Rewriting Mortality: Gift and Atonement in Cur Deus Homo
The model of atonement presented in Anselm of Canterbury's Cur Deus Homo has aroused a host of worries from theologians. The gist of their criticism is that Anselm inscribes redemptive violence into theology and thus encourages passive acquiescence to abusive power structures or even licenses t...
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| Medienart: | Elektronisch Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Verfügbarkeit prüfen: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2021
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| In: |
Heythrop journal
Jahr: 2021, Band: 62, Heft: 4, Seiten: 719-728 |
| IxTheo Notationen: | KAE Kirchengeschichte 900-1300; Hochmittelalter NBC Gotteslehre NBE Anthropologie NBK Soteriologie NCA Ethik |
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| Zusammenfassung: | The model of atonement presented in Anselm of Canterbury's Cur Deus Homo has aroused a host of worries from theologians. The gist of their criticism is that Anselm inscribes redemptive violence into theology and thus encourages passive acquiescence to abusive power structures or even licenses the violence of abusers. Some suggest that the way forward would be to jettison Anselm's account and develop alternatives that are not liable to the same abuses. This paper argues that while alternatives may be desirable, Cur Deus Homo looms so large in theological imaginations as to defy jettisoning. We should instead try to perform better readings. This paper presents a close reading of this text as a monastic meditation on mortality oriented less toward resolving a problem of systematic theology than drawing readers into a renewed experience of devotion to God. To do that, Anselm works to rewrite the meaning of human mortality, making it less about the necessity of losing one's life and more about the possibility of a gift of death. The ethical paradigm that emerges is far from a complete moral vision, but is still more alluring than the one about which Anselm's contemporary critics worry. |
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| ISSN: | 1468-2265 |
| Enthält: | Enthalten in: Heythrop journal
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/heyj.12492 |