What Do We Think About Transactionalism?
On one level it is profoundly dangerous to us, yet on another, did not the life and accomplishments of Christ offer a unique and ultimate example?
There is a striking consensus in our contemporary culture upon the point that “transactionalism” between people is bad. In other words, that those relationships defined by a transactional character are inadequate and impoverished. In such an understanding it is characteristic that such goods as respect or regard, loyalty, attention, and support should be exchanged for a corresponding benefit in a manner we might summarize with the formula: “I will do this for you if you do that for me.” To be sure, however, it is not the reciprocity of itself that we see as problematic, since relationships necessarily involve mutual exchange, but a problem is seen to arise when the governing logic is a goal exterior to the exchange itself – which displaces as its object the supposed goods – such as care, trust, commitment, and so forth.
Transactional relationships all too readily in consequence collapse down to the view that a person is valued according to what they provide, and that regard and support is not to be offered because the other person matters as such, but because some return is expected. The other person thus becomes instrumentalised. Viewed in this way, regard, affection, and support will soon seem things earned rather than freely given, with a likely consequence of anxiety about what is required in order for this to be achieved, or even in order to remain worthy of love. This becomes especially problematic when a person’s capacities are impaired, as when ill or otherwise frail or vulnerable. Experience makes clear that well founded relationships can accommodate a temporary asymmetry, but a strictly transactional one will tend to treat such imbalance as dependence and failure, or as one incurring a debt.
Another lens through which we can consider some of the issues here is that of trust. Trust depends partly on confidence that another person’s actions are sincere. But if we come to suppose that every action and every kindness is actually a kind of investment creating a debt that awaits repayment, then motives become at best mixed and will tend to create an atmosphere of calculation and accounting.
It is telling that in such a universe, the central question will not be “What does this person need?”– but rather “Who owes what to whom?” And there are few relationships able to maintain a perfectly equal exchange at every point, since people have different capacities and needs which will also change over time.
A transactional framework for understanding will tend to see imbalance as evidence of either exploitation or disloyalty. Next, resentment will tend to arise.
On the one hand, the party seen as the giver will likely feel unappreciated when the expected return does not materialise, while on the other, the receiver is likely to feel controlled because assistance appears to be conditional and to have a price. Moreover, either or even both parties may believe they are contributing more than the other. But it is also worth noting here that an analysis of mutual relations, that sees them in terms of power, will have closely parallel consequences. Thus, generosity becomes a means of acquiring leverage or power, rather than an expression of regard, solicitude, or even of love.
Once again, it is important to note that this particular approach does not promote true mutuality but instead invites an adversarial relationship in which each person defends an account of what they have sacrificed rather than shared positively. Transactional thinking thus, over time, tends to treat people instrumentally: as sources of money, status, labour, or just power, or even mere social convenience. Others are valued primarily for usefulness, thereby displacing any understanding of ends and intrinsic worth.
This reductionism is ethically serious because it confuses a person with the benefits that a person supplies – with the implied consequence that once the benefits disappear, the relationship may appear to have no remaining purpose. Such a structure is inherently fragile and can become exploitative where the parties possess unequal money, power, knowledge, or social freedom.
When commitment is based primarily on securing a perceived advantage, it also becomes intrinsically unstable and vulnerable to changing circumstances, and the possibility of a new and better deal elsewhere, while lesser goods can also tend to become what defines the relationship. This in turn will tend to undermine the capacity to be authentic and of mature judgement. It can only be unsatisfactory when matters of perceived advantage come to define it and displace the authentic maximisation of the good.
But we might also ask outcomes if there are wider theological themes with which any of this might connect? One such would be how we think about restoring impaired and damaged relationships – and when we think about this, it will soon bring us to ask what it means to make good and to atone?
One of the most profound treatments of atonement was that of an Archbishop of Canterbury, namely that of St. Anselm, in his famous work Cur Deus Homo (“Why God Became Man”), composed between 1094 and 1098 during his exile from England. This text stands as the locus classicus of what is known as the “satisfaction theory of atonement” and was written in the form of a Socratic dialogue between Anselm and his pupil Boso.
The work seeks to demonstrate, by “necessary reason” (necessary ratione) apart from explicit appeal to scriptural authority, the logical coherence and fittingness of the Incarnation and Atonement. And its method exemplifies Anselm’s program of fides quaerens intellectum (“faith seeking understanding”): not to prove Christian doctrine to skeptics in order to generate faith, but to confirm through rational argument what is already held by faith
Cur Deus Homo was written in response to two distinct challenges:
First, Jewish critics of Christianity who questioned the necessity, possibility, and dignity of the Incarnation and crucifixion, arguing that it was inconceivable for God to become man and suffer death.
Second, those Christian theologians who maintained that God became man merely to deliver humanity from the devil’s dominion through a kind of divine deception — a view Anselm regarded as theologically inadequate and philosophically incoherent.
Against the former, Anselm argues that the Incarnation and Atonement are not only necessary and possible but “most fitting” (convenientissimum) and “inexpressibly beautiful,” perfectly harmonious with God’s honour and justice.
Against the latter, he insists that God became man not to “trick” Satan but to make satisfaction for sin, thereby restoring the order of justice disrupted by human disobedience.
Anselm famously argues that only a God-man can achieve the purpose for which humanity was created — namely, blessed immortality — and thus that everything Christians believe about Christ’s Incarnation and Passion must take place of necessity. Anselm proceeded through a series of carefully distinguished premises that culminated in the conclusion that satisfaction for sin is indispensable and that only a God-man can provide it.
First, we must note that Anselm defines sin as fundamentally the failure to render to God the honour due to Him. For “Someone who does not render to God this honor due to him is taking away from God what is his, and dishonouring God, and this is what it is to sin.” This dishonor constitutes an objective disorder in the moral cosmos: it disrupts the order of justice that God established in creation. Sin is not merely a subjective failing or a private injury; it is a violation of the divine order, a theft of what belongs to God — namely, the creature’s willing obedience.
Next, he argues that because sin dishonours God, the sinner incurs a debt that must be repaid. And Anselm then distinguishes between two modes of repayment: punishment and satisfaction. If the sinner does not voluntarily make satisfaction, God must exact punishment to restore the order of justice. However, punishment alone does not restore the honour taken; it merely vindicates God’s justice by inflicting a penalty.
Satisfaction, by contrast, involves the sinner voluntarily offering something to God that exceeds what is owed, thereby restoring honour and reconciling the relationship. But we need to see here, he argues, that to remit sin without satisfaction would be to leave the disorder of injustice unaddressed, which is incompatible with God’s nature as the source and guardian of justice. Thus, satisfaction is not an arbitrary requirement but a necessary consequence of divine justice. And having established the necessity of satisfaction, Anselm next demonstrates that fallen humanity cannot provide it.
Every human being, by virtue of sin, already owes God perfect obedience – so there is nothing supererogatory that a sinner can offer in addition. As Anselm puts it, “Only man ought to make satisfaction for his sin, but he cannot.” For even if a person were to live a life of perfect obedience from the moment of repentance, this would merely be what is already owed; it would not constitute a surplus capable of compensating for past disobedience.
Moreover, the magnitude of the debt is infinite, because the honor taken from God is of infinite worth. But as finite human beings, and mere creatures, we cannot offer anything of infinite value. Thus, humanity is trapped in an impossible situation: obligated to make satisfaction, yet incapable of doing so. Book II addresses this question: how can we overcome the impasse?
St. Anselm’s answer is, once again, that only a being who is both fully God and fully man can make the required satisfaction for “recompense for sin must be paid ‘which no one can pay except God, and no one ought to pay except man: [therefore] it is necessary that a God-Man should pay it’.”
Thus do the requirements of justice (man must pay) and capability (only God can pay) converge in the necessity of the Incarnation. Anselm further argues that Christ’s death is not merely a payment of debt, but a supererogatory act of obedience that generates merit beyond what is required. As divine, Christ owes no obedience in the sense of being subject to the Father; as man, he voluntarily submits to death, though he is under no obligation to do so. This voluntary self-offering constitutes a gift of infinite value, which God the Father accepts as satisfaction for the sins of humanity.
Next, Anselm argues that because Christ’s merit exceeds what is necessary for his own salvation (he being sinless), it can be transferred to others. Accordingly, Anselm held that Christ “acquired a reward” through his death, which he bestows upon those for whom he died. This reward is the remission of sins and the restoration of humanity to its original destiny: of blessed immortality.
And what we might ask, in all this, if not in some incredibly deep way might there be a sense of a transactional view?
Anselm’s use of medieval concepts of honor and obligation certainly reflect his historical context, and a world where violations of honour demanded restitution, (so the idea of satisfaction would have been intuitively grasped in a manner that is much harder for moderns to see). Nonetheless, Anselm transcends mere cultural analogy by grounding his argument in the nature of God as just and the nature of sin as objective disorder.
In arguing as he does, Anselm surely demonstrated how faith and reason can mutually illuminate the central mysteries of Christian doctrine. And his satisfaction theory, surely, provides a powerful account of how Christ’s death reconciles divine justice and mercy, and restored the order disrupted by sin. All of which enables humanity then to attain, once more, our created purpose — surely the ultimate transactional relation of efficacy beyond all others!