The Son Took Flesh and Bone to His Person

Anselm on the person of Christ ("On the Incarnation of the Word" in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998):

For one who correctly understands the Son's incarnation believes that the Son assumed a human being into the unity of his person and not into the unity of his substance. And my adversary foolishly thinks that the Son assumed a human being into the unity of his substance rather than into the unity of his person (p. 249).

The glorious doctrine of the person of Christ is worth celebrating with all the might: and so it also one of those doctrines worth fighting over when it is under attack.

By What Logic or Necessity?

Chapter I in Book 1 of Anselm's Why God Became Man raises the question upon which hangs the whole work.  The question is this: "By what logic or necessity did God become man, and by his death, as we believe and profess, restore life to the world, when he could have done this through the agency of some other person, angelic or human, or simply by willing it?"  Or, more briefly: "By what necessity or logic did God, almighty as he is, take upon himself the humble standing and weakness of human nature with a view to that nature's restoration?"

Why God Became Man

St. Anselm (1033-1109), bishop of Canterbury, is perhaps most famous and known for his setting forth of the ontological argument for God's existence in The Proslogion.  It is simply this: That God is that than which nothing greater or better can be conceived.

He wrote during his mature years what has come to be a very influential work: Why God Became Man.  In the preface to this work, he tells the reader how he's arranged the work into two books and what each book is about.  Book 1 provides the objections of unbelievers who repudiate the faith because they suppose that it militates against reason and the answers of the faithful to such objections.  Anselm asserts that "it proves, by unavoidable logical steps," that without Christ it is impossible that anyone could be saved.  Book 2 proposes that even if nothing were known of Christ it can be demonstrated "with no less clear logic and truth" that the aim for which God made humanity--that "the whole human being should enjoy blessed immortality"--makes it inevitable that the outcome for which man was originally created should become a reality.  And this outcome, moreover, could only come to pass through the agency of a God-man.  And so, he says, "it is from necessity that all the things which we believe about Christ have come to pass."