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Justice, Anselm, and the Western Tradition Peter Judson Richards Peter Judson Richards is Associ- It has by now become something of a a kind of litigation. During the course ate Professor of Theology and Law, commonplace to note the reciprocal infl u- of the controversy, the authority of the and serves as Director of the Center ences among the disciplines of politics church increasingly came to be seen as for Theology and Law at The Southern and law on the one hand, and theology juridical in nature. For better or worse, Baptist Theological Seminary. He has on the other. Even if, as we must admit, the church’s spiritual power of “binding taught and conducted research in the the infl uence has not always been whole- and loosing” amplifi ed to include dimen- areas of law, ethics, and political science some for either, it is perhaps inevitable on sions explicitly moral, legislative, and at the United States Air Force Academy, some level, since the theological content judicial.1 Harold J. Berman’s celebrated Regent University, and Emory University. of the gospel message as the proclama- account of the revolutionary impact of the He also practiced law for seven years in tion of God’s kingdom in Christ carries investiture controversy emphasizes the the United States Air Force Judge Advo- implications for the ordering and prior- seismic effect of splitting the world into cate General’s Corps. Dr. Richards is the ity of this-worldly political concerns. two competing jurisdictions. A “revolu- author of Extraordinary Justice: Military The gospel infuses new content into, tion in theology” accompanied the cor- Tribunals in Historical and International and delimits, political concepts such as responding “revolution in legal science” Context (New York Press, 2007). judgment, justice, authority, and law. The in a process whereby the “rationalization contributions of theological refl ection to and systematization of law and legal- the practices and institutions of the politi- ity” linked to the greater emphasis on cal order have sustained a long and fertile the incarnation as the defi ning event of tradition in the dominions marked by the human history and as “the central reality old boundaries of Western Christendom. of the universe.” Thus Anselm’s powerful Of great importance in this tradition account of God’s work of redemption as is the fi gure of Anselm of Canterbury, a legal transaction stood at the aperture whose teachings on the atonement have of a torrent of unprecedented, energetic been identifi ed as providing fuel to the legal activity, attending the development “revolution” that generated a distinc- of a sophisticated and systematic law of tive western legal tradition in late elev- crimes, of marriage, property and inheri- enth and early twelfth century Europe. tance, and of contract. Anselm’s theory of the atonement in his The sharp thrust of Anselm’s treatment most well-known work, the Cur Deus of the atonement in the Cur Deus Homo is Homo (“Why God became Man”) came frequently blunted through an emphasis to light against the backdrop of a virtu- on the social and political context of medi- ally simultaneous jurisdictional dispute eval feudalism, which characterized the between pope and emperor, the so-called social and political hierarchy of his day. “Investiture Controversy.” This dispute While this interpretation may provide was conducted in a decidedly legalistic some assistance in unwinding Anselm’s manner: through argumentation, through argument, it neglects what may actually the fi ling of briefs, and ultimately through be the more prominent theme of the work, 38 viewed in context, that is to say, the theme extended New Testament teaching regard- of justice, which surely was paramount ing the subject of civil government, that is, for Anselm, but which suffers neglect Paul’s series of exhortations in Romans 13. when all the weight of the interpretive Noteworthy for our purposes is the man- apparatus is placed on the side of the ner in which Paul summarizes that dis- “honor” motif. The emphasis on “honor” cussion with a restatement of the classical distances the work in a long-vanished maxim in verse 7: “Render therefore to all time, while “justice” brings to it a discom- their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, fi ting immediacy. customs to whom customs, fear to whom Part of the reason for the neglect of the fear, honor to whom honor.” As Thomas motif of “justice” in Anselm’s account can Schreiner notes, the immediate textual be attributed to a lack of understanding connection may point to the confrontation of the biblical emphasis on justice that recorded in all three synoptic gospels, in weaves the sinews of Anselm’s argument. which Jesus declares, “Render unto Cae- Part of it is traceable to a failure to see this sar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God theme resonating from within Anselm’s that which is God’s”4 (see below). Faith- discussion of honor itself. Further obscu- ful adherence to the Pauline instruction rity is generated through the isolation of requires an act of discernment as to who the Cur Deus Homo, at the expense of view- is to receive what, the implication being ing the work as forming only a portion of that while taxes are owed to some, fear Anselm’s overall project. In this article, I is what is owed to others, etc. It may be wish to trace these interpretive trajecto- that Paul’s expression in verse 7 simply ries in order to show that an emphasis refracts the variety of responses owed on the themes of justice and justifi cation to those in authority—perhaps taxes, actually matters for our understanding revenue, respect, and honor are all to be of Anselm’s project in general, and the rendered to the same person or persons.5 Cur Deus Homo in particular. Given the But the larger point is that Paul calls his signifi cance of his moment for the future readers to acknowledge and account for development of legal institutions in the the obligation to render “to all what is due west, it is important to get the right mea- them.” This corroborates John Murray’s sure of Anselm’s teaching.2 insight, to see the passage in continuity with, not just as an abrupt transition to, Three Biblical Texts on Justice the following section: i.e., Paul’s summa- Anselm closely adheres to the clas- tion of the entirety of the Old Testament sical formula “suum cuique tribuere” as Law (in vv. 8-10).6 After all, this section, it appears throughout the legal texts of which concludes with the recognition that antiquity as a fi rst order principle of natu- “love is the fulfi llment of the law” (v. 10), ral justice.3 The same classical defi nition opens with an exhortation to “owe no one lies in the background of several promi- anything,” (v. 8), i.e., an inside-out version nent biblical texts on the relationship of of the principle of justice articulated in the believer to the political “powers that verse 7, amplifi ed outward to embrace be.” I will briefl y consider three such texts, the world of all human contacts. If all in order to make the point. are given their due, there is no one left The first text comes from the most to whom a debt is still owed. The only 39 debt that remains, the debt that cannot passages indicates that both Paul and be eradicated, is love. The point is that Peter work from the presupposition that discernment of what love requires in any the demands of justice are evident and given circumstance will result in a proper direct—i.e., “natural,” or “written on the assessment of the true requirements of the heart,” in the phrase of Rom 2:14-15— and law, and thus, fulfi llment of the demands need no extended argument. Note also of justice. By this I do not mean to suggest that in both accounts, “honor” is one of Paul is simply engaging in a kind of clever the principal manifestations of fulfi lling word game, in which all the Christian the requirements of justice. Moreover, virtues collapse into one another, so that context is critical for understanding the justice = love = every other Christian biblical relationships between love and virtue. Rather, it is clear that Paul tethers justice. The imperative commands of Paul together justice and love as a restatement and Peter follow both authors’ prior pro- of the Dominical summation of the law, nouncement of the indicative character as fulfi lled in and through love of God of the believer’s justified standing “in and neighbor (Matt 22:37-40). Love is the Christ.” It is, thus, in Christ that loving- means by which the just demands of the kindness and truth, righteousness and law are fi nally realized; at the same time, peace “kiss,” in the words of the psalm- justice is fulfi lled in love; love provides the ist, and are reconciled (Ps 85:10). The completion, the fi nal realization of justice. paradoxical “equation” of love and justice In the memorable expression of Jonathan only comes to be understood, and fulfi lled Edwards, “heaven is a world of love.” at one point in time-space history, at the Paul’s re-articulation of the classical cross of Christ. notion of justice in the light of the gospel A similar presupposition seems to lie fi nds an echo in 1 Peter. The Apostle Peter behind Jesus’ own famous reply to the reiterates Paul’s legitimation of earthly Pharisees’ query as to the lawfulness rulers, enjoining submission to “the king of paying taxes to Caesar.

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