St. Anselm of Canterbury defended the Church, gave us an important proof for God\u2019s existence and taught us why God became man.<\/p>\n
The Church celebrates the feast of St. Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109) every year on April 21. Why is an 11th-century man important to us? Three reasons:<\/p>\n
Why St. Anselm “of Canterbury”?<\/p>\n
St. Anselm of Canterbury was a seminal figure in the history and theology of the early Middle Ages. The appellation \u201cof Canterbury\u201d is because he was Archbishop of Canterbury in England, even though he was born in Aosta (a city in the far northeast of what is now Italy, not far from the Swiss border), and was serving as Abbot of Bec (a monastery in Normandy, France between Lisieux and Rouen) when the call for his transfer to Canterbury began.<\/p>\n
I express that succession rather awkwardly as \u201cwhen the call for his transfer to Canterbury began\u201d because Anselm had no easy path to the See of Canterbury. The end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th centuries was a period in which the \u201cinvestiture controversy\u201d raged in England and other parts of Europe. In a nutshell, the \u201cinvestiture controversy\u201d was about whom would install a bishop: the pope or the king. Some kings of the time claimed the right to give a bishop his episcopal ring and crozier, which suggested his office came from the king and usually meant he was beholden to him. <\/p>\n
The \u201cGregorian Reform\u201d of the period c. 1050-80, launched by Pope Gregory VII, had two goals:<\/p>\n
Anselm stood squarely with the Gregorian Reform, which was why he had to fight with English King William II along every step of his path to Canterbury, from his nomination to his efforts to receive the pallium. (Archbishops receive a special vestment, a \u201cpallium\u201d as a sign of their office in communion with the pope, which the pope traditionally \u201cimposes.\u201d Archbishops customarily went to Rome to receive the pallium \u2014 for a long time on June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul \u2014 and William would not permit the trip because he was playing neutral between the pope and an antipope claimant. Anselm was installed without the pallium. It was only later brought to England, but Anselm accepted it only from the papal legate, not the king.)<\/p>\n
So Anselm stood for the Church being the Church and Peter being Peter, even at great personal suffering. At least William II was nominally Catholic. Future English kings, like Henry VIII, wanted not just to pick the Church\u2019s bishops but to decide the Church\u2019s faith and morals. Paradoxically, we live in a world in which countries whose leadership is explicitly atheist also claim the \u201cright\u201d to pick bishops. Nihil novi sub soli.<\/p>\n
Ontological Proof of St. Anselm<\/p>\n
Apart from his fight for the independence and reform of the Church (the Gregorian Reform of the 11th century and the Cluniac Reform that preceded it started cleaning up the Church internally while strengthening it externally), Anselm was a prolific philosopher and theologian. Two of his contributions in those areas merit special mention.<\/p>\n
The first was his \u201contological proof\u201d for God. Some might ask today, \u201cwhy do we need any proofs for God? Isn\u2019t it just a matter of faith?\u201d Well, no. As Catholics, we affirm that faith and reason go together. So faith also stands on at least certain rational presuppositions that result in the act of faith making at least some sense, at least being \u201creasonable.\u201d St. Thomas Aquinas would later develop his five famous proofs for God\u2019s existence, but the Angelic Doctor is about a century and a half in Anselm\u2019s future. <\/p>\n
Anselm\u2019s proof is in some ways very simple. God is first of all \u201cthat than which nothing greater can be thought.\u201d God is what we think of when we think of the greatest of greatness to the infinite degree. But then Anselm notes that what exists in reality is greater than what exists in the mind; therefore, that which \u201cnothing greater can be thought\u201d must exist. If it didn\u2019t, one could obviously think of something greater, i.e., an existence \u201cthat which nothing greater can be thought.\u201d That which nothing greater can be thought mustreally exist, insisted Anselm.<\/p>\n
Anselm\u2019s contribution to theology was found in his work, Cur Deus homo? (Why Did God Become Man?) His argument runs as follows. Sin is injustice. The degree of injustice is established by the one offended, i.e., the one treated unjustly. God is the one treated unjustly by sin. God is infinite. So sin is an infinite offense against God. <\/p>\n
One who would repair an infinite injustice has to be infinite. But man is finite. (Let me add: man can kill himself spiritually but no suicide \u2014 physical or spiritual \u2014 can restore the life he destroyed).<\/p>\n
So we have a conundrum. The injustice of sin is infinite. God, against whom the injustice is perpetrated, is infinite. Man, the perpetrator of the injustice, is finite. So how to repair the injustice (and put the human Humpty Dumpty back together again). The only way is a man who would be infinite, in other words, a man who was also God. Jesus Christ, \u201ctrue God and true man.\u201d So, Cur Deus homo? To redeem us from the futility into which we had cast ourselves by sin which we could not repair ourselves.<\/p>\n
Clearly a thinker worth getting to know.<\/p>\n
As far as I can tell, St. Anselm is not often depicted in art. One example in the United States is a statue carved in the walls of the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. It depicts Anselm in ways that illustrate the points in today\u2019s essay. He is shown as a bishop, i.e., with miter (the bishop\u2019s headdress), crozier (his staff), and the pallium (the band of cloth around his neck and hanging down in front \u2014 and back \u2014 with crosses on it). He is also shown with a book, which can indicate the Book of the Gospels, which he preached faithfully, and\/or his own many writings, such as those discussed above.<\/p>\n
This article was originally published on National Catholic Register.<\/p>\n