Punishment and Atonement: Retrieving Anselmian Jurisprudence

Even though legal positivism has tended to distance law from theology with its separation thesis, in the recent literature discussion of the relationship between law and religion has become a topic of scholarly attention once more. Today there is a flourishing body of work at the interstices between these two disciplines. This thesis contributes to this area of research by examining how a key theme in Christian theology, that of the doctrine of atonement or reconciliation, may have a bearing on several central issues in contemporary punishment theory. The introductory chapter sets the scene by staking out the conceptual space for the subsequent chapters, drawing on recent work at the intersection of political philosophy, law, and religion. Chapter 2 provides a working definition of punishment and its justification, as well as an account of relevant issues in the doctrine of atonement. Chapter 3 focuses more specifically on the work of the medieval divine, Anselm of Canterbury (1033- 1109 CE), whose treatise on atonement, Cur Deus Homo (Why the God Human), is one of the most influential treatments of the doctrine. The chapter considers his understanding of atonement as satisfaction, as well as his notions of punishment and forgiveness. Chapter 4 deals with the way the American philosopher Katherin A. Rogers has recently appropriated Anselm’s work for an account of legal punishment that she calls the character creation view. Her work demonstrates one way in which Anselm’s intellectual legacy can be used constructively for thinking about nodal issues in punishment theory. The chapter critically interacts with her retrieval of a broadly Anselmian account of punishment, considering both its strengths and weaknesses. The upshot is that there continue to be ways in which law and religion can learn from each other, and that a specific theological tradition— in this case, Anselmianism—may provide important conceptual resources for current thinking about punishment and its alternatives in legal theory.