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Friday, July 16, 2010

Thomas Aquinas' View of the Atonement

In yesterday's post, I discussed the different understandings of Anselm, Aquinas, and Calvin relative to punishment and satisfaction. Anselm and Aquinas are both highly respected Roman Catholic theologians (and saints of the church), while Calvin, of course, is a Protestant and the formulator of the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the Atonement. Catholics for the most part (for an exception see, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theodrama IV: The Action) repudiate the PST. In John Joy's Master's Thesis on the Atonement ("Poena Satisfactoria: Locating Thomas Aquinas's Doctrine of Vicarious Satisfaction in between Anselmian Satisfaction and Penal Substitution" [Austria: International Theological Institute, 2010]), he maintains that Aquinas' view of the atonement escapes one of the main difficulties of the PST, namely, the injustice of punishing an innocent person in place of the guilty. I wish to examine that point in today's post.

It is true that in Aquinas' view of the Atonement, Jesus is not punished by the Father for man's sin, as he is in the PST. Rather, Jesus' life and death are offered up as a sacrifice to the Father and the Father accepts that sacrifice as sufficient satisfaction for man's sin. Aquinas' view does escape some problems faced by adherents of the PST, namely, how one member of the Trinity could be punished by another member and how one member of the Trinity could endure spiritual death (i.e., separation from God). These are very serious theological problems which any defender of the PST must face. However, does Aquinas' view escape the problem of how an innocent person can suffer in place of the guilty? I don't think it does. While Jesus is not technically being punished in Aquinas' view, he is still suffering and he is doing it in lieu of the punishment that sinners deserve. The Father accepts his life and death as satisfactory to eliminate the punishment of believers.

An important question at this point is: "How can God accept the death of an innocent person as satisfactory payment for the penalty owed by the guilty?" It seems inescapable to me that some form of substitution is taking place here. The death of Jesus is being accepted by the Father as a satisfactory substitute for the penalty owed by sinners. Joy attempts to answer the problem:
While there is nothing at all contrary to justice in one man voluntarily taking upon himself a certain penalty in order to satisfy for another’s sin, it would be manifestly unjust for a judge to inflict a punishment upon an innocent man no matter how willing he is to accept it. The point at issue is the agent of the act. As an act of vindictive justice, punishment belongs to the judge, while satisfaction belongs to the penitent as an act of the virtue of penance. Hence, whereas it is an act of virtue to take a penalty upon oneself in order to satisfy for a friend, it would be nonetheless vicious for a judge to inflict a penalty upon the innocent in place of the guilty, even if the innocent party were willing to accept it. Since satisfaction is made by the voluntary assumption of penal works, there can be no question of injustice on the part of the judge, who merely accepts the voluntary offering of the innocent friend as sufficient and therefore inflicts no punishment on the guilty (nor indeed on anyone). Penal substitution theories go astray precisely when they regard Christ’s death as a punishment actively inflicted on him by God the Father, rather than as a voluntary act of satisfaction on the part of Christ, which is permitted and accepted by the Father (pp. 50-51).

I see several problems with this explanation. First, it is not at all clear from Scripture that the Father is not involved in the death of Jesus. The NT consistently states that Jesus came to earth and died in order to fulfill the Father's plan (Rom. 8:32; Acts 2:23) and that he was obedient to the Father's plan (Phil. 2:8; Heb. 5:8; Jn. 10:18) even though he struggled with it in Gethsemane (Matt. 26:42; Mk. 14:36; Lk. 22:42; Jn. 12:27). So, while Aquinas may be correct in saying that the Father is not the direct agent in Jesus' death in the sense that the Father is himself punishing the Son; nevertheless, it does not seem to lessen the Father's culpability in the death by saying that he allowed others to do the "dirty work." If one plans a crime and then allows others to carry out the plan, one is still guilty of the crime. If one says that the executioners of Jesus meant it for evil but God meant it for good (as in the case of Joseph's brothers in Gen. 50:20), it still involves moral problems. At the least, it seems that God is guilty of moral relativism, i.e., the end justifies the means.

Second, why is the death of Jesus needed to satisfy God? It seems that the Scriptural answer to this is that death (specifically a bloody death) is necessary to take away sin. The author of Hebrews states it this way: without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (9:22). Paul says that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). The clear implication in Scripture is that death is the penalty for sin (cf. Gen. 2:17). So, it seems that the reason Jesus died was in order to pay the penalty for sin; otherwise his death was unnecessary. If God could forgive man's sin without a bloody sacrificial death, then it seems cruel and sadistic for God to have come up with this plan for redemption. One must ask at this point, what kind of person (human or divine) takes pleasure (cf. Isa. 53:10) in the torture and death of another person? It definitely seems to be unworthy of a perfectly holy God.

Third, it is still not clear how God can justly accept the suffering of one in place of another. Anselm and Aquinas make a distinction between punishment and satisfaction. Joy uses the illustration of a man who offends his wife being able 1) to make satisfaction for the offense by giving her flowers (and being remorseful) or 2) to be punished for the offense by being forced to sleep on the couch. He says that either one serves justice. While one can see this to be the case in the example given, how could another person step in and offer flowers to the wife in place of her husband and the wife accept the offering as satisfaction for what her husband did? It doesn't make sense. Joy attempts an explanation:

On account of the union of charity between two friends, the satisfaction made by one on the other’s behalf really becomes in a way also the act of the other, for charity regards a friend as another self and suffers with the suffering friend: “and thus punishment is not lacking to him, as long as he suffers with his suffering friend; and so much the more fully as he himself is the cause of his suffering" (Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles III, cap. 158, n. 7 cited in Joy, pp. 49-50).

So, Aquinas is saying that a friend of the offender can offer a gift to the offended party on behalf of the offender and the offended party is justified in accepting it as if it came from the offender himself. He says that the offender is also suffering along with his friend because he realizes that his offense is the cause for the sacrifice that his friend is making. I am not sure what type of justice this illustrates but it is not retributive justice. I think the Bible clearly teaches retributive justice and whatever view of the atonement one holds must align with this view of justice.

Aquinas maintains that God's wrath against sin is "satisfied," or "propitiated" by the death of Jesus. Joy writes:
[F]rom Thomas's point of view . . .the wrath of God is appeased by Christ’s sacrifice. Wrath that is “appeased” or “propitiated” is precisely not poured out, but rather assuaged. A wrathful person is appeased when his anger is calmed, not when it is unleashed in all its fury, whether upon the guilty or the innocent (p. 52).
Let me propose an illustration of this type of "justice." A man commits a rape against my child. While he is in jail, before the trial, he is beaten to a pulp by other inmates and is paralyzed. I meet with the criminal and he is extremely remorseful for his action of raping my child. Seeing the suffering that he has endured, and that he will be paralyzed for the rest of his life, I forgive the man and drop the charges. Would a prosecutor be willing to forego prosecution of the criminal under these conditions? If so, is that justice? It seems more like sympathy or mercy extended to the criminal than it does the exercise of justice. Of course, if one tries to introduce a surrogate who suffers in place of the criminal thereby resulting in the charges being dismissed, the issue becomes even more problematic. Let's imagine that the rapist has a twin brother who happens to be arrested by the police and put in jail by mistake. The innocent twin is beaten up by the inmates and is paralyzed. The guilty twin is devastated and he is not only remorseful for his act of rape but he feels terrible because it has resulted in the suffering of his innocent brother. Would the prosecutor be willing to drop charges against the guilty brother? How could the suffering inflicted upon the innocent twin pay the price for the crime committed by the guilty twin, even though the guilty twin is now suffering due to the harm inflicted on his innocent brother? It seems at best this could result in sympathy for the the twins but it could not satisfy the penalty owed by the guilty twin.

Let me offer a third scenario which may even more closely parallel Aquinas' view of the atonement. Lets say that I am the innocent twin and that from early childhood my twin brother has raped me. When I turn 18, I decide to tell my father about it. I tell my father that I love my brother and wish that he would be remorseful and repentant about his evil acts against me. My father comes up with a plan. He suggests that I report the crime to the police and that when the police come to arrest my brother, I will conveniently be at his house and will have sent my brother out on an errand. I do not lie to the police when they come but I know that they will mistake me for my brother. I am put in jail awaiting trial and the inmates beat me to the point that I am paralyzed. When my brother realizes what has happened, he comes to the police department and confesses to his crime and is extremely remorseful and repentant for his evil actions of rape. I, the police and my father are all satisfied that enough suffering has taken place and thus charges are dropped against my brother and we all forgive him. A couple of days later I am miraculously healed from my paralysis.

Now this is a very strange case but it seems to me that it pretty closely models the idea of the atonement that Aquinas had in mind. What type of justice would this be? What would we think of a father who came up with this plan? Is this model really consistent with the way the Bible portrays the Atonement? I don't think it is.

So, while I think that Aquinas' view of the atonement escapes some of the problems of the PST, I think at the end of the day, it still fails to explain how the death of an innocent person can satisfy the penalty owed by the guilty and I am not sure it accurately reflects the teaching of Scripture.

22 comments:

  1. Ken, I have a question that I know will open me wide to the derision of all my fellow skeptics who follow your blog, but as I have read your continuing treatment of PST I keep coming round to this same simple question. Please don't lambast me for it's simplicity as I admit to it's utter simplicity.

    You seem to ask repeatedly how can the suffering of an innocent substitute for the due-punishiment of the guilty? My question is, what if it just does? What if because God, after all being God and can do whatever he wants to do, just accepts it because that's what he wanted to do?

    I know, I know!!! You can shoot me now :-)

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  2. Ken, maybe you've pointed this out before but how did the reformers argue against Aquinas? Who did? And why did they think their different view was better than this one? At least this view escapes some of the problems of their new PST view.

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  3. Willie,

    Exactly, right on point.

    In the end, we are not to discuss whether or not the PST makes sense to us. What we ought to discuss, is whether the Bible is the Word of God. Once we agree on that, then we must accept what it says about the PST.

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  4. Since you seem to be such an avid reader, one more book won't hurt you...

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  5. John,

    The Reformers main emphasis was on salvation by faith. They taught that through faith righteousness is imputed to the believer. They took this imputation a step farther and applied it to the atonement with man's sin being imputed to Jesus. Aquinas and the RCC's never went this direction. For RCC since salvation is ultimately by faith plus participation in the sacraments, their view of the atonement is going to be somewhat different. Aquinas taught that one comes to benefit in the atonement of Christ through the sacrament of the mass. Instead of an imputation of righteousness they hold to an impartation of righteousness. IOW, somehow mysteriously one takes the actual righteousness of Christ into themselves through the mass.

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  6. Willie and John,

    Yes God could do whatever he wanted to do and call it right and just but it seems that his actions would not run cross-grain to human sense of justice since according to the Bible that sense of justice actually comes from God.

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  7. Lvka,

    Thanks for the link. Athanasius is on my list of theologians to deal with just haven't gotten there yet.

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  8. www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=09BDB6146C7C0F03&sort_field=original&page=3

    Eleanore Stump's recent thoughts on atonement.

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  9. Anon,

    Thanks. I have a couple of posts coming up regarding Stump's book on Aquinas. I had not seen these videos though.

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  10. I don't think this third scenario mirror's Aquinas's view.

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  11. I think what gets overlooked in some of these discussions is a sense of corporate personality. When I broke a window, my father paid the bill. I sinned; he suffered. In Christ, God was willing to become my Father in assuming my debt and teaching me a better way.

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  12. I think all of these metaphors miss the metaphysical reality. Jesus is able to substitute Himself because he is God. Let's take the "twin" example. Ultimately it fails, because twins and the police are our ontological equals. One twin cannot substitute for the other. But Jesus isn't our twin he is our ontological greater thus his suffering actually PRODUCES justice where none existed. I also think that your not taking into account how closely the Father and Son (and the HS too) would "work together" so to speak for our salvation. The Son wasn't like "Hey Dad, I have an idea" They have the same intention from eternity. It was never a discussion. Finally, I think you're missing the idea of Penance. From the RC perspective Jesus has freed us from the ETERNAL punishment/consequence of sin, but not the temporal ones. Thus St. Paul can write, 'Make up for what's lacking in the suffering of Christ'
    Well this is really quickly written, and not well thought out so I know I'm opening up myself to some straw man attacks, but again, I think if you recognize that Jesus is God

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  13. I am a protestant but I do not accept the PST. Nor do I accept the satisfaction theory. My free eBook “Achieving Atonement” presents a new atonement model that is biblical, ethical, reasonable, comprehensive, ecumenical, and avoids the problems of traditional atonement theories while retaining their truths. The book explains how God is achieving atonement and the place of Christ’s violent death on the cross. The book is 170 pages plus 98 pages Scripture Index. Various eReader formats are available from https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/838364. A PDF version with numbered pages may be downloaded from http://www.5icm.org.au/Resources/Achieving_Atonement_-_Derek_Thompson.pdf.

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  14. I think that you miss some crucial considerations that are not usually taken into account; First Aquinas says that the wrath of God is only an analogy and is not destructive wrath but moved by justice AND mercy. the closest analogy is the "wrath" of the father of a child when the latter behaves in a way that harms himself or his brothers. His punishment is not in order to harm the child but to make it repent make sure that their brothers and himself don´t suffer again. the "wrath" of this father is at the moved by his deep love for their children, who are precious for himself.

    In the same way, God may consider to punish individuals and societies when the wrongdoing escalates in a way that punishment is the only way, after the individual/s refuse to return to the good path. This is in consideration of the love for current and future generations, Since what matters are the souls and the salvation of as much current and future generations as possible. Justice well understood is a manifestation of love. So neither punishment, neither the sacrifice of Christ and the calls of our Holy Mother to repent and remember the sacrifice of his Son, his warnings about how she is holding the hand of God are but a call for returning to the good path by repenting and making chastisement unnecessary. But in no way this tell anything about a God that need retribution or need satisfaction of anything. It is pure love for their children who are free to obey, but God can not sit down how the innocents are harmed by the wicked acts of some others. As Saint Thomas Aquinas says, the sacrifice of Christ is a true sacrifice and a true purging punishment for these who repent and feel in his heart the suffering of our Lord, and do penance. That generation of good believers with pure hearts and with the grace of God are the salt of the earth of each generation, the seed that will grow and make the society to return to the good path and reverberate in the souls of all the society, making the chastisement unnecessary.

    Memetic Warrior

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    1. Thanks for your reply Memetic Warrior. I don't understand how the punishment of destruction can be seen in terms of parental discipline for correction when the person is completely destroyed.
      God bless,
      Derek Thompson

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    2. Destruction? We have eternal life there is no destruction. It is as if the child don't know any world but his world of toys and caprices and don't see is future life, for which his father educates him. Obviously he sees his father chastisements as unjust. and destructive.

      In the other side, if you don't believe in eternal life, then there can't be possible justice, since destruction would be inevitable.

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  15. Memetic Warrior when you say "We have eternal life" I assume you mean "We Christians have eternal life". What about unbelievers? Also, Christ had eternal life, yet he suffered death on the cross. How can anyone's death bring about justice? Surely Christ's death on the cross was a great injustice? See my free e-book "Achieving Atonement" for a detailed explanation.

    God bless,
    Derek Thompson

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    1. Derek:God loves you. Everyone has eternal life. You have ethernal life. The thing is where will you be in eternity. if you don't believe in ethernal life, then I understand why you look for justice since you can not find it anywhere. No phylosophy, no belief can bring you a ultimately meaningful notion of justice if life ends. Not even any meaning in life.

      As Nicolas Gomez Davila says "Everything is trivial if the universe is not committed to a metaphysical adventure"

      In the other side, if suffering is a proof of lack of justice, then there can't be justice. Neither justice can have any meaning, since justice is, among other thing, to repair and prevent the suffering of the innocents. If suffering for my children is injustice, as Christ, which is the loving God, suffered for us voluntarily is unjust, being He the owner of everithing... If that is unjust then I don't kown what justice we are talking about. Can be unjust something made willigly inspired by love intended to show us His love for us and showing us the ethernal life which we will have? In the other side, what is any suffering here if the repair is ethernal life with God?

      In the other side,

      God loves you.

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    2. If everyone has eternal life, how do you explain Jesus' teaching in John 3:16; 4:14; and 6:47? Are you confusing Greek philosophy's teaching abou the immortality of the human soul with Jesus' teaching about eternal life?

      From my e-book:

      Thomas Talbott (1993, p. 168) said, “If we suppose that God’s moral nature is simple, we must also admit that his justice requires exactly the same thing his love requires: the absolute destruction of sin.”

      "But how can punishment bring about justice? A just situation is one free of sin. Human society controls sin by using punishment as a deterrent. Don McLellan (2005, p. 10) pointed out “justice cannot undo the offence … and very often takes no thought of its ramifications on innocent people connected to those it punishes.” The families of imprisoned offenders are unintentionally punished. "

      "Alister McGrath (2005, p. 22) sees “justification” and “righteousness” as grounded in the Old Testament idea of rightness or rectitude. As such, justification means correcting a relationship. So, in atonement, God seeks a right relationship, not payback justice."

      "God cannot reconcile with anyone by punishing them, or someone else, in their place."

      God loves you here and now. In fact, God could not possibly love you any more than he already does.

      God bless,
      Derek Thompson

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    3. Derek: Everyone has eternal life according to Aquinas and all the unanimous Catholic teachings because the eternal life in hell also qualifies technically as life.

      According to whith the same authority which I believe, the ones that go to hell condemn themselves since it implies a conscious and voluntary rejection of Christ and a lack of regret.

      What we are taking here is about if the Aquinas explanation of the redemption of Christ makes sense. I`ve tried to explain that it is.

      I don't think that God seek a mere right relationship. That would not be the goal of a loving God. It makes little meaning for me. As I explained, God seeks the salvation of souls. The plan of God with his incarnation is meaningless otherwise.

      On the other side, that a God who sacrifices himself is the only thing that may cure the existential anxiety of rational but finite and thus fearful beings, ignorant about his fate like us, can be demonstrated by some rigorous arguments, using some pieces game theory.

      Basically there is no society without altars of sacrifice since sacrifices are the insurance policies that keep one investing in the other's security they makes cooperation stable. (Nash equilibriums). from a gang of criminals to a nation to a marital relation, social cohesion is assured by a system of sacrifices. The others must know that you are committed to them, so you must sacrifice something: gift something, kill someone, spend time doing something. Blood is the original substance of sacrifice because it was the only possession to sacrifice in primitive men. Sacrifices are very very onerous and tend to escalate towards human sacrifices. Christ is the ultimate sacrifice. A society, that rememorates, venerates the sacrifice of Christ in his heart does not need other sacrifices anymore. Christ cures us and gives us an eternal life of true happiness that starts right now in this life.

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  16. Aquinas must have got it wrong because in John 11:25-26 Jesus said, "The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever live by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

    I agree with you that those who go to hell have self-condemned themselves by rejecting the salvation offered by Christ.

    The goal of God is stated in Scripture over 30 times in the words of the Covenant of God that he will be our God and we shall be his people. This was the reason that the Son of God took on human form. The atonement is about more than reconciling humanity to God, it includes restoring the world and removing all evil from every dimension of reality.

    God does not desire sacrifice (Hosea 6:6; Ps 51:16; 1 Sam 15:22; Ps 40:6). The cross was Satan's attempt to get Jesus to depart from his mission.

    But there is a point we agree upon: that eternal life starts now in this life when we place our faith in Jesus (John 6:47).

    God bless,
    Derek Thompson

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