Anselm’s literary corpus has had a great deal of influence over the centuries. This is particularly evident in two fields: Christian theology and the philosophy of religion. As far as the former is concerned, Anselm’s corpus, especially Why God Became Man, has shaped the way many Christians understand the incarnation and soteriology.

Whether Christians have accepted or rejected the claims Anselm makes in this work, they are rarely ignored. Anselm’s corpus has also had an influence in the philosophy of religion. This influence stems largely from an argument he made for the existence of God in his Proslogion. This argument has become known as the “ontological argument for the existence of God,” and it is probably for this that Anselm is most well known today.

A basic formulation of the argument is that if nothing greater than God can be thought of and if existence is greater than non-existence, then God must, by definition, exist. Philosophers of religion have discussed this argument through the centuries, even to the present day.

Anselm was no stranger to controversy. After the publication of his Proslogion, a monk named Gaunilo (of the Marmoutier abbey in north-east France) challenged the validity of the argument (though not the conclusion). Anselm happily responded to this challenge and insisted that Gaunilo’s criticisms and his responses be circulated with the text. In another incident a fellow scholar named Roscelin misrepresented Anselm’s views on the doctrine of the Trinity; Anselm responded with a restatement and clarification of his actual views.

Peter Abelard, another relatively early critic, claimed that if the problem that the atonement was intended to address was that humanity had violated God’s honour by disobedience and therefore a satisfaction to God’s honour was needed, then God could simply forgive the disobedience without satisfaction. Anselm had anticipated this argument before Abelard made it. For Anselm, if God simply forgave disobedience without any sort of satisfaction or punishment, then disobedience would be outside the law or, as Anselm himself puts it, “Therefore sinfulness is in a position of greater freedom, if it is forgiven through mercy alone, than righteousness – and this seems extremely unfitting.” The notion of unpunished sin violates Anselm’s view of God and the universe that he created.

Abelard’s counter proposal that Christ’s life, teachings, and death provide an example of perfect love for humanity to follow would have been unconvincing to Anselm, who it seems likely would have suggested that Christ must be more than just an example for humanity to follow because humanity stands in a fundamental debt to God for dishonouring him by disobedience.

This situation must be made right by either punishment or satisfaction. It is improbable, then, that Anselm would have altered his original argument in light of Abelard’s criticisms.

Main source:

Anselm of Canterbury, "Why God Became Man" in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, ed. Brian Davies and G.R. Evans, Oxford World’s Classics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 284.