Anselm and honor

Anselm means something very different by “honor” than we are readily equipped to understand without effort. God is not a tin-pot dictator obsessed with his privileges. On the contrary, the Trinitarian movement that Anselm always has in mind is described in Philippians 2:5-7: “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied (Greek root kenosis) himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” God’s honor is God’s righteousness, his holiness, his perfection — but it is also his love and freedom, which show themselves in the kenotic self-emptying of the Son.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 156

Anselm's impassible God

Anselm himself, relying on Platonic views about perfection, uses such arguments to defend the view that God is “impassible” (cannot be affected by anything outside of himself), changeless, timeless, and utterly simple. Reflection on God’s attributes using the method of what has come to be called “perfect being theology” is still very much alive. However, some contemporary philosophers, while still employing perfect being theology, have questioned some of Anselm’s Platonic ideas about what counts as a perfection. For example, is it really a perfection not to be able to be affected by what else happens? Might it be that a God who is capable of interacting with and responding to his creatures is actually more perfect than a God who is incapable of change? It seems particularly important to think about how a God who chose to become incarnate as a human being might change and interact with his creatures.—Evans, A History of Western Philosophy, 160

Anselm and faith

Thus Anselm’s motto could well be described as “faith seeking understanding.” This should not be understood as if faith were some kind of inferior cognitive state that gets upgraded to or replaced by understanding. Faith is not mere belief, but a state in which one trusts and loves God, and Anselm sees this affective stance as one that makes a deeper understanding possible. Nor is the understanding that faith makes possible something that replaces faith; it is rather a state that faith continually nourishes and renews. However, to say that Anselm’s philosophy is one that sees philosophical thinking as rooted in faith is not to say that such thinking has no value or relevance to the unbeliever.—Evans, A History of Western Philosophy, 156