Warning: This is a LONG recap, since I am including the handout verbiage I gave each student. First,
however, I want to highlight the purpose of the lesson today and make a
few points about how it went. This is not going to be the typical
chronological review of most weeks' summaries.
1) I wanted the
students to be exposed to classic Christian atonement theories over time
- to see how theologians have framed the atonement in various ways. In
a way, I approached this lesson as a condensed college class in
Atonement Theory 101.
2) I wanted the students to realize that
Mormon theology, in practical terms, does NOT have "the one true
atonement theory" - that, rather, the way we talk about the Atonement
encompasses all of the official theories to some degree. Our framing is
much more a comprehensive puzzle or mosaic of all recorded theories
than it is a distinct theory of its own. It is kind of the "we seek
after these things" version, in which elements can be taken from
otherwise competing theories.
3) I wanted the students to think
about each of the seven theories we discussed and see which one
resonated the most deeply with each of them individually. Interestingly
(and gratifyingly), when I summarized each of them at the end and asked
the students which one was their favorite, six of the theories got at
least one vote - meaning only one theory (the "ransom theory") didn't
receive any votes. (That theory didn't get any votes simply because
none of them liked the idea that our sins brought about a payment to
Satan as our captor. One student said that he couldn't accept that
Satan was successful in kidnapping us and getting rewarded for it.)
Also of interest is that the penal substitution theory received only one
vote.
With that overall summary, the following is the material
from the printout I gave each of them. We read most of it and
discussed it as we read.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Wikipedia - one case where it does a good job of presenting accurate information:
In
theology, atonement is a doctrine that describes how human beings can
be reconciled to God. In Christian theology the atonement refers to the
forgiving or pardoning of sin through the death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ, which made possible the reconciliation between God and his
creation. Within Christianity there are, historically, three or four
main theories for how such atonement might work:
•
The ransom theory / Christus Victor
(which are different, but generally considered together as "classical",
it being argued that these were the traditional understandings of the
early Church Fathers);
•
The moral influence theory, which Aulen considered to be developed by Peter Abelard (called by him the "idealistic" view),
•
The satisfaction theory developed by Anselm of Canterbury (called by Aulen the "scholastic" view),
•
The penal substitution theory
(which is a refinement of the Anselmian satisfaction theory developed
by the Protestant Reformers, especially John Calvin, and is often
treated together with the satisfaction view, giving rise to the "four
main types" of atonement theories - classical or patristic, scholastic,
and idealistic - spoken of by Aulen).
There are other theories
of atonement, but the above are the main ones. Other theories include
the recapitulation theory, the "shared atonement" theory and the
scapegoat theory.
The English word 'atonement' originally meant
"at-one-ment", i.e. being "at one", in harmony, with someone. It is
used to describe the saving work that God did through Christ to
reconcile the world to himself, and also of the state of a person having
been reconciled to God. Throughout the centuries, Christians have used
different metaphors and given differing explanations of the atonement to
express how the atonement might work. Churches and denominations may
vary in which metaphor or explanation they consider most accurately fits
into their theological perspective; however all Christians emphasize
that Jesus is the Savior of the world and through his death the sins of
mankind have been forgiven. The four most well known theories are
briefly described below:
The earliest explanation for how the atonement works is nowadays often called
the "moral influence" theory.
In this view the core of Christianity is positive moral change, and the
purpose of everything Jesus did was to lead humans toward that moral
change. He is understood to have accomplished this variously through his
teachings, example, founding of the Church, and the inspiring power of
his martyrdom and resurrection. This view was universally taught by the
early church leaders in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, along with what is
called by Aulen the classical or patristic view, which can be variously
interpreted as Ransom or Recapitulation, or under the general heading
of "Christus Victor". The moral influence theory also enjoyed popularity
during the Middle Ages and is most often associated in that period with
Peter Abelard. Since the Protestant Reformation it has been advocated
by many theologians, including Kant, Hastings and Tillich. It remains
the most popular view of atonement among theologically liberal
Christians.
Chronologically, the second explanation, first clearly enunciated by Irenaeus, is
the "ransom" theory.
"Christus victor" and "ransom" are slightly different from each other,
since in the ransom metaphor Jesus liberates mankind from slavery to sin
and Satan and thus death by giving his own life as a ransom sacrifice.
(Matthew 20:28) Victory over Satan consists of swapping the life of the
perfect (Jesus), for the lives of the imperfect (mankind). The "Christus
Victor" theory sees Jesus not used as a ransom but rather defeating
Satan in a spiritual battle and thus freeing enslaved mankind by
defeating the captor. This theory 'continued for a thousand years to
influence Christian theology, until it was finally shifted and discarded
by Anselm'.
The third metaphor, used by the 11th century theologian Anselm, is called
the "satisfaction" theory.
In this picture mankind owes a debt not to Satan, but to the sovereign
God himself. A sovereign may well be able to forgive an insult or an
injury in his private capacity, but because he is a sovereign he cannot
if the state has been dishonoured. Anselm argued that the insult given
to God is so great that only a perfect sacrifice could satisfy, and that
Jesus, being both God and man, was this perfect sacrifice. Therefore,
the doctrine would be that Jesus gave himself as a “ransom for many”, to
God the Father himself.
The next explanation, which was a development by the Reformers of Anselm's satisfaction theory, is the commonly held Protestant
"penal substitution" theory,
which, instead of considering sin as an affront to God’s honor, sees
sin as the breaking of God’s moral law. Placing a particular emphasis on
Romans 6:23 (the wages of sin is death), penal substitution sees sinful
man as being subject to God’s wrath with the essence of Jesus' saving
work being his substitution in the sinner's place, bearing the curse in
the place of man (Galatians 3:13). A variation that also falls within
this metaphor is Hugo Grotius’ "governmental theory", which sees Jesus
receiving a punishment as a public example of the lengths to which God
will go to uphold the moral order.
The less prominent atonement theories include:
The
“recapitulation theory”,
in which Christ is seen as the new Adam who succeeds where Adam failed.
Christ undoes the wrong that Adam did and, because of his union with
humanity, leads humankind on to eternal life (including morality).
According to William Barclay, man’s disobedience the process of the
evolution of the human race went wrong, and the course of its wrongness
could neither be halted nor reversed by any human means. But in Jesus
Christ the whole course of human evolution was perfectly carried out and
realized in obedience to the purpose of God.
The
“shared atonement theory”,
in which the atonement is spoken of as shared by all. In this view, God
sustains the universe. Therefore if Jesus was God in human form, when
he died, we all died with him, and when he rose from the dead, we all
rose with him.
The
“scapegoat theory”,
in which Jesus took the place of the tradition goat that was loaded
with the sins of the people and driven into the wilderness to die with
those sins – which, therefore, could not return to the people. In this
view, Jesus took upon himself the sins of the people (going backward and
forward in time to encompass all who ever have lived) in such a way
that their sins cannot return to them.
Kevin Barney’s post “Atonement Stew” on By Common Consent (March 2009) When
I was young, I thought there was something wrong with me. I didn’t have
any idea how the Atonement worked. So far as I could tell, I was the
only one who suffered from this malady. Others would say how glad they
were that we had the perfect understanding of the Atonement, and I would
always wonder what they were talking about, because I just didn’t
understand it. I still remember feeling embarrassed about this ignorance
of mine and wondering why everyone else seemed to have a handle on this
doctrine that I just couldn’t grasp. This state of my
(non)understanding continued throughout my mission.
At some point
after my mission I read the chapter on the Atonement in Sterling
McMurrin’s Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion, and my eyes
were finally opened. What had always seemed to me a meaningless jumble
of ideas and concepts actually reflected discrete theories (or
metaphors) that developed historically over time. People acted as though
there were a single Atonement theory that we understood well, and I
could never see it. But now I knew the reason I could never see it is
that it didn’t exist. People would mix and match concepts and vocabulary
from these different concepts as though they were part of a coherent
whole, apparently without realizing that they were doing so.
(
We skipped Kevin's summary of the main theories, since we had discussed them from the Wikipedia article.)
After
I learned about this, I still didn’t really understand the Atonement,
but at least now the way we talked about it made sense to me, and I
could appreciate the historical development of the different ideas
people tossed around. I at least understood why I hadn’t understood it
before.
While I was in law school, my EQP was Michael Hicks (now a
professor of music at BYU), and he had a terrific handout in which he
illustrated each theory by snippets from different LDS hymns. The
handout was maybe three pages long, and each theory had about 3/4 of a
page (single spaced) with illustrations devoted to it. I wish I still
had that handout, but I looked and couldn’t find it among my papers. But
it scarcely matters; anyone could go through our hymns and create one
for oneself.
Next time you’re sitting there singing the
sacrament hymn in church, think about this. For example, “Behold the
Great Redeemer Die” is immediately followed by the lines “a broken law
to satisfy/he dies a sacrifice for sin,” mingling concepts from the
satisfaction and substitution theories in adjacent lines.
So I
no longer feel so self-conscious about my ignorance concerning the
Atonement. But I’m also not overly impressed by occasional expressions
of our supposed greater light and knowledge on this subject.
Sure,
we have some insights on the margins, such as a greater emphasis on
Gethsemane. But as far as I can tell, we dip our ladle from the very
same pot of Atonement stew of theories that all Christians do. Comments from the post: 1)
“It seems like there are two competing ways of approaching the
Atonement – the inquisitive approach such as you manifest here, vs the
approach that says that the Atonement is inherently mysterious and
paradoxically unapproachable. Those who ascribe to this second approach
almost make it a point of pride to not look to closely at the Atonement,
like giving away the magician’s secrets or something. I confess I waver
between the two approaches;
sometimes I want to know exactly how it works, sometimes I just want to bask in it.”
2)
“I’m also of both minds simultaneously. On the one hand, of course I
would like to understand the mechanics of how the Atonement works. A
Jewish peasant was killed 2,000 years ago–how exactly does that have
anything to do with me and my salvation? Part of me would like someone
to be able to walk me through the mechanical steps of how that all is
supposed to work.
But, despite the various theories and
metaphors, I don’t think we really have a handle on the mechanics of it
all. Mormons generally aren’t big on the concept of mystery; like
curious boys who subscribe to Popular Mechanics, we want to know how
things work. And this is one where we don’t really know. I’m at peace
with that.
Not all Mormons are, however. A few years ago I taught
a lesson on the Atonement in EQ, and one of the quotes I used was from
Talmage to the effect that in the end the atonement is beyond the
capacity of our finite human minds to grasp. And I almost had a riot on
my hands; the elders were highly offended that any part of the simple
plan of salvation should be beyond our ken.”
3) “The four
theories of atonement seem to present a ‘blind men and the elephant’
problem with each theory grasping different elements of something too
big to be described by the smaller pieces, and in some senses the
differences may seem to contradict, yet all part of a bigger whole.
I’m
drawn to the ‘mystery’ approach, if just because I’ve found so much I
don’t understand, I’ve grown comfortable in my cluelessness.”
4)
At a Sunstone West many years ago, I heard Lorin K. Hansen deliver a
version of what he later published in Dialogue vol 27 n1 (Spring 1994)
as “The Moral Atonement as a Mormon Interpretation.” After surveying the
various interpretations, he noted that he could divide them into
“Objective” theories and “Subjective” theories, that is, “The
Satisfaction and Penal Substitution theories of Christian Orthodoxy were
predominantly objective interpretations: man and woman, according to
these views were, are redeemed by God’s works, not their own works, for
they are morally incapable of contributing to their own redemption. And
the Moral-Influence theory (the predominant example of a “moral” theory
of the Atonement) was a subjective interpretation; that is, man and
woman are morally autonomous and are redeemed through their own
initiative, responding to the moral example of Jesus Christ. So the
polarization in Christian theology is primarily one of moral-subjective
interpretation versus transactional objective interpretations.” (Hansen,
201)
So he made the case that the Book of Mormon uniquely
includes both objective and and subjective atonement. (Hansen, 209).
It’s a provocative piece that I’ve thought deserves more attention.
Recommendations to the students of interesting treatments of the Atonement:
Nibley’s “The Meaning of the Atonement"
Ostler’s “Com-passion Theory"
Eugene England’s “Shakespeare and the At-One-ment of Christ”
Margaret Barker’s “Atonement: The Rite of Healing”
Truman Madsen’s “The Olive Press”
Rene Girard’s “I See Satan Fall Like Lightning”
