The satisfaction theory

Anselm's question

Around 1098 Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, finished Why God Became Man (Cur Deus Homo). Why, he asked, did God have to become man and die? His answer runs like this. Every rational creature owes God the whole obedience of its will; that is the honour due to God. Sin withholds it, and so is a debt. God cannot simply overlook this disorder in his creation: every sin must be followed by satisfaction, repaying more than was taken, or by punishment. Humanity owes the debt, but it is greater than the whole world, so only God can pay it. Therefore one who is both God and man had to come. Christ, sinless and owing no death, freely gave his life, and so paid the debt with overflowing worth Anselm, Cur Deus Homo.

Anselm rejected the older idea that a ransom was owed to the devil (see redemption) and saw Christ's death as a gift offered to God. Paul too says that Christ "gave Himself up for us as a fragrant sacrificial offering to God" (Ephesians 5:2), and that his obedience undoes Adam's disobedience:

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

Romans 5:19

What it left the Western church

Thomas Aquinas followed Anselm but refined him. God could have forgiven in other ways; the passion of Christ was the most fitting way, and it was a superabundant satisfaction for the sins of the whole human race Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. The Council of Trent taught that by his passion on the cross Christ merited justification for us and made satisfaction for us to God the Father Council of Trent, Decree on Justification.

The Reformers kept the language of satisfaction but joined what Anselm had set side by side, ‘satisfaction or punishment’: Christ satisfied God's justice by bearing the punishment (see penal substitution). The Heidelberg Catechism follows Anselm's question closely:

God wills that his justice be satisfied; therefore must we make full satisfaction to the same, either by ourselves or by another.

Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 12

Matthew Henry writes, "It is plain that he hates sin, when nothing less than the blood of Christ would satisfy for it" Matthew Henry.

Criticism and defence

The Orthodox churches never adopted Anselm's framework; they have explained the atonement through Christ's victory over death and the healing of human nature. In the West, too, there have been critics. Some hold that the theory mirrors a medieval world of lords and their honour, puts God's honour before his love, and leaves too little room for Christ's life and resurrection. Anselm's defenders answer that the honour he meant is not divine vanity but the right order of creation, and that near the end of the book he confesses that no mercy greater or more just than God's can be conceived.

Catholics and Protestants also differ over satisfaction made by believers. The Catholic Church teaches that penitents, relying on Christ's satisfaction, make satisfaction through prayer and good works for the temporal punishment of sin; the Reformation churches confess that satisfaction for sin was made by Christ alone, once for all. See also the lessons Anselm and the rise of scholastic theology and The cross and atonement.