Anselm of Canterbury Details, Meaning Anselm of Canterbury Article and Explanation Guide

Anselm of Canterbury Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033 or 1034 - April 21, 1109), a widely influential mediaeval philosopher and theologian, held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Called the founder of Scholasticism, he is famous as the inventor of the ontological argument for the existence of god.

Table of contents

1 Biography
2 Writings

2.1 Major Works
2.2 Other dialogs

3 External links

Biography

Saint Anselm was born in Aosta, in the then Kingdom of Burgundy, now located in the Italian Alps region of Valle d'Aosta (Aosta Valley), near the borders with France and Switzerland. He left home at the age of twenty three to travel France. In 1059 he was drawn to Normandy by the fame of Lanfranc, then prior of the Benedictine Abbey of Bec. The following year he entered the abbey as a novitiate.

Three years later, in 1063, when Lanfranc was made the abbot of Caen, Anselm was elected prior. In 1078, on the death of the warrior monk Herluin, founder and first abbot of Bec, Anselm was elected abbot. Under his rule Bec became a famous seat of learning, and there Anselm wrote his first philosophical works, the dialogues on Truth and Free Will, and the two famous treatises, the Monologion and Proslogion.

As abbot of Bec, Anselm was frequently called to assist with the abbey's possessions in England. He was considered the favored choice for Archbishop of Canterbury. When the Archbishop Lanfranc died in 1089, the king, William II chose instead, not to appoint anyone. Four years later, in 1093 when the king became ill and thought he was soon to die, he finally appointed Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. During the next four years there was a continual struggle between William and Anselm over the handling of the rights and privileges of the church. He wanted Rome's help in this struggle. In 1097, he managed to gain permission from the king to go. He found little practical help from Rome. When he was ready to return to England, William would not allow him to.

Upon King William's death in 1100 his successor, King Henry I invited Anselm to return to England. He did so and lived in England until he fell out of favor with the king, and was exiled in 1103. He settled this struggle by a compromise with the king in 1107 and was allowed to return to England, where he lived until his death in 1109. He was canonized in 1494 and named a Doctor of the Church in 1720.

Writings

Philosophers perhaps think of Anselm primarily as the author of the ontological argument for the existence of God. However, the term ontological was first applied to such arguments by Kant, and it is the subject of debate whether Anselm's argument is an ontological argument at all. Anselm also authored a number of other arguments for the existence of God, based on cosmological and teleological grounds.

Western theologians regard Anselm as important because he originated the idea of substitutionary atonement in his work, Cur Deus Homo? ("Why did God become Man?"). Anselm argues that man's sin offends God's righteousness, and that God cannot save man so long as His righteousness is unsatisfied. Since all men are sinful, no man can satisfy God; consequently, God sent Jesus Christ, whose death and resurrection satisfied God's righteousness and allowed for the salvation of man. In this way Anselm established one of the most prominent atonement theories in the history of western theology.

As Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm was also an influential religious and political figure in the Europe of the time, whose disputes with William Rufus and Henry I over the rights of the Church twice led to his exile from England.