACTION (Chap. 11-15)
a. THE DEBT WE OWE GOD:
 “What is the debt which we owe to God?”
 “Every inclination of the rational creature ought to be subject to the will of God…
This is the sole and entire honor which we owe to God, and God requires from
us.” (p.119)
b. GOD’S HONOR MUST BE REPAID:
 “everyone who sins must repay to God the honor that he has taken away, and this
is the satisfaction that every sinner ought to make to God.” (p.119)
 “if it is not fitting for God to do anything unjustly or without due order, it does not
belong to his freedom or kindness or will to forgive unpunished the sinner who
does not repay to God what he took away.” (p.121)
c. THUS: SATISFACTION (REPAYMENT) OR PUNISHMENT.
 “Therefore either the honor that was taken away must be repaid or punishment
must follow. Otherwise, God will be either unjust to himself or powerless to
accomplish either . . .” (p.122)
2. ON ANGELS (Chap.16-18)
3. HUMAN BEINGS ARE UNABLE TO PAY THE DEBT (Chap.19-25):
 “If I own himself myself and all that I can do, even when I do not sin, lest I
should sin, I have nothing to repay him for sin.” (p.137)
 “God requires satisfaction according to the greatness of the sin . . . . Therefore,
you do not make satisfaction unless you repay something greater than that for the
sake of which you were obliged not to commit the sin.” (p.139)
 “Strong and immortal in power, man freely accepted the devil’s temptation to sin,
and thus justly incurred the penalty of mortality; now, weak and mortal as he
made himself, he ought through the distress of death to conquer the devil, so as
not to sin at all. But this is what he cannot do as long as, through the wound of
the first sin, he is conceived and born in sin.” (p.140)
 MAN’S INABILITY DOES NOT EXCUSE HIM: “But if there is any guilt in
that inability, it neither lightens the sin nor excuses him when he fails to pay his
debt.” (p.142)
CONCLUDING QUESTION:
 Help me to understand by rational necessity how all that the Catholic faith bids us
believe about Christ, if we wish to be saved, must be true, and how it all avails for
man’s salvation, and how God saves man by mercy, when he does not forgive him
his sin unless he repays what he owes on its account.” (p.146)
3
C. RATIO NECESSARIA FOR THE GOD-MAN (Book 2: 1-6)
1. INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS (Chap.1-4):
 “The rational nature, then was created just, so that it might be blessed in the
enjoyment of the highest good, that is God.” (p.147) God will complete what he
began with human nature.
2. HEART OF THE ARGUMENT (Chap.6):
a. THE ONE WHO PAYS MUST BE GOD.
 “But this cannot be done unless there is someone to pay to God for human sin
something greater than everything that exists, except God.” (p.150)
 “If he is to give something of his own to God, which surpasses everything that is
beneath God, it is also necessary for him to be greater than everything that is not
God.” (p.150)
b. THE ONE WHO PAYS MUST BE MAN.
 “But no one ought to make it except man; otherwise man does not make the
satisfaction.” (p.151)
c. HENCE: A GOD-MAN.
 “If then, as is certain, that celestial city must be complete from among men, and
this cannot happen unless the aforesaid satisfaction is made, while no one save
God can make it and no one save man ought to make it, it is necessary for a GodMan to make it.” (p.151)
D. IMPLICATIONS (Book 2:7-22):
 FOR CHALCEDON (Chap. 7):
 “Therefore, the Man-God we are seeking cannot be produced from divine and
human nature, either by the conversion . . . or by the destructive commingling”
(p.152)
OTHER IMPLICATIONS (Chap.8-22)

Note the problem in the syllogism of the argument. Logically, you have an
extended middle. Debeo (ought) is used in two different senses: (1) We owe
(who are sinners); but (2) the innocent God-man cannot owe in the same sense.
4
ANSELM’S CRITICS: AULEN’S “CHRISTUS VICTOR” APPROACH2
INTRODUCTION
 “If our thesis stands, the accepted view of the development of Christian
doctrine will require modifications.” (p.143)
COMPARISON OF THE THREE TYPES
A. STRUCTURE
1. “LATIN” OR OBJECTIVE VIEW
2. A discontinuity of divine operation: “the satisfaction is offered by Christ as man,
as the sinless Man on behalf of the sinners.” (p.146)
3. A continuity in the order of merit and justice. The legal order is unbroken.
4. HUMANIST OR SUBJECTIVE VIEW
5. “The reconciliation is the result of some process that takes place in human beings,
such as conversion and amendment.”
6. “Christ’s work is no longer thought of as the work of God for man’s salvation: He
is rather the perfect Example, the Ideal Man, the Head of the race.” (p.146)
7. “CLASSIC” VIEW
8. A continuity of divine operation: God accomplishes atonement in Christ; God is
reconciled with the world.
9. A discontinuity in the order of merit and justice: There is no satisfaction of God’s
justice, for the relation of man to God is viewed in the light, not of merit and
justice, but of grace.
2
Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: A Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea
of Atonement (New York: Macmillan, 1969).
5
B. SIN
1. “LATIN” OR OBJECTIVE VIEW
 “the Latin doctrine involves a materialized view of sin; the merits of the
satisfaction made by Christ for man’s default are treated as transferred or
imputed to men. Here, then, plainly, the direct personal relationship between
God and the sinner is obscured. Then, too, the very idea of a satisfaction
shows that the claim of God on man has not been fully faced. So long as the
justice of God can be held to be satisfied by the payment of a compensation
for sin, or the endurance of punishment for sin, God’s personal demand on
man is not adequately expressed, nor is the idea of sin itself seen in its full
personal meaning (pp. 147-148).
 A’s critique: “the merits of the satisfaction made by Christ for man’s default
are treated as transferred or imputed to men. Here, then, plainly, the direct
personal relationship between God and the sinner is obscured.” (p.147)
 Forgiveness is regarded negatively.
2. HUMANIST OR SUBJECTIVE VIEW
 The idea of sin is weakened.
 A’s critique: The failure of this theology to maintain the radical hostility of
God to evil, and God’s judgment on sin.
3. “CLASSIC” VIEW
 Sin = a whole series of evil powers--death, the devil, the law, the curse. “If
salvation is a deliverance both from sin and from death, and an entrance into
life, this of itself forms a safeguard against the degradation either of the idea
of sin to a moralistic level, or of the idea of the forgiveness of sin to the level
of a mere remission of punishment.” (p.149)
C. SALVATION
1. “LATIN” OR OBJECTIVE VIEW
 “The actual atonement consists in the offering of satisfaction by Christ and
God’s acceptance of it; with this act men have nothing to do except in so far
as Christ stands as their representative. Justification is a second act, in which
God transfers or imputes to men the merits of Christ; here, again, there is no
direct relation between Christ and men. Next, we have sanctification, a third
act with no organic connection with the preceding two.” (p.150)
2. HUMANIST OR SUBJECTIVE VIEW
 “The observation of the lack of direct relation between Christ and man, which
is typical of the Latin doctrine, led to an effort to show along psychological
lines what are the features in the portrait of Christ which actually exercise
influence upon men. Christ is therefore set forth as the perfect example, the
ideal man, the realization of human perfection; but the consequence is that the
share of God in the process of salvation becomes secondary.” (p.151)
6
3. “CLASSIC” VIEW
 Salvation is positive: forgiveness of sins, union with God, deifying of human
nature, etc. Luther even reverts to the language of the “deification” of human
nature. “When Christ overcomes the tyrants which hold mankind in bondage,
His victory brings with it the Divine blessing, justification, grace, life; the
note of triumph rings out.” (p.150)
 “The victory of Christ over the powers of evil is an eternal victory, therefore
present as well as past. Therefore Justification and Atonement are really one
and the same thing. Justification is simply the atonement brought into the
present, so that here and now the blessing of God prevails over the curse.”
(p.150)
D. CHRIST AND THE INCARNATION
1.
“LATIN” OR OBJECTIVE VIEW
 Misses a clear connection between the incarnation and the atonement: “God is
no longer the direct agent in the atoning work. Christ as man makes
atonement on man’s behalf.” (p.152)
2. HUMANIST OR SUBJECTIVE VIEW
 “Christ is treated as simply the “Pattern Man.” (p.152)
 Although they attempted to emphasize the humanity of Christ, “the Christ
presented in their teaching was a peculiarly abstract and unreal Christ, an
idealized humanity, and actually became in effect a sort of intermediary
between God and mankind.” (p.153)
 The atonement is not the work of God: (1) the English theologians: the highest
human is the work of God; (2) the Continental theologians: through Christ
God sees humankind in a new light.
3. “CLASSIC” VIEW
 The close interconnection between the incarnation and the atonement: “The
conflict and triumph of Christ is God’s own conflict and triumph; it is God
who in Christ reconciles the world to Himself. The incarnation is the
necessary presupposition for the atonement, and the atonement the completion
of the incarnation.” (p.151)
 “Christ is set forth as the man in whom God both reveals His essence and
carries out his work of deliverance and atonement.” (p.152)
7
E. CONCEPT OF GOD
1. “LATIN” OR OBJECTIVE VIEW:
 The opposition between divine love and divine wrath takes a less violent
form.
 “the abstract ‘retributive justice’ here takes the place of the personal ‘wrath,’
so that, as it were, God is felt to be more remote.” (p.154)
 “God seems to stand more at a distance; for the satisfaction is paid by man, in
the person of Christ, to God.” (p.154)
2. HUMANIST OR SUBJECTIVE VIEW:
 No opposition between divine love and divine wrath.
 “The intention is to set forth a ‘purified,’ ‘simple’ conception of God, whose
characteristic is an unchanging love.” (p.154)
 “God stands still more at a distance; as far as He is concerned, no atonement is
needed, and all the emphasis is on man’s movement to God, on that which is
accomplished in the world of men.” (p.154)
3. “CLASSIC” VIEW:
 A strongly dualistic view: God is manifested in conflict with evil on the stage
of history. Yet the dualism is not ultimate. The atonement as the divine
victory over the powers that hold men in bondage. Yet these very powers
express his own judgment on sin. The tension between divine love and divine
wrath: the divine love prevails over wrath, blessing overcomes the curse, by
the way of divine self-oblation and sacrifice. “the atonement as a movement
of God to man, and God as closely and personally engaged in the work of
man’s deliverance.” (p.154)
8
F. A FINAL COMPARISON
1. “LATIN” OR OBJECTIVE VIEW
 “It concentrates its effort upon a rational attempt to explain how the Divine
Love and the Divine Justice can be reconciled. The Love of God is regulated
by His Justice, and is only free to act within the limits which Justice marks
out. Ratio and Lex, rationality and justice, go hand in hand; but it was just
these two which Luther refused to recognize as finally decisive in matters of
Christian faith.” (p.156)
2. HUMANIST OR SUBJECTIVE VIEW
 “In its treatment of the Atonement it smoothes away all the oppositions with
which the classic type abounds; all is made rationally clear; even the Love of
God becomes rational. Further, it must be observed that this humanizing
theology is penetrated from end to end by an idealistic philosophy, and seeks
to interpret the Christian faith in the light of a monistic and evolutionary
world-view.” (p.157)
3. “CLASSIC” VIEW
 “the fundamental idea that the Atonement is, above all, a movement of God
to man, not the first place a movement of man to God. We shall hear again its
tremendous paradoxes: that God, the all-ruler, the Infinite, yet accepts the
lowliness of the incarnation; we shall hear against the old dualistic message of
the conflict of God with the dark, hostile forces of evil, and His victory over
them by the Divine self-sacrifice; above all, we shall hear again the note of
triumph.” (p.159)
 “God is at the same time the Reconciler and the Reconciled. His is the Love
and His the Wrath. The Love prevails over the Wrath, and yet Love’s
condemnation of sin is absolute.” (p.155)




“Every attempt to force this conception into a purely rational scheme is bound
to fail; it could only succeed by robbing it of its religious depth.” (p.155)
Luther’s refusal of a rational scholasticism.
“For him the God of revelation (Deus revelatus) is altogether not to be
identified with the God of reason. The point is seen clearest of all when we
are shown that Deus revelatus is at the same time Deus absconditus, who
cannot be comprehended in the categories of human thought.” (p.156)
“When theology sets itself to seek for fully rational explanations of all things,
it is only too evident that it must set aside the classic idea, with all its
contradictions, as a crude and primitive stage in the attempt to express truth,
which is bound to be superseded by more exact and adequate formulations.”
(p.157)