ŚLĄSKIE STUDIA HISTORYCZNO-TEOLOGICZNE

Edith Stein is not usually associated with the thought of Anselm of Canterbury. However, when we read her “Endliches und Ewiges Sein”, we realize that she understood Anselm’s ratio of the Proslogion far better than Thomas Aquinas and effectively defended it against Aquinas’ criticism. Apart from their feeling for metaphysics, Anselm and Stein have another common feature: they both offer their testimony to the quaerere Deum aspect of religious life. The “intra in cubiculum mentis tuae” idea is an essential leitmotiv for them: they sought the solitude of the monastic cell in order to seek their Master without hindrance from the outside world and to contemplate the divinely instituted order of reality. In the present-day civilization of the West which does not “have God in its heart”, the example of St. Anselm “father of S cholasticism” and of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross – one of the patron saints of Europe, may serve to inspire those who seek a solution to the great spiritual void of Western society as well as save philosophy from disintegration.

This paper discusses the two-phase publication of the Proslogion and its significance for understanding the nature of Anselm’s endeavour in the treatise. The introduction highlights the importance of making sense of the peculiar combination of argument and devotion in the treatise. It also pays attention to an important recent article by R. Sharpe (2009), which effectively shatters the authoritativeness of the editorial matter in F. S. Schmitt’s edition of Anselm’s works. The second part offers a critical discussion of Schmitt’s and Sharpe’s views concerning the early versions of the Monologion and Proslogion. The third part investigates the evidence related to the publication history of the Proslogion, arguing that Anselm incorporated all the additional features, including the exchange with Gaunilo, at the same time. To elucidate why the publication history of the Proslogion is vital for the interpretation of the treatise, the last part of the paper offers an outline explaining Anselm’s objectives in the two-phase publication. It is proposed that the Proslogion should be read as Anselm’s subtle attempt to defend and justify the kind of rational method that he had been using in the Monologion.

DER GRUNDGEDANKE DER STELLVERTRETUNG IN DER SOTERIOLOGIE ANSELMS VON CANTERBURY UND IHRER HEUTIGEN REZEPTION
Der Gedanke der Stellvertretung ist im soteriologischen Bereich mit der Satisfaktionslehre Anselms von Canterbury stark verbunden. Da der Begriff der Stellvertretung im allgemeinen und im Bezug auf die Lehre Anselms im speziellen viel diskutiert wird, wurde im vorliegenden Beitrag die Gelegenheit aufgegriffen, zunächst die Positionen in der deutschsprachigen Diskussion der letzten Jahre um das Verständnis der Stellvertretung auf dem Hintergrund des Anselmschen Konzeptes zu erörtern. Es wird bemerkt, dass die hauptsäch lichen Unterschiede in der Interpretation dieses Themas davon abhängen, inwiefern die Autoren die personalen oder die sachhaften Kategorien in Anselms Satisfaktionslehre hervorheben. Dabei ist die Grundtendenz bemerkenswert, diese Lehre aus der zeitbedingten Hülle der Vorstellungen herauszuholen und in die heute wichtigen Kategorien des personalen Freiheitsvollzugs einzufügen.
Im zweiten Teil wird auf eine Konsequenz der Lehre Anselms, bzw. ihrer Interpretationen, hingewiesen: Die "augustinische" Trennung der subjektiven von der objektiven Erlösung wurde nämlich durch dieses Konzept gestärkt. Viele heutige Interpreten versuchen sie aufzuheben oder zu mildern, indem sie die Erlösungslehre Anselms auf der personalen Ebene deuten. Die entschiedenen Kritiker Anselms lehnen dagegen seine Lehre als eine verdinglichte Vorstellung ab, um auf diese Weise den personalen Charakter der Erlösung hervorzuheben und dabei auch die starke Trennung zwischen der objektiven und subjektiven Erlösung zu relativieren. Selbst wenn sich also am Verstehen Anselms die Geister scheiden, bleibt seine Lehre für viele ein Bezugspunkt für die Betonung, dass die Erlösung und darin insbesondere die Stellvertretung Christi als ein personales Geschehen zu deuten ist.

On implicated theological hermeneutics of Anselm of Canterbury. Summary
The subject of analysis is the problem of faith understanding presented by Anselm. The analysis refers to contemporary presentation of understanding as a set in motion process shut in a “parts - integrity” circle. The analysis allows to grasp the character of his reasoning without imposing that type of mental structure on Anselm: it allows to recognize the priority of the integrity in it. In this context, understanding of faith appears as capturing its integrity by logical inscribing of it (faith) in universal “ratio” – the basic of reality.

The soteriology of Anselm of Canterbury had a strong influence on theological reflection in the past. In this article we have considered presumed main reason for this state. This major reason is an attempt to explain the salvific action of Christ in a precise and rational way. This account profoundly integrates the most significant elements of the faith of the Church: the radical and universal need for salvation, the unity of God’s justice and mercy, and the uniqueness of the Mediator of salvation. These elements are still relevant also in the contemporary, pluralistic expression of the faith in redemption, that is why Anselm’s teaching may retain its inspiring abilities.

Anselm`s thinking is a stimulating enterprise – inspiring since the later Middle Ages and early modern thinkers who were smart enough to avoid the gap of circulus vitiosus deus (Friedrich Nietzsche) seeing in God the identity of human mind, absorbed by the errors of void mirroring.
It is evident that the Gerberon edition of Anselm`s works (1675) and the modern edition by Dom Schmitt (since World War II , finished 1961) inspired Anselmian studies. Here we are focussing on 20th century’s studies since Guardini`s and Karl Barth`s insights into the ecclesiastical dimension of Anselm`s thought (opposing misleading formalized analytical interpretations even before these became fashionable). After all, we can see in Anselm a landmark thinker of frontiers – starting from giving voice to the wishful thinking of the good in itself and leading to see what is given to us, starting from monologue to dialogue. In this way we can see in Anselm`s work a path – directly through the tremendous self-denying errors of modernity.

The paper is an attempt to put into focus the problem discussed by Kathryn R. Rogers and Hugh McCann whether or not Anselm of Canterbury makes God responsible for sin and evil. The obvious Anselmian text to refer to is that of the Philosophical Fragments, in which Anselm presents his understanding of the four ways of willing something (quattuor modi volendi), something which neither Rogers nor McCann seem to take into account.
The whole purpose of Anselm’s distinguishing between four types of willing is to enable one to interpret properly passages of Scripture where God’s will is referred to and, one may add, to help scholars such as Rogers and McCann find a simple way out of the labyrinth, in which, it would seem, they have lost themselves in.

This paper deals with observing the peripatetic motives and influences of Boethius on the education and thinking of the late 10th and 11th centuries. The connection between Anselm‘s proofs of G od‘s existence from Monologion and Proslogion and so called mensa geometricalis, i.e. the abacus, a counting board used for arithmetical calculations and geometrical demonstrations circa 1,000 A.D., is presented as the entirely natural way of peripatetic interpretation of the intellectual world of Anselm of Canterbury, initiated by Franciscus Salesius Schmitt, through a search for other traces of Aristotelian heritage in the 11th century and in the period around the year 1,000 (primarily under the influence of Boethius‘s texts).

Anselm states “God, as it is said, ‘causes peace and creates evil’ ” in Concordia. The expression ‘God creates evil’ contradicts itself and it cannot be said that the omniscient and omnipotent God creates evil. This paper considers why Anselm made such an expression, i.e. why Anselm believed that God created evil, what it means in his ethics, and what this point of view tells us about how to live in peace with each other. The expression ‘causes peace and creates evil’ is believed to have been taken from the book of Isaiah. Evil created by God is in order to try and purify just people and to punish unjust people. God creates evil to correct the evil of humans, which in turns brings about peace. Evil committed by humans (i.e. sin) is opposed to the ‘rule of charity (regula caritatis)’ which Anselm writes of. God creates evil so that our behaviour comes to accord with that rule. True love, i.e. charity, is required for peace, and justice is required to carry out deeds of charity. Recovering distorted love to the bond of charity is the path to peace. In Anselm’s way of thinking, peace is brought about by following the rule of charity, and peace is broken when we live without and outside this rule of charity.