I plan to publish it for discussion in short installments as Catholic-Orthodox caucus threads. All Christians as well as non-Christians are very welcome, but I ask all to maintain the caucus discipline: no interconfessional attacks, no personal attacks, and no off-topic posts. Avoid mentioning confessions outside of the caucus for any reason.
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The summary:
Sin is failure to pay debt of honor which we owe to God. As with any dept, to satisfy it, more than what has been taken is to be repaid:
He who does not render this honor which is due to God, robs God of his own and dishonors him; and this is sin. Moreover, so long as he does not restore what he has taken away, he remains in fault; and it will not suffice merely to restore what has been taken away, but, considering the contempt offered, he ought to restore more than he took away.
It is not fitting for God to remit sin undischarged. If sin is not paid and punished, then injustice and not God reigns: if sin is neither paid for nor punished, it is subject to no law ... Injustice, therefore, if it is cancelled by compassion alone, is more free than justice, which seems very inconsistent. And to these is also added a further incongruity, viz., that it makes injustice like God. For as God is subject to no law, so neither is injustice
God can demand justice when men cannot, since the honor is God's alone. Moreover, since God is ontologically justice, is is not a sign of His incomplete power that God cannot allow sin go unpinished: if it be not fitting for God to do anything unjustly, or out of course, it does not belong to his liberty or compassion or will to let the sinner go unpunished who makes no return to God of what the sinner has defrauded him ... the honor taken away must be repaid, or punishment must follow; otherwise, either God will not be just to himself, or he will be weak in respect to both parties; and this it is impious even to think of.
The honor of God is not recovered through punishment, because God never loses His honor. Rather, the punishment for sin takes away what otherwise would have been rightly man's, his happiness:
since man was so made as to be able to attain happiness by avoiding sin; if, on account of his sin, he is deprived of happiness and every good, he repays from his own inheritance what he has stolen, though he repay it against his will
Note that the difference with "missing the mark" is very subtle, if it exists at all. One thing I preceive from this definition is that while missing the mark is subject to how wide off did one go, failing to pay a debt has a hard edge binary connotation.
To put differently, since the mark is Christ, theosis is never complete; but Anselm's metaphore seems to allow a state when the debt is fully paid off.
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