Anselm, Girard, and Sacramental Theology

Preliminary Remarks

Like anyone writing on Girard today, I must acknowledge that there is already a wealth of scholarly material on Girard's mimetic theory and the theology of sacrifice. There is too much to cite in one essay, but readers who wish to delve more deeply into arguments like my own will want to consult some of it. On "Cur Deus Homo," D. B. Bentley makes an interesting case for saving Anselm, and his Orthodox Christian perspective on atonement theology is helpful for any theologian wishing to use Anselm today. ¹ Thomas Finger, J. Denny Weaver, Michael Winter, Giles Fraser, Brad Jersak, and Raymund Schwager, SJ, have all written in favor of a "nonviolent atonement" that touches on Anselm and Girard. ² And Robert Daly, SJ, has recently published the fruits of his search for a phenomenology of sacrificial atonement in Girard, emphasizing the transformative aspect of sacramental theology. ³ I will cite other works in the course of this essay. Indeed, the sheer amount of literature on Eucharistic sacrifice from a Girardian perspective may beg the question: what more is there to say?

On the question of sacramental theology, I think there is much to say. Although several theologians have explicated Girard's theory of sacrifice and Anselm's atonement theology in terms of each other, few have explored the implications for sacramental theology, and I intend in this essay to take another step in that direction. Why? The obvious reason is that Anselm's contribution to the development of atonement theology—his satisfaction theory that Christ suffered on our behalf to satisfy God's justice—overlaps richly with Girard's theory of Christ as the scapegoat who satisfies our need to know ourselves better as sinful human beings. Furthermore, this convergence implies certain things for a sacrificial understanding of the Christian Eucharist that I would like to suggest here, offering some tentative conclusions. Other theologians will have to develop these applications in the direction of explaining how the Eucharist works in both the individual and the community. In offering a new analysis of Girard's theory of sacrifice applied to Anselmian theology, I am simply arguing that we can say more about the sacramental theology of the Eucharist than scholars have said elsewhere, and we can say it more clearly. Works like Andrew J. McKenna's book on Derrida and Girard, explicating these two thinkers in terms of each other in an effort to rescue deconstruction from current excesses, offer a hopeful precedent for this sort of dialectical analysis. ⁴ The goal of this essay is to offer a fresh synthesis of Girard and Anselm, pointing in broad outline to a new way of looking at sacramental theology.

I will generally limit my analysis to two works, Anselm's "Cur Deus Homo" and Girard's I See Satan Fall like Lightning. The former represents Anselm's theology of atonement in its fullest expression, and is routinely cited when theologians mention him in relation to Girard. The latter is a relatively late work of Girard's, and I have chosen to supplement it with secondary sources rather than delving deeply into Girard's earlier works. There are two reasons for this. First, I have noted that I want to limit my focus to the conversation between Girard and Anselm regarding the mimetic or sacramental example of Jesus Christ, and Girard's earlier works do not explicitly address this point. They suggest few clear applications of his mimetic theory to sacramental theology, particularly as regards the transformative meaning of Eucharistic sacrifice. Second, I See Satan is Girard's most explicitly Christian book, in which he sets out his analysis of biblical anthropology most clearly. It is a logical choice for any application of Girard to sacramental theology.

Finally, I want to say a word about the theological focus of this essay. Although terms like "Eucharistic sacrifice" can have narrowly Catholic connotations, I think my tentative conclusions on sacramental theology will apply in any Christian denomination where the Eucharistic liturgy is seen as representing Christ's death. Ecumenically speaking, I hope my thoughts will be widely applicable in...