Atonement Theory, Part 1: A History

It might be surprising to find out that something as foundational as the doctrine of the Atonement has been interpreted very differently throughout history.  Here I would like to review the history of Atonement theory in Christianity.  It would be interesting to extend this back into the history of Judaism but that is another topic on it’s own.  In Reform Theology and in most LDS discussion the dominant theory of Atonement is that of Penal Substitution.  However, this theory was not developed until the Reformation.  There had been several other theories before this one.   I’ll go through some of these theories here as well as one more modern theory.  Later on, I will discuss my own understanding of the Atonement.

The Ransom Theory

According to the Ransom Theory, Christ’s Atonement was a ransom payment made to the devil to deliver our souls from Hell.  Satan was tricked into thinking that he could keep the soul of Christ captive after this transaction.  But since Christ is divine Satan was unable to hold him captive.  Scriptural basis for the theory comes from a few sources.  In Mark, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).  From Paul, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time” (1 Timothy 2:5-6).  This theory was promoted by Origen (185-254) as well as Irenaeus (d. 202) and Tertullian (160-220).

The Satisfaction Theory

According to the Satisfaction Theory, Christ suffered to satisfy the demands of God’s honor and merit.  This theory is best understood in terms of the feudal society in which it developed.  This theory was put forward by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109).  Anselm compared God to a feudal lord who had been wronged by his surfs and needed to maintain his honor.  No mere mortal, or surf, could satisfy the injury to the honor of a lord.  Only a lord, or God, could satisfy God’s honor.  This theory emphasizes God’s justice, which must always be satisfied.  It’s emphasis on justice makes it very similar to the Penal Substitution Theory.

The Governmental Theory

This theory is very similar to the Satisfaction Theory and the Penal Substitution Theory.  The Governmental Theory says that God is the great lawgiver and that he must uphold the law.  Whenever a law is broken there must be a punishment to sustain order in the universe.  Christ thus suffers the penalty for the broken law.  This Theory was developed by Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) who was, incidentally, a jurist.

The Moral Theory

In this theory, Christ’s sacrifice is not so much intended to affect God the Father at is intended to affect us.  The Atonement of Christ demonstrates the supreme love of God for us and thus moves us to repentance and love for God.  This theory was developed by Peter Abelard (1079-1142).  A similar idea was promoted by Faustus (1539-1604) and Laelius Socinius (1525-1562).  They saw the Atonement was the most beautiful demonstration of God’s love.  It also an example of supreme love for God, inspiring us to love God to the same degree.  “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his footsteps” (1 Peter 2:21).

Penal Substitution Theory

This is the dominant view in the Reform Tradition and probably the most common explanation of Atonement given today.  According to Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, penal substitution is “the view that Christ in his death bore the just penalty of God for our sins as a substitute for us” (p. 1251).  “This view is sometimes called the theory of vicarious atonement.  A ‘vicar’ is someone who stands in the place of another or who represents another.  Christ’s death was therefore ‘vicarious’ because he stood in our place and represented us.  As our representative, he took the penalty that we deserve” (ibid. 579).  This theory was largely developed by John Calvin (1509-1564).

These are the major theories of Atonement throughout the history of Christianity.  However, there is one more theory I would like to mention since it is my favorite and the closest to my own view.  It is called the Compassion Theory, developed by Mormon theologian and philosopher Blake Ostler in the second volume of his series Exploring Mormon Thought: The Problems of Theism and the Love of God.

Ostler defended his theory in another paper titled Atonement in Mormon Thought (see link below).  In this paper he listed five questions he felt that any theory of Atonement should address:

1. How are Christ’s life, death and resurrection either necessary or uniquely beneficial to expiate or eradicate the effects of sin in our lives so that we are reconciled to God here and now?

2. Why can’t we just be forgiven without someone suffering?

3. Why does Christ’s suffering and experience atone for our sins in a way that the Father and the Holy Ghost do not?

4. How could Christ “bear our sins” or “take our sins upon him” that we commit in the here and now in a way that caused him to suffer?

5. How do the ordinances of sacrament and baptism (among others) signify what occurs in atonement?

He also proposes that any theory of Atonement should meet Abelard’s Constraint, that is to say it be “neither unintelligible, arbitrary, illogical, nor immoral.”

Compassion Theory

The Compassion Theory takes advantage of the meaning of the word “com-passion” which etymologically means “feel in union with”.  In The Problems of Theism and the Love of God, Ostler says: “The purpose of Atonement is to overcome our alienation by creating compassion, a life shared in union where we are moved by our love for each other.  ‘The Passion’ also refers to Christ’s suffering—and thus com-passion is to share in Christ’s suffering and he in ours, that we might share also in the unsurpassable joy of each others’ lives… The purpose of the atonement in LDS scripture is to ‘bring about the bowels of mercy’ so that God is moved with compassion for us and we are moved with gratitude to trust him by opening our hearts to him.  The result of the Atonement is that we are free to choose to turn back to God, and he is free to accept us into a relationship of shared life.  Atonement removes, casts out, and releases the guilt that alienates us; and it also brings us together into shared life.  When we let go of our past and release the painful energy of alienation, Christ experiences that release and receives into himself the pain that we have experienced to be transformed by the light of his love.  If we refuse to let go of our past histories and the pain that arises from our sins, we will continue to experience pain.  If we let go of that pain; however, then Christ experiences the very pain that we release, but we no longer have to.  In his Passion we find compassion.  He literally feels our and pains is thereby filled with compassion for us.  In this sense, Christ suffers for our sins and bears our iniquities” (235-236).

So there is a brief review of the major theories of this most important doctrine.  Later, I will talk about my own understanding of the Atonement in response to scripture and in response to personal experience.

Reference:

Blake Ostler’s Atonement in Mormon Thought

http://blakeostler.com/docs/AtonementInMormonThought.pdf

Speaking Christian: Redeeming Christian Language

I have returned from my first field trip for this blog. I attended a discussion by author Marcus Borg in Scottsdale at the North Scottsdale United Methodist Church. The title of the discussion was “Speaking Christian—Redeeming Christian Language”. Borg mentioned that he is working on a book touching on the same content that he spoke on tonight. I arrived early and was able to meet him and have him sign my copy of “Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary”. In this post I want to just cover the material of his discussion much in the way he presented it with minimal commentary. Borg actually provided a lot of his lecture in a paper handout and encouraged us “borrow shamelessly” from his material. I will share my own observations in a later post.

While I was waiting for the discussion to start there was a woman playing Beethoven, Chopin and Rachmaninoff and she was excellent. The person who introduced the main speaker referred to the gathered audience as “The Borg Collective”. I appreciated the Star Trek reference. Dr. Borg began by asking everyone about their religious affiliation and people raised their hands as he mentioned each group. He didn’t mention Mormons, which sort of surprised me since I told him I was Mormon when he signed my book—but that’s alright. Marcus Borg has a great sense of humor and a quick wit. My favorite joke was when he mentioned Unitarian Universalists and said: “I see some to my right which I find a bit alarming” (Unitarian Universalists are known for being very left-wing).

He mentioned a comment that Pat Robertson made about Haiti. After the horrible earthquake in Haiti, Pat Robertson said: “They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story. And so the devil said, 'Ok it’s a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another”. [1] Borg asked how anyone could think that about the Christian God. How could God punish a country for something that people did 200 years ago when all the people who supposedly made the pact were long dead? This kind of talk contributes to a negative image of Christianity. If Pat Robertson is right then Christopher Hitchens is also right that “god is not great”. He then read a letter to the editor in which someone wrote to Pat Robertson pretending to be Satan. I recommend reading the whole letter but one of my favorite lines is this: “when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing... If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing.” [2] He used this as an introduction to the topic to show how important it is to communicate and show the best of Christianity rather than a distorted view that is often portrayed.

The premise of Borg’s lecture was that religions are like languages. “To be part of a religion includes using, hearing, and understanding that religion’s language. To be Jewish means ‘speaking Jewish,’ to be Muslim means ‘speaking Muslim,’ to be Buddhist means ’speaking Buddhist.’ So also, to be Christian means ‘speaking Christian.’ Of course, religions are about more than ‘speaking,’ about more than ‘words.’ They also involve a way of seeing reality and an ‘ethos,’ a way of life. But all of this is conveyed in language, in words.”

“An illuminating phrase from recent scholarship: Religions are ‘cultural-linguistic traditions’ (George Lindbeck, 1984). Something simple and important is meant: each religion originated in a particular culture and used the language of that culture, even if it also challenged that culture. Religions that survived over time became cultural-linguistic traditions themselves, each with its own language, stories, understandings, and ethos.”

He then outlined the problem: “Christian language in our time is often unfamiliar and even more often misunderstood.” It is unfamiliar because “in recent decades, more and more people have grown up ‘unchurched.’” It is misunderstood because “of two central features of the ‘common Christianity’ of the recent past that have shaped the meanings of much of Christian language.” The first feature is the literalization of Christian language—that “everything the Bible says is the literal, factual, and absolute revelation of God. Literalism flattens the meaning of language and, of course, distorts it.”

The second feature that makes Christian language misunderstood is a misunderstanding of Christianity’s core message. Many Christians describe this core message in terms of the afterlife, our sinfulness, and Jesus’ death as the basis for our forgiveness. But the words used to describe the message are often not understood in their full range. Some of the most basic Christian words include: mercy, repentance, redeem, faith, believe, and salvation.

The word “mercy” is usually used to describe “what we need from God: to be forgiven in spite of our wrongdoing”. It is the idea that humanity is sinful and evil. But mercy is more than just getting off the hook. Mercy is compassion, empathy and love expressed to those who suffer and are afflicted. It is Christ succoring us in our hour of need. It is this kind of compassion that God shows toward us in our times of trial and that he expects us to show toward others.

Repentance is usually understood as “contrition about our sins and resolving to try to live otherwise”. Again it is the negative view of humanity; the idea that we are vial and evil and that we need to feel horrible about ourselves to repent. But repentance in the Bible is used to describe a “returning” to God. It has nothing to do with self-loathing. In fact self-loathing is counter-productive to returning to God. True repentance means “to go beyond the mind that you have,” to put yourself at one with God.

Redemption in the Bible is used to describe redemption from bondage and slavery. Bondage could refer to emotional or psychological bondage. We could be in bondage to our own bad habits and addiction. But as our Redeemer, Christ can free us from this bondage.

Faith and belief are usually understood to mean an intellectual assent to certain tenets and principles—to assert that such-and-such is so. But faith is something much deeper than this. To have faith is to be faithful to something. It is to be committed to something. The deeper meaning to the word “believe” is “to belove”. To believe something is to give your heart and dedicate yourself.

Salvation is “one of the ‘big’ Christian words—as central to Christianity as nirvana” is to Buddhism. Unfortunately, it is to many a loaded word that carries a lot of baggage. Some people have a negative association with the word because they see in it the implicit threat of Hell and damnation. It carries the baggage of an “in group—out group”. Those who got their beliefs right or were born into the right faith are rewarded in Heaven while everyone else is out of luck. But in the Bible salvation is much more.

Salvation in the Old Testament is used in to refer to salvation from bondage as in the story of the exodus from Egypt. In the New Testament times the word “savior” was used to refer to the Roman emperor. The Roman emperor was the great savior who brought peace on Earth by unifying the empire from civil war. But Christians in the early days of the church used this same terminology to refer to Jesus as if to say “Jesus is the Savior who brings real peace on Earth.” The peace that Jesus brings is not the kind that the emperor gives [the world giveth], not the kind of peace brought about by armies and governments, but peace that comes by drawing near to God (John 14:27).

The primary Biblical meaning of the word “’salvation’ is about transformation in this life, this side of death—the transformation of ourselves and of the world. It’s both personal and political, concerns both individuals and the transformations of societies.” Salvation is about healing.

There are multiple images for salvation which include transformation from:
· Bondage to liberation
· Exile/estrangement to re-connection
· Sickness/woundedness to wholeness
· Blindness to seeing
· Death to life
· Anxiety to freedom from anxiety
· Self-preoccupation to the ability to be present and compassionate
· A world of injustice to a world of justice
· A world of violence and war to a world of non-violence and peace

“Transformation [is] a concise crystallization of what Christianity and the Christian life are about.” Borg phrased the question: “What’s our product?” What is it that Christianity has to offer the world? “Transformation is our ‘product,’ message. It responds to our deepest yearning. Religions are means of ultimate transformation.” Our speech and method of speaking about Christianity must make it clear that we are called and invited to experience a transformation. And these words are words of life.

In his final comments Borg said, “Christianity at its best is magnificent”. It struggles at times and can sometimes be distorted from the pure, authentic teachings of Christ. The great religious struggles are not between religions but within religions themselves, seeking to define themselves. But at its best Christianity is magnificent. It is the means of transformation that responds to our deepest yearning.

[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/01/13/crimesider/entry6092717.shtml (retrieved Jan 28, 2010)

[2] http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/01/the_devil_writes_pat_robertson.html (retrieved Jan 28, 2010)

Upcoming Event: Marcus Borg

I will be doing my first field trip for this blog next week. Marcus Borg, who I quoted in my post "The Challenge of Jesus", will be speaking at North Scottsdale United Methodist Church on Thursday, January 28th from 7 to 9 PM. His discussion is called "Speaking Christian: A Misunderstood Language". It is hosted by the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology.

Here is a summary from the event website:

"Being Christian includes using and understanding Christian language, yet many crucial Christian words are seriously misunderstood in our time. Words such as savior, salvation, redemption, righteousness, repentance and sacrifice have lost their original, rich meanings. How do we reclaim this language from its captivity to conventional Christianity? Can we then translate the Christian vision into words that enable us to engage with others who have not grown up with this langauge?"

It sounds like it should be pretty interesting. I have read some of Marcus Borg's work before. While I have some differences in my beliefs with him I do think it will be interesting to hear his presentation. After attending I'll give a review here and some of my own thoughts on the discussion.

For more information visit http://www.borginarizona.com/

Love Your Enemies

“How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains?"

Enoch saw the earth and all the people living in it. He saw wickedness and hatred and Satan with a great chain in his hand veiling the face of the earth in darkness. Satan looked up toward Heaven and laughed. And the Heavens wept.

“How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity? And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea, millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy curtains are stretched out still; and yet thou art there, and thy bosom is there; and also thou art just; thou art merciful and kind forever... and naught but peace, justice, and truth is the habitation of thy throne; and mercy shall go before thy face and have no end; how is it thou canst weep?”

And the Lord said: “Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood... Satan shall be their father, and misery shall be their doom; and the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?” (Moses 7:28-37)

We all have the capacity to choose our own progenitors. We can be children of God of children of Satan and the choice is made by the doctrine we choose to follow. The Title of Father is given to God the Father (Matthew 5:48; 6:9; 16:17), Jesus Christ (Mosiah 5:7; 15:1-3) and Satan (Moses 7:37; 3 Nephi 11:29; 2 Nephi 9:9). As children share the attributes of their parents, so do the spiritual offspring of God or Satan share the characteristics of their spiritual parents.

John said: “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” (1 John 3:8-11)

The simplicity of the message is striking—that we should love one another—this is what makes all the difference. Nephi prophesied: “For behold, at that day shall he [Satan] rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good.” (2 Nephi 28:20) These are the fruits of Satanic progeny—hatred, anger, emnity.

Conversely, Christ says “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:35) And this call is universal. Loving our own friends just won’t cut it. Jesus says “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven...” (Matthew 5:44-45) This is a hard saying. Are we able to hear it? (John 6:60) This doctrine must be taken seriously because it is forms the basis of our relationship with God. We become children of our “Father which is in heaven” by loving all, including our enemies.

I think it is safe to say that what is taught here is that we should not only love our enemies but we should in fact have no enemies at all. If we have enemies, let it be by their will and not by our own. Let our enemies be conquered not through violence, but by turning enemies into friends. This does not mean that our friends will respond in the same spirit of friendship. But as Disciples of Christ let us be friends to all and thus become children of Christ and children of our Heavenly Father.