I propose that the Penal Substitution view of the atonement is nothing more than cosmic child abuse. Discuss.
To flesh it out, marginally, penal substitution can be summarised thus: God is wrathful with the sin of humanity. God needs to punish sin, but instead of punishing humanity, sends his Son to be punished in humanity’s place - hence, penal (i.e. Jesus paying the penalty) substitution (i.e. in our place). More succinctly, God wants to beat ‘the hell’ out of us, but instead beats ‘the hell’ out of his Son. Sounds like child abuse.
2 COR 5: 19 a)
I really can’t add much to this other than it requires a heck of a lot of meditating on the above reference :o)
2 Co. 5:19
This verse only states the need for reconciliation and the fact that God made it, but it does not state or explain the actual way God did it.
Specifically...
…God was In Christ.
That’s the way God did it - what don’t you understand about that?
How to talk about the atonement
I have some general (and perhaps not altogether clear) observations to make about how we should approach this issue.
1. The doctrine of ‘penal substitution’, whatever its essential merits, developed as an explanation, rationalization or condensation of a complex a set of experiences and ideas. The interpretive process works from complex reality to simplified doctrine. Problems always arise when we reverse the order, taking not the reality but the doctrine as the starting point or premise for our thinking - when, for example, we begin to make the complex reality conform to the contours of the doctrine, cutting off all the bits that don’t fit; or when we start drawing conclusions from the doctrine which may seem intrinsically coherent but which no longer have an explanatory relationship to the reality.
To give a rough analogy: a doctrine is a highly compressed version of what it purports to describe or explain, but the compression process is not precise and it is not ‘lossless’. Information gets distorted or filtered out - just as a jpeg file loses image information in the course of being compressed - so that the doctrine itself, the theory, becomes a fundamentally ‘flawed’ representation of the truth and an unreliable premise on which to base further arguments. It seems to me that joeblow’s problem with the doctrine of penal substitution arises because the explanation (if it has any validity at all) has been forced to work much harder than it was even intended to do.
2. I think we need to think much more in historical terms when we try to explain the atonement. The theory of penal substitution has taken on the shape of an ahistorical myth - it carries a lot of theological meaning but it has lost any real referring function, it doesn’t connect with either historical or personal reality. I would suggest that the place to start with this sort of discussion is not with the modern categories of atonement, but somewhere deep within the historical and eschatological narrative of first century Judaism. What we would need to take into account are things like the immediate experience of oppression, the history of suffering and martyrdom, the impact of prophetic and apocalyptic texts that begin to interpret the suffering of Israel as redemptive, the sense of an impending state of wrath comparable to the Babylonian invasion or the crisis provoked by Antiochus IV, the shock of seeing Gentiles receive the Spirit of the God of Israel, and so on.
It seems to me that we have got to the point at which we cannot speak responsibly about theories of the atonement without understanding why there had to be a theory in the first place. What drove the early church to make these statements. This seems far more sensible than trying to reverse engineer the developed modern theories.
3. We should probably stop and ask ourselves whether there is actually a thing out there called the ‘atonement’ that needs to be explained. We talk about the relative merits of various theories of the atonement, but what we actually have to talk about - and that’s if we trust the gospel narratives - is a man dying, in a certain place and at a certain time, because he upset the Jewish authorities. What exactly have we done to the story by extracting from it an abstraction called the ‘atonement’? Is the story really anything more than a myth or parable by which we illustrate some universal truth of atonement?
to joeblow
joeblow, can i ask: did you lift that theme about cosmic child-abuse from Steve Chalke and Alan Mann: The Lost Message of Jesus - page 182 - perchance?
:o)
picking on penal substitution...
the answer’s no, and yes, ga_ge.
the criticism of apparent child abuse imagery in the penal substitution understanding of the atonement has been around for many years from feminist, black and liberation theologians and some of the historically non-violent churches, such as the Mennonites. In particular, J Denny Weaver wrote The Non-Violent Atonement, a criticism of violent imagery and violence in Christian theology and an offering of non-violent alternatives. I believe it was originally published in 1941, but don’t quote me on that.
Coincidentally, Steve Chalke’s recent pulp theology book that you mention, ga_ge, is at the centre of much debate at the moment, and includes the controversial, and indeed inflamatory, phrase ‘cosmic child abuse’. As I understand things, Steve Chalke and Alan Mann coined the phrase in isolation, down t’pub one evening, relatively unaware that the phrase (or some equivalent) was used in existing criticism of penal substitution. Isn’t interesting that a subject which is so incidental to the main thrust of Steve Chalke’s book as become a flash point…?
I wanted to start this discussion on the atonement here in particular to search out where ‘Emerging Church’ theology is at in working with such a key aspect of Christian faith - what do people who are looking for alternative expressions of local church make of the doctrines that the established/institutional/whatever churches they’re escaping build their faith upon? Since the ‘Lost Message of Jesus’ debate is current it seemed appropriate to work with the atonement now.
I wholeheartedly agree with andrew’s comments on the various understandings of the atonement being windows on the deeper mystery. It’s really what Baudrillard was addressing in Simulacra and Simulation, in essence - that the models we construct to help us understand ‘reality’ (‘the real’) are a fundamental break from reality but become the determinant of our perception of reality. The other thing of course is that these atonement models have become timeless and time-free, disconnected from history - either the history in which they were orginally birthed, or the history of Jesus of Nazareth - which is of course repeating what andrew’s already said.
However, I think it’s important to take a pincer movement approach with this subject. As andrew’s said, starting from the historical-eschatological context of first century Palestine is vital in working with Jesus’ own perception of his life and mission and rediscovering meaning in the atonement from there. But I don’t think it deals with the most basic question: why do we need theories of the atonement? As we unearth the heart of the existing theories we can see what issues they were constructed to address, why they were/are seen as viable and valuable models. And we can also see where and how they are deficient and where and how they simply break down.
Hopefully, it will be a constructive process, though - putting things together in a way that reveals more and more of the mystery underneath.
Toning
Okay, I think I understand where you’re coming from.
Nonetheless,I do maintain that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” refuses the arbitrary insistence that this be understood as 2 parties i.e. a Loving God walloping a Devoted son. Apparently, this is a mystery but heck! why start at Golgotha? I’d always stumbled over Abraham’s extraordinary obedience in trussing up Isaac! But there is a point made elsewhere on this site about Jonah’s revolting at the prospect of Obeying God without hindsight. The book of Hebrews (I think: I’m not sure all of a sudden!) teaches that Abraham reckoned God could bring Isaac back because of a Prior Promise banking on Abraham’s Offspring etc. I think what’s crucial here is trusting God with our lives, even to the point of death and not flinching (and, OF COURSE, how easy is that to say..!).
P’raps that’s the ONLY way to trust and experience this God ‘who raises the dead’? Maybe that’s the crisis! At one time, Cephas/Peter was full of beans about following Christ even unto death (presumably because he was fired up with the vision of a revolutionary leader): fails miserably, only for the resurrected Jesus to tell him ‘Oh by the way, you WILL die for me…only this time you WON’T want to…)
Anyway, I’m all for people exploring the ethnic and cultural distinctiveness with which these things were realised and come down to us…but i must confess i didn’t realised that might constitute a whole new manifest movement!
I’m certainly not well-versed in post-modernisms and hermaneutic-ing this or that so i doubt i’m speaking the same language as the contributions you may be after.
But if this Baudrillard chappy is right in his insistence that our realities are ‘constructs’ divorced from the Object of our passion (dunno if i’ve got that right) then I think we’d be no further on or any better off than a perplexed Pilate standing before Incomprehensibility Incarnate and saying, “You what??”
Anyroads…that’ll be all for’time.
ga_ge
What kind of God needs a bribe to love?
I’m really interested in this topic as studying the atonement at theological college led to a profound change in my view of and relationship with God.
It was actually reflecting on the verse that ga_ge has quoted - ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’ - that proved a turning point for me.
Not only, as ga_ge has noted, are ‘God’ and ‘Christ’ apparently in it together, but it’s the world that needs reconciling to God and not the other way around. The atonement theory on which I grew up was completely predicated on the opposite basis: that God needed to be reconciled to us, because we are so damn awful.
Apart from 2 Cor 5:19, the idea that Jesus is needed as a sacrifice of propitiation in order for our sins to be forgiven seems as equally repugnant as the concept of divine child abuse. If God cannot forgive without some sort of bribe, a payment to soothe the pain of the offence to his fragile holiness, then where does that leave us? On what basis should I forgive?
In my opinion the penal substitutionary model of atonement is fundamentally flawed at the moment it suggests that forgiveness is in any way a product of Jesus death.
I think it is entirely reasonable to read the Levitical cultus as symbols to Israel of God’s forgiveness, rather than rituals to earn it. In the same way, Jesus death can be seen as a symbol to us of God’s forgiveness; a demonstration that it costs God a lot to get our attention and affection.
My feeling is that we need, as andrew has said, to explore the salvation-historical context to understand the appropriate meaning of the New Testament symbols. But I think we also have to be rigorous in deconstructing the penal substitutionary model of atonement if we can see that, in the language we have received it, God is made to seem aloof and vindictive.
National forgiveness and Yhwh's justice
I appreciate Matt’s and ga_ge’s responses and insight. Permit me to comment at two points to Matt’s previous post.
1) In light of the general 2nd Temple Jewish mindset of continuing exile and the prophetic indications that its end would very well come *through* significant tribulation and/or martyrdom, Jesus death may be better understood, historically/jewishly, as the *sign* that YHWH had already forgiven Israel, that the exile was now over. We must remember that ‘forgiveness of sins’ was tied into the larger national hope for covenant renewal, not just at the individual level, but at the level of national liberation and the return of YHWH to her people.
2) In considering the ‘repugnance’ of the idea of penal substitution, no one has brought up the concept of justice. What kind of god is it that lets the terrible things in this world go unaccounted for, without an adequate challenge to the powers that perpetuate it? Might not the concept of necessary justice have something to say about substitutionary atonement? As Ivan in -Brothers Karamazov- we cry out for justice for the innocents who have been abused. But where can we find this justice if our god merely waves his hands and closes his eyes? The Jewish Scriptures are replete with the concept that YHWH would one day bring justice to bear on his creation, wrongs would be righted and righteousness rewarded.
I know that this actually plays out in more than just the two arbitrary divisions I’ve given. Oh well, have fun!
National forgiveness I get; justice I don't
Thanks ericboehmer for your insights. Your first point makes sense to me - I think this is the sort of thing andrew was talking about earlier when he advocated reading the atonement in it’s historical context.
Your second point confuses me a bit.
As I see it - the key question regarding justice: Is the goal of justice a pair of balanced scales or lasting freedom for the oppressed?
My feeling is that much justice-talk is about the former when it should really be about the latter.
I feel very uncomfortable with the idea that Jesus’ death is an act of justice in the ‘satisfying’ sense. The penal substitutionary atonement theory given to me held that God punishes sin because of his perfect justice. Thus the sinless Jesus’ receipt of that punishment evidences absorption of it and a freedom from it for those ‘in Christ’.
Why, however, does God’s perfect justice move him to punish? Does he want to balance the scales? If so, why is Jesus telling people to move beyond ‘an eye for an eye’? I’m not talking about simply feeling love and forgiveness. I’m talking about actually loving your enemies. It doesn’t make sense to me to say that Jesus - God incarnate - is trying to get those around him to see the potential for good in even the worst of sinners, but that his Father in heaven is stoking the fires for a bit of penal correctitude.
I understand God’s burning justice to be his fighting the corner of those oppressed by evil, not some abstract accounting calculation or a topping up of the yin to balance the yang. If the atonement is about justice, it’s Jesus’ identification with the crushed and his resurrection to better life that does it for me. God is actually doing something to combat death and decay.
I cannot conceive of a God who ‘waves his hands and closes his eyes’. But as I see it, justice is about making things better for the victims of evil in its many guises - good news to the poor, freedom for the captives, sight to the blind, etc. - not making things any worse than they already are.
re: National forgiveness and Yhwh's justice
Eric: Thanks for your post. I wanted comment on your item #2. You seem to be basically assuming something that I don’t necessarily take as a given. You are assuming that “necessary justice” = “punishment”.
But can “justice” just mean “making wrongs right, even if that doesn’t involve punishment”?
For example: Jon murders sally. Sally’s mother is mad. The punishment theory of justice is that Jon must go to prison to pay. But what if God’s justice had nothing to do with Jon—and everything to do with restoring Sally and her mother?
Can justice be done without punishment?
freedom and responsibility
good question. I don’t think I know the answer. But I wonder to what extent my assumption about being human—that it entails freeedom to make choices and responsibility for those choices—plays into it.
Atonement
Hi Ga_ge,
Very small point. It was the bn’e ha elohim who demanded Isaac’s life…. It was Elohim who intervened. So ? God didn’t wish it …. the sons of the gods did. ( Check a good Hebrew Bible. )
Historically contingent analogies
I agree that if we work an analogy, any analogy too hard, try to know all there is to know at once, one or more elements will slip away (theological uncertainty?). And if we limit ourselves to knowing Christ only through the now dusty lenses of biblical authors writing from within cultures we’ll never fully know, we’re settling.
Just like people of faith in all ages, we are somehow obliged to make sense of Jesus in terms of our culture. It’s all we have. It is a lot harder, and it demands more of us, but hey, that’s the point. And if we can’t do that, maybe we don’t know as much as we thought.
Cosmic Child Abuse/Atonement
I think this notion of Cosmic Child Abuse is confusing unrelated ideas of punishment possibly equating a spanking with a crucifixion.
1.) Whatever one may think of corporal punishment of children as an element of child raising, there is a distinct difference between what is sometimes referred to as a “spanking” and child abuse. I have worked with abused children and know of a child cut with razors and nailed in a closet for weeks. This, and worse, is child abuse and, as such, is not a term to be thrown around lightly even if only to enliven debate.
2.) Dispensing with child abuse, corporal punishment remains and I do not see in the scriptures God giving Jesus a good spanking, or beating to reconcile sinners to himself.
3.) I see in the scriptures that Jesus died to reconcile sinners to God. This makes the sinner not simply a wayward, errant child in need of a simple swat to the hindparts, but rather a person guilty of a hanging offense in need of mercy, forgiveness and someone or something to die in his place.
Are these the scriptures relevant to the theory of the penal substitution view of the Atonement?
Alario
...And Justice for All?
Yep,
I’d run with Alario’s point re Justice: this is an act of judgement: the Son has willingly stepped into the gap to take it on the chin on our behalf - remember Jesus’ assurance at John 10: 17 - 18 where he does all things out of knowing and trusting God - a luxury that, for the time being, we don’t have (hence the “crisis” in our current culture of church and attempts to recover the gospel up and down the country). Not only does he trust the Father (whom we would slander), but he has a goal in mind that not even the suffering of the cross could impede - Hebrews 12: 2 states this boldly (i often wonder whether his ‘Joy’ that is spoken of here consists of the prospect of having His chidren back again - getting back what was lost in the Garden?). Finally, Hebrews 2: 9 - 11 are an extraordinary description of selflessness, sacrifice that is all-inclusiveness and BRINGS US IN. If we baulk at the means He HAD to do this, then our Understanding of the LOrd is as far wide of the mark as any the UK Church has been guilty of at any time.
In another place (Hebrews 9: 22) it is made uncompromsingly clear why Jesus MUST die - after all, he was born under law to redeem those under law and I certainly will not countenance a ‘gospel’ that seeks to mollify ‘post-modern’ sensibilities at the loss of the awful knowledge of the Reality, Cost and Consequence of our Sinfulness
This is not an opportunity for insinuating abusiveness into the Godhead (Alario has made it distressingly clear what THAT constitutes): to speak of cosmic child-abuse is tantamount to slander and so, once again, it behoves us urgently to re-orientate our minds with a true knowledge and understanding of the character of God. I can call it slanderous becuse Jesus himself identifies “no-one as good, save God alone” (Mark 10: 18)
I confess I really am ultimately perplexed at the seeming ease with which such a sinful act of abusiveness can be RECONCILED with the Godhead - and it is the Gdhead we are slandering, NOT just the Father.
Justice? Or slander against God?
Hello. I’m new at this internet theology — got here from the states (tpcp.org) via futurechurch (New Zealand)… . While ga_ge does a good job of restating one of the very respectable classical views, I confess that I can’t help but think that it is this view that slanders God. If Jesus was right, he forgave people while he lived — he didn’t say this was effective on the following Passover.
If we believe that Jesus was right about the loving nature of God — how can we insist that God demanded a blood-payment from Jesus? If God is free and all powerful, how could God not be able to forgive the rest of us until receiving this sacrifice?
Well, I admit that (in the eyes of the orthodox), I am a heretic. But tradition is no excuse for a calumny against God — even if “celestial chiod abuse” may sound a bit too dismissive.
If all humans are born with a tendency to sin (“original sin”?) and we are therefore guilty before God and deserving of damnation, and so unworthy that God cannot love us or forgive us until someone without sin dies in our stead — Well, this idea of God has so many unchristian implications, and stands in such contradiction to all that Jesus taught and lived, that it it is diffcult to see how it an be called a “Christian” idea about God.
(Anyone interested in more non-traditional, but I hope Christian, approaches is invited to check out commonsensechristianity.org )
One thing that disturbs me in
One thing that disturbs me in this line of discussion is that we all seem to be starting with certain concepts of ‘god’ and proceeding to talk about Jesus and atonement from that standpoint. I think this is backwards, since our ideas of ‘god’ are all necessarily in need of tweeking, at least. If we are to talk Christianly, we ought to start with the god-revealed-in-Jesus. In fact, this is where we need to start when we talk about justice, peace, forgiveness, sin, etc. Sacrifice, propitiation and atonement may be distasteful to our post-Enlightenment and even PoMo minds, but these philosophical systems are not the beginning point. I cannot believe that sacrifice was ever ‘tasteful’—it was always smelly and disgusting and curiously ‘wasteful’ of resources. But couldn’t this be a statement about the nature and effect and treacherousity (real word?) of sin, rather than a reflection of primitive mindsets that we have all gotten past now that we have had Freud, Jung, et al.? What if Jesus’ messy death WAS absolutely necessary as propitiation (as Paul, the writer of Hebrews, and others seem to think)? Does this mean YHWH is not powerful enough just ‘to forgive’ sins? Omnipotence has never meant to speak about MORE than what is logically possible, so what if justice MUST be met or else we stand enslaved to sin and death? I hardly think the type of ‘forgiveness’ we are really talking about is a transient emotion spurred on by a similarly defined ‘love.’ It has always meant, within orthodoxy, that justice and love are both demonstrated. And Jesus certainly seems to have thought that as he road into Jerusalem to die he was taking the judgement he had pronounced against her onto himself, perhaps forestalling the inevitable for another 40 years. He doesn’t seem to think the idea of impending judgement spoke of his father’s injustice, but rather of necessary consequences for their failure to be salt and light. He seems to see that his own activity of taking on and being defeated by violence was in fact YHWH’s own heart and desire, that his activity was embodying YHWH. In short, perhaps it is because YHWH WAS forgiving the world THAT he lived and died in Jesus. That, I think, is the context in which to see YHWH’s forgiveness and why Jesus could, even before his death, declare that the father was indeed forgiving those who were defining their lives around Jesus and his Kingdom message.
Food for thought.
A change in law is a change in constitution
Hi ross,
Let me just spit my popcorn all over the living room floor immediately :0) and say I’m not advocating the development of an idea you pursue in your 4th paragraph where you describe mankind as ‘…so unworthy that God cannot love us or forgive us until someone without sin dies in our stead…’ - Eeeeek!!
Now, I know John 3:16 needs no mention. For sure God has always loved us. But what good would love be to us if it let us go to hell anyway?
That is the very nature of this world we live in: it is a world under law, and subsequently under law’s remit. It is not a world for weak stomachs - that much is certain.
Perhaps the reality of Who God is (whom we would apprehend) is muddied (in unregenerate portions of our minds!) by an initial covenant (Law) that continually finds fault with us. This alone would exasperate us. Furthermore, the Law articulates the exacting nature of God’s Righteousness and, indeed, Justice. But it doesn’t end there.
Thank Christ (!) that Jesus embodies Grace and Truth and so we finally get at what God wants, and how he wants it. “But first, I have to do something…”, namely - die.
Jesus had to die IN ORDER TO set aside the terms of the first covenant to usher in the second (Hebrews 10: 8 - 10). This is the very nature of things that God, in Christ, had to address.
And, as eric says above, it’s a bloody business (i paraphrase but the gist is the same, i think).
One other consideration of Jesus’ death (Hebrews 2: 14 - 15) reveals ramifications in (the 2nd?) Heaven that this discusion, thus propositioned, can’t even consider…
But we preach Christ crucified...(right?)
It is interesting that language has evolved to a point where ross can refer to himself as a heretic and soften the term by calling his beliefs non-traditional or commonsense christianity.
In a similar fashion, orthodox christianity is dismissed as classical views or tradition implying old-fashioned opinions, which, though possibly interesting, may have outlived their usefulness if in fact they ever were useful. C.S. Lewis in That Hideous Strength defined (and defended) orthodox ideas of marriage to a young woman in his novel who challanged those views as being “old-fashioned” by speaking through a character who told her those ideas were not “old-fashioned”, they were simply “old”.
I don’t believe ross really thinks he is a heretic for several possible reasons. (I pray he does not really consider himself one)
1) He is right and the orthodox are wrong, possibly unchristian and are possibly the real heretics who have abandoned or distorted the teachings of the peaceful, travelling rabbi of Nazareth.
2) He may believe there is nothing to serve as a plumb line by which heresy can be measured.
3) My personal guess is that it is a combination of the two above. There is a plumb line, it just isn’t orthodox christianity.
In his appeal to Jesus as his authority, he stacks the deck in favor of his case by assuming Jesus, through his teachings, supports his position against the “classical” view of the atonement outlined by ga_ge and challenges us (“If Jesus was right…”, “if we believe Jesus was right…”)to disagree with Jesus if we don’t agree with ross.
I would suggest ross reconsider some of Jesus’s words and his disciples’s writings.
“Then he said unto them, ‘O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Luke 24:25-27
“Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations,beginning at Jerusalem.’” Luke 24:45-47
“…Jesus took the bread, and blessed it, brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.’” Matthew 26:26-28
St. Paul makes the same essential point in I Corinthians 15:1-4 and in much of the letter to the Hebrews (if in fact St. Paul is the author).
Thus: (speaking of Jesus’s High Priestly ministry) “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place each year with the blood of others; For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself….So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many;…”. Hebrews 9:24-26,28
“And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.” I John 3:5
“My little children, these thing write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” I John 2:1,2
Alario
As tardy thought, re: ross’s comment, I don’t see that God demanded a blood debt from Jesus, I think he demanded it of me(us?) and Jesus paid my (our?) debt.
Good God, Charlie Brown!
Just had a brief look at ross’ redirect (commonsensechristianity.org) and, if nothing else, it’s initial invitation to the casual surfer is enlightening (!)
“The purpose of this website is to provide a way to hold Jesus central in our faith-lives, without calling him God, or relying on outdated and unintelligible doctrines” (emphasis mine)
Sorry ross, but that’s just controversy for controversy’s sake :o)
l8rs ga_ge
First things first...?
Thank you everyone for your very interesting and enlightening comments. Fabulous to read so much insight and energy on the topic!
Can I be so bold as to make a suggestion…? The conversation so far does seem to be ‘pogoing’ around, jumping from one idea to another, with claims and counterclaims being made for/against eachother’s arguments. I probably initiated that by using an inflamatory phrase to grab people’s attention. I apologise.
However, the site, as I understand it, is intended to be a place to work together in our search for truth. So, in that spirit, how about we attempt to approach this topic by working with the question ‘Why do we need theories of the atonement?’
In taking on this question I’d hope we’d be asking things like…
- What is the First Testament context that paved the way for Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension?
i.e.
- How can the Law and the Prophets be harmonised effectively with each other - the Law which describes the necessities of ritual purity, and the Prophets which criticise the limitations of ritual purity for it’s lack of expectations or ‘standards’ for ethical and moral uprightness?
- How did Israel/Judah’s experience of imminent and then eventual domintation by pagan nations give rise to and indeed frame their expectation of the Day of the Lord and a coming Messiah/Suffering Servant who would liberate or vindicate them?
- How did the perspectives of the prophets and those of the religious authorities and kings of Israel/Judah differ? What is the nature and significance of those differences?
- What is the biblical concept of justice?
Justice is a very important theme that has been picked up in several of the above comments, but not developed at all. It is important that we all really understand what the biblical concept of justice is all about rather than merely stating the word and assuming we all have a similar understanding. i.e.
- What was the First Testament and contextual Jewish conception of justice?
- What was the language used in the Law and the Prophets to describe Yahweh’s justice?
- In what sense is the First Testament concept of justice about retribution for wrongdoing? In what sense is it about Yahweh ‘putting things right’?
- What help or hinderance does modern western adversarial justice offer in working with this subject?
- How was this enactioned in the inter-testamental period?
i.e.
- What was the intention, action and consequence of the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes?
- What gave rise to the Pharisaic movement, the Temple cult and Sadducean sect, the Zealots and other religious sects such as the Essenes in the inter-testamental period?
- What impact did the above have on the worldview of first century Palestinian Judaism and what was the latitude for mindsets of individuals within it?
- How could Jesus have seen/did Jesus see his own death?
i.e.
- Given that he was a man in his times and the records as we have them of his praxis, his criticism of the temple sect and religious leaders and apparent perception of an authentic ‘people fo god’ community, how might Jesus have seen his life culminating in his death and assigned meaning to it?
- How were the main historical theories of the atonement formulated?
The three main theories of the atonement are: Christus Victor (after Gustav Aulen), which has a historical Ransom element to it and of late has had a renaissance in understanding as a victory of God over the Powers, and a Non-Violent version has been developed; Substitutionary Atonement (after Anslem of Canterbury), sometimes called the Satisfaction theory, the dominant theory for much of the last 1000 years, which was narrowed by the Protestant Reformers to what we’ve come to call Penal Substitution; and Moral Influence (after Peter Abelard) which emphasises the profound love of God expressed in Jesus’ horrendous death. Andrew hints at a fourth developing idea in the last option of the atonement opinion poll, which puts Jesus’ death as an ‘archetype’ (i.e. the model and arch example) in the context of Yahweh’s vindication of His People as Israel’s history comes to some sort of consummation.
i.e.
- What was the environment that birthed the three main theories and their variations? How did they respond to, criticise or build upon each other? What effect did the (environment of the) unification of church and state have on the formulation of these theories?
- How do the theories treat the three elements of God, the devil or Satan, and sinful humanity? What/who is the object of Jesus’ death in each of these three theories?
- In each, who or what needs the death of Jesus?
- And in each, who or what arranges for or is responsible for Jesus’ death - who ultimately killed Jesus?
I know that’s a long list of questions without answers, and certainly not an exhaustive list, but if we can start working with some of these ideas, then the conversation may help us all to work with the atonement as an issue of open source theology.Second things second...
This is an excellent suggestion in my view and certainly in accordance with the aims of the site. I have some general suggestions.
1. Give some further thought to how the discussion should be structured. Is everyone happy with joeblow’s proposal? Does it need refining, correcting, developing?
2. Break the discussion down into separate topics in the forum, eg. along the lines of the questions that joeblow has listed. The current thread has become unwieldy. As a general rule, I would suggest that if contributors plan to push discussions in different directions, they should start a new topic, perhaps with a brief comment inserted into the original thread pointing to it.
3. Clarify what’s needed to keep this a ‘progressive’ (in the best sense of the word) discussion - by which I mean that it should not just rehearse all the old theological positions but should ask what is required by an emerging orthodoxy / theology.
Extra category?
That would be very helpful. I think joeblow’s categories are really useful. My only concern is that we create an excellent Biblical-historical-theological trajectory, but omit both a) to contextualise our language and concepts and b) to apply critique from contemporary experience.
Maybe we could include a thread that allows us to deconstruct some of the atonement concepts (although we have done quite a bit of that here already). My reasoning is that an emerging theology of the atonement will need to be aware of current sore-spots and negative language triggers so that we articulate what we find from the Biblical-historical-theological trajectory sensitively to our current context.
I hope that makes sense.
Yup!
Lovely suggestion, Matt. I’m anxious that we hold in a vibrant creative tension the historical and the contemporary, too.
And I think you’re absolutely right about sensitively and intelligently deconstructing our (pre)conceptions in the process of (re)construction. We must listen humbly to the critiques of traditional understandings (often, though not always, made by those who’ve been marginalised and to whom the gospel was supposed to be good news!) and respond gently, wisely and energetically, if that’s not too oxymoronic!
My suggestion would be that w
My suggestion would be that we give ourselves a couple more days for input, then allow joeblow, if he is willing, to set up 4-5 main threads in this forum, based on the issues that he has just outlined and anything else that people put forward. Basically I should think he could use the questions and explanations that he has already posted.
I wonder if accompanying discussion of biblical texts could not be included in the commentary. It’s still a bit of a clumsy system but I think it makes sense to keep discussion of specific texts separate so that they can be referenced from elsewhere. It’s not too difficult to construct links between posts once you get the hang of it.
Good plan, Stan/Andrew
Sounds like a good way forward to me - I’m game. I’ll give people maybe to the end of the week to offer their responses and then construct the forum threads to facilitate broader discussion.
Re: First things first...?
The Substitutionary Atonement. The Substitution was the ransom or the debt paid for us - we were ransomed to death [not the devil] through rebellion, so Jesus took our place and the debt is what we owe Jesus - as the New Adam, the Son of Man He became the debtor for us and as the Son of God, the Incarnated and Incarnational expression of the Trinity He cancelled and tore up the debt by taking our place - the Reconciliation is our location within the Incarnation. Jesus said I am the ransom - Here I am! - the payment was His Life for our Life - and the party to whom the ransom was paid was us, because we had released death into the world through the fall and what we received in payment was not our death but His Eternal Life – we received the Fullness of the Godhead, the Trinitarian Life that dwells in and through Jesus - which is why the Communion Table is the New Covenant and when we cross through the veil and the vale, that valley of vision we are crossing through this exchange - new lamps for old, new hearts for old, new Life for our death.
When people ask you to whom was the ransom paid? Ask them to whom did Jesus give His Life?
Everlasting Life.
The Ransom Paid:
Re: First things first...?
YES, OF COURSE!
But this is the result of the redemptive activitiy, and if we want to be true to all of it, it is even eschatological result because all the happiness and joy described will only become perfect in heaven.
And it can also be viewed as an illustration, not explanation. It is precisely the ransom saying (Mat. 20:28; Mark 10:45) that describes the death of Jesus as a ransom but does not tell to whom it is paid. The Greek word anti [pollÅn] you suggest to translate as to [many] only implies that it is paid on our behalf, for our benefit, but nothing more is said. Elswhere the death of Jesus is also illustrated as a sacrifice and a means of reconciliation.
Likewise God ransomed Israel from Egypt (Ex.6:6) but how did he pay to Egyptians? By killing their firstorn? Thus the ransom implies freeing, and in Jesus’ words, also that it has required from God self-sacrifice, it did not just happen. But it still does not explain to whom God paid. And if we say that God paid to sin or to death, we are speaking allegorically, it’s not an explanation.
Actually, the Bible is not into explaining much; it does tell why Jesus died but does not explain how the process of salvation works. It is us who today want the explanation because our way of thinking is different (we are heirs of Greek logical thinking, whereas the biblical authors belonged to Hebrew illustrative thinking).
And one of our attempts of explanation is the so called penal substitution theory that, however, leads to legalism (see this thread).
I think that it would be much better to view the whole story as a drama where God is misrepresented as an authoritarian and selfish person (Gen. 3) and revealed by Jesus as loving, sef-sacrificing person (John 1:18; 3:16; 13:1; 15:13; 17:3).
We did not know who God really is, so we did not want to trust him. We were rebels and if God did not do anything, we would die in our rebellion. But Jesus came, lived, died, and was raised to reveal who God really is. Because of this, some of us, rebels, began to trust him, and God will be able to save all who trust him!
The Parable of the Punitive Father
Now, the father was a stern man who hated injustice; in fact, so much did it anger him that the only thing that could appease him, once he was sufficiently provoked by it, was to lash out in unbridled rage.
One day, his two-year-old son deliberately poured ink all over his important papers, ruining them. The father, who had given so much to his sons all their lives, became enraged up to the point of violence. Now, despite his anger, the father dearly loved his son; but such was the severity of his justice that he could not let such a brazen act go unpunished. The father was beside himself: he couldn’t just keep his rage all bottled up, but if he struck his two-year-old in his rage it would certainly destroy his son. Fortunately, his firstborn son – his obedient one – had a plan.
“Father, I know that you are a stern man and that your righteous anger must be avenged once provoked. I am much older than my brother; if you were to strike me instead of him it would hurt terribly, but it would not destroy me. This way, you needn’t kill my brother to prove your righteousness and your wrath may be satisfied, leaving you capable, once again, of being the loving father you’ve always tried to be.”
The father, before his firstborn could so much as draw another breath, grabbed a baseball bat and brutally struck him in the head, necessitating that the son be taken to the hospital. Once the father’s anger was spent, he once again felt propitious toward both of his sons; and by him spending his very own money to hire the very best doctors, he was able to bring his comatose son back from the brink of death and they were a family once again!
So pleased was the father at the selfless sacrifice of his firstborn son, that he gave him his inheritance early – a sizable amount. The firstborn son, true to his nature, decided to share his good fortune with his little brother and bought the very best sets of full-body armor money could buy; and the father and his two sons lived happily ever after: the problem solved for good.
A Problem Parable
This parable is not useful in discussing theories of the cross because it is inaccurate at several points and is therefore too dissimilar from the stories most Christians tell themselves to be at all penetrating.
1. The father in the parable is emotionally unstable and given to fits of rage. His acting out is motivated by this rage. The god revealed in Scripture (and Jesus) is the one who is consumed with love for his creation and who seeks to undo the effects of the corruption that has entered.
2. The parable proposes that the son steps up for the beating by the unwitting father. The testimony of Jesus himself is that YHWH, the creator and covenant god, is the one stepping up, paradoxically in Jesus. Thus, it is, in some sense, the father who selflessly acts. (Perhaps the parable lacks primarily as it is unable to see paradox.)
3. The ‘stern’ father in the parable is simply not the image of the creator in the Scriptures. Those who read it that way are missing the major themes the writers are emphasizing about the faithfulness and awesome love of a god who remains involved in his creation, even after it persistently rejects him.
I look forward to the upcoming discussion on Atonement, and am not opposed to relativizing the understanding of cross as propitiation on the grounds that it is ONE aspect of the ultimately indescribable (not fully, at least) event of the cross. However, I don’t believe this parable is helpful to the discussion.
I respectfully disagree...
I respectfully disagree, ericboehmer. Not because I don’t entirely concur with your 3 points, but precisely because the parable made me laugh out loud at how ridiculous it was. For someone like myself, it is a rather chilling satire of exactly the kind of story I used to regularly hear.
We obviously ask the question. “How could we possibly trust a God who is so emotionally unstable, so uninvolved and so stern?!”
We may not like it, but I for one know too many people for whom this is exactly the sort of God they believe they serve.
As far as I’m concerned, if we want to keep Penal Substitution as a valid atonement theory, we have to show how it doesn’t lead to seeing God in this way. Personally, I am still yet to be convinced.
The Parable of the Punitive Father
Eric said: “This parable is not useful in discussing theories of the cross because it is inaccurate at several points and is therefore too dissimilar from the stories most Christians tell themselves to be at all penetrating.”
(For example…)
1) The father in the parable is emotionally unstable and given to fits of rage. His acting out is motivated by this rage. The god revealed in Scripture (and Jesus) is the one who is consumed with love for his creation and who seeks to undo the effects of the corruption that has entered.
2) The parable proposes that the son steps up for the beating by the unwitting father. The testimony of Jesus himself is that YHWH, the creator and covenant god, is the one stepping up, paradoxically in Jesus. Thus, it is, in some sense, the father who selflessly acts. (Perhaps the parable lacks primarily as it is unable to see paradox.)
3) The ‘stern’ father in the parable is simply not the image of the creator in the Scriptures. Those who read it that way are missing the major themes the writers are emphasizing about the faithfulness and awesome love of a god who remains involved in his creation, even after it persistently rejects him.
Eric,
With all due respect, I think you may have misunderstood in some way. I offer the following words in my parable’s defense.
Your argument makes the unwarranted assumption that I was trying to describe something Biblical. I wasn’t. I was seeking to describe something that is specifically un-Biblical: the Penal Substitution Model of the Atonement – or more specifically its defective reasoning. Only if the penal model of the atonement is *the same as* the Biblical witness can my description of Penal Substitution be reasonably dismissed on the grounds that it does not line up with Scripture; and the supposed Biblical status of the penal model is precisely the point in question in this debate, isn’t it? One cannot assume at the outset of a debate that one’s own particular view is true and proceed to use that assumption as a premise to support the conclusion that one’s own view is true. That is circular reasoning, much like Larry, Curly and Moe vouching for each other’s intelligence. An opponent of the penal theory – which I am – simply does not believe that it does line up with the Bible. I’m a little flummoxed: what else is a dissenter like me supposed to do to satisfy your test? Shall I show how *Biblical* the Penal Substitution teaching supposedly is, instead? Wouldn’t I be doing “your job”, then? I trust you can appreciate my confusion. Please, if you wish to critique my parable for what it was meant to be: a paraphrase of the supposed *logic* of the penal model, then please demonstrate how I failed to communicate that model’s core reasoning. To do otherwise merely stalls the discussion before it has fully gotten moving.
You imply that a parable or analogy must line up with each and every line and contour of a complex doctrine in order to be relevant or helpful. I take issue with that thinking, even though I believe my parable did reasonably well in that regard. I frankly wonder how many of the parables of Jesus would pass the rigors of a point-by-point critical comparative analysis with the basic tenets of Evangelical doctrine (or any doctrine for that matter). As I see it, the test of a good parable or analogy is not whether or not it is a perfect, point-by-point match, but rather, “Does it communicate the main points faithfully? Does it conform to the referent where it is meant to conform in its argument?” Every analogy fails at some point; and the fact that they do does not in and of itself make analogies necessarily inaccurate or unhelpful in discussions about doctrine. If you dispute this, press some of the compound analogies of God found in certain O.T. passages (such as those in which He is both husband and a father to the same individual or nation) to their logical conclusion to see where that reasoning leads you doctrinally. I don’t think you would cut those metaphorical verses out of your Bible merely because they seem to imply the divinity of incest, would you? And you would be right in not doing so. The Bible’s analogies are not meant to be stretched that far. I think Scripture is far more tolerant of the inherent limitations of metaphorical language than you may happen to be. I believe my parable more or less lives up to the standard for analogies in Scripture, at least in principle.
It has been said that metaphors or allegories will generally line up with the referent on only one or two major points and then the rest is mere literary window-dressing. I took that for granted in writing what I did. That assumption set the bar at a surmountable height for my endeavor, which was the only way I could muster the courage to attempt such an intimidating and seemingly impossible enterprise as translating a very abstract, non-real-world doctrine into a concrete, real-world scenario: something penal atonement advocates have been largely unable to achieve despite their best efforts. Anticipating fastidious objections from my critics, I designed my analogy to line up on several points *beyond* the standard just to be safe. I knew I had to be as close to perfect as an imperfect author like me could be with my points of doctrinal correlation if I was to satisfy a skeptic. I’ll list the points of overlap between my parable and the doctrine of penal substitution so that you may better critique my effectiveness: (1) the supposed inflexible justice of God (the father could not let such a brazen act go unpunished); (2) the written Law (the important papers); (3) transgression against that Law (spilled ink on the papers); (4) the supposed conflict in God’s nature between justice and mercy (the father’s internal conflict between the need for righteous vengeance and his love for his two-year-old son); (5) substitution in punishment (one son being struck in place of the other); (6) the High Priestly intercession of Christ (the firstborn’s proposal to the father); (7) the purity of the sacrifice (the obedience of the firstborn son); (8) Christ’s eternal nature (the firstborn was much “older” than his brother); (9) the pertinent reality of death (as an inactive, comatose state); (10) resurrection by the Father (money spent on doctors which brought about a recovery); (11) the restoration of peace and harmony between God and men (the father felt “propitious” again); (12) believers sharing in Christ’s reward (as the receipt and distribution of a sizable inheritance which specifically did not require the death of the father – a literary hurdle); (13) glorification and deliverance from future punishment (as full-body armor); and, (14) the resultant eternal bliss in Heaven (the father and his two sons lived happily ever after). This was a nearly impossible task I performed. I would genuinely like to see you (or any of the penal atonement advocates) come up with an analogy you believe better fits your view – to be critiqued by your standard. At the very least I think my parable deserves something better than an offhand dismissal that doesn’t even address it for what it was intended to be.
But there’s more. Add to the aforementioned difficulties the fact that I was writing my parable to demonstrate the essential illogic of the penal view at the very same time that I was imposing an artificial degree of reasonableness upon it so that it could be systematically critiqued. I ran the risk of inadvertently saving in people’s eyes that very tower I was seeking to undermine, by means of the very same artificial supports that I supplied. How’s that for a brain-burner? Again, such a task seemed impossible to me at the outset. On top of all this, the question inevitably arose: “Where does one find a real-world example of death and resurrection so as to provide the key ingredients for an atonement analogy?” We don’t see people popping up from the grave every day; and the closest real-life analogy to death and resurrection I could think of was that of coming out of a comatose state (in which one had been at the *brink* of death). I was about ready to pull out my hair over this. I think you would too.
If anyone of the Penal Atonement camp could have provided a better analogy of their doctrine, my job wouldn’t have been so hard. To date, I’ve only heard of such analogies as the train-track analogy (railroad switch operator having to decide between allowing a train full of people to go off a cliff or divert the train to the track where his son is playing); the hammer and glass analogy (a man swings a hammer at a dirty glass only to put a protective saucepan over it at the last instant, which represents Christ); and the traffic ticket analogy (a man stands before a judge who finds him guilty of speeding, and a kind stranger offers to pay the fine instead). I’m sure there are plenty of theologians in this forum who could have a heyday with picking apart those penal atonement analogies. I know I could. If those truly are the best stories that members of the Penal Substitution camp can provide to illustrate their own theory, I think my own deserves a little more consideration.
To further compound the complexity of my task, there were several points of my own that I wanted to insert along the way while telling my tightly interwoven story. I wanted people to be shocked at the needless inflexibility of the father’s so-called justice to the point of them gasping inwardly. I wanted them to wonder at the idea that justice is so inflexible as to require the punishment of every sin, and yet paradoxically so lax as to allow it to fall on someone other than the perpetrator. I wanted people to come to terms with their own hidden anxieties about whether or not God truly loves them as a father or is just some cold automaton in the sky calculating endless tallies of sins – all because of what they were taught about the Atonement. It was also important to provide a necessary stress-relief opportunity at the end through the use of humor (the body armor bit), so that the readers wouldn’t be shaken too bad emotionally. After all, we base so much of our sense of spiritual security on our understanding of the Atonement, and understandably so. To attack that is a serious matter with potentially serious emotional consequences. Beyond all this, I wanted flush out into the open the hidden implication of the Penal Substitution Model: that Christ somehow ceased to be the express image of the Father on the cross; and that for a time, however brief, the Father and Son were very different in their respective demeanors.
I understand and appreciate that you probably have a much saner, gentler view of Penal Substitution than many of its more theologically-programmed proponents. That is to your credit. Back when I was an advocate of the model, I also managed to modify the doctrine to a degree in order to conform it better to some of what the Holy Spirit told my heart about the truth. Yet there is only so far one can go in accommodating an unBiblical doctrine to the witness of the Spirit. Eventually I reached my breaking point in the endeavor, just as many others have before me.
My own breaking point came partly because of a debate over doctrine much like this one. You see, I used to have a counter-cult ministry geared toward reaching Jehovah’s Witnesses for Christ. There were many Evangelical doctrines that I felt I could prove to their and my own satisfaction. But when it came to teaching them the “correct” doctrine of the Atonement as I had been taught it, I always found myself secretly feeling that something was desperately amiss. I just couldn’t quite make the doctrine make enough sense to warrant their conversion to it, and I found the Biblical support for it was surprisingly scant and open to interpretation. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have a very thin, even pathetic doctrine of the Atonement; yet I found myself being given a nosebleed nearly every time I tried to answer a simple, common-sense question. They didn’t have a good answer for the questions raised, believe me, but then again neither did I, which really bothered me. Mind you, I fully intended to champion the doctrine against all heretics who would dare dismiss the “Biblical” Penal Substitution doctrine of the Atonement”. It was not for lack of motivation or means that I failed. It was a defective doctrine. I truly gave it my best shot… but my own theology ended up taking the bullet. I frankly never expected to end up believing or teaching a different theory of the atonement than that which I had always considered orthodox. Such a thought would have terrified me. But that is where I am now doctrinally. I learned to my surprise that I was not the only one who had gone down that unexpected and very difficult path.
Hugo Grotius, a Dutch jurist who is credited with originating the so-called Governmental Theory of the Atonement (a recognized popular alternative to the Penal Substitution Model) was in my shoes, once. He had originally set out to defend the Penal Substitution view against the tough questions raised by the heretical Socinians – questions that still have not been adequately answered. By the time he’d managed to bolster the logic of the theory, he had accidently articulated a model so different from the penal view that it is now routinely condemned by members of the Penal Substitution camp as heresy. I’m sure he didn’t mean to arrive where he did. I can certainly understand what he must have felt like doing so.
Eric, forgive me for saying so, but it may be that your personal theology has also so evolved as to become a quite different species of penal atonement, as well. It might not qualify as Penal Substitution any more; it could be another genus altogether. You might very well have your own unique atonement theory and not even realize it. I’d be curious to learn whether or not you agree with Martin Luther’s assertion (in his book on Galatians) that on the cross “Jesus Christ was the greatest sinner that ever lived - that all the sins of men were so laid upon Christ that He became all the thieves and murderers and adulterers that ever were, in one.” Or Calvin’s assertion that Christ’s suffering on the cross was insufficient to fully atone for sin and hence Christ had to be tortured in Hell to finish the job. Both reformers certainly vacillated a bit in their support for the penal view (Luther sometimes leaned more toward a Christus Victor model, for example), but those men are rightly credited as being two of the earliest, most notable supporters of Penal Substitution. If your view of the atonement differs significantly from their definitive views, I would encourage you to stop to consider whether or not you might be on my side of the theological divide after all. You may not have recognized the doctrine of penal substitution in my parable simply because it didn’t happen to match your personal modification of it.
Eric, I was actually quite surprised to read that you thought my parable was not helpful in a discussion of theories of the cross. I expected some people to dislike or criticize my parable, but not to say that it was inappropriate for the discussion. It has been my experience that most of the Christians to whom I have given it immediately recognized in its satire the very same doctrine of the atonement that they had been taught for years. I’ve been thanked over and over for my parable. One man who had been severely abused as a child broke down in tears and told me how it had helped deliver him from that abusive image of God the Father that the Penal Substitution Model had taught him to accept as Gospel. Most of the time, however, the response has been nervous-yet-relieved laughter. The intensity of it suggested to me that a bit of pent-up theological tension had finally been released. To elicit such a response my parable had to come at least within spitting distance of the doctrine, if you’ll pardon the expression. Now, you might very well argue that such people must believe something quite different than the “orthodox” Penal Substitution Model of the Atonement. It certainly is possible that they do, although I frankly doubt that to be the case. Be that as it may, at the very least my parable must have coincided enough with a “common misconception” of the doctrine so as to be helpful to a discussion about it. At best my parable nailed it on the head. I think if we are to get anywhere in this debate about theories of the cross we need to ask not just whether or not a paraphrase of a doctrine matches our own personal beliefs, but whether or not it matches those beliefs of a sufficiently large segment of the Christian population who care enough about the subject to talk about it here. Any dismissal of my parable prior to such a consideration, would be premature, I feel. At least it had the potential to be helpful in this atonement discussion. Responses to it which do not adequately address it for what it is, are unhelpful in my opinion.
Whether we like it or not, abstract discussions about theology that have no direct connection to the real everyday world are a dinosaur well down the path to their inevitable extinction, just like the Modernism upon which they are at least partly based. I have read in a number of places that postmoderns simply do not respond well to that sort of theological approach and conversely *do* respond well to analogies or helpful stories. If you wish to participate in *their* religious discussions and not be prematurely dismissed as “unhelpful”, I would encourage you to attempt to translate your atonement doctrine into their language. I go one step further: I challenge you here and now to give us your own real-world analogy of the penal atonement doctrine you believe in for *us* to critique. I open up that challenge up to whomever else might care to accept it, for other atonement models as well. I think that the act of creating such real-world analogies would be a useful exercise for everyone here: an exercise which has the serious potential to not only impress upon everyone here the profound difficulties involved in translating the doctrine of the atonement into the postmodern philosophical milieu, but which also has the benefit of defining everyone’s terms in advance of a serious debate on the subject. All real debates begin with a defining of terms, it has been said; and in a postmodern debate the person with the best story or analogy is the one most likely to gain a hearing for his views. I am presently working on one for my own atonement theory, and would greatly value seeing the creative processes of all the other atonement theorists here at work.
Eric, despite my defensive tone regarding my posted work, I do respect you and consider you to be a brother in Christ worthy of the utmost appreciation and love. I have tried to cut out any language in this defense that might inadvertently imply anything but that high regard for you, and I’m sure that I will turn out to have failed in some regard when all is said and done. It will hit me right after this post is out of my hands, I’m sure of it; and I can guarantee you that I will do quite a bit of cringing when it does. Anyway, if I do inadvertently come across in a harsh or caustic manner, please know that it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with my own insecurities. Please accept my apology in advance. This is my first attempt to enter into a major public discussion about the atonement, in a forum likely populated by *professional* theologians, and it is a bit intimidating, frankly. I am a non-seminarian who is presently attempting to write a book proposing what I feel is a very promising atonement theory, and I simply do not feel equal to the task of defending it or anything else in such a public forum. I am confident my atonement theory is solid. I quake at the knees, regardless. So if I do come across the wrong way please let me know. I’ll do my best to correct the oversight.
May the blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven be upon you and yours.
Your brother,
Jonathan
Very Colorful but Perhaps not Precise
The parable is very colorful but perhaps does not exactly describe the evil of penal substitution. As I have usually heard it, penal substitution does not say that God would so hate sin that he could not help but execute punishment out of his immense, untamable anger.
What the theory does say, however, is not any better: God would be happy to just forgive sin but, unfortunately, law requires punishment! If he cancelled the punishment, by this cancellation he would also destroy the executive power of the law, and because the whole Universe is constituted around the law, he would also throw the entire Universe into anarchy and chaos.
Thus, there are laws by which everyone in God’s Universe must live, and keeping of these laws are secured by a system of punishemt and reward. If you obey, you have a reward of eternal life, and if you disobey, you are punsihed by eternal death.
Because all humanity has transgressed the law(s), it needs to be saved. The process is described as follows:
Problem: Humanity has transgressed the law. The law requires punishment. If God executed the punishment, we would just die without any hope.
Solution: God punishes his Son instead of us. Now punishment no longer awaits us, and we are given the reward of eternal life.
So — the problem is legal, and the solution is legal. No wonder Christianity is so apt to slip into legalism. If the cross of Christ is the central doctrine of Christianity, then its interpretation becomes a crucial issue.
Is the Bible about LAW, or is it about RELATIONSHIP? Is Christianity about LAW, or is it about RELATIONSHIP?
I see the main problem with penal substitution that it is a seat of legalism. Punishent and reward cannot be permanent principles in an eternal, ideal society.
Steve Chalke and cosmic child abuse
The UK Evangelical Alliance has invited Steve Chalke to ‘reconsider both the substance and style of his recently expressed views’ on the matter of penal substitutionary atonement. The news release is here.
timely...
…thanks for this re-direct, andrew.
ga_ge
Steve Chalke's response to the EA
Steve Chalke responded to the EA’s press release fairly promptly. The text of his response is available online at the theology-and-public-life think-tank Ekklesia.
The site reports today that…
‘A leading denominational newspaper has voiced its concern over a recent statement from the Evangelical Alliance which publicly chastised Rev Steve Chalke for his views about the cross.
In a public letter in the Baptist Times, the editor Hazel Southam says that the Evangelical Alliance has “raised the stakes” with its criticism of the Baptist minister, and suggested that there is little point in having the public symposium which the Alliance is organising, if the organisation has already ruled out Steve Chalke’s viewpoint.’
Atonement discussion forum topics
dear opensourcetheology community
the promised topics for the atonement discussion are now available for everyone to participate in. here’s to a healthy, productive and deep discussion!
Confused
I wasn’t sure where else to post this question, so I am putting it in the general atonement topic.
One of the verses commonly used to support the substitutionary theory is Heb. 9:11-28.
The verse that is giving me questions is this: vs. 22 “In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” This is NIV; NRSV puts it a little differently: “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” The point seems to be the same, and I am no greek scholar that I feel comfortable relying on translational differences.
First, doesn’t this, in some way, lend heavy support to the substituionary theory of atonement? Even if it is not a matter of justice, Blood had to be shed, and this blood had to be once and for all, demanding the blood of a perfect son of God such as Jesus? In other words, either we accept the substitutionary theory, or else there is something else built into reality that demands blood for forgiveness?
Also, this seems to be a reference to the levitical laws, specifically Lev 17:11. But if you look at Lev 5:11-13 there is provision for the poor that allows for forgiveness without blood.
Don't be :o)
Hi TheLogo,
Actually I don’t have any immediate answers for you but i’m just ruminating a bit myself! In fact, some of this may appear REALLY wooly and may grant an awful lot of license to the imagination…
It can only be a matter of speculation at present but I assume the possibility that ‘cost’ would be prohibitive and a potential obstacle for the poor in obeying the commandment for offering a living thing(‘nephesh chayyah’) meant that, even here, the Grace of God’s provision is evident. Namely, although the grain offering lacks the same atoning merit identified by God as that which a ‘nephesh’ creature inherently possesses (your hebrews 9: v22), does the emphasis switch to the Priest who will make atonement for him? Coupled with the notion that flour is the raw material of bread, in this way the offering re-visits the flight from Egypt and the Passover (‘unleavened bread’) whilst also pre-figuring that same Bread that will embody the ultimate Sacrifice…Actually, does verse 22 of that Hebrews quote actually allow for this exception to the rule by saying ‘…nearly everything…’?
…whaddaya think? Too much imaginative license :o) Probably - but if one’s poverty precludes one from partaking in the Tender Mercies of our God, then we really would be in a pickle!
I don’t think I have ANY disagreement about your first point - I think you make it well. The problem for some sensibilities, it would appear, is the grasping hold of the awful nature of Sin.
Hebrews and the Penal Substitution
1. Concerning the Greek of 9:22: the phrase is ‘kata ton nomon’ which I think could be best translated “According to the [book of] law, nearly everything was cleansed by blood, [..].”
2. Instead of saying that Jesus’ blood provides the penalty required by the law, the author of Hebrews rather states that this blood cleases our hearts and makes it possible to enter God’s presence (10:19-22). The whole essence of the new covenant is changing the hearts of the believers, so that they become willing to live according the divine principles (v. 16). Only then forgiveness is added (v. 17) because only after the heart’s attitude is changed, forgiveness can make any sense. We are the object of atonement — not God, and not his law. It is our attitude that needs to be changed, not God’s.
3. I think the question is broader: DOES THE OLD TESTAMENT SACRIFICIAL SYSTEM TEACH PENAL SUBSTITUTION? Actually this requires a new discussion topic.
4. There is still another question: What and how many meanings does the term LAW have in the Bible? Is any of these equal to our modern understanding of law? (Penal Substitution theory definitely uses the modern understanding of this term.)
Re 1 and 2:
Re 1 and 2:
You get at the blood of a “nephesh chayyah” (living thing) by means of its death. Jesus didn’t pop into the great blood-bank in the sky to offer God-sized pints of sprinkle for our troubled hearts but rather verse 20 of your reference makes it clear that all this is by virtue of his death. No death = no extending of forgiveness, much less our reception of said offered Gift of Grace. Moreover, the heart being sinful isn’t likely to change its attitude unless God wins us over by convicting us of said Sin, hence our recognition of our need for the Saviour - so we belive his Message, we receive the gift of his forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit? “I will put my laws on their hearts, and I will write them on their minds” as you reference in your (v.16). Crucially, though, the first part of verse 16 says “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time” - woah! Wait! What time? The return from Exile in Babylon? Verses 12 - 14 show the time in question to be the Sacrifice of Jesus - that death thing again! Principally, by that 1 sacrifice he has made us perfect for ever - but I also remember the qualification added at John 7:39 - first forgiveness, then the gift. But there ain’t no forgiveness unless something dies in our place, for our guilt.
Surely the Old Testament Sacrificial System prefigures in every way the model established in Heaven? Hebrews teaches this - and at great length. Hebrews 10: 3-4 explicitly teaches the culpable nature of sin, guilt and the inability of Old Testament sacrifice to deal with such things adequately i.e things are offered in death for us.
Surely that point is clearly made?
Sacrificial System
What about the idea that the OT sacrificial system was symbolic, and not based on something needing to be done for forgiveness (at least not in the sense that is normally put forward)?
Also, what about the comparison of Jesus with the passover lamb (1 Cor. 5:7), which, if you read the account, had nothing to do with forgiveness of sin? And also, how does the passover lamb help to define the sacrificial system?
Also, if anyone is interested, I have been doing some thinking and discussing with a friend about these issues on our blog. justtwoguys.blogspot.com
How does it work?
Hi, there! Greetings in the New Year!
1. Let’s clarify the issue: I agree that the OT sacrificial system prefigures what Christ did, and I also agree that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are crucial for atonement. My question is, HOW DOES IT WORK? Or, how do we meaningfully interpret it? And, if we are willing to build theology for the emmerging church, we should ask not only whe