Rethinking the Typology of Atonement Theories
People often ask me about the Atonement. Many pastors have a faint memory of a lecture on types of atonement theories, but either can’t recall it or don’t understand it. The following is an e-mail written to one such question asker …
There is a standard "3 Atonement Theories" lecture used across the board that I could explain to you, but I think it's trash. I heard it in college, and again in seminary. I just don't like it. You'll see why in a minute.
Here's the basic 3 Atonement theories thing (Based on Gustav Aulen's Christus Victor book 1920's). I'll splice your terms into his triple typology:
(1) "Classic View" - includes Dramatic (which is the same as Christus Victor), Ransome, and Recapitulation theories. Christ is the Second Adam "recapitulating" [Ireneaus] and "recreating" [Athanasius] our human nature, winning over Satan where Adam failed. Basic problem is death. Focus on Incarnation and Resurrection. Supposedly does not take sin and the cross seriously. Supposedly found throughout the fathers. Aulen argued for it in Luther. A lot of folks at WTS thinks it is in Wesley.
(2) "Latin View" - includes Satisfaction (Anselm) and Forensic (Thomas, Protestant Orthodoxy). God pays the debt for sin and bears the punishment for sin in himself on the Cross. Jesus is our substitute. Supposedly divine child abuse.
(3) "Subjective View" - moral influence theory, dating from Abelard but especially strong in Rationalist forms of Xny (Kant, etc.). Cross teaches us who God is and who we are so that we can love him and each other.
You can teach this, but I don't advise you too. Because ...
(a) It is bad pedagogy.
Typologies necessarily lend themselves to two equally destructive forms of presentation: either you structure an argument b/w them in order to find which is "true" OR you just take a 'pay-your-money-take-you-choice' attitude, raising your hands up to the tune of 'mystery' or 'we are all just saying the same thing.’ Students respond to the first option by either joining the annoying battle (wearing everyone else out) or by blowing off the discussion as an academic ivory tower endeavor. Students respond to the second option by either picking one type without any real thought (usually just accepting which one sounds the most 'relevant') or simply blow off thinking about the atonement altogether (usually with the result of functionally living by the Subjective view). From the perspective of outcomes, it is a bad pedagogy.
(b) It is bad history.
I can prove this to you some other time if you like, but for now just take my word that these types just do not fit the particular theologians. All the best thinkers (Fathers, Thomas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley) have aspects of all three, which means that either the typology is either useless or wrong. Only SINCE the typology was developed (Harnack and Aulen, around the turn of the century) can you find anyone who fits the types exactly.
(c) It is a bad typology.
Types should describe equally different objects. But this typology offers two apples and an
orange. Type 1 and 2 (Classic and Latin)
fit into a more general category of "Objective" Theories, while Type
3 (Subjective) corresponds to the general category of "Subjective"
Theories. Objective theories focus on
what happened then and there and then talks about how it comes to us here and
now. Subjective theories focus on here
and now and ask how then and there help us.
Working from these two poles, you could see how some might be more
extremely Subjective (Kant) and others extremely Objective (
[By the way, a parallel argument could be leveled against Niebuhr's Christ and Culture book, but that is for another day].
Here's how I would teach atonement theories (with a little help from George Hunsinger who still hasn't written this stuff succinctly but I can pick it up in lectures and writings). Note that there are many people who are willing to give up on the typology, but few who have offered an alternative way that is better pedagogically and historically. The following is not a typology but a ladder reaching higher into the mystery of our salvation in and by God. The key is to understand that we are not contrasting and comparing three independent types, but rather setting up three views wherein the higher includes the lower while the lower does not include the higher [ala Polanyi]. I think you will see what I mean when I explain it.
Three Views of Christ Person and Work: LOW, MIDDLE, HIGH
The LOW View: MORAL EXEMPLAR
God in Christ is our MORAL EXEMPLAR. He tells us what to do. He exemplifies it in his life. All of this is true. But it is not the whole story. For in reality, if this few was enough then only the teaching matters. So we can get it where-ever we want: Gandhi, Jesus, Buddha. Whatever! Think Thomas Jefferson. As long as we follow the teaching, the teacher is secondary. Strong on the Subjective pole. REMEMBER: as we go onto the next view, this lower view is not excluded but expanded. Instances of the LOW, however, will speak of it to the exclusion of the others.
The MIDDLE View: SPIRITUAL PIONEER
God in Christ is our SPIRITUAL PIONEER. He started something of which we can now be a part. It mediates between the Subjective and Objective pole. In principle, however, the work wrought in Jesus is repeatable. He did not do anything "for us" in the sense of "in our place" - he simply got the ball rolling. This is the classic liberal option to salvage Christianity from the LOW view of the Rationalists. Schleiermacher is the best case of it. It also describes HR Niebuhr, Stanley Hauerwas, and many others who think they aren't classic liberals, but really are on this issue - including many Evangelicals on accident! REMEMBER: this view includes the LOW exemplarist view, but says more by making Christ materially significant. The next view includes both of these but says even more.
The HIGH View: PARTICIPATORY SUBSTITUTE
God in Christ is our PARTICIPATORY SUBSTITUTE. This view basically combines the best of the so-called "Latin View" and "Classic View" to describe what one actually sees in Athanasius, Augustine, Thomas, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, et al. Christ takes our place both to bear our sin away and to recreate a new life. He participates in our plight. We participate in his life. He takes our sin and death. We get his righteousness and life. It is the great exchange between Christ and the Church. The subjective element remains, but it is by PARTICIPATION (through Word, Worship, and Discipleship) in what he has done (not by the LOW view of Patterning or the MID view of Repeating). REMEMBER: we can still learn from his life and teaching (LOW) and we are still the embodied continuation of his spirituality (MID), yet he is the center of all this as our substitute.
They way I remember this is by ordering the Three Offices of Christ:
LO: Prophet
MID: King
HI: Priest.
He is our prophet, yet he is so much more than a prophet. He is our King, yet he is still more than that. He is our Priest.
I have to go. I have a lunch meeting. I hope this is not too skeletal, but you will get a sense of stuff I have been working on all through seminary, possibly more than any other topic.
Peace,
John