Another Theology Paper (on Atonement Models)

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*This is another paper I submitted for my Analytic Theology class. I am loosely in agreement with it as a whole, though at times I align with the position I quote Anatolios as taking: that this conversation is best not having. Still, perhaps it does serve some value as a reflection on Christ and his cross.*

Introduction

The doctrine of the atonement – that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19) – is one example of a Christian doctrine without a definite creedal formulation. Because of this, there exist numerous “theories” as to how reconciliation is affected. C.S. Lewis writes about the different theories: “The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God… Theories as to how it did this are another matter… Theories about Christ’s death are not Christianity: they are explanations about how it works” (2001, 52-53). Some recent theologians, like Khaled Anatolios, have eschewed the categorization of atonement “theories,” and have become convinced the conversation leads to a false start (2022, 1-11). Others, like Oliver Crisp and Eleonore Stump, have implicitly promoted their use in constructing accounts of their own. We will take the latter line here. 

A quick survey of the theories includes accounts such as penal substitution, Christus victor, ransom, moral influence, and recapitulation. These theories have rich and complex developmental histories which elude simple categorization. For our purposes, we will focus on the moral influence or moral exemplarist set of theories (hereafter MITs), which hold that Christ’s death leads to our own moral enrichment or inspiration to act virtuously ourselves. 

We will also consider how MITs relate to “meta-models,” accounts which seek to organize the different theories, positing connections whereby they might coexist or mutually inform one another. There are two dominant meta-models: the composite (or “mashup”) model and the kaleidoscopic model. How might these differing models and sub-models be compared, especially as it regards the central atonement concept of the removal of guilt? Further: Do the composite or kaleidoscopic models offer a better alternative to Moral influence theories regarding the removal of guilt?

I will argue that composite models offer better alternatives to MITs because MITs do not have sufficiently clear mechanisms whereby the objective reconciliation affected in the atonement supposedly terminates, and although MITs might help explain certain subjective components involved in expiation, they fall short of fulfilling the objective and subjective dimensions of guilt. First, I will outline the composite and kaleidoscopic views, highlighting the particular strengths of composite accounts. Then, I will define guilt as dual-pronged. Finally, I will outline two types of MITs and show their inadequacy, before proving the superiority of composite theories by expositing Eleonore Stump’s well-known marian atonement theory.

Composite and Kaleidoscopic Models

            The defining characteristic of composite models is their tendency to critique or subject various theories and their constitutive elements into one overarching meaning – say, the appeasement of God’s honor or liberation from the bondage of Satan’s power. Francis Turretin represents this tradition and writes in his Institutes that though the scriptures include various atonement motifs, the cross must primarily be understood in a forensic, judicial sense (1994, 634-635). In contrast to the composite theologian, the kaleidoscopist refuses to offer any positive vision of the work affected by Christ’s atonement otherwise than to claim that the cross has reconciled God and Man. For the kaleidoscopist, to attach one overarching interpretive framework onto the biblical passages surrounding atonement – to say, in other words, “when taken together, all of these passages should primarily be read as recapitulating the story of Israel” or such like – is to commit to a misguided theological assumption. One major proponent of the kaleidoscopic view, Joel B. Green, writes to this effect: “It is unthinkable that one soteriological model could express all of the truth” (1995, 266). It is in this way that the kaleidoscopic view merely prescribes a sort of respectful hermeneutical silence. This hermeneutical silence is not an agnostic disparagement of the significance of the cross, however. For the kaleidoscopist, says Crisp, “The different historic accounts of the atonement… are partial pictures of a reality that no single account can adequately explain” (Approaching, 2020, 142). Though each of these approaches represent diverging yet helpful ways of thinking of the atonement, composite views should be preferred because kaleidoscopic views liken too close to the amorphous nature of MITs. Even if the kaleidoscopic approach espouses respectful silence, it is silence nonetheless. 

Guilt and Its Removal

The concept of guilt is central to discussions about the atonement. Both Eleonore Stump and Oliver Crisp both make helpful distinctions about the concept of guilt in atonement discussions. Stump makes the case that, because of wrongdoing, guilt has to do with the rejection of a person’s ability to contribute positively to the social health of a community (Stump, 2018, 339-345). Crisp distinguishes between two types of guilt: guilt as blameworthiness, or that which sticks to the person throughout their lives regardless of legal satisfaction, and guilt as that which must be legally punished (Approaching, 2020, 103-105). For our purposes, we will try and condense Stump’s and Crisp’s insights into the following terms to help frame our discussion of guilt: what I will call Objective Guilt [OG] and Subjective Guilt [SG]. These two terms can be described as follows:

OG: Objective Guilt is that legal and social standing which constitutes the sinner as set against the health of the community and against God. For this to be rectified, the effects of his actions must be expunged by either punishment or relational restoration. 

SG: Subjective Guilt is the criminal’s internal feeling of “guilt-riddenness”; it is the feeling of a guilty conscience that is produced by moral wrongdoing against God’s righteous law which necessarily includes wrongdoing against people. Subjective Guilt can only be satisfied by ridding the perpetrator of a tormented soul.

If an atonement theory is to be successful in covering the breadth of biblical data surrounding the atonement – of which the removal of guilt is a core concept – it must satisfy the conditions of both [OG] and [SG]. 

Moral Influence Theories

Oliver Crisp helpfully distinguishes between what he calls “No Atonement Moral Exemplarism” and “Atonement Moral Exemplarism” (Approaching, 2020, 80-86). The latter takes it that Christ affects a real or ontological reconciliation between God and Man, but one whose details may be described as “thin” and not well-defined. The former view, however, exemplified by the thought of figures like Faustus Socinus and John Hick, have at the core of its atonement reflections the conviction that the primary significance of Christ’s person and work is in their merely didactic value (Approaching, 2020, 81-82). In other words, the atonement should exclusively be understood as the outcome of a moral ideal, an ideal which, when observers behold it, should inspire them to greater selflessness and love towards others. Crisp aptly summarizes: “Christ represents the life of a moral saint, one of many such great religious figures, whose work is an inspiration that should be emulated” (Approaching, 2020, 82). On this account, questions about Christ’s divine status or the appeasement of the honor of God or the satisfaction of penal consequences is beside the point and perhaps even blatantly misguided. This is especially true for Hick, whose work on the atonement lacks any semblance of “a concept of sin, an adequate account of the doctrine of God, and… a recognition that Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is a work of reconciliation brought about by some mechanism of atonement” (Approaching, 2020, 85).

Taken on its own, moral influence theories constitute the lowest common denominator for any atonement theory which would address the biblical material (Approaching, 2020, 90-91). Because they cannot provide a definite mechanism for how God and Man are reconciled, they cannot be expected to satisfy either [OG] or [SG]. There could be a case made that the moral transformation caused by exposure to the cross of Christ can be described as “transformative” (Approaching, 2020, 84-85), but since there are still no definite parameters for defining what the cross means – besides such general themes as “self-sacrifice” and “love,” which, to be sure, are profound and true ascriptions of the cross – MITs cannot be satisfactory for expunging felt guilt for moral wrongdoing nor for establishing the basis upon which the sinner is restored to objective right relation with God and other men. William Lane Craig goes so far as to say: “Taken in isolation, the moral influence theory is hopeless as an atonement theory” (2018, 96). 

Composite accounts of the atonement undoubtedly offer better explanations for the removal of both [OG] and [SG]. Before our study is ended, we will look at one example of a composite atonement theory to prove this thesis: Eleonore Stump’s marian atonement account. 

Eleonore Stump: Marian Atonement

Eleonore Stump’s marian account is well-known among theologians of the atonement because of its self-branding as a contemporary alternative to the dominant strain of Anselmian satisfaction accounts which Stump views as deeply problematic (Stump, 2018, 72). Her primary emphasis is therefore the restoration of the relational and spiritual health of perpetrators and sufferers of human sin, and not the appeasement of God’s honor, as in Anselmian accounts. In Stump’s estimation, the assuaging of [OG] means for the perpetrator to cease resisting God’s offer of loving union with herself and to accept the right relational standing with God earned by Christ’s vicarious satisfaction (Stump, 2018, 340-377). Furthermore, it is in accepting that standing that [SG] is satisfied, since Christ’s satisfaction can then apply to all those whom the perpetrator has harmed, with Christ acting in the perpetrator’s stead, applying his passion and death to what was still lacking in the satisfaction for the perpetrator’s evil (Stump, 2018, 370). Stump writes, “For a wrongdoer… who is united to Christ and who allies himself in his own repentance and satisfaction with the work of Christ, Christ’s passion and death can serve as vicarious satisfaction which makes up what was still lacking in the satisfaction for his evil that Newton himself made” (Stump 2018, 370). It is this shift in emphasis which is crucial: Christ’s atonement does not satisfy divine offense but defeats the destructive spiritual and relational effects of wrongdoing between both the sinner and God (initiated by the sinner) and between perpetrators and sufferers. Stump puts it beautifully: “What Christ offers to God as pleasing to God’s justice is satisfaction given to human sufferers for the wrongdoings of other human beings. Human sufferers are the primary beneficiaries of Christ’s vicarious satisfaction” (Stump, 2018, 372). It is in this way that both [OG] and [SG] are reversed.

Conclusion

Any theory about how the atonement works that cannot explain such categories like the removal of guilt cannot be considered sufficient. MITs fail to answer these questions adequately, as they prescribe a simple moral reflectiveness in those who look at Christ’s passion, and nothing more. MITs should be considered necessary – as all atonement accounts hold to the didactic aspect of the cross – but not sufficient, as more needs to be said to capture adequately the multivalent picture of the cross of Jesus Christ. Kaleidoscopic accounts liken to MITs because of their reluctance to give the atonement clear definition, and so are also inadequate. Composite accounts such as the one propounded by Eleonore Stump, however, can give clear mechanical explanations for the cross and can paint a clearer picture of just how the overarching scriptural themes surrounding the atonement should be interpreted. Though helpful in explaining the experience of confrontation with the cross and its sanctifying effects, MITs cannot penetrate to the core of the cross’s divine mystery.

Works Cited

Anatolios, Khaled. (2022) Deification Through the Cross: An Eastern Christian Theology of Salvation. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Carroll, J.T. and Joel B. Green. (1995) The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. 

Craig, William Lane. (2018) Atonement. Cambridge Elements in the Philosophy of Religion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 

Crisp, Oliver. (2020) Approaching the Atonement: The Reconciling Work of Christ. Lisle: InterVarsity Press. 

Lewis, C.S. (2001) Mere Christianity. San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers. 

Stump, Eleonore. (2018) Atonement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Turretin, Francis. (1994) Institutes of Elenctic Theology: Volume 2, Eleventh Through Seventeenth Topics. Philipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing.