SOURCE: McGrath, A. E. “Rectitude: The Moral Foundation of Anselm of Canterbury's Soteriology.” Downside Review (July 1981): 204-13.

In the following essay, McGrath evaluates Anselm's thought on salvation as it appears in his Cur Deus Homo, maintaining that Anselm's conception of justice is based on theological rather than legal foundations.

Anselm of Canterbury has attracted increasing scholarly attention during the past century as a major thinker standing at the dawn of the Middle Ages. His greatest intellectual achievement is generally considered to be the monograph Cur Deus Homo, which is of decisive importance in the history of doctrine. Its unrivalled combination of sustained argument, moral force and originality make it a landmark in the history of literature as well as of doctrine. The Reformers, as well as several of the earlier scholastics, were to take up and develop aspects of his theology, and the doctrines of justification associated with...