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Category: Atonement

  • Do atonement theories continue to speak to the human condition? —NO

    [EDITOR’S NOTE: This post is part of our series on controversial questions. A NO post will normally follow a YES post. Join in by posting your comments.]

    by Steve Kindle

    Head-Brown smallAs with most of the controversial questions in this series, they must be qualified in certain ways due to the wide range of possible approaches. Even then, we can only scratch the surface. This is especially true of this question. So my effort will not be to convince as much as it is to open possibilities for reevaluation.
    Just what is the human condition? The Bible’s answer, albeit here in condensed form, is that human beings are separated from God by personal and corporate sin. As long as this condition obtains, humans are destined for an eternity apart from God. In order to take away this guilt and remove this separation so that God and humans can be at one again, a penalty must be paid. It was Jesus “whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.” (Romans 3:25) Through faith in this self-sacrificial act, humans can appropriate salvation, or at-one-ment (atonement), with God.
    Beginning with the New Testament and down to our day, people have struggled to understand how the sacrifice of Jesus accomplished atonement. This struggle has produced several theories, none of which has become the only orthodox explanation. This is partly due to the fact that the New Testament, itself, puts forth competing answers, and that no one theory has captured the imagination of the church. These were doctrinally formative years where disciples were trying to figure out the meaning of Jesus for the community. We are still engaged in that endeavor.
    Generally, the atonement theories have this in common: they each assume that human beings are sinners who deserve eternal punishment (hell), and that the death of Jesus is the only means of relief from the wrath of God. The human condition, then, is to either live a life under the curse of death, or by faith in Jesus, appropriate salvation.
    What kind of a world presumes such a curse and cure?
    Atonement theories originated when the world was young, at least in the minds of their originators. For Augustine, it was a mere 4500 years old when he first conceived of an original Adam passing on to humanity (through sex) the inescapable human condition of depravity, known as Original Sin, which could only be alleviated by the sacrifice of Christ. All one had to do was trace the biblical genealogies and one could arrive at the first parents. This was essentially the view until the rise of modern geology in the 18th century. We now know our world, the planet Earth, to be 1,000,000 times older than Augustine imagined (4.5 billion years old). The literalness of the Genesis primordial accounts were quite plausible in those days, but only biblical literalists continue to believe them today.
    Also complicating the picture is the emergence of Charles Darwin and his biological theory of evolution1. This leads to the conclusion that there were no such people as the historical first parents, Adam and Eve2; that, in fact, humanity’s rise took millions of years and many iterations before homo sapiens emerged about 200,000 years ago. Ergo, no “original” Adam, no “original” sin. This suggests that all doctrines adduced from a literal Adam need to be reevaluated, including those of the apostle Paul. A savior who saves us from a primordial “fall” that never happened is credulous in a pre-Darwinian age and impossible to imagine in ours.
    Reevaluations remind me of the adage, “having your cake and eating it, too.” Most are efforts to keep evolution and a literal Adam. One suggestion is that God chose a “first couple” out of the pool of existing humanoid creatures and invested them with souls. It was this couple who rebelled against God and ushered in sin. Unfortunately, missing in this construction are the rib from which Eve came, the Garden of Eden, and the assertion that “there was no one to till the ground,” until God formed ha ’adam from the ground.
    In those Christian traditions that reject Original Sin as a doctrine, they, nevertheless, hold to a sense of universal sin that no human can escape from. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” So whether one comes corrupted into the world through Original Sin, or sins by nature of a corrupted mind, all humans are in need of redemption.
    None of this has addressed the presumed answer to the dilemma of fallen humanity: sacrifice. During the time the Bible addresses, sacrifice was the order of the day. By sacrificing crops or animals, and, yes, humans, the petitioner believed that God or the gods were temporarily assuaged.
    All but one or two atonement theories have, at their base, the conviction that humanity needs to be redeemed, is incapable of redeeming itself, and that a supernatural imposition in history is required to affect a cure. But is this truly the human condition?
    G. K. Chesterton once averred that, “Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved,” He saw original sin as the one Christian doctrine that is empirically verifiable and validated by 3500 years of recorded human history.
    Evolutionary theory has another answer to humanity’s seemingly irresistible proneness to violence. It’s called the “selfish gene,” and (regardless if it’s a gene or a syndrome) its purpose is to protect the survival of the individual through any threats to its demise. Rather than our propensity to sin, we have a propensity to survive as a way to insure the perpetuation of the species. If this is true, no atonement theory can spare us of it.
    In another post on EDN, Allan Bevere quotes John Polkinghorne:

    A creation allowed to make itself can be held to be a great good, but it has a necessary cost not only in the blind alleys and extinctions that are the inescapable dark side of the evolutionary process, but also in the very character of the processes of a world in which evolution takes place. The engine driving biological evolution is genetic mutation and it is inevitable in a universe that is reliable and not capriciously magical, that the same biochemical processes which enable germ cells to produce new forms of life will also allow somatic cells to mutate and become malignant That there is cancer in creation is not something that a more competent and compassionate Creator could easily have eliminated, but is the necessary cost of a creation allowed to make itself.
    God acts within the open grain of nature and not against it. God interacts with creatures but does not overrule them, for they are allowed to be themselves and to make themselves. It follows from this that not everything that happens will be in accordance with God’s direct will. The divine sharing of the causality of the world with creatures will permit the act of a murderer or the incidence of cancer, though both events run counter to God’s desires.3

    Certainly if you lived in the pre-scientific eras up to the modern age, the notions of sin and sacrifice could inform your life. It would have been as close to you as the air you breathed. The death of Jesus as somehow the answer to your life’s predicament would make sense. Today, we live in a totally different world. “New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth.”
    It is important to bear in mind that not only has the Christian church never camped on one particular atonement theory, it put forward through the centuries a variety of theories. This should make us pause and reflect on how elusive the notion of the work of Christ is in its exactness and detail, even the literalist interpretation of Paul, notwithstanding. Add to this that the Gospels provide different meanings to the death of Jesus. One is entitled to ask, ‘Are these options the only ones possible, and must we be restricted to choosing only among these?’
    In premodern times, “man’s inhumanity to man,” was described as sin and its antidote was atonement. There was very little else that could serve as an option We have to take into consideration that human beings have only been at this civilization game for about 10,000 years. For most of that time, we have not needed anything more than our tribe for our survival, whether that be an actual tribe, clan, village, city, or nation. The idea that all of humanity can now be wiped from the face of the Earth is very recent. We have not begun to face up to that reality. Problems are no longer limited to here or there, or them or us. Where once the various disputations had no bearing beyond the disputants, now no one is immune from serious harm inflicted anywhere. All problems may be local but they have worldwide consequences. This means that it now takes the cooperation of the entire world to solve its failures. We are just now realizing that an “us versus them” world needs to be reconsidered. To revise Chesterton, “This new world has not been tried and found wanting, it has not been tried.” The “selfish gene” just may become our best ally as we learn to work together for our own good. For we will either survive or perish together.
    The “new physics” helps us place humanity in proper perspective. It provides us a context into which we can place not only ourselves but also all of creation—we are all connected. Moreover, not just humans, but every particle of the universe from the furthest star to the minutest sub-atomic particle are part of the same Oneness. This is true “at-One-ment”: we are all one. There is no dividing us between those who are in and those who are out. We can have no enemies, as this would make us enemies of ourselves.
    “Sin” needs to be recharacterized, or better still, broadened. Since all things are connected, or One, any act that is against the well-being of any part of creation is sin. What is sin? Anything that places distance between any part of creation. Another way of putting this is sin is anything that serves to disrupt the Oneness that is by working against its well-being. The Golden Rule becomes the rule for the cosmos, not just for humans.
    Forgiveness between humans can serve as a model for transcending the “human condition.” No atonement (as blood/life sacrifice) is necessary. Forgiveness is the act of the offended one foregoing retribution and willing the well-being of the offender. I find this works well with at least one atonement theory, Moral Influence. It sees the whole life of Jesus, including his teachings, gathering of disciples, death and resurrection, as a model for how the world can be saved from itself. Not by blood sacrifice (penal substitution, etc.), but by a servant model that encourages followers to live for the well-being of all, even if it means losing your life in the process. This was Luke’s view and it is now mine. In this way, Jesus is my savior. He taught me how to live properly before God in an “us against them” world. Doing so, I am “at one” with God and God’s world.
    NOTES
    1Bear in mind that evolution is scientific fact; natural selection as its mechanism remains a theory.
    2The so-called “Mitochondrial Eve” is often mistaken as representing the first human woman. She is, rather, the mother of all humans now living as descending from her in an unbroken line. However, she had parents, siblings, cousins, etc., but their descendants, also humans, are no longer represented in the human genome.
    3Polkinghorne, Science and the Trinity, p. 72.

    Steve’s books can be viewed and ordered here: https://energiondirect.info/authors/authors-d-k/steve-kindle

  • Do Atonement Theories Continue to Speak to the Human Condition? —Yes

    by Allan R. Bevere

    Bevere picAtonement is the overarching word Christians use to refer to what it is that Jesus Christ has accomplished for the world in his death and resurrection. It literally means “at-one-ment,” and denotes the reconciliation, the bringing together of God and humanity and by extension the entire world and cosmos. Through the centuries Christians have disagreed over the exact nature of the atonement, that is, they have debated the mechanics of Christ’s atonement—what exactly did Jesus accomplish in his death and resurrection? In other words, they were asking how the atonement works.
    Some have suggested that ancient theologies of atonement—specifically theories that involve Jesus’ death as a sacrifice or as a substitution, or as providing satisfaction to God—no longer speak to the human situation in the twenty-first century and they, therefore should be disregarded in favor of understandings that speak to current sensibilities. And while, I believe wholeheartedly that the significance of Jesus’ work should speak to current concerns that by no means requires a rejection of the theological wisdom that we have inherited through the centuries. In other words, the meaning of Paul’s words that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture” (1 Cor. 15:3) cannot be understood in the twenty-first century if we cannot understand its meaning in previous centuries. So do I believe that classical atonement theories speak to the human condition today? Yes, indeed they do. I offer several reasons in defense of my position.
    First, the atonement that Jesus brings is so rich and multi-faceted that we find several theories in the New Testament and the church in its wisdom never took an official position on which theories were right or more central.
    It is true that individual theologians rejected various atonement theories in favor of others. Peter Abelard (1079-1142), for example rejected the idea that Jesus’ death made satisfaction to God and paid a ransom and instead embraced the moral influence theory in which Christ’s death provides a moral example for his followers. Others embraced the various theories of atonement, but put a particular one at the center as being the most significant as did the Protestant Reformers in reference to penal substitution.
    But the point that must be made is that the church universal has never issued an official ecumenical statement on the exact nature of atonement. Why? Simply because the several aspects of the atonement can all be found in Scripture, and the work of Jesus Christ on the cross is so rich and vast in scope that it speaks to and offers salvation to all the sordid ways human beings find themselves to be broken and estranged from God. The various theories of the atonement are like the facets of one diamond that sparkle no matter how one looks at it and from what direction one views it. No one facet captures the beauty of the whole diamond, but each facet is necessary to maintain its beauty. To reject one or more theories to focus only on one or two facets is to attempt to cut a diamond that already sparkles threatening to turn it into a rock that hardly shimmers.
    Second, every theory of atonement has its strengths that illuminate the work of Christ for our salvation, and every theory, if taken too far or focused on at the expense of the other theories distorts the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The problem has not been any of the different theories of atonement, but the over-emphasis on one at the expense of others.
    For example, in regard to ransom theory, it can be shown that the image of our salvation as being purchased through Jesus, who paid the price through his death is found throughout the New Testament (Mark 10:45; 1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23). Its strengths emphasize that fact that sin deceives and enslaves people. We do not have the power to free ourselves. Sin has kidnapped us, or better, we have allowed ourselves to be kidnapped by sin. The problem with this theory is when some have gotten lost on the question as to the object of the ransom. This is to take the theory too far. The focus is on the price paid by someone else and the victory of resurrection.
    If the ransom theory emphasizes that human beings are enslaved to sin, the satisfaction theory focuses on the truth that we human beings are perpetrators of sin. Both theories held together expressed the complexity of the human condition—we are both victims of sin and its perpetrators at the same time. The problem, however, is that if satisfaction is pushed too far God ends up sounding like an over-bearing ruler concerned more about his honor than the humanity he created.
    Penal-substitution reminds us that God is righteous and requires righteousness according to the law that God has established. Sin breaks the law and such violations bring consequences. Sin is a serious matter. It causes injustice and God is just. On the cross, Jesus Christ is the justice of God (Romans 5:2; 2 Corinthians 5:16-17; Colossians 1:19-20). The problem with penal-substitution taken too far is that too often the motivating factor of Christ’s death is the Father’s forced sacrifice of his Son and not the Son’s free choice to die for humanity (more on that below).
    The moral influence theory rightly emphasizes God’s love as the basis for Christ’s work. It reminds us that apart from God’s love God and humanity would have no hope of relationship. If God did not love us, there would be no basis for divine suffering on our behalf. The problem with moral influence when pressed too far is that it emphasizes God’s mercy at the expense of God’s justice. When God’s justice is eclipsed we lose the proper context in which God’s love is demonstrated.
    So, the point here is that the problem is not with traditional atonement theories in and of themselves, it’s how atonement is distorted when we put all of our “theological eggs in only one atonement basket.” And that leads to my third point.
    Third, all too often when individuals reject certain atonement theories what they are reacting to is not the best theological articulations of those theories, but the caricatures of those theories. I quote Scot McKnight,

    About a decade ago it became avant garde theology to contend the classical Christian theory of atonement was nothing less than divine child abuse. That is, the image of a Father punishing a Son, or exacting retribution at the expense of his own Son, or punishing a Son for the good of others—each of these became a way of deconstructing classical atonement theory.

    Unfortunately, this approach works from a very simplistic image: a father, a son, and a brutal death and attributes intention to the father as one who brutalizes a son. As an image, it connotes abuse. The image, however, abuses the Bible’s image.
    If the critics were to say each time that they are criticizing not penal substitution theory itself but the caricatures of PSA, then one might be more sympathetic for there clearly are abuses of the theory and imagery. But the critics do not frequently say that; in fact, my read is that the Father requiring death for sin (the consequences of sin), and putting the Son in the place of others, is an image of the Father using violence against the Son. So I’m not convinced the “caricature of a caricature” theory solves the problem. If there are consequences for sin (death, suffering, etc.), then there is some kind of “punishment” theory at work in sin-language and atonement-language.(1)
    So the problem is that all too often critics of penal substitution are not responding to the best and deepest theological reflection given to the church through the centuries, but to those whose accounts are as theologically suspect as those who offer the critique. The cross of Christ is not what the Father perpetrated on the Son, but it is the freely chosen offering of the Son. In both Western and Eastern theologies the cross is a Trinitarian act of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
    Fourth, when critics of classical atonement theories say that they do not speak in the twenty-first century, they provincially mean that they do not speak to twenty-first century Western autonomous individualists that don’t really believe they’re all that bad, and know little of real sacrifice.
    Zimbabwe pastor, Qwinyai Muzorewa writes of how the sacrifice of Jesus, the firstborn Son speaks to his African context not infected with modern autonomous deceptions:
    The firstborn son is prepared to sacrifice for the sake of his family’s spiritual and physical well-being. He is cognizant of the fact that he will receive blessings and yet also shoulder curses on behalf of his family. A responsible firstborn son would rather die than watch his father perish before his face…. Bluntly put, he holds a position that comes with glorious benefits and rewards, but also with great responsibilities. What pleased God was not the death but the atonement; Jesus’s death was not punishment by God or payment to God for the sins of the world. Rather; it was the saving act that only the firstborn Son could perform efficaciously. Thus, it was the Son’s pleasure to save everybody in the family. It was an act of self-actualization. It was an accomplishment, rather than punishment imposed on him by his father.(2)
    The irony here is that such atonement theories are usually rejected by those who complain the loudest about colonial attitudes, but all too often Western liberalism is the worst form of paternalism there is because it disguises itself as enlightened.
    Fifth, one cannot separate the work of Christ from the person of Christ. Soteriology (the doctrine of salvation) can only be coherent in the context of Trinitarian doctrine and a Christology that affirms Jesus as the God-Man—truly divine and truly human.
    All too often critiques of classical atonement theories separate too widely what the cross means from who Jesus is. In the early centuries, questions concerning the person of Christ were always placed within the context of the work of Christ. “If we say this about who Jesus is, what does it mean for our salvation—what Jesus has done? Jesus must be truly divine for only God can save, but Jesus also must be truly human for in the words of Gregory of Nazianzus, Jesus “cannot save that which he has not become.” All too often contemporary critiques of classical atonement lack the theological depth of the rich wisdom passed on to us by those who thought about these matters in ways that truly speak to the human condition in every age. We throw that wisdom out at our peril.
    After all, the human condition hasn’t changed over two thousand years. We still believe we know better than God what we truly need to be saved—actually like previous generations we are not so sure we actually need to be saved. Instead of preaching Christ and him crucified we affirm humanity and it improved.
    The cross remains a scandal to Jew and Greek (1 Corinthians 1:23) and to all the enlightened cultured despisers of classical Christianity.
    ___
    NOTES

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