Atonement
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The atonement is a doctrine found within both Christianity and Judaism. It describes how sin can be forgiven by God. In Judaism, Atonement is said to be the process of forgiving or pardoning a transgression. This was originally accomplished through rituals performed by a High Priest on the holiest day of the Jewish year: Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). In Christian theology the atonement refers to the forgiving or pardoning of sin through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ which made possible the reconciliation between God and creation. Within Christianity there are numerous technical theories for how such atonement might work, including the ransom theory, the Abelardian theory, and the Anselmian satisfaction theory.
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[edit] Etymology
The word atonement gained widespread use in the sixteenth century after William Tyndale recognized that there was no direct translation of the concept into English. In order to explain the doctrine of Christ's sacrifice, which accomplished both the remission of sin and reconciliation of man to God, Tyndale invented a word that would encompass both actions. He wanted to overcome the inherent limitations of the word "reconciliation" while incorporating the aspects of "propitiation" and forgiveness. It is interesting to note that while Tyndale labored to translate the 1526 English Bible, his proposed word comprises two parts, 'at' and 'onement,' which also means reconciliation, but combines it with something more. Although one thinks of the Jewish Fast of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), the Hebrew word is ‘kaper’ ing ‘a covering’, so one can see that ‘reconciliation’ doesn't precisely contain all the necessary components of the word atonement. Expiation means “to atone for.” Reconciliation comes from Latin roots re, meaning “again”; con, meaning “with”; and ultimately, 'sol', a root meaning “seat”. Reconciliation, therefore, literally means “to sit again with.” While this meaning may appear sufficient, Tyndale thought that if translated as "reconciliation," there would be a pervasive misunderstanding of the word's deeper significance to not just reconcile, but "to cover," so the word was invented.
[edit] The atonement in Christianity—general themes
A number of theories of the atonement have been advanced by Christians to explain how and why the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ redeem. Concerning them, their usefulness, and their role, C. S. Lewis wrote:
We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories we build up as to how Christ's death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary: mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself. All the same, some of these theories are worth looking at.[1]
[edit] Roman Catholic view
The Roman Catholic Church does not limit itself to a single theory but several, including, but not limited to, the ransom, penal substitution, moral influence theories and the primacy of the Incarnation. Rather, these multiple perspectives are needed to express the fullness of the atonement.
| “ | On looking back at the various theories noticed so far, it will be seen that they are not, for the most part, mutually exclusive, but may be combined and harmonized. It may be said, indeed, that they all help to bring out different aspects of that great doctrine which cannot find adequate expression in any human theory.[2] | ” |
Rather than considering these different views as theories, it is better to consider them as expressions or representations. While theologians may at times emphasize one idea, this does not imply that the others are any less true or valuable. To consistently emphasize only one aspect of the atonement is dangerous.
[edit] Judicial (Protestant) view
The almost unanimous, contemporary Protestant view is that of penal substitution. The view is so widely believed that few Protestants are aware of alternative understandings of the atonement. In the rare instances when they encounter other Christians who profess non-substitution views, Protestants usually consider these views heretical.[citation needed]
However, Protestants still use the language of alternative understandings prolifically especially where they are used in the Bible. Usually this is done because, while they consider the penal substitution theory as the literal understanding, they still feel free to use other differing ideas as figurative language about the atonement. This is true, for example, of the Christus Victor view. There are instances when Protestants confuse other views as the satisfaction view, Matthew 20.28, for example. Jesus said of himself, "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."
Of course, there are always exceptions. More liberal Protestants, particularly scholars, are more likely to relate with the moral influence view.
[edit] Christus Victor
The Christus Victor view, which is more common among Lutherans (see, e.g. G. Aulen's book Christus Victor), and Eastern Orthodox Christians, holds that Jesus was sent by God to defeat death and Satan. Because of his perfection, voluntary death, and resurrection, Jesus defeated Satan and death, and arose victorious. Therefore humanity was no longer bound in sin, but was free to rejoin God through faith in Jesus.
In contrast to the judicial view, the Christus Victor model emphasizes a spiritual battle between good and evil. This battle is on a cosmic scale. The judicial view would require Christians to believe that God voluntarily punished Jesus for their sins, whereas the Christus Victor view sees humanity as formerly in the power of Satan, who was defeated by Jesus; and God, through Jesus, broke us out of Satan's power.
The Christus Victor sometimes has also been used to argue that Jesus defeated sin and death for everyone, whether or not they hear of Jesus, granting non-Christians the chance of eternal life (or a guarantee thereof, depending on the particular theology in question).
[edit] First man view
The first man view, held by a small minority of Christians, especially Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, states that Jesus was a person just like the rest of humanity, but due to his remarkable faith, purity, sinlessness, and perfection, he earned eternal life, and was resurrected because Death could not hold him. They also believe that by following his teachings and example others may also ultimately earn eternal life.
The first man view can be compared with the Old Testament stories of Enoch and Elijah, who walked with God to such a degree of faithfulness that they were not required to die. Enoch 'was no more,' and Elijah was carried in a whirlwind. In the same way, Jesus was faithful to such a degree, that even though he was killed, his Faith earned him Eternal Life. And in the same way, if we are faithful to the same degree, we can also be free from death.
[edit] Need for a redeemer
Many Christians believe the atonement was necessary to compensate and reverse the fall of Adam as noted in 1 Corinthians:
- For Adam was formed first, then Eve. It was not Adam who was deceived; it was the woman, who, yielding to deception, fell into sin... As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.[3]
In this view Jesus is believed to have submitted voluntarily as the liaison for both humanity and God to answer the ends of the law previously transgressed by Adam. However, Stephen L Harris, among others, views this attribution as slightly simplistic, and a conflict with the history of Ancient Israel (or the Old Testament). Harris argues that the promises given to Abraham were fulfilled when God promised David a royal kingship forever and the temple on Mount Zion was established:
- David is told he will rule over Israel 'forever' (2 Sam 7:8-17; 23:5 Ps. 89:19-37). When Davidic kings are crowned, Yahweh adopts them as 'sons,' echoing Yahweh's paternal relationship to Canaanite rulers (Ps 2;110). Because of the close bond between Yahweh and the Davidic dynasty, the authors of Chronicles can refer to the Davidic throne as God's "kingdom" (1 Chron. 17:14; 28:5; 29:11).[4]
Professor Hiroshi Obayashi, former Chair and Professor of the Department of Religious Studies Rutgers, agrees with Harris and believed this created a dilemma within God's kingdom when the Israelites were involved in the diaspora, or the great scattering due to Assyrian and Babylonian occupation. The diaspora was seen as a "rejection of the entire past" by the Prophets Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Deutero Isaiah, thus God completely rejected the history of Ancient Israel along with the creation stories of Adam and Eve.[5] The prophets redefined the "covenantal religion into one of faith, justice, and love" and ushered in a new view of the afterlife after the Maccabean revolt. "This time it was not the shared suffering of all of the Jews (much like the stories in Joshua), but only those who remained loyal to the Torah who suffered and died. Thus the ancient belief of Sheol, the underworld, which summarized the common fate of all the Jews proved no longer satisfactory."[5] Sheol, or a state of nothingness, was replaced by the idea of resurrection, "the most individualistic of all religious conceptions...Resurrection and apocalypticism were the answer to changing times."[5]
This new theme of resurrection is seen in the early Christian tradition. Many Christians came to understand the atonement as the theology of Jesus dying on the cross for the sins of humanity. Seen in this way, they regarded the atonement as the crowning achievement of the Christian faith. It answered the theological question of why God or the Son descended on earth as a human man, born to the virgin Mary as the human baby Jesus, and the need for an intercession for the human family and paralleling the Greek myth of Dionysus. The physical and spiritual mechanics of how the atonement was accomplished is thought to be outside the realm of human rationality, thus it requires faith to be believed. As a preamble to the atonement, Christ taught love, faith, hope, kindness, forbearance, to bear one another's burdens, repentance, forgiveness, baptism, and endeavored to overcome the sins of the world through the Atonement by fulfilling the ends of the laws of heaven, which Christ is said to have established with direction from the Father. This was accomplished through his preeminent example of perfection, overcoming temptation, descending below all things (including the Crucifixion), and overcoming the world by making all things new physically (resurrection) and spiritually (salvation). Many Christian denominations believe the Atonement was finished with the suffering and execution of Christ on the cross, and still others believe it was finished with the resurrection. Nevertheless, Christians largely believe the Atonement is considered to be accomplished, subsequently unlocking the gates of heaven forever to the human family.
[edit] Main theories in detail
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[edit] Christus Victor
Ransom: Origen, Gregory of Nyssa
Scapegoating: William Tyndale (who invented the word from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts), René Girard, James Alison, Gerhard Förde see 'In Christianity' in Scapegoat
[edit] Physical theory
Recapitulation: Irenaeus, Athanasius, Cappadocian Fathers, Eastern Orthodox Church
[edit] Moral influence
- Pierre Abélard (It is questionable whether Abélard himself taught this model of atonement)
[edit] Satisfaction
Divine satisfaction: Anselm of Canterbury & salvation in Catholicism
Penalty or punishment satisfaction: John Calvin, Calvinism, & imputed righteousness
Vicarious repentance, John Mcleod Campbell, R. C. Moberly
[edit] Governmental
- Hugo Grotius, James Arminius, John Miley
- Substitutionary atonement & Atonement (Governmental view)
- Jonathan Edwards & Charles Grandison Finney
[edit] Ransom
[edit] Other denominational perspectives
[edit] Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy has a substantively different soteriology; this is sometimes cited as the core difference between Eastern and Western Christianity. The Orthodox view is closely related to the Incarnation and is thus closest to the Physical redemption theory.
[edit] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) expands the doctrine of the atonement complementary to the substitutionary atonement concept, including the following:
- Suffering in Gethsemane. The Atonement began in Gethsemane and ends on his Resurrection (Luke 22:44; Doctrine and Covenants 19:16–19; Mosiah 3:7; Alma 7:11–13. Christ described this agony in the Doctrine and Covenants as follows: "...how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.... Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit..." (19:15,18).
- The relationship of justice, mercy, agency, and God's unconditional love. Christ's infinite atonement was required to satisfy the demands of justice based on eternal law, rendering him mediator, redeemer, and advocate with the Father. Thus, he proffers divine mercy to the truly penitent who voluntarily come unto him, offering them the gift of his grace to "lift them up" and "be perfected in Him" through his merits (2 Nephi 2 and 9; Alma 12, 34, and 42; Moroni 9:25; 10:33; compare Isaiah 55:1-9).
- No need for infant baptism. Christ's atonement completely resolved the consequence from the fall of Adam of spiritual death for infants, young children and those of innocent mental capacity who die before an age of self-accountability, hence all these are resurrected to eternal life in the resurrection. However, baptism is required of those who are deemed by God to be accountable for their actions.
- Empathetic purpose. Christ suffered pain and agony not only for the sins of all men, but also to experience their physical pains, illnesses, anguish from addictions, emotional turmoil and depression, "that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities" (Alma 7:12; compare Isaiah 53:4).
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ C. S. Lewis. Mere Christianity, Chapter 4
- ^ Doctrine of the Atonement Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02055a.htm
- ^ See Corinthians 11:2-10 and 15:22
- ^ Stephen L. Harris, Understanding the Bible. (McGraw Hill, 2002) p 88
- ^ a b c Hiroshi Obayashi, Death and the Afterlife: Perspectives of World Religions. (Praeger Publishers, 1992.) See Introduction
[edit] External links
- Biblical Atonement: The Governmental View (Arminian/Wesleyan)
- The Christian Doctrine of the Atonement (Arminian/Wesleyan)
- Historical Opinions as to the Nature of Christ's Atoning Death (Arminian/Wesleyan)
- The Biblical Doctrine of the Atonement (Calvinist/Reformed)
- The Atonement of Christ (Latter-day Saint)
- Definite Atonement, Limited Atonement, Particular Redemption (Calvinist/Reformed)
- Catholic Encyclopedia, "The Doctrine of Atonement" Ransom, and Anselm's Satisfaction model (Roman Catholic)
- Atonement Theories in Current Philosophical Theology from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Incarnational and Participatory Models of Atonement
- "Alma and Anselm: Satisfaction Theory in the Book of Mormon" A detailed overview of Anselm's Satisfaction theory of Atonement with a comparison to Book of Mormon theology.
