In Ch. IX of the Proslogion, St. Anselm asks the following question: How then is it just both that you punish the wicked and that you spare the wicked? It is a good question. We normally define justice as “giving to another their due.” But if the wicked are
This topic - divine justice and mercy, not Anselm's take thereon - came up in class yesterday. The question is why it should be considered merciful to give what is due, and how God can even be said to give what is due, since he doesn't owe anyone anything. It seems that God is only merciful, not just. As a moralist, my response was to think of Plato's conception of justice, which has to do with harmony, rather than with what is owed. So I responded by asking _why_ ought others be given their due. And the answer of course is that we want to have an ordered society. That provides us with another way of looking at things: God's justice is found in his ordering all things, and that very act of ordering things is merciful, since he certainly did not have to do it.
I've always wondered if Anselm found his answer to the question here particularly satisfying. My theory is that he didn't and only truly resolves the question in Cur Deus Homo (I read the affirmation of justice and mercy's identity in Christ to be the emotional climax of that book).
Given the absence (at least the apparent absence) of the Incarnation in the Proslogion, it makes sense why this would be the case.
Great article Taylor! I have not read the "Proslogion", but your article reminds me of a relevant argument Lady Philosophy tells Boethius in "The Consolation of Philosophy" that runs something like this:
Doing evil things makes someone evil. Evil is the privation of the good. Goodness is happiness. Goodness (and happiness), in the fullest sense, is God. When someone goes on doing evil unpunished, he becomes more evil and thus less happy as his lack of goodness grows. When an evil person is punished for his evil, he receives justice, which is good. It makes him less likely to continue in his evil and more likely to turn to the good and thus grow in happiness. Any supposed happiness the evil man has in his evil is false and seen as the result of a clouded intellect.
This seems to suggest two things: 1) Evil is always punished, by necessity, as it always leads away from happiness; and 2) that God's justice in punishing evil is merciful because it spares people from further evil (unhappiness) and leads people to happiness. A little after this argument Lady Philosophy leads Boethius to divine simplicity, where all of these become one in God.
Boethius and Anselm seem to agree that justice (in punishment) and mercy are ultimately the same in God. Do you think Boethius is right in that evil is always punished by necessity? And if so, does this remove the need for the fittingness argument (God's choice to punish or pardon case-by-case being fitting) in Anselm?
This topic - divine justice and mercy, not Anselm's take thereon - came up in class yesterday. The question is why it should be considered merciful to give what is due, and how God can even be said to give what is due, since he doesn't owe anyone anything. It seems that God is only merciful, not just. As a moralist, my response was to think of Plato's conception of justice, which has to do with harmony, rather than with what is owed. So I responded by asking _why_ ought others be given their due. And the answer of course is that we want to have an ordered society. That provides us with another way of looking at things: God's justice is found in his ordering all things, and that very act of ordering things is merciful, since he certainly did not have to do it.
I've always wondered if Anselm found his answer to the question here particularly satisfying. My theory is that he didn't and only truly resolves the question in Cur Deus Homo (I read the affirmation of justice and mercy's identity in Christ to be the emotional climax of that book).
Given the absence (at least the apparent absence) of the Incarnation in the Proslogion, it makes sense why this would be the case.
Great article Taylor! I have not read the "Proslogion", but your article reminds me of a relevant argument Lady Philosophy tells Boethius in "The Consolation of Philosophy" that runs something like this:
Doing evil things makes someone evil. Evil is the privation of the good. Goodness is happiness. Goodness (and happiness), in the fullest sense, is God. When someone goes on doing evil unpunished, he becomes more evil and thus less happy as his lack of goodness grows. When an evil person is punished for his evil, he receives justice, which is good. It makes him less likely to continue in his evil and more likely to turn to the good and thus grow in happiness. Any supposed happiness the evil man has in his evil is false and seen as the result of a clouded intellect.
This seems to suggest two things: 1) Evil is always punished, by necessity, as it always leads away from happiness; and 2) that God's justice in punishing evil is merciful because it spares people from further evil (unhappiness) and leads people to happiness. A little after this argument Lady Philosophy leads Boethius to divine simplicity, where all of these become one in God.
Boethius and Anselm seem to agree that justice (in punishment) and mercy are ultimately the same in God. Do you think Boethius is right in that evil is always punished by necessity? And if so, does this remove the need for the fittingness argument (God's choice to punish or pardon case-by-case being fitting) in Anselm?