Followup on price
In my previous post, Hammertime asked a cogent question. I’ve answered him in the comments there, but I thought it bore repeating as a higher-level article.
If you truly believe that the price has been paid, not to God but by God, who has it been paid to?
The first thing to say is that I dont find a “price” model of the atonement particularly useful, partly for this reason. The idea that the crucifixion was a price paid to God has serious issues – Jeffrey John articulated some of them. But, for a starter, theres a definite logical problem with God requiring payment and then, by legal sleight of hand, paying Himself and claiming that that makes everything alright. If He could sidestep payment by paying Himself, why require the payment in the first place? The alternative (which is the idea actually found in the NT) is that the price was paid to Satan – we were slaves to sin and Christ redeemed us (i.e. paid the price) from that slavery and set us free. But I don’t like this idea much, either, if taken too literally, because I don’t think that Satan has that much power.
One major problem with all these models is that they fail to account for the resurrection – theres simply no place in them for it. Indeed, it’s something of a problem, because it effectively sidesteps the “payment” by negating it. If the payment is a death (whether paid to God or Satan or anyone else), that’s cheated by a resurrection. There hasn’t really been a death at all the person’s life continues.
Personally, I think that models like Christus victor (also found in the NT and the dominant model in the early Church) are good – by his life, death and resurrection, Jesus won the victory over sin, death and the devil. This necessarily encompasses all parts of the Incarnation, not focusing on Good Friday to the exclusion of everything else. Or (I think I’ve mentioned it here before) the idea from Catherine of Sienna of medicine – we were sick with sin, sick to death, and the only medicine is death itself (see Paul’s discussion of how death is what liberates us from the Law). Jesus came and tasted death for us, and was the only one who could do so and survive (being God). Then, we partake of His death by our baptism and our new life in Christ. He feeds us as a wet-nurse fed a baby, taking the strong medicine herself so that the child may receive the medicine in diluted and tolerable form in her milk.
The point, as I’ve said previously, is that there is no “One True Model” of the atonement. What the Bible presents is the fact of the atonement. All we can do is try to wrap our minds around it. Claiming that we have it all tied up (especially in such flawed models as penal substitution) is arrogance. If the Bible gave us a single model, it would be different. But that isn’t how it is. The only thing we can do is to look at multiple models and let them criticise one another, in the hope that we will be able to hold the good pieces of each without letting our vision be too distorted by the bad pieces.
pax et bonum
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Let’s agree to one thing – let’s say what we believe. If you don’t think any price was paid, don’t quote some nifty sounding statement that clearly states a price was paid. If you rejection any substitution, don’t dance around it.
Also, you mentioned some time ago when you and Sven were both posting on the atonement that attacking the penal substitution was really only attacking those who thought it was the only thing that happened in the atonement. I thought that was wise, and let it go. However, to date, I have never met someone who thinks that. Really, you were attacking a belief that penal substitution is central to the atonement – which is held by a lot of people, including me.
I’m familiar enough with the atonement theories by now to agree that many have merit. The Healing model and Christus Victor are both important. Are you actually choosing not to choose, essentially the Kaliedescopic Model, but just attack a central penal substitution? Why not an attack upon christus victor,or healing?
No one reasonable thinks they have the atonement “all tied up”. I,and others, do think we have it “tied up enough”, however. I’m not sure you even understand the penal substitution model, though. Your assertion that “God pays himself” is quite confused. One reason why I am covering hell and the Trinity before the substitutionary atonement of Christ on my blog is to lay groundwork. I may ask a couple questions here about your view, but I’ll save my argument for there.
Hammertime () (URL)
03:30am on 11 April 2007
I believe that saying that “the price was paid” conveys important truths about what Christ achieved. I quoted it originally because it was a striking phrase that summarised part of what Dean Jeffrey John was saying – and because it disproved in one stroke much of the nonsense that he was being accused of. That being said, I’m not personally much moved by images of economics or law, so they don’t speak readily to my soul. However, I freely admit that they say true things. I am more than happy with substitution (and other forms of it speak much more to my soul). My problem is with excessively penal substitution. Again, a sophisticated understanding of penal substition, in which the incorrect or missing elements are balanced by other models, is fine by me. The danger is when this model becomes normative or controlling – its weaknesses come too easily to the fore, especially when backed by a theology that emphasises God’s wrath over God’s love. We can then start to see God mostly as someone who’s trying to punish us, and reluctantly lets us off if we’re part of an exclusive group that has found a legal loophole. That’s bad, I’m sure you’d agree! And as to whether there are people who lean this way – that was, in large part, the point of Dean John’s original article. Whether these people are in your circle or not, they do seem to exist; I’ve certainly met people on the fringe, at least. They have crippling pictures of God as a result of incorrect teaching based on incorrect theology of the atonement. Reaching these people with the truth would be a good thing.
The thing about “the only model” is tricky. You’ll rarely find someone who really uses only one set of language. However, I very often run across people who claim that penal substitution is the only correct way to think about the atonement. The fact that they actually use other models as well is mitigating, but their claimed position still stands and must be faced. That’s part of what all this talk of multiple models is about – to show people that, whatever they think they’re doing, they really are using several metaphors at the same time. Understanding what these are helps us to think clearly.
“Are you actually choosing not to choose, essentially the Kaliedescopic Model, but just attack a central penal substitution? Why not an attack upon christus victor,or healing?“
I’m not choosing not to choose (I don’t think). I have models I prefer. It’s just that I try to ensure that I keep correctives in mind for the weaknesses of those models that I prefer. I do think that having penal substitution central is dubious and risky – there are better, more biblical models that could occupy that role (certainly, the sacrifice, scapegoat, redemption and Christus victor models have better claim).
As for why I don’t criticise those other models, it’s partly because they’re not commonly abused in the same way as penal substitution, and partly because they’re the models I do like! If someone else wants to point out weaknesses in them, I’ll gladly read the analysis and take points on board – that’s why we have multiple models, after all!
(“God pays himself” wasn’t intended to be rigorous, merely a summary description. There have been far more extensive analyses of the position than I could carry out. Suffice to say that God paying God has issues, for some of us at least. If a metaphor ceases to work, insisting upon it doesn’t strengthen the case. Better to find metaphors that convey the same truths in different forms. Penal substitution isn’t central to Christian faith, and insisting that it is only weakens our message. It is hard to envision the Christian faith without any form of substitution, but it need not be penal.)
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
7:37pm on 12 April 2007
Excellent rejoinder, though awfully short on why penal substitution “weakens our faith”, is “dubious”, “risky”, or “[less] biblical”. Well, you did say “Im not personally much moved by images of economics or law”, but that sounds even less based on actual support than your typical arguments! However, if you would like to reserve some explanation of those unsupported assertions until my post on the subject, I don’t mind waiting.
So, when you say the “sacrifice” model is better, are you implying that there is nothing penal to sacrifices?
“They have crippling pictures of God as a result of incorrect teaching based on incorrect theology of the atonement. Reaching these people with the truth would be a good thing.”
Which is, of course, why I have these conversations with you :)
Hammertime () (URL)
05:20am on 13 April 2007
I believe that it weakens our faith because (in isolation or emphasised too strongly) it provides a distorted or outright wrong picture of God. It’s “dubious” and “risky” as a result of this – and because it’s not present in the Bible. There are images that can be taken in support of it, but the idea itself is scarcely to be found there.
The thing about metaphors is that they are more powerful and meaningful when they strike chords within us. So, if I have two metaphors that convey similar truths, I choose the one that means most to me, that moves me the most – it is (for me) the more powerful metaphor. That doesn’t make it more true than the other, but it does make it easier for me to understand those truths and start to live them. We all make these choices and that’s good – as long as our choice of metaphors isn’t harmful.
As to mixing penal concepts with sacrifice – no, there’s nothing penal about sacrifice. Quite the reverse, indeed. The sacrificial animal was pure, holy, dedicated to God. There was no sin, no blemish – anything like that would make the sacrifice less holy. If we start to mix penal ideas into sacrifice, we make the sacrifice less holy and less powerful. The whole point of Christ as the Lamb is that He was pure, without sin, and died to appease God. Of course, this idea still carries the “wrathful divinity” idea, which I think is misleading in isolation. It also doesn’t match up well to the real events of the Crucifixion. Perhaps the scapegoat is a closer match there, as well as capturing well a substitutionary process.
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
08:25am on 13 April 2007
I’ve heard that idea before, that “there’s nothing penal about sacrifice”. I didn’t have much to say until recently, where I have been in Leviticus for my alternate-day personal Bible studies. Clearly neither you nor those who hold to that idea have read that book.
So, to be sure I understand you correctly, you hold that there is no clear Biblical picture,not only of Christ as a penal substitution, but of a substitution at all? That, in effect, Christ did not die for our sins? Or that He dies to appease God, but not really? Appease what for God? Why? I am having real trouble figuring out what you do with the death of Christ and what justification you have – besides baseless (not that they are inherently baseless, but that you do not show any evidence for them) dismissals of penal substitution because you don’t like the idea of God you think it portrays.
It’s a big question, one I’m sure you can’t produce in a comment (I can’t!), but important enough to tackle.
Hammertime () (URL)
5:30pm on 17 April 2007
I’ve said repeatedly and loudly that I’m more than happy with substitution – it’s just penal substitution (and particularly its debased forms) that I dislike. And, even then, it’s really only when it becomes a controlling model (so that everything is understood only in the light of PS) that it becomes harmful. So, to answer the question in your final paragraph first, no, you completely misunderstand what I’ve been saying.
As for the scapegoat, Christ is certainly spoken of in those terms in the NT (e.g. Gal 3:13, Christ becoming a curse for us; 2 Cor 5:21, Christ being made sin). These are not ideas of sacrifice, because the sacrifice must remain pure and holy. It doesn’t carry sin – it appeases God.
The scapegoat doesn’t escape alive – it’s driven out to its death, bearing the sins of the community. It’s not clear exactly who Azazel is, but it seems to be a demon of the wilderness, but this is the being to whom the scapegoat is sent. And it’s clearly not God! This contrasts greatly with sacrifice, in which a pure offering is made to God.
Where this matches with the events of the crucifiction (perhaps better than the metaphor of sacrifice) is that Jesus was expelled from the community, he was blamed and punished. He wasn’t the centre, the focus of attention, but was taken out of the city and died an ignoble death on a tree.
If I could respond in turn, you don’t explain why you see sacrifice as penal. You say “that book”, but haven’t said which one. (You’re almost certainly right that I haven’t read it, though.) Can you explain why you think that the idea of sacrifice includes the idea of punishment for wrongdoing?
And, again, I’m not saying that Christ is the scapegoat and not the sacrifice. I’m saying that Christ is seen as both in the NT – and that, in some ways, the scapegoat is a better model. In others, sacrifice is better.
I hope that’s clearer!
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
10:49pm on 17 April 2007
“That book” was Leviticus.
I’ll go into detail on sacrifice and substitution in my series on the atonement. I was more interested in understanding your view than arguing against it at this point. I appreciate the time and thoughtfulness you have put into answering me so far.
Is there any way you could put together a coherent (not coherent as in understandable, but coherent as in all together) summary of what you think the atonement is?
Hammertime () (URL)
11:15pm on 18 April 2007
Oh, I see! Sorry, I didn’t get that from the context. I’ll just point out that I have indeed read Leviticus, although admittedly not recently – beware of casting aspersions. I’d be interested to see where you read that the sacrificial animal is being punished (as is required in the PS model), or that sacrifice works by transferring punishment from the people onto the sacrificial animal. As I understand it, a sacrifice doesn’t take the punishment. Rather, it’s an appeasement offering to God – crudely, something we offer to distract God from our sin and to make God happy instead of angry. It is, of course, more refined than that, but that’s the basic idea of what’s going on.
As for a coherent presentation of how the atonement works – hmmm. That’s quite a job! I’ve posted thoughts before but, as you say, never tried to bring it all together. That’s largely because I’ve not got anything original to say (I don’t think). It might not be a bad idea, though, to try and write down where I’m at.
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
08:31am on 19 April 2007
I promise to connect the dots in my future series. While you may need to mull for a while before doing your own atonement presentation (I certainly have been!), perhaps it might be best to start with not Anselm’s question, “Cur Deus Homo?” (Why God became Man), but instead, “Why did Christ have to die?” It’s why I find the descriptions you and many others use of sacrifice unfulfilling.
By the way, I always try to make it pretty clear that I really don’t claim any thought as my own. I found it rather humorous that Ruth felt snubbed because I said liberal theology influenced her reading of Genesis. I’m 33 yrs old, have read Kant, Locke, Anselm, Aquinas, Athanasius, Russell, Luther, Calvin, Descartes, Marx, Barth, Schliermacher, Kierkegaard, Fosdick, Packer, Lewis, Edwards, Spurgeon, Wesley, Fuller, Gill, Cranmer, and more. To act as if my ideas about God and man are even somewhat original (much less mostly or entirely original) seems laughable to me. Don’t feel like you can’t grab your copy of “Church Dogmatics” and copy it – if that’s what you believe. One of the reasons I seldom quote where my ideas come from is that an emotion is often attached with a name, whether it be Calvin or Leo the Great. I prefer to discuss ideas than deal with people’s hangups over personalities!
Hammertime () (URL)
4:48pm on 19 April 2007
I’ll try
The first thing, and where I’ll probably start, is to disagree totally with you! I believe strongly that “Why did God become Man?” is precisely the right place to start because the crucifixion is only part of the Incarnation. You’ve already answered Anselm’s question – God became Man in order to die. I don’t believe that that is a full answer, and the lack of fullness bears on our understanding of the atonement.
So, you find some answers unfulfilling because they don’t relate solely to Christ’s death. By direct correlation, though, I find some of your answers unfulfilling because they do relate solely to Christ’s death!
Anyhow, I’ll try to put up a first post on this in the next few days.
pax et bonum
[John] () (URL)
6:22pm on 19 April 2007
Hammertime () (URL)
10:04pm on 19 April 2007