Search This Blog

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

G. B. Stevens' Objections to Penal Substitution

George Barker Stevens (1854-1906) was the Dwight Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale University for nearly 20 years and a prolific author. One of his many books was a 546 page treatise on the subject of the atonement, The Christian Doctrine of Salvation (1905),in which he examined all the major theories of the Atonement.

In his evaluation of the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST), he maintains that the theory is obsolete in the modern world. He writes:

The fact that, as our review has shown, this theory is obsolescent in the theological thought of to-day is the most conclusive evidence that it is intolerable to the modern mind and heart. Its case is going by default; Those who are strenuous for one or more of its favorite terms, such as substitution, are likely to be equally insistent that they hold no legal or forensic doctrine. As we have seen, the theory has been attenuated and modified out of all resemblance to its former shape (p. 245).

He identifies six problems with the PST.

1. It has no logical basis in the nature of God.

If the antithesis which is made between justice and mercy exists in God, and if strict punitive justice must always be carried out, how can mercy make itself successfully heard, or win the day against the requirements of inexorable justice which demands the sinner's punishment? How, on the theory that holiness and justice are independent of love and superior to it, can a plan of grace for sinners ever arise ? If punitive justice lies deeper than love in God, and is independent of it, and has its infinite energy of wrath excited against sin, how is it logically conceivable that an inferior, optional, and (in its relation to "holiness") dependent and non-determining attribute (love) should succeed in checking this punitive energy (p. 244)?

Stevens maintains that if God cannot forgive sin unconditionally due to his holiness, even though he would like to because of his love, it logically makes holiness the controlling attribute in God's nature. Most defenders of the PST would argue that God possesses all of his attributes equally. One is not more important or more dominant than the others. However, as Stevens points out, the PST logically requires holiness to be a more essential attribute of God than love or mercy.

2. Punishing an innocent person is a contradiction in terms.

Is not punishment correlative to guilt or blameworthiness? Is not the principle of distributive justice "suum cuique" ["to each his own"]? Is it conceivable that God should spend his punitive wrath upon his eternally holy Son ? Can the sufferings to which a perfectly holy Being voluntarily submits properly be called penal? It is not, perhaps, impossible on the Grotian conception of " general," or " public," justice, to see how an innocent person may be "punished" ; but on the principles of the theory in question, the statement seems self- contradictory and absurd. For justice, in this view, is distributive, avenging — the necessary infliction of penalty which flows from God's wrath against sin. How, then, can it flow forth from his wrath except upon the objects of his wrath ? How can it flame forth upon an object of his complaisant love ? Can God in his wrath punish the supreme object of his love ? It is a "contradictio in adjecto" ["contradiction in terms"] (p. 246).

Barker sees penal substitution as a contradiction in terms. First, the word punishment refers to infliction of suffering on one because of a wrong he has committed. The idea of "punishing" an innocent is logically absurd. Second, for God's wrath to be focused upon the "supreme object of his love," (i.e., his son) is a contradiction and absurdity.

3. It makes love and mercy the dominant attribute in God.

What led Christ to bear these penalties? The only possible answer is, "Love." Then love is, after all, really supreme and triumphant. God averts justice from sinful man only by means of his love, which triumphs over justice, or at least prevails in the divine counsels respecting the treatment of sinful men. If it be said (and this is what the theory comes to) that God avenges himself upon himself in the person of the eternal Son, it is still love for man which, supreme and eternal in the divine Being, devises and executes this plan of sovereign mercy. . . . I cannot but regard it as fatal to the post-Reformation dogma that it gives no logical ground in the being of God for the work of atoning love, imperils the divine essence in a war within itself (emphasis added), and gives no better reason why the feebler principle prevails over the stronger than that God within the realm of his own being expends his wrath upon himself, a proceeding to which, if it were not inherently absurd (emphasis added), he could have been animated only by love (pp. 246-47).

4. Retribution against sin is not an unyielding principle in PST even though the claim is made that it is.

We are told that God must exercise (punitive) justice always and everywhere. How, then, is there any option left him as to the exercise of mercy? On the theory under review justice and mercy are opposites. Now if God must punish, how can you say | that he may forgive, that is, not punish? If retributive justice is always exercised everywhere (as Drs. Shedd and Strong assert), then mercy cannot be exercised anywhere. All forgiveness involves a relaxation of the strict law of retribution (pp. 247-48).

5. It mars the conception of God's moral excellence.

He believes that the defenders of the PST have an unbiblical concept of God's holiness. The defenders make holiness synonymous with retributive justice and so place it in contrast and rivalry to mercy and love. Stevens, on the other hand, believes that the essential biblical concept of holiness is "separateness" or "apartness" in the sense of God's majesty over his creation.

He writes:
It is said, for example: "As we may be kind, but must be righteous, so God may be merciful, but must be holy" [A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, p. 106]. This proposition suggests such questions as these : Are not men under moral obligation to be kind? Is the moral obligation to be righteous higher or different from the obligation to exercise love? Is God under no obligation to be kind or merciful? Would he be as excellent a Being as we believe him to be, if he were not kind, or if he were non-kind or unkind? Are not kindness, mercy, and benevolence elements of moral perfection, and must not God be morally perfect? If, in point of fact, God were not benevolent and acted solely in naked, retributive justice, would he be as excellent a Being as he is (p. 248)?

If as defenders of the PST, who are mostly Calvinists, say: "God has no requirement to save any man, he would be just if he allowed all of Adam's posterity to go to hell," then doesn't that make love and mercy optional for God? And if optional and not necessary to his character, then his character is less than perfect.

As Stevens argues:
If so, then love and grace must be activities of mere caprice, not required by God's ethical nature, and therefore without moral excellence. If it is optional with God not to love, then he might (conceivably) be God, that is, the perfect Being, without love; that is, love is not necessary to moral perfection (p. 248).

Stevens approvingly quotes A. B. Davidson: "That which is moral includes mercy and love and compassion and goodness, with all that these lead to, not less than rectitude and justice" (Theology of the Old Testament, p. 161 cited by Stevens, p. 249).

6. Substitution is not possible with Retributive justice.

Mere retributive justice cannot give rise to a substitution, nor can it be satisfied with one. It will "have its pound," and nothing else. The only substitution which is compatible with this conception is the mechanical and inequitable infliction of so much suffering on the innocent for so much sin in the guilty. But such a substitution, even if possible, is as irrelevant as it is immoral (p. 249).

Retributive justice demands that the wrong-doer be punished, therefore, it is not possible to substitute one who is not guilty of that wrong. As Stevens says, not only would it be an act of injustice (immoral) to punish someone for something they did not do, it would be irrelevant to the particular wrong under consideration because the substitute did not commit the wrong. In other words, retribution would still not have been carried out.
Stevens concludes:

For reasons like these I cannot help feeling that there is something erroneous in the initial definitions on which the dogma of atonement in seventeenth-century Protestantism rests. When wrought out to its logical issue, it seems to me to be contrary to fact in logically excluding salvation altogether, contrary to experience in teaching that benevolence is no necessary part of goodness, contrary to reason in breaking up the unity of the moral nature of God, and contrary to morality in holding that God is so " just " that he cannot forgive the guilty, but so unjust that he can punish the innocent (emphasis added). Logically, carried out, it makes God a strict accountant who is, indeed, strictly "just," but is also nothing more. This result does not seem to me to coincide with the Christian concept of God (p. 250).
So, I think Stevens shows convincingly that the PST is internally inconsistent with Christian theology.

26 comments:

  1. Stevens maintains that if God cannot forgive sin unconditionally due to his holiness, even though he would like to because of his love, it logically makes holiness the controlling attribute in God's nature... Logically, carried out, it makes God a strict accountant who is, indeed, strictly "just," but is also nothing more.

    Ken, the mere fact that he even has to say all of this in the first place, that it isn't self-evident to these people - and then, having said it, he still convinces none of them; they cling, desperately and ferociously, to their legalism - demonstrates the utter impossibility of changing them. They are impervious to reason, and any appeal to compassion falls upon deaf ears. A far better use of time, effort and resources would be to marginalize them, minimize or eliminate altogether their influence upon society, and breed their maladaptive traits out of the genome. The rest of us can then get on with the business of moving civilization forward.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cipher, are you really advocating Nazi-like eugenics or are you just blowing off some steam?

    ReplyDelete
  3. A little from Column A, a little from Column B

    ReplyDelete
  4. Heh! I don't look so bad now, do I?

    ReplyDelete

  5. Retributive justice demands that the wrong-doer be punished, therefore, it is not possible to substitute one who is not guilty of that wrong.


    You keep asserting this without offering any proof. This is really the weakest part of your argument against PST. Can you substantiate your claim that retributive justice forbids substitution?

    ReplyDelete
  6. "You keep asserting this without offering any proof. This is really the weakest part of your argument against PST. Can you substantiate your claim that retributive justice forbids substitution?"

    My question is what kind of proof can be offered for any system of judgment? I don't see any objective way to determine if something is just. It seems to me that this sort of thing is ultimately a matter of personal opinion.

    ReplyDelete
  7. @Jon - Justice is not a matter of personal opinion. You can't steal an old lady's purse, for example, and say "In my opinion, I need the money, and she doesn't have much more time to live anyway".

    All historical systems of retributive justice allowed substitution, and empirical experiments [1] show that we innately accept substitutes when seeking vengeance.

    If Ken is inventing a new definition of "retributive justice" which differs from historical norms and our innate sense of justice, he really ought to explain why. At the very least, he needs to acknowledge that his version of "retributive justice" is different from the commonly accepted version.

    [1] Coincidentally, after I suggested to Ken that he needs to be more scientific about his claims regarding "human nature", the book "Upside of Irrationality" was published. It came out just last week, and is written by a researcher who has conducted numerous empirical studies on how people behave "irrationally". Chapter 5 of the book deals specifically with retribution, including a carefully-designed experiment which shows that we innately accept retribution against substitutes.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Chapter 5 of the book deals specifically with retribution, including a carefully-designed experiment which shows that we innately accept retribution against substitutes.

    Right - and we'll say, "This shows that Christian theology is a manifestation of biology", to which you'll reply, "No, it shows that our notions of justice and morality are God-given."

    This signifies nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  9. @cipher - Why would I dispute the idea that theology manifests from biology? And how would that change the fact that Ken is inexplicably basing his critique of PST on a quirky personal redefinition of "retributive justice"?

    ReplyDelete
  10. @JS Allen
    My main problem with your response is that I don't see how the fact that personal opinions doesn't trump the laws of society doesn't disprove the idea that our ideas on justice are personal opinions. In your scenario we see that the opinion that old ladies shouldn't be robbed trumps most sympathies toward random muggers. I don't see how this is proof that the law is based on some objective morality rather than personal opinions. I don't even know if you'd say there is objective morality given your appeal to "historical norms and our innate sense." I think it's clear that our ideas on justice and morality are based on the norms of our day, our society and our biology. The question is if these work as proof of an objective justice.

    Reading back I think I'm probably going on too many assumptions about your position, so please forgive me if I come off as putting words in your mouth. I'm eagerly awaiting correction.

    ReplyDelete

  11. I think it's clear that our ideas on justice and morality are based on the norms of our day, our society and our biology.


    I agree completely.


    The question is if these work as proof of an objective justice.


    Right. I'm not sure if it makes sense to talk about "objective justice". The idea seems weird to me.

    In this case, it appears that Ken is trying to redefine "retributive justice" to mean something other than what "the norms of the day, society, and biology" take it to mean. When someone uses his own unique definition of a word, it's polite to let people know that, to avoid undue confusion.

    I enjoy these posts, and I hope Ken writes a book on the topic. But Ken's odd insistence on claiming that "retributive justice forbids substitution" would considerably weaken his case and would be seized upon by critics, since it's so patently wrong. Arguing through repeated redefinition is a very fundamentalist thing to do, and tends to discredit people. I think Ken is on firmer ground by arguing against retributive justice in general, and by pointing out that retributive justice is barbaric by modern standards.

    ReplyDelete
  12. J.S.,

    1. If it is "quirky" to believe that its unjust to punish the innocent, why do all the defenders of the PST acknowledge the problem and seek some way to explain it? Why do all of the objectors to the PST mention it as one of the biggest problems with the theory?

    2. If there are examples of penal substitution being implemented in a just fashion, why don't you provide them?

    3. I think you are confusing retribution with retributive justice. When people are wronged, yes, they do sometimes take it out on whoever happens to be the closest--their dog, their wife, their children. But is that justice?

    Retributive justice is when someone is punished in a legal setting for a crime that he/she committed. It is in that setting that it never just to punish a substitute.

    4. The reason I am stressing that the PST is unjust within the retributive theory of justice is because that is the theory that is taught in the Bible. I am trying to show people who belive the Bible is the Word of God, i.e., evangelicals, that their theory of the atonement is inconsistent with the Bible itself.

    If I were writing a general treatise on the problems with the PST, I would mention that it is based on a primitive system of justice that many moderns recognize as itself problematic. However, this would have no force with those who believe the Bible is the Word of God.

    ReplyDelete
  13. why do all the defenders of the PST acknowledge the problem and seek some way to explain it?


    Defenders of PST acknowledge that there is an objection, and address the objection. That is very different from acknowledging "the problem".

    If there is any objection at all to a theory (and there always will be), there will be a "most common objection". Far from being a sign of a problem, this is simple math.


    Why do all of the objectors to the PST mention it as one of the biggest problems with the theory?


    Because it's the objection that seems most sympathetic to modern observers.


    If there are examples of penal substitution being implemented in a just fashion, why don't you provide them?


    You have failed to provide a single example of a culture which used retributive justice but refused to allow substitutes. To the contrary, every extant example we have of retributive jurisprudence permitted substitution. You want to claim that they were all unjust, but the definition of "just" is based on "the norms of the day, society, and biology", as Jon said.


    When people are wronged, yes, they do sometimes take it out on whoever happens to be the closest--their dog, their wife, their children. But is that justice?


    This is a strawman. Legal systems of retributive justice, where substitution was normal, did not typically consider dogs, wives, or children to be suitable substitutes. I can't think of a single example of this, so I assume you're just making it up.


    Retributive justice is when someone is punished in a legal setting for a crime that he/she committed. It is in that setting that it never just to punish a substitute.


    This is argument through repeated assertion. Every example we have of retributive justice shows that substitution is sometimes permitted. I know that you want to believe that "it is never just to punish a substitute", but you haven't been able to substantiate this claim through "the norms of the day, society, and biology".

    Under what authority do you claim that "it is never just to punish a substitute"? Are you appealing to the authority of modern jurisprudence, or simply personal opinion?


    I would mention that it is based on a primitive system of justice that many moderns recognize as itself problematic. However, this would have no force with those who believe the Bible is the Word of God.


    Why would this have no force? Please explain.

    An urgent desire to defeat PST does not justify redefining what "retributive justice" means, but more importantly, I don't see how this is relevant to your desire to defeat PST.

    ReplyDelete
  14. All of this pontificating comes down to nothing more than "God said it, I believe it and that settles it."

    ReplyDelete
  15. J.S.

    I provided quotes from several defenders of the PST who said point blank that it is wrong to punish an innocent. Charles Hodge said: if punishment means evil inflicted on the ground of personal demerit, then it is a contradiction to say that the innocent can be punished (Systematic Theology, II, 532). Hodge finds a solution to the problem in the imputation of Adam's guilt to Jesus. He makes a distinction though between demerit and guilt. Jesus had the latter but not the former.

    A. H. Strong also notes the power of the objection and says that in Jesus case it punishment was justified because he shared the guilt that was part and parcel of being born human.

    I am still waiting for you to provide examples of penal substitution in legal systems either currently or in the past. Please give a couple of examples along with documentation.

    ReplyDelete
  16. @cipher - How so? I'm saying that substitution was the norm for pagan societies, so they must've thought it was just, regardless of what we think. Of course, modern atheists and theists alike think it's fair game to punish substitutes as well, as attested through empirical observation.

    You needn't appeal to authority or mystery to explain this one; it's simple scientific fact.

    ReplyDelete
  17. No. You simply have an "urgent desire" (as you accuse Ken of having) to cling to your belief.

    There will come a point, if this continues long enough, in which you'll accuse him of not wanting to be held accountable.

    ReplyDelete
  18. @Ken - As you are aware, Hodge was scornful of this objection to PST. In the sentence you've highlighted, Hodge is pointing out that you can only object to PST by redefining "punishment" to mean only "evil inflicted on the ground of personal demerit". He then explains why that's too narrow a definition.


    I am still waiting for you to provide examples of penal substitution in legal systems either currently or in the past.


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sacrifice
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice

    Both articles list "appeasement" as the first motive. And considering that people today still find it sometimes fair to punish a substitute, it seems reasonable to assume that people in the past did, too.

    Your burden of proof seems much heavier. You need to prove that it was "never" just. Not only does this fly against historical evidence and our innate sense of justice, it's a relatively modern objection.

    As far as I know, Horace Bushnell was among the earliest to take this objection seriously. For at least 1500 years after Paul articulated PST, nobody thought to raise this objection. Why do you suppose this is?

    BTW, punishment of the innocent could even be acceptable in modern utilitarian jurisprudence: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2380148

    ReplyDelete
  19. @cipher


    No. You simply have an "urgent desire" (as you accuse Ken of having) to cling to your belief.


    You might be right, but I doubt it. Ken has prompted me to think through PST far more deeply than I would have otherwise, and I really enjoy it. If I were really concerned with "clinging to belief", I wouldn't share my objections here where they are vulnerable to refutation.


    There will come a point, if this continues long enough, in which you'll accuse him of not wanting to be held accountable.


    I don't understand what this even means. Is this a pattern you've noticed in me; accusing people of "not wanting to be held accountable"?

    ReplyDelete
  20. J.S.

    Your examples are not from legal settings but from religious settings. Yes, I know that animal and human sacrifices have been practiced in primitive societies. They are offering these as means of "appeasing" the gods. They are not substitutes in a legal sense.

    The reason no one raised this objection before 1500's was because the PST was not articulated until the 1500's. It was Calvin and the Reformers who formulated the legal component of the PST. Prior to that Anselm had spoken of satisfaction but not penal substitution. Prior to Anslem, the ransom theory held sway.

    What you need to do is to show in legal settings, where a judge allows penal substitution. I don't think you will find one, other than for the payment of pecuinary fines.

    ReplyDelete
  21. And BTW, Bushnell who lived in the 19th century was not the first one to object to punishing an innocent person. Faustus Socinus did so in the 1500's in response to Calvin. As a matter of fact, just about all of the present day criticisms of the PST were raised by Socinius 500 years ago.

    ReplyDelete

  22. Your examples are not from legal settings but from religious settings.


    Until 500 years ago, there wasn't really a separation between the two. There was never this notion that you could define the word "justice" distinct from a religious setting.


    Faustus Socinus did so in the 1500's in response to Calvin. As a matter of fact, just about all of the present day criticisms of the PST were raised by Socinius 500 years ago.


    Thanks for the reference; I forgot about him. He's still 1500 years after Paul, as I said. But it appears that Abelard may have made a similar argument against Anselm's view.


    The reason no one raised this objection before 1500's was because the PST was not articulated until the 1500's.


    The specific part of PST that you're objecting to was clearly articulated since Paul.


    Prior to Anslem, the ransom theory held sway.


    Ransom theory would seem to have the same problem, wouldn't it? How did proponents of ransom theory justify the sacrifice of Christ? It seems like PST is just an elaboration of ransom theory and satisfaction theory, which all would share this same problem.

    Speaking of ancient examples of substitutionary expiation, I was going to mention something that I read in Cicero about a famous Roman general volunteering to be a hostage as ransom. I can't find the reference now, though.

    ReplyDelete
  23. J.S.,

    there was a separation between religion and law. For example, note the Roman legal system. It wasn't based on religion. Even the Jewish legal system as represented by the function of the Sanhedrin was not the same as their religious sacrificial system.

    The ransom theory and even Anselm's theory do not share the same problem as the PST because they do not say that Jesus bore the penalty that was due sinners.

    ReplyDelete

  24. there was a separation between religion and law. For example, note the Roman legal system. It wasn't based on religion. Even the Jewish legal system as represented by the function of the Sanhedrin was not the same as their religious sacrificial system.


    I think you're right. The very fact that the Jews were granted some degree of autonomy under both the Hellenists and the Romans, indicates that both allowed some freedom of religion independent but subordinate to civil law.

    It seems true, however, that the pagan definition of "justice" in religious contexts maps more closely to PST (which is a religious context) than it does to our civil definition of "justice".


    The ransom theory and even Anselm's theory do not share the same problem as the PST because they do not say that Jesus bore the penalty that was due sinners.


    The difference between Anselm's satisfaction theory and PST seems to me to be one of terminology or semantics. Hodge and the other defenders of PST are careful to explain that the punishment they are talking about is NOT "evil inflicted on the ground of personal demerit". This was the whole point of Hodge's commentary about, "guilt is a relation of sin to justice". If you use the words the way they do, the PST seems almost indistinguishable from Satisfaction theory. They claim to differ only in the reason for the substitution (one focuses on "honor", the other on "justice"), but the end result is the same -- an innocent person suffers on behalf of a sinner. If it's unfair to punish an innocent in the name of "justice", isn't it even more unfair to punish an innocent in the name of "honor"?

    Aquinas in Summa Theologica addressed the exact question of "Whether one person can incur punishment for another's sin?" [1]. Aquinas was emphatically not defending PST, but was compelled to address the fairness of causing an innocent to suffer. I don't see how Anslem's theory gets around it.


    [1] http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FS_Q87_A8.html

    ReplyDelete
  25. J.S.

    In the passage from Aquinas he makes a distinction between punishment as a "satisfaction" and punishment as "penal." The former he says an innocent can bear, the latter an innocent cannot bear. I think it is a matter of semantics and that Anselm's theory is also problematic but not as clearly so as the PST that was developed by the Reformers.

    I intend to do a post on Aquinas but haven't got around to it yet.

    ReplyDelete
  26. @Ken - It's cool that you see it as a matter of semantics as well. It seems like many theological issues are primarily semantic quibbles.

    Aquinas does tend to demonstrate that your central objection to PST was also a potential problem for the previous theories. He dodges the issue in a similar manner to Hodge.

    ReplyDelete