Abstract

I offer a development and defense of an Anselmian theory of atonement modeled on Anselm's Cur Deus Homo and De Casu Diaboli. I offer an interpersonal, transactional, ethical atonement theory. The theory is interpersonal as estrangement depends on personal relations between those to be reconciled; it is transactional since between those to be reconciled it poses states of affairs--external to the psychological states of the estranged--that require production or change. Qua ethical theory it subsumes Christian atonement under moral requirements and limits that preside over the reconciliation of at least one wrongdoer and at least one victim of that wrongdoer , via a mediator of that reconciliation . The theory ought to identify: a harm caused intentionally or cognizantly by . a harm suffered by , and, some means by which a mediator might accomplish the reconciliation of and . I show that Anselm almost accounts for A and C, but fails to account for B. It is easy to account for A given this account of B: ;Harming an immutable God is possible according to a desire-satisfaction model of objective happiness in which God's reasonable desire to see humans provided with what I call Exemplar-Merited Inheritable dispositions is frustrated by Adam's wrongdoing. I accommodate C by providing a tailored account of Anselm's notion of 'satisfaction'--which I call Common-Law-De Facto-Contractual Satisfaction--which, unlike Anselm's notion, does not require that the mediator be a member of . Christ's provision of EMI dispositions for humans repairs the state of affairs productive of the harm in B and so provides what Adam owe to God but cannot provide without contracting for help. ;I offer criticisms of Richard Swinburne's account of the need for and the means of atonement in his recent theory of atonement, which is also interpersonal, transactional and ethical. Further, I offer replies to criticisms of Anselm's theory from Jasper Hopkins, Philip Quinn, Duns Scotus and John Hick