Hugo Grotius on Punishing an Innocent

Hugo Grotius (1583-–1645) was a Dutch jurist who is famous for his work on international law. He was also a theologian and is credited with developing the governmental theory of the atonement. This theory is similar to the penal substitution theory (PST) and the satisfaction theory of Anselm but has an important difference. It holds that the death of Jesus was a payment of the penalty which sinners deserved but was not the precise equivalent in the sense of a direct substitution. This has led some to term the theory: "Penal Non-Substitution" (see Oliver Crisp, "Penal Non-Substitution," in A Reader in Contemporary Philosophical Theology [2009], 299-327). To further explain:

[The] governmental theory holds that Christ's suffering was a real and meaningful substitute for the punishment humans deserve, but it did not consist of Christ receiving the exact punishment due to sinful people. Instead, God publicly demonstrated his displeasure with sin through the suffering of his own sinless and obedient Son as a propitiation. Christ's suffering and death served as a substitute for the punishment humans might have received. On this basis, God is able to extend forgiveness while maintaining divine order, having demonstrated the seriousness of sin and thus allowing his wrath to "pass over." This view is very similar to the satisfaction view and the penal substitution view, in that all three views see Christ as satisfying God's requirement for the punishment of sin. However, the government view disagrees with the other two in that it does not affirm that Christ endured the precise punishment that sin deserves or its equivalent; instead, Christ's suffering is seen as being simply an alternative to that punishment. In contrast, penal substitution holds that Christ endured the exact punishment, or the exact "worth" of punishment, that sin deserved; the satisfaction theory states that Christ paid back at least as much honor to God as sin took from Him("The Governmental Theory of the Atonement").

Grotius was emphatic that the death of Jesus was in fact a penal act. He wrote:

God was moved by his own goodness to bestow distinguished blessings upon us. But since our sins, which deserved punishment, were an obstacle to this, he determined that Christ, being willing of his own love toward men, should, by bearing the most severe tortures, and a bloody and ignominious death, pay the penalty (emphasis mine) for our sins, in order that without prejudice to the exhibition of the divine justice, we might be liberated, upon the intervention of a true faith, from the punishment of eternal death ")"A Defense of the Catholic Faith Concerning the Satisfaction of Christ against Faustus Socinus" [1617], trans. Frank Foster, in Bibliotheca Sacra, 36 [1879], 106-07).

Therefore, Grotius found it necessary to explain how an innocent person, such as Jesus, could be punished. He argues that since God cannot act unjustly and since the Bible affirms that God does sometimes punish certain people for what others have done, therefore, such punishment must be just. He writes:

I affirm that it is not unjust simply, or contrary to the nature of punishment, that one should be punished for another's sins. When I say unjust it is manifest that I speak of that injustice which springs from the nature of things, not that which is founded upon positive law; so that the divine liberty cannot be abridged by it. In proof of this remark: "God visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children" [Ex. 20:5]. "Our fathers have sinned, and we have borne their iniquities" [Lam. 5:7]. For the act of Ham, Canaan is subjected to a curse [Gen. 9:25]. For the act of Saul, his sons and grandsons are hung with the approval of God [2 Sam. 21:8, 14]. For the act of David, seventy thousand perish, and David exclaims, "Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done" [2 Sam. 24:15-17]? So for the act of Achan his sons were punished [Josh. 7:24], and for the act of Jeroboam his posterity [1 Ki. 14:10]. These passages manifestly show that some are punished by God for others' sins (Ibid., p. 272).

I commend Grotius for acknowledging that the Bible does teach that God sometimes punishes the innocent for what the guilty has done. Some apologists will attempt to deny this fact. However, I do not agree with him that just because the Bible records such punishments as being ordained by God, they must therefore automatically be just. I think that is begging the question.

Next, Grotius claims that since there is a connection between Jesus and humanity (he assumed their nature), thus it is just for Jesus to suffer the penalty that mankind deserves. He writes:

We might reply that no man is unconnected with another; that there is a certain natural union among men by birth and blood; that our flesh was assumed by Christ. But another and a greater connection between us and Christ was designed by God. For Christ was designated by God himself as the "head of the body" of which we are members. . . .

[T]he mystic connection ought in this case to have a place of no less importance, as very clearly appears in the case of a king and his people. The story of the people of Israel, punished on account of David's crime, has been cited above. The ancient author of Quaestiones ad Orthodoxos(which is circulated under the name of Justin), wisely discoursing upon this topic, says: "As man is composed of soul and body, so a kingdom is composed of the king and his subjects. And as, if a man committing sin with his hands receives punishment on his back he who punishes him does not act unjustly, so God acts not unjustly when he avenges the sins of the rulers upon the people" (Ibid., pp. 274-75).

If Christ is somehow connected with sinful man due to his assumption of man's nature, it would seem that Christ should have assumed human nature as it existed after the fall. In other words, he should have assumed a fallen human nature. Grotius does not teach this (although others later would, such as Edward Irving, Karl Barth, etc.). So, the fact that he is also man does not automatically make it just to punish him for what other men have done.

His analogy of a king and his subjects is interesting. There is a sense in which the subjects of a king or government suffer as a result of what their leader(s) do. However, is this just? It seems it is only if the subjects have specifically endorsed the action of their leader(s) that results in the punishment. But, if this is the case, then the subjects are also culpable for their leader(s) action. A more appropriate analogy would be that the king or leader is punished for what the whole country does. Is this just?

One could imagine a scenario where the leader of a country was punished for what his people did but intuitively it still seems unjust. Punishment as such is designed for the one who is guilty. If the leader is somehow completely innocent of what his people have done, then how can he justly suffer punishment in their place? Only if he is somehow culpable in the evil act, can he be justly punished. Furthermore, if he is punished for what his people have done, how can the people justly forego punishment themselves? How can their evil acts be excused because their leader was punished in their place? Whoever the arbiter of justice is in this case, seems to be interested in some type of symbolic justice, which under closer scrutiny is no justice at all.

God Has Not Forgiven Us --From Sola Ratione

I have discovered a blog, Sola Ratione, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. This one is entitled: God Has Not Forgiven Us.


If Jesus was punished for our sins (in the sense that God's wrath was directed toward him instead of us), then it follows that God has not forgiven us.

To forgive someone means that we have let go of our resentment or anger against them.

It does not mean that we have simply found some innocent bystander upon whom we can dump our anger instead.

This kind of 're-direction' is so outrageously unjust that it's hard to know what to call it.

At best it is a kind of therapeutic device. Rather than direct our anger on the person responsible for causing us harm, we lash out at someone else instead. In so doing we discharge or release our anger to such an extent that we no longer feel anger over what was done to us.

In real life, this phenomenon typically occurs when we have been attacked or bullied by someone who is more powerful than us.

The risk of attacking them is too great. So we deal with our rage by taking it out on someone who is less likely to retaliate.

The aim is to restore a semblance of self-respect and pride, in a situation where we are out-gunned.

Most of us would condemn this approach as highly unethical - on several counts.

1. It doesn't address the original offence.

2. An innocent person is attacked.

3. It is likely to set up an endless chain of revenge-taking (the person we picked on, being less powerful than us, takes their anger out on someone who is less powerful than them, and so on).

But is this what is happening on the cross?

Not exactly.

God doesn't re-direct His anger onto Jesus because He is worried that we might retaliate if He tried it on us.

No, God takes it out on Jesus because He loves us too much. His anger is so strong that if He let rip (as He does to those whom He consigns to Hell) our relationship would not survive.

But there are problems with this version of the story.

To begin, it is rather like a parent who loves his kids to bits, but knows that he has serious anger-management issues.

So when the smaller, more vulnerable kids annoy him, he narrowly avoids killing them - but only by viciously beating up his eldest son. (Fortunately, this son is eminently scapegoatable, given his almost miraculous ability to recover from the most cruel, even murderous beatings!)

Now there's a role model to emulate! Social services, not to mention the police, would be onto such a 'dad' in seconds.

So is that what God is like?

Well, perhaps we have not taken into account the way in which the Triune Godhead is at work here.

On this version, God is more like a father who, again, is so loving that he manages to resist killing his children when they piss him off.

But he only does so by going into his study and punching himself in the face, over and over again, until his anger dissipates.

God, in other words, got into some serious self-harming on the cross - purely as an outlet for his wrath-management problem.

Not a pretty picture.

But again, perhaps we haven't quite caught the analogy.

We sometimes say that, when we forgive, we 'absorb' the anger that we felt toward the person who hurt us.

So perhaps God is doing the same sort of thing. That is, God in the Son 'absorbs' the anger of God the Father.

This sounds much more palatable.

But it doesn't work.

When we say that we 'absorb our anger' in forgiveness, this does not mean that we turn around and 'get angry at ourselves' in order to avoid getting angry at the person who hurt us! No advocate of forgiveness would ever endorse that interpretation.

And yet that is, in effect, what a trinitarian God is doing: God the Father is re-directing his wrath away from us and turning it instead against God the Son.

This is 'absorption' only in the sense in which a self-abuser 'absorbs' the knife blade with which he is slicing his own flesh!

So what do we conclude?

Well, it looks like Jesus did not die on the cross so that God could forgive us.

Forgiveness had nothing to do with it.

Instead, He died so that God could let off some steam.

Thanks God. But next time, it might be easier if you just booked in to see a therapist.

Is Christ held vicariously liable for our sins?--From Sola Ratione

I have discovered a blog, Sola Ratione, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. This one is entitled: Is Christ held vicariously liable for our sins?

"I remember once sharing the Gospel with a businessman. When I explained that Christ had died to pay the penalty for our sins, he responded, "Oh, yes, that's imputation." I was stunned, as I never expected this theological concept to be familiar to this non-Christian businessman. When I asked him how he came to be familiar with this idea, he replied, "Oh, we use imputation all the time in the insurance business." He explained to me that certain sorts of insurance policy are written so that, for example, if someone else drives my car and gets in an accident, the responsibility is imputed to me rather than to the driver. Even though the driver behaved recklessly, I am the one held liable; it is just as if I had done it. Now this is parallel to substitutionary atonement. Normally I would be liable for the misdeeds I have done. But through my faith in Christ, I am, as it were, covered by his divine insurance policy, whereby he assumes the liability for my actions. My sin is imputed to him, and he pays its penalty. The demands of justice are fulfilled, just as they are in mundane affairs in which someone pays the penalty for something imputed to him. This is as literal a transaction as those that transpire regularly in the insurance industry." - W. L. Craig, "Question 122, Subject: Penal Theory of the Atonement."

Craig is right to say that the owner of a car can be held vicariously liable for any negligence committed by someone to whom they have loaned their car. But what he omits to mention is that the driver must be using the car primarily for the purpose of performing a task for the owner.

For this kind of imputation to work as a parallel to substitutionary atonement, then, it would have to be the case that when we commit sins, we are acting primarily so as to achieve the purposes of Jesus Christ! Only then could he rightly be held liable for our sinful actions.

Don't think that one is going to work too well!

This kind of 'test' is also used when imputing liability to a corporation for the acts of its employees. A corporation can be held vicariously liable for the acts of its employees only if (1) the employee acted within the scope of their employment; (2) their actions, at least partly, benefited the corporation; and (3) it would be reasonable to impute the employee's acts and intentions to the corporation.

None of these three conditions find a parallel in the doctrine of penal substitution. Quite the opposite in fact.

(1) When we sin, we are acting against what it is that God has demanded of us. (2) It is hard to see how our sinfulness could, even partly, be said to 'benefit' Jesus Christ. (3) It could never be reasonable to impute our sinful acts or our sinful intentions to Christ himself, since he is, by definition, incapable of sin.

Punishment is not an Abstract Commodity --From Sola Ratione

I have discovered a blog, Sola Ratione, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. This one is entitled: Punishment is not an Abstract Commodity

"[T]he victim, within limits, has the freedom to decide to what extent and in what manner to inflict punishment. I do not see how this freedom would not extend to accepting a voluntary penal substitute. Take for instance the football player who is late to team practice. The coach of the team punishes the late player by demanding he run 5 laps around the field. The team captain steps forward and asks the coach if he could run the 5 laps in the other's stead. If the coach agrees to such an arrangement, then there does not seem to be anything unjust about this transfer of penalty. I take it this is because in the transfer the initial justification for punishment is still in place – that is the late player's misuse of his team-privileges led to the temporary withdrawal of a team-privilege. Whether the late player of the team captain serves the punishment, the initial justification is the same. And the additional good ends that the punishment is likely to secure (e.g. team unity) are accomplished whether the late player runs the laps or the team captain runs them." - Steven L. Porter "Swinburnian Atonement and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution," Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology: Volume 1: Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, edited by Michael Rea (Oxford University Press, 2009): p. 325.

This is an excellent example of just how counter-intuitive penal substitution really is.

Can anyone imagine a team captain asking to run 5 laps on behalf of the late football player? And the coach agreeing to this bizarre transaction?

What message would that send to the late player, let alone his team-mates? 'Don't worry if you do the wrong thing lads. The captain is (literally!) a sucker for punishment, and will cop it on your behalf.'

I don't know what kind of football players Porter is acquainted with, but you don't have to be a total cynic to see that the team is very unlikely to respond well to the captain's offer. 'Team unity' would not be particularly high on the list of possible outcomes.

The players are far more likely to ridicule the captain for being such a 'mug' (or words to that effect). And if this were the only time that the captain had made such an offer, then it is not difficult to foresee the players suspecting favoritism . . . or worse: 'Jeez, what does this guy have on the captain?'

And they would have good reason to question the propriety of what is going on here. This kind of substitution is clearly inappropriate, at almost every level.

How can Porter be so mistaken in his intuitions?

I think the root of the problem is that he thinks that punishment is a kind of abstract commodity. Like hard cash, it really doesn't matter who gives it or who receives it. Its value remains the same: 20 dollars is 20 dollars, no matter who owns it.

Likewise, the value of punishment, Porter thinks, is entirely independent of who it is directed against. If a temporary withdrawal of a team-privilege is warranted by the offending behavior of the late player, then what is required is that there be a temporary withdrawal of a team-privilege. Doesn't really matter who cops it, just so long as they agree to it and know what they're doing.

We can perhaps see just how bizarre this view is, by creating a similar scenario:

Suppose it's pay-time for the football team. The coach is about to hand out their individual pay packets, when the team captain steps forward and asks the coach if he could have all the team's pay for himself, instead of it being distributed to the other players as per usual. If the coach agrees to such an arrangement, then there does not seem to be anything unjust about this transfer. This is because in the transfer the initial justification for the wages being paid is still in place – that is, each player has fulfilled their job description for that month. So it really doesn't matter who takes the pay. The initial justification for the wages being paid is the same.

Doesn't really work, does it!

That's because 'what is deserved' is, morally speaking, inextricably linked to 'the person who deserves it'. Punishment can only be morally justified if it is directed against the person who deserves it. If you break this connection - as is necessarily the case in any penal substitution - the situation immediately becomes morally incoherent, if not repugnant.

Can Penal Substitution be Justified on Utilitarian Grounds? --From Sola Ratione

I have discovered a blog, Sola Ratione, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. This one is entitled: Can Penal Substitution be Justified on Utilitarian Grounds?

"[T]he practice of penal substitution in other scenarios seems wrong. We do not think it good for the mother of a convicted rapist to serve his time in prison. I propose that the reason why such a transfer is morally counter-intuitive is that while the victim still has the right to transfer the punishment, the likely good ends of such punishment would not be served by such a transfer. Given that deterrence and prevention are the main potential goods of criminal punishment it is probably never good that such a penalty be transferred, for there is little hope of achieving these goods through a transfer." - Steven L. Porter "Swinburnian Atonement and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution," Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology: Volume 1: Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement edited by Michael Rea (Oxford University Press, 2009): p. 326.

Just when we thought Porter's theory of punishment was retributivist through and through, it turns out that he is a utilitarian after all. What else could he mean by saying that: "deterrence and prevention are the main potential goods of criminal punishment."

Clearly, there is some confusion in Porter's mind here – and no doubt he would retract this statement, and revert to his usual retributivism, if its consequences were pointed out. But it is worth taking him seriously at this point, just to expose the trouble that a utilitarian version of penal substitution will encounter.

Let's suppose that the father of a convicted rapist agrees to serve the time in prison on behalf of his son. No one but the judge, the son and the victim knows about this transfer. So far as the public are concerned, the right man has been jailed.

Let's also assume that the son is duly chastened by his father's amazing sacrifice, and turns his life around. He does not re-offend, and goes on to live his life as an up-standing citizen.

In such a case, it looks like the penal substitution has brought about the "main potential goods of criminal punishment". We have both specific and general deterrence (so far as that is ever possible) in the bag.

And yet.

An innocent man has been punished, with the full knowledge and authorization of the legal system. This is outrageous. It makes no difference at all that the transaction was voluntary, or that the good of deterrence was achieved.

It is morally wrong to punish the innocent. Period.

Private citizens, even victims, can offer themselves up as sacrificial lambs if they like. But our legal officials have the right to over-rule this offer – as a matter of justice, and as is their duty as upholders of the 'rule of law' values of impartiality, independence and consistency. As Andrew Ashworth puts it:

"Just because a person commits an offence against me, however, that does not privilege my voice above that of the court (acting 'in the general public interest') in the matter of the offender's punishment. A justification for this lies in social contract reasoning, along the lines that the state may be said to undertake the duty of administering justice and protecting citizens in return for citizens giving up their right to self-help (except in cases of urgency) in the cause of better social order. " A. Ashworth, "Responsibilities, Rights and Restorative Justice" Brit. J. Criminology (2002) 42: 578-595: p. 585.

De Facto and de Jure Penal Substitution --From Sola Ratione

I have discovered a blog, Sola Ratione, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. This one is entitled: De Facto and de Jure Penal Substitution.

"If the friend gives the offender a gift sufficient to pay the fine, we have a de facto case of penal substitution. Whoever may sign the cheque, it is the friend who mainly suffers the loss that was meant to be the offender's punishment. . . . If we were single-mindedly against penal substitution, and yet we saw that preventing it in the case of fines was impractical . . . we ought to conclude that fines are an unsatisfactory form of punishment. . . . We might not abandon fines, because the alternatives might have their own drawbacks. But our dissatisfaction ought to show. Yet it does not show. The risk of de facto penal substitution ought to be a frequently mentioned drawback of punishment by fines. It is not. And that is why I maintain that all of us, not just some Christians, are of two minds about penal substitution. . . . [B]oth sides agree that penal substitution sometimes makes sense after all, even if none can say how it makes sense. And if both sides agree to that, that is some evidence that somehow they might both be right." - David K. Lewis, "Do we believe in penal substitution?" in Papers in ethics and social philosophy, Volume 3, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000): p. 134-35.

This is hardly a ringing endorsement of the doctrine of penal substitution, which is not surprising given that Lewis is an atheist. Even so, Lewis's argument is flawed.

The chief problem is that he has used an example involving a de facto penal substitution to defend the moral coherence of a de jure penal substitution. But the two are miles apart, morally speaking.

The criminal justice system cannot prevent a friend from, clandestinely, paying an offender's fine on their behalf. But this is very different from the court authorizing such a transaction, treating it as if it were a right and lawful exchange. No judge would ever explicitly sanction, let alone impose de jure penal substitution – even if they are unable to prevent the de facto version.

Yet, the penal substitution of Jesus Christ was pre-planned, authorized, carried out and proclaimed from the hill-tops by God, 'the righteous judge of all'. There is nothing de facto, illicit or behind-the-scenes about 'Christ dying for our sins' at all.

It gets worse.

Theologically, the victim of our sinfulness is none other than God in the person of Christ. So imagine, if you will, a judge turning to the victim of an offence in open court and saying, 'Look, the offender clearly can't pay the fine. So I'd like you to pay it for him. What do you think?'

Even if the victim agreed to this transaction ('Thy will be done'), can you imagine the outcry?

Or again, suppose the fine was so colossal that the victim would be made utterly bankrupt by paying it off: he would lose his house, all his possessions and any savings. Under this scenario, we can well imagine that the victim might be 'sweating blood' over the thought of his impending sacrifice!

But how likely is it that the judge would get away with this bizarre request? Would it not be universally denounced? Politicians, penal theorists, victim groups and journalists would, with one voice, condemn the transaction.

It doesn't change things in the least to suppose that the victim, in this case, is also the judge himself (as is the case in the divine transaction). For a start, this equation would only weaken the analogy even further, since no judge would ever be permitted to serve in a case in which he or she was the victim in question!

But let us suppose that this was legally possible, and that the judge, as the victim, offered to pay off the offender's debt himself. This would still not be morally or legally acceptable. The judge's wish would be interpreted by the public and the entire judiciary as little more than a kind of self-harming exercise, or a misguided martyrdom. His own views and preferences would be over-ruled– as they often are – by the public interest and the rule of law.

If anyone is to be punished, then justice demands that they deserve it; and they can only deserve it if they are personally culpable for the wrongdoing in question.

In short, the concept of de jure penal substitution, in the human context, would violate the fundamental principles of any retributive theory of justice, not to mention the central purpose and rationale of our entire legal system.

It cannot, therefore, be used to lend analogical support to the Christian doctrine of penal substitution.

Why Did Jesus Choose to Die?--From Sola Ratione

I have discovered a blog, Sola Ratione, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. This one is entitled: Why Did Jesus Choose to Die?

"It is either foolish or suicidal to die voluntarily unless there is some great good that can only or best be accomplished by voluntarily dying. . . . [So] Christ must have had a great good in mind that could only or best be accomplished by voluntarily dying [on the cross]. . . . The only great good that can justify a voluntary death is if that death saves other lives, and the only theory of atonement that makes sense of why the death of Jesus would save other lives is the theory of penal substitution. . . . Therefore, the doctrine of penal substitution is the only adequate explanation of Christ's voluntary death on the cross." - Steve L. Porter, "Dostoyevsky, Woody Allen, and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution", in Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, eds., Contending with Christianity's Critics (Broadman and Holman, 2009) 233-248: p. 244-45, 248.

If Porter is right here, then it follows that Christ must have thought that his death on the cross would act as a 'penal substitute' and thereby save us from physical and spiritual death. Put another way, Porter is implying here that Christ believed in the doctrine of penal substitution.

I have argued elsewhere that Porter's article gives us no reason to think that this doctrine is morally defensible. But since Porter's view is that penal substitution is the only 'great good' that could have justified Christ's voluntary death, it follows that he must have given up his life for no good reason.

Of course, Jesus would not have been the first person in history to have sacrificed his life in vain. Nor the last. There are countless men and women who have mistakenly believed that the only way someone's life could be saved would be if they sacrificed their own.

Some of these brave souls clearly should have given the matter a little more thought before they took the fatal plunge. We can often know, well in advance, that laying down our life will not save the life of another. Porter gives us a useful example:

"We think it either foolish or suicidal when a person jumps in front of a speeding train proclaiming love for a friend. Unless, of course, the friend (or someone else) is in front of the speeding train and jumping in front of the train was the only way to save that person." (p. 245)

But being foolish is not the same as making an honest mistake. It is more likely that Jesus was simply applying the (flawed) moral concepts and theological principles available to him at the time. In that case, he was just unlucky rather than foolish.

Porter, of course, thinks that Christ's decision to submit to death on the cross could not have been an act of foolishness; nor could it have been just an honest mistake on the part of Jesus. But both of these explanations can only be ruled out if the theory of penal substitution can be morally justified – which, as I (along with many others) have argued, it is not.

Is the Doctrine of Penal Substitution Morally Plausible?--From Sola Ratione

I have discovered a blog, Sola Ratione, which has some good posts on the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. With the author's permission, I am going to re-post them here. The first one is entitled: Is the Doctrine of Penal Substitution Morally Plausible?

"In order to establish the moral framework that grounds the central claim of penal substitution it will be argued that (1) punishment is an appropriate response to intentional human wrongdoing and (2) it is good in some circumstances for humans to exact that punishment. We will then proceed to argue from the human context to the divine context: (3) punishment is an appropriate divine response to intentional human wrongdoing and (4) it is good in some circumstances for God to exact that punishment on wrongdoers, and (5) the goodness of such punishment can still be achieved by God's taking that punishment upon Himself in the person of Jesus Christ." - Steve L. Porter, "Dostoyesvky, Woody Allen, and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution", in Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, eds., Contending with Christianity's Critics (Broadman and Holman, 2009) 233-248: p. 238.

This is an analogical argument. Porter argues that there are key similarities between human and divine punishment; so if the former is morally plausible, then the latter is likely to be as well.

But it takes little more than a cursory reading of the quote above to notice that the human context, upon which the analogy is based, is missing a key element.

Let's accept, for the sake of argument, that, from (1) and (2), we can infer, by analogy, (3) and (4). But upon what basis do we arrive at (5)? And is not (5) the chief cause of the moral controversy about the doctrine of penal substitution?

Earlier in the piece, Porter tries to divert our attention by suggesting that the real reason why so many have rejected this doctrine is that punishment, per se, is felt, by many, to be morally unnecessary, if not repugnant.

"[There is] and increasing tendency to see an emphasis on punishment as in some sense outdated or inhumane. The common idea is that we, let alone God, have moved beyond such primitive and violent ways of dealing with our anger. . . . [This] shift in intuitions regarding punishment . . . helps to explain why there has been a recent resurgence of objectors to penal substitution." p. 234.

This is a red herring. The vast majority of those who reject a penal substitutionary theory of the atonement do so because they cannot see how it could be morally acceptable for the punishment that is deserved by an offender (human sinners) to be 'taken on by' or 'transferred to' the innocent victim (God in the person of Jesus Christ). Or, as Porter puts it:

"[T]he central claim [of the doctrine of penal substitution] is that in His voluntary suffering and death, Christ takes on the penal consequences of sin on behalf of human sinners." p. 237

Moreover, those who have objected to this doctrine typically do so by arguing that this transaction has no (morally defensible) analogy within the human domain. It is this key objection that Porter, in this article, seems to side-step altogether.

To explain:

The problem with penal substitution is that it entails that someone can be punished even if they in no way deserve this treatment - even if they are the innocent victim of the wrongdoing in question. The doctrine breaks the moral connection between culpability and punishment. The guilt or innocence of the person being punished is beside the point.

This violates one of the most widely held moral intuitions that we have. The most serious wrong that can be committed by our criminal justice system is to punish the innocent. And it is far worse if it does so knowingly. It is precisely to honor this deeply embedded intuition that we have such elaborate and expensive court systems. This principle is part of what we mean by 'the rule of law'.

None of this is given even a passing mention by Porter. He more or less just asserts that it does not matter, from a moral point of view, who is punished. What is important about punishment is not that it is directed against the guilty. Rather, it is that the punishment must objectively re-express the value of the victim, and that the wrongdoing is seen to be taken with utter seriousness. And this expressive function, he supposes, can be achieved even if the punishment is taken on by an innocent victim.

"The goodness of the punishment is still seen in that Christ's going to the cross for our sins takes sinners and their sin with utter seriousness and objectively reexpresses the value of the God head in response to the devaluing of the Godhead expressed by human sin. By looking to the cross, we too can perceive the importance God attaches to us, to the gravity of our offense, and to the right valuing of the Godhead." p. 243.

But it is not difficult to see how there could be no morally justifiable human parallel to this claim. Imagine if a judge were to sentence the innocent victim of a crime to 10 years in prison, and used the following justification in his supporting statement:

"I believe that sentencing the victim to 10 years of penal servitude takes the offender and his crime with utter seriousness and objectively reexpresses the value of the victim in response to the devaluing of their human dignity and worth expressed by the crime."

The judge would, with absolute justification, be removed from the bench within seconds.

In short, so far as this article is concerned, Porter has not provided us with any reason to think that "Christ's suffering the penal consequences of human sin on behalf of sinners" is remotely plausible from a moral point of view.

Philosopher David Lewis on Penal Substitution

David Kellogg Lewis (1941–2001) was Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University for over 30 years. He wrote a short paper entitled: "Do We Believe in Penal Substitution?" (in Michael Rea, ed. Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology: Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement [2009], 308-13).

In the paper, Lewis argued that we all, Christians and atheists alike, agree that it is wrong to incarcerate or execute a substitute in place of the person who committed the crime. However, he says, we also both agree that it is okay for a substitute to pay a fine (monetary penalty) or make compensation to a victim in the stead of the one who committed the crime. He writes:

What function would we have to ascribe to punishment in order to make it make sense to punish an innocent substitute?—A compensatory function. Suppose that the offender’s punishment were seen mainly as a benefit to the victim, a benefit sufficient to undo whatever loss the offender had inflicted upon him. Then the source of the benefit wouldn’t matter. If the offender’s innocent friend provided the benefit, the compensatory function would be served, no less than if the offender himself provided it (p. 309).

Lewis says that its not just Christians who are "double-minded" with regard to penal substitution, he says:

All of us—atheists and agnostics, believers of other persuasions, the lot—are likewise of two minds about penal substitution. We do not believe that the offender’s friend can serve the offender’s prison sentence, or his death sentence. Neither can the friend serve the offender’s sentence of flogging, transportation, or hard labour. But we do believe—do we not?—that the friend can pay the offender’s fine.Yet this is just as much a case of penal substitution as the others (p. 311).

He concludes that perhaps non-believers ought not be so quick to condemn the logic of the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the atonement. If we agree that it works in some cases (monetary fines), then perhaps, it could work in other cases, such as the death of Jesus in the stead of sinners. He states:

It indicates that both sides agree that penal substitution sometimes makes sense after all, even if none can say how it makes sense. And if both sides agree to that, that is some evidence that somehow they might both be right (p. 313).

Is Lewis correct? One often hears defenders of the PST compare the price paid by Jesus on the cross with the payment of a debt. Since debts obviously can be transferred, then perhaps it does make sense to say that Jesus paid the penalty (even though it was not a monetary fine) for man's sin.

I don't think Lewis is correct, however.  While we allow a substitute to pay the fine or monetary debt of another, it is not analogous to the PST of the atonement. In the PST, Jesus bears the guilt of man's sin. A substitute who pays the fine owed in place of his friend does not bear his friend's guilt. I came across a comment on another blog that I thought explained this point very well. A poster who calls himself AK Mike said:

Hello--not a philosopher, but a lawyer. I think the premise here is wrong--we do not allow substitution in the case of fines. The criminal remains responsible for paying the fine--she cannot delegate this responsibility to another party. Even if another party agrees to pay, if that payment is defaulted, the court will look to the criminal to cure the default, not the other party.

Having another pay a criminal's fine is just a way of describing where the money comes from that the criminal obtains to pay the fine. It is inherent in the nature of a fine as punishment that the money to pay it will have to come from somewhere--from wages, from an inheritance, from a gift--where it comes from is not relevant to the question of who is being punished. The court records will always show the criminal has having paid, not some third party.

G. C. Foley on Substitutionary Atonement

George Cadwalader Foley (1851-1935) was the Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Care in the Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. In 1908, he delivered "The Bohlen Lectures" at his Divinity School. These lectures were published in 1909 under the title: Anselm's Theory of the Atonement . He does not deal specifically with the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the atonement but he does criticize the notion of substitution as it is found in Anselm's Satisfaction Theory. His objections are equally applicable to the PST of the atonement. He identifies the following problems:

1. It makes sin (disobedience) and obedience impersonal.

First, it is an impersonal, institutional idea, derived equally from the Church discipline, the Wergeld, and feudalism. If the law be regarded as impersonal, and the debt of man as well, then any one may render satisfaction. But justice, or rather righteousness, is God's nature, and law is the expression of His character, of Himself. He demands man's obedience, and that is what man owes. Christ's obedience cannot be accepted in place of ours, because it is ours which is wanted. The obedience which we failed to render cannot be offered by any one else, so as to make up the deficiency; because obedience is personal, and nothing can be done with the deficiency but to pardon it or else let it work its due punishment. One who is mystically united with us, as our Head, our Sponsor, our Representative, may offer His perfect obedience as the pledge of our own, as the response of humanity to the requirements of God. But God can be satisfied with nothing less than righteousness, and not even with that from any other than the one who lacks it and of whom He asks it (pp. 182-83).

2. It fails to distinguish between a material and a moral debt.

Again, the idea of substitution fails to distinguish between a material and a moral debt. The difference between a pecuniary and an ethical obligation is now generally recognised, because the Anselmic theory of a judicial process that would nowadays be called civil has given way to the analogy of ciiminal proceedings. But the fundamental point remains untouched, and the following admissions, chiefly by believers in satisfaction, may be applied to Anselm's satisfaction by substitution. Archbishop Magee says: "Neither guilt nor punishment can be conceived, but with reference to consciousness which cannot be transferred" [Discourses and Dissertations on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement, p. 197]. Anselm does not teach that Christ bore our punishment, though he uses the idea of guilt as indicating our exposure to penalty; it is in this connection that we may claim Magee's support (p. 183).

... Anselm has ignored the significance of a moral debt and treated it as simply material, as so external to the person as to permit of a transfer of the duty of obedience (p. 186).

3. It is based on a fiction and is unjust.

The idea of literal substitution is really a survival of folk-faith, where continually we see the disposition of men to shift upon another the results of their sin. But it cannot for a moment be considered as literal, because it is an utterly fictitious proceeding, and confusing to the moral sense. It makes God violate the very justice which is said to demand satisfaction, because it makes Him satisfied with an obedience as ours which is not ours. This is a double offence against justice: it foregoes the claim of obedience upon the one who owes it, and it accepts a substitute from one who does not owe it (p. 186).

William Connor Magee on Penal Substitution

William Connor Magee (1821–1891) was an Irish clergyman of the Anglican church. He was Bishop of Peterborough from 1868-1891 and he was made the Archbishop of York in 1891, the same year that he died. He opposed the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the Atonement. In 1887, he wrote a book entitled: The Atonement in which he pointed out three problems with the PST.


1. It is unjust.

According to this theory the one and only obstacle which stands in the way of the sinner's forgiveness is God's justice, and Christ's death has removed that obstacle by satisfying His justice. To this theory it is objected that, so far from being a triumph of justice, it is a triumph of injustice. It is doubly unjust—first, that God should not punish the guilty; and secondly, that He should punish the innocent. If the sinner deserves punishment, justice requires that he, and not another, should suffer. If Christ were perfectly innocent, justice requires that He should not suffer. There can be no justice, whatever else there may be, in punishing Him instead of the sinner. For what God's justice requires is surely not that where sin has been committed somebody should suffer, but that the sinner should suffer—he and no other (p. 101).

2. Jesus did not pay the penalty for sin.

He could not have suffered our penalty for sin, inasmuch as part, the largest part, of that penalty is remorse, which He could never have experienced. And, moreover, our penalty for sin is eternal death, and that He certainly has not suffered; while, on the other hand, the death He did die--namely, physical death--is not that from which He has delivered us, for we are all still subject to it. In no true or real sense, then, it is alleged, can Christ be said to have suffered the penalty that we incur by sin... (p. 102).

3. The notion of transferring equal amounts of suffering from one to another is impossible.

Nay, I go further, and I say that this whole idea of transferring certain exact and mathematically equal amounts of moral suffering from one person to another as if they were so many weights in a scale or so many chemical quantities in a laboratory, seems to me unthinkable: I cannot even imagine it. Persons are not things; personal feelings, states, conditions cannot be made to change places as if they were material substances. He who takes my place in suffering does not, and cannot, take my sufferings. These cannot be the same for him as they would be for me, simply because he is not I. In his place I should not feel precisely as he did; I might feel more, I might feel less; I should certainly feel differently; my penalty, therefore, cannot be transferred to him... (pp. 103-04).

And I further object to this doctrine of satisfaction of justice by exact equivalence of suffering because I see to what rash speculation, to what hideous conclusions, it has led. To rash and daring speculation, for instance, as to the nature and the intensity of the sufferings of Christ; to peeping and prying beneath the shadows of Gethsemane; to measuring of the exact tale of His agony and bloody sweat; to putting of His tears into our bottle and examining them by some quantitative analysis of our own; to showing how His six hours of suffering must, because He was infinite, have equalled the eternity of suffering due to all the sins of the finite human race; as if, on the supposition of the infinite overweighing the finite, an instant of suffering might not have sufficed as well as a century of it; and, worse than this--to the horrible conclusions that inasmuch as His sufferings were exact equivalents for demanded penalties, it would follow that any sins not forgiven could not have been atoned for; and therefore, that we must believe that He died only for the elect, and therefore that He who sent Him to die for men loved only the elect and hated all others, thus landing us in all the horrors of particular redemption and predestined reprobation (pp. 105-06).

Disagreements Among Christians on the Atonement of Christ

In 1875, R. W. Dale, in a series of lectures on the Atonement, pointed out the disagreements that have existed among Christians throughout Church History. He said:

From this brief review of the history of the doctrine, it appears that for nearly a thousand years many of the most eminent teachers of the Church were accustomed to represent the Death of Christ as a ransom by which we are delivered from captivity to the devil; that for nearly five centuries the most eminent teachers of the Church were accustomed to represent the Death of Christ as an act of homage to the personal greatness and majesty of God; that during the last three centuries the great Protestant Churches have represented the Death of Christ as having a relation neither to the devil nor to the personal claims of God, but to the moral order of the universe.

While the fundamental conception of the Atonement has been passing through these remarkable changes, the doctrine has been involved in other controversies of hardly inferior magnitude. There have been controversies as to whether Christ died for all men, or whether He died for the elect only; or whether, as was suggested as early as the third century by Origen, the effects of His Death extend to the whole universe. There have been controversies as to whether the Death of Christ was in itself an adequate Atonement for human sin, or whether its adequacy depends upon God's acceptance of it as adequate. When the Death of Christ was regarded as a kind of concession to the devil, there were controversies as to whether the concession was necessary in the nature of things, in order to effect our redemption; the same controversy was renewed under other forms when the Death of Christ was regarded as an act of homage to the Divine Majesty; and it has reappeared among Protestants, to whom the Atonement is neither a concession to the claims of Satan, nor even an acknowledgment of the personal claims of God. Whether, if men were to be saved, the Atonement of Christ was necessary or not; whether its effects extend to all mankind or only to the elect; whether it consisted in His righteousness, which was tested by His sufferings, or whether the sufferings themselves constituted its very essence; whether it was intended to redeem us from the power of Satan, or to propitiate the injured majesty of God, or to assert the eternal principles of the Divine government — all these questions have divided the Church.

The Fathers attempted to explain why it is that through the Death of Christ we escape from the penalties of sin, and their explanations were rejected by the schoolmen. The schoolmen attempted to explain it, and their explanations were rejected or modified by the reformers. The reformers attempted to explain it, and within a century after the Reformation, Grotius and his successors were attempting to explain it again (The Atonement (pp. 296-98).

I could add that since Dale's time (1875) the disagreements among Christians on the nature, extent, and reason for the death of Christ have only multiplied. It is amazing that the central doctrine of Christianity, the atonement, is so unclear that Christians have never been able to come to some sort of consensus on it.

Retributive Justice, Hell, and the Atonement

In a prior post, I argued that the Bible teaches the retributive theory of justice. This concept of justice is foundational not only to the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the Atonement but also to the doctrine of hell. There has been a concerted effort of late by evangelicals to "water-down" (pun intended) the doctrine of hell. As the conservative evangelical Mark Dever states:

But today Christians are more consumer-savvy. They know how to market themselves by jettisoning the unpopular bits, like a new product or politician. [A. C.] Grayling continues

"Nowadays, by contrast, Christianity specializes in soft-focus mood-music; its threats of hell, its demand for poverty and chastity, its doctrine that only a few will be saved and the many damned, have been shed, replaced by strummed guitars and saccharine smiles"(Against All Gods (Oberon, 2007), 24).

Another very conservative Evangelical, Al Mohler, agrees:

Though hell had been a fixture of Christian theology since the New Testament, it became an odium theologium—a doctrine considered repugnant by the larger culture and now retained and defended only by those who saw themselves as self-consciously orthodox in theological commitment.

Mohler maintains that the doctrine of hell

...is reformulated in order to remove its intellectual and moral offensiveness. Evangelicals have subjected the doctrine of hell to this strategy for many years now. Some deny that hell is everlasting, arguing for a form of annihilationism or conditional immortality. Others will deny hell as a state of actual torment. John Wenham simply states, “Unending torment speaks to me of sadism, not justice” (Facing Hell: An Autobiography [1998], 254). Some argue that God does not send anyone to hell, and that hell is simply the sum total of human decisions made during earthly lives. God is not really a judge who decides, but a referee who makes certain that rules are followed. Tulsa pastor Ed Gungor recently wrote that “people are not sent to hell, they go there” (What Bothers Me Most About Christianity [2009], 196). In other words, God just respects human freedom to the degree that he will reluctantly let humans determined to go to hell have their wish.

These "hell-reforming" Evangelicals are, according to Mohler, following the lead of C. S. Lewis. 70 years ago, Lewis wrote:

I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of Hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of Hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man 'wishes' to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free (The Problem of Pain [1940], 130).

While this "new" portrait of hell is a little more palatable to modern man, the fact is that undermines the rationale of the atonement. The atonement, at least according to the penal substitution version, is required in order to satisfy the retributive justice of God. In the PST, God punishes His Son, so that sinners will not have to be punished. If hell is not an active punishment by God, then the rationale behind the PST is destroyed.

Greg Gilbert (Pastor of Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky) makes this clear:

Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? It was because that was the only way God could righteously not send every one of us to hell. Jesus had to take what was due to us, and that means he had to endure the equivalent of hell as he hung on the cross. That doesn’t mean that Jesus actually went to hell. But it does mean that the nails and the thorns were only the beginning of Jesus’ suffering. The true height of his suffering came when God poured out his wrath on Jesus. When the darkness fell, that wasn’t just God covering the suffering of his Son, as some have said. That was the darkness of the curse, of God’s wrath. It was the darkness of hell, and in that moment Jesus was enduring its full fury—the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

In other words, according to Gilbert, God can only remain just if sin is punished (which is the retributive theory). He writes:

God is not a corrupt judge. He is an absolutely just and righteous one.
Over and over the Bible makes this point. When God reveals himself to Moses, he declares himself to be compassionate and loving, but he also says, “Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.” The Psalms declare that “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.” What an amazing statement! If God is to continue being God, he cannot simply set justice aside and sweep sin under the rug. He must deal with it—decisively and with exacting justice. When God finally judges, not one sin will receive more punishment than it deserves. And not one will receive less than it deserves, either.

So, those evangelicals who want to remake hell into merely a place of self-chosen exile, and eliminate God's active role in the  punishment, have, in some cases, unwittingly removed the basis for the PST of the atonement. It doesn't seem that one can consistently adhere to the PST and at the same time see hell as a place of self-chosen exile. Evangelicals who do so have, as Mohler puts it, transformed God from a judge who decides, to a referee who makes certain that rules are followed. Hell is no longer punishment deserved because of man's sin but merely the place man chooses to be. Free will becomes the single most important element in God's universe and God exists to ensure that each person's freedom is safe-guarded. While, as I said above, this may be more palatable to the sensibilities of modern man, it is a far cry from what the Bible itself teaches.

Does the Bible Teach Retributive Justice?

One of the problems faced by those evangelicals who deny the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the Atonement (and they are a distinct minority within evangelicalism) is that the Bible teaches retributive justice.

What precisely is the retributive theory of justice? The basic principle is that the guilty person has committed a wrong and he must be "paid-back" or "recompensed" for his offense. When a person is wronged, the scale of justice, as it were, has been tipped against him. In order to bring that scale back to equilibrium, the offender must suffer harm in proportion to what he caused the victim. That is the essence of retributive justice. It is not concerned primarily with the consequences of the punishment, whether or not it benefits anyone, but with the fact that the evil committed deserves to be punished. It is based on a deontological view of ethics, namely that some acts are intrinsically wrong, and therefore, deserving of punishment. The philosopher Immanuel Kant was one of the strongest advocates of the retributive theory of justice. In The Metaphysical Elements of Justice , he wrote:

Judicial punishment can never be used merely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for civil society, but instead it must in all cases be imposed on him only on the ground that he has committed a crime (p. 138).

Does the Bible teach the retributive theory of justice? The answer is an emphatic, Yes. In the beginning of the Bible, God makes it clear that the punishment for disobeying him (sin) is death. Shortly after creating Adam and Eve, God told them:

"You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17, New International Version).

After the first couple sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, they realized that they were naked and the Bible says: “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21). This was the first instance of death recorded in the Bible. Animals died in order for God to clothe Adam and Eve with animal skins. Christian theologians have consistently argued that this was the first case of sacrificial substitution in the Bible. Innocent animals were killed in order for Adam and Eve to be clothed.

Someone might ask, “I thought that God told Adam that “he would surely die,” if he ate the forbidden fruit? It’s true that God did say that and most Christian commentators have explained God's statement in the following way: Adam and Eve died spiritually, that is, they were cut off from the blessing of unhindered fellowship with God. When they ate the fruit,the seeds of mortality were also planted in them so that eventually they would die physically. In the meantime, the death of the animals served as a vivid illustration of the consequences of sin.

The story of the flood of Noah in chapter six of Genesis also illustrates the concept of retributive justice. Because man had become so corrupt in sinning against God, God decided to send a flood to destroy mankind (Genesis 6:13-14). In God’s mind, sin deserves punishment and that punishment must be death. Thus, the whole world, with the exception of Noah’s family, must die.

The first case of retribution being ordered for crimes that a man commits against another man is found in Genesis 9:6:"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.” God decrees that if a man kills another man, he must be punished with the same punishment, namely death. This verse illustrates another aspect of retributive justice--that the punishment must fit the crime.

One of the best known phrases from the Bible is “an eye for eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” This illustrates very clearly the concept of retributive justice that God commanded his people to follow. It is the principle of lex talionis,that is, the punishment should be proportionate to the crime. The phrase is found three places in the Hebrew Bible:

Exodus 21:23-25—“But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.“

Leviticus 24:19-20—“If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured. “

Deuteronomy 19:21—“Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

All three of these passages are found in sections of the Torah in which God is laying out the principles of justice that he wants his chosen people, the Israelites, to follow. A straightforward reading of these passages makes it very clear that in God’s mind there is only form of justice, namely, retributive justice.

It is true that Jesus seems to repeal this form of justice in Matthew 5:38-39:

“You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.“

Typically, Christian commentators have interpreted this command to refer to interpersonal relations. In other words, if you as an individual are mistreated by another person, you should not seek retaliation. While Jesus does not explicitly say so here, in Romans 12, discussed below, the idea is that retribution will come against the wrongdoer but it will be God who exacts the punishment.

When we come to the writings of Paul, we find the concept of retributive justice to be a dominant theme. A key word is ἀνταποδίδωμι, (to repay, requite) which is translated in the King James Version as “recompense,” and in the New International Version as “pay back.” Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words defines the word (ἀνταποδίδωμι): "to give back as an equivalent, to requite, recompense" (the anti expressing the idea of a complete return).”

In Romans 12:17-19, Paul, in harmony with what Jesus said in Matthew 5:38-39 (see above), says that Christians are not to exact retribution from those who are persecuting them but rather to leave that in God’s hands. He writes:

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay (ἀνταποδίδωμι)," says the Lord. “

If this retribution does not take place before, it will, according to Paul, when Jesus returns from heaven. He writes in 2 Thessalonians 1:6-8:

“God is just: He will pay back (ἀνταποδίδωμι) trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.“

This passage shows that God has not changed his mind, at least if one can believe Paul, about the retributive theory of justice.

The last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, also makes it clear that God will exact retribution against the world for its sin. In agreement with Paul’s teaching in 2 Thessalonians, John sees Jesus coming back from heaven and executing judgment on the people of the earth (Revelation 19:11-15). This judgment is the display of God’s wrath against sinners. In chapter 20:11-15, the final judgment is depicted in which all men are resurrected to stand before God and to be judged on the basis of their works. The implication is that the punishment is in proportion to the evil committed (retributive justice).

Thus, the Bible consistently teaches the retributive theory of justice from beginning (Genesis) to end (Revelation). In accordance with these principles of retributive justice, theologians have constructed the PST of the atonement. Only this theory of the atonement satisfies the demands of retributive justice.

Articles and Theses on the Penal Substitutionary Theory of the Atonement

Articles and Theses in Favor of the PST

"The Death of Sin in the Death of Jesus: Atonement Theology in the NT," by Ben Witherington (2010)

"The Scriptural Necessity of Christ's Penal Substitution," by Richard Mayhue, in The Master's Seminary Journal 20/2 (Fall 2009): 139-48.

"Penal Substitution in the Old Testament," by William Barrick, in The Master's Seminary Journal 20/2 (Fall 2009): 149-70.

"Penal Substitution in the New Testament: A Focused Look at First Peter," by Paul Felix, in The Master's Seminary Journal 20/2 (Fall 2009): 171-97.

"Penal Substitution in Church History," by Michael Vlach, in The Master's Seminary Journal 20/2 (Fall 2009): 199-214.

"Penal Substitution and Christian Worship," by Andrew Snider, in The Master's Seminary Journal 20/2 (Fall 2009): 215-30.

"Penal Substitution in Perspective: Re-Evaluating the Articulation and Application of the Doctrine,"  by Patrick Franklin, in McMaster Journal of Theology and Ministry 10 (2008–2009): 22–52.

"A Trinitarian Crucifixion: The Holy Spirit and Penal Substitution," by Rustin Umstaddt, a paper presented at the annual meeting of the ETS (2008).

"The Logic of Penal Substitution Revisited," by Oliver Crisp in The Atonement Debate: Papers from the London Symposium on the Theology of Atonement (2008), 208-27.

"Penal Substitution in Romans 3:25-26?," by Jarvis J. Williams, in The Princeton Theological Review (2007): 73-82.

"On the Penal Substitution Model of the Atonement," by Jianshe Kong, Ph.D. dissertaton, Brown University (2007).

"Articulating, Defending , and Proclaiming Christ Our Substitute," by Stephen Wellum, in The Southern Baptist Seminary Journal of Theology (Summer 2007). 

"A History of the Doctrine of the Atonement, by Greg Allison, in The Southern Baptist Seminary Journal of Theology (Summer 2007).

"The Atonement in Isaiah's Fourth Servant Song,"  by Peter Gentry in The Southern Baptist Seminary Journal of Theology (Summer 2007).

  "The Cross and Substitutionary Atonement," by Simon Gathercole in The Southern Baptist Seminary Journal of Theology (Summer 2007).

"Songs of the Crucified One: The Psalms and the Crucifixion,"  by Derek Tidball in The Southern Baptist Seminary Journal of Theology (Summer 2007).

"Christ Bore the Sins of Many: Substitution and the Atonement in Hebrews," by Barry Joslin in The Southern Baptist Seminary Journal of Theology (Summer 2007).

"The SBJT Forum: The Atonement Under Fire," by D. A. Carson, Thomas Schreiner, Bruce Ware and James Hamilton, in The Southern Baptist Seminary Journal of Theology (Summer 2007).

"The Atonement as Penal Substitution," by A. T. B. McGowan in Always Reforming: Explorations in Systematic Theology (2006).

"Nothing but the Blood," by Mark Dever, in Christianity Today  (May 2006)

"Question…But isn’t “Penal Substitution” actually illegal (if not immoral)??," by Glenn Miller (2005).

"Can Punishment Bring Peace? Penal Substitution Revisited," by Stephen Holmes in Scottish Journal of Theology (2005)

"The Evangelical Alliance Atonement Symposium: Introductory Address," by David Hilborn (2005)

"Justice, Law, and Guilt," by Garry Williams (2005)

"Punished in our Place: A Reply to Steve Chalke on Penal Substitution," by Garry Williams (2005)

"Why Did Christ Die: A Symposium on the Theology of Atonement," by Sue Groom (2005)

"Swinburnian Atonement and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution," by Steven Porter in Faith and Philosophy (2004): 228-41.

 "The Cross and Substitutionary Atonement" by Simon Gathercole in Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology (2003)

“Rethinking the Logic of Penal Substitution,”  by Steven Porter in Philosophy of Religion, ed. William Lane Craig, Michael Murray, and Daniel Howard-Snyder (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2001), 596–608.

"The Atonement in Scripture," by David Petersen, a paper delivered at Oak Hill College School of Theology (2000).

"Moral Faith and Atonement," by John Hare, a paper presented at Wheaton College (1996).

"De Jesu Christo Servatore: Faustus Socinus on the Satisfaction of Christ," by Alan Gomes, in The Westminster Theological Journal (1993).

"What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution," by J I Packer (1974)

"The Atonement and Human Sacrifice," by David Dilling, in Grace Theological Journal (1971)

"Concerning The Necessity And Reasonableness Of The Christian Doctrine Of Satisfaction For Sin," by Jonathan Edwards,  The Works of President Edwards in 4 volumes,  vol. I, 582-611. (1740)

"Christ's Agony," by Jonathan Edwards, in The works of Jonathan Edwards, ed. Edward Hickman, II, 872ff. (1745)

Articles and Theses in Opposition to the PST

"Poena Satisfactoria: Locating Thomas Aquinas Doctrine of Vicarious Satisfaction in Between Anselmian Satisfaction and Penal Substitution," by John Joy, Master's Thesis, International Theological Institute (2010)

"Substitutionary Atonement and the Church Fathers: A Reply to the Authors of Pierced For Our Transgressions," by Derek Flood, in The Evangelical Quarterly (2010).

"Not Penal Substitution but Vicarious Punishment", by Mark Murphy, in Faith and Philosophy, 26:3 (2009) 253-73.

"A Participatory Model of the Atonement," by Tim Bayne and Greg Restall, in New Waves in Philosophy of Religion eds. Yujin Nagasawa and Erik Wielenberg (2009)

"The Incarnational Theory of Atonement," by Robin Collins (2009)

"The Cross and the Caricatures:  a Response to Pierced for Our Transgressions," by N. T. Wright (2007)

"More Thoughts on Penal Substitution" by Scott McKnight (2006)

"Atonement," by Eleonore Stump, in Aquinas, pp. 427-54 (2003).

"Why Does Jesus' Death Matter," by S. Mark Heim, in The Christian Century [March 6, 2001]: 12-17.

"Do We Believe in Penal Substitution," by David Lewis, in Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology: Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement, ed. Michael Rea (1997).

"Old Testament Sacrifice and the Death of Christ," by John Goldingay, in Atonement Today, pp. 3-20 (1995).

“Paul’s Understanding of the Death of Jesus,” by James D.G. Dunn, in Reconciliation and Hope: New Testament Essays on Atonement and Eschatology Presented to L.L. Morris on his 60th Birthday (1974),  pp.125-141.

"Atonement and 'Saving Faith,'" by Brian Gerrish, in Theology Today (1960)

"Justice," in Unspoken Sermons, Part 3  by George MacDonald (1867)

"The Rise of the Edwardean Theory of the Atonement: An Introductory Essay,"  Edwards Amas Parks in The Atonement: Discourses and Treatises (1859).

Francis Hall on Penal Substitution

Francis Joseph Hall (1857-1933) was an Episcopalian Priest and Professor of Dogmatic Theology at The General Theological Seminary of New York City. In 1918, he published volume 7 of his series on Dogmatic Theology entitled: The Passion and Exaltation of Christ. In the book he argued against the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the atonement. He rejected the PST for the following reasons:

1. The imputation of one man's sin to another is immoral.

First of all, we ought to eliminate the notion that the God of truth and justice resorts to forensic imputation, whether of our guilt to Christ or of His righteousness to us. The presumption is overwhelming that a method of dealing with sin which appears untrue and immoral to men cannot be divine. It took a long time for Israel to learn that "the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him," and that what is needed is the turning of men from sin to righteousness. But what was so slowly learned by the ancients has become a Christian truism, which only needs to be reasonably stated, in order to be ratified by the moral judgment of all enlightened and unprejudiced Christian believers(pp. 45-46).

2. To punish one who is not guilty is a parody of justice.

The punishment of one who is not guilty, followed by exemption from punishment of the real sinners, appears on the face of it to be a parody of justice, and to violate the moral requirement that "the soul that sinneth it shall die" (p. 49).

3. Jesus did not remove physical death as a penalty for sin nor did he suffer spiritual death.

The penalty of sin is twofold: (a) the temporary sufferings of men, which culminate in physical death; (b) the death of the soul, or its final or permanent exclusion from the divine communion and fellowship for which man was made. The former penalty has not been removed by Christ's death; and the latter was not endured by Him (p. 49).

[A]s has been shown, the sufferings which Christ endured still have to be participated in by us. Even on the Cross He is our example. There is, therefore, no penal substitution. It cannot be denied that the term "substitution" is in line with certain scriptural phrases, and also with many expressions in patristic literature. But in its formal use it gives emphasis where Scripture does not, and expresses a more determinative idea than New Testament teaching, comprehensively regarded, justifies. The subject will call for treatment later on. We content ourselves at this point with repudiating the theory of substitution which describes it as penal. Our repudiation of this is absolute (pp. 51-52).

Hall goes on to advocate a theory of the atonement that merges elements of Anselm's theory with elements of the Eastern orthodox theory of incarnational atonement.

Rustin Umstattd on Penal Substitution and the Trinity

Rustin J. Umstattd is Assistant Professor of Theology at Midwestern Baptist Seminary (SBC) in Kansas City, Missouri. He presented a paper in 2008 at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society entitled, "A Trinitarian Crucifixion: The Holy Spirit and Substitutionary Atonement." In the paper he deals with the Holy Spirit's role in the Atonement, an often neglected topic. My interest in his paper relates to how he deals with the theological problem of one member of the Trinity (the Son) being punished by another member of the Trinity (the Father). The punishment endured by Jesus, according to defenders of the Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST) of the atonement, is spiritual death which entails separation from God. The difficult question which all defenders of the PST must attempt to answer is how can one member of the Trinity be separated from another member without causing a breach in the supposed eternal unity of the Godhead. According to A.T.B. McGowan this is the most difficult problem posed by the PST of the atonement. He says:

Let me say that I fully understand the difficulty that attaches to this subject of the Son bearing the wrath of the Father, and I fully respect the theological complexity involved in maintaining penal substitution in the light of the need for a careful delineating of the relationship between the Father and the Son. In my view, this is the strongest theological argument to be faced by any doctrine of penal substitution (Always Reforming: Explorations in Systematic Theology [2006], p. 199).

The moment that appears to demonstrate the separation between the Father and Son is when Jesus crys from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). While some have argued that Jesus only felt abandoned by the Father, defenders of the PST, who understand the logic behind the theory, must maintain that there was an actual abandonement. As Umstattd argues:

Jesus’ cry of dereliction in which he quotes Ps 22:1 should not be viewed as a cry of victory in which the entirety of the Psalm is in focus, as a cry of unbelief or despair, or a cry of abandonment in which Jesus only felt forsaken, but was not in actuality.

He, however, adds an important caveat: One must be able to both maintain the abandonment of the Son with the unity of the Trinity that remains unbroken. He believes that it is the Holy Spirit who maintains this unity between the Father and the Son.

Can one say that Jesus was actually abandoned by the Father, though, without breaking the unity of the Trinity? It doesn't seem possible to me. Being abandoned, forsaken, or separated is incongruent with the notion of unity. The unity envisioned in the classic doctrine of the Trinity is not merely a unity of purpose but a unity of being. Each person is said to indwell the other persons. The theological term sometimes used to refer to this is perichoresis. This is a Greek term used to describe the triune relationship between each person of the Godhead. It can be defined as co-indwelling, co-inhering, and mutual interpenetration (Theopedia). Jürgen Moltmann says regarding perichoresis:

{T]his concept grasps the circulatory character of the eternal divine life. An eternal life process takes place in the triune God through the exchange of energies. The Father exists in the Son, the Son in the Father, and both of them in the Spirit, just as the Spirit exists in both the Father and the Son. By virtue of their eternal love they live in one another to such an extent, and dwell in one another to such an extent, that they are one. . . . The unity of the triunity lies in the eternal perichoresis of the trinitarian persons (The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God,  pp. 174-75).

Umstattd recognizes the problem when he says:

[W]hen Jesus experienced the Father’s wrath upon the cross and he cried out from the depths of his being the lament of dereliction, the Son was not separated from the Father and the Spirit ontologically, but experientially.

I am not sure how one can be united ontologically and perichoretically and yet experientially be separated. It seems the only way this could happen is if one only felt as if one was separated, but Umstattd maintains the separation was actual and not merely "felt."


Another problem that Umstattd and defenders of the PST face is that if the separation was actual, then not only would there a breach in the unity of the Trinity but there would be a breach in the unity of the person of Christ. Chalcedonian Christology maintains that the two natures, divinity and humanity, dwell together in one single person--Jesus Christ--who is both God and man and yet one person. Is the divine nature in Christ estranged from his human nature on the cross or is it estranged from the Father and the Spirit? It seems that it would have to be one or the other.

Umstattd apparently holds that in one sense the Father and Son were separated on the cross but in another sense they were united by the Spirit. It is almost as if the Spirit is some kind of personal conduit who keeps the two connected even though they are actually separated. He writes:

[I]n the event in which God the Father pours out his wrath upon God the Son, the Spirit is both the bond of love that unites the two even in the separation, and conversely, the Spirit also applies to the Son the Father’s wrath, which is nothing other than the wrath of all three persons together.

He explains further:

[T]he abandonment of the Father was a far deeper suffering. From the depths of his being, he cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!” In popular terms, the Father turned his back upon the Son because he could not look upon the sin laid upon him. In this forsakenness, Jesus was left alone on the cross to bear the full weight of judgment. At this point, the Spirit is the bond that holds the Trinity together. While that is assuredly correct, it fails to capture another element of the Spirit’s work, his actualizing of the Father’s judgment given to the Son, in which the Son comes under his own judgment. When Jesus experienced the abandonment of the Father, it was executed by and in the Spirit as the one who actualizes God’s interaction with humanity. The abandonment of the Father was experienced by Jesus in the Spirit, while at the same time, underneath and in concert with the abandonment the Spirit held the Father and Son together in unity.

I don't see how Umstattd's position avoids contradiction. If two persons are separated, another person may serve as an intermediary between the two, but if the third person is actually a personal conduit through which the connection is ontologically maintained, then there is no actual separation between the persons. If  the God-man is not actually separated from the Trinity on the cross, then he does not endure spiritual death. And since spiritual death is the penalty for sin, he does not endure the penalty for sin thus negating the PST of the atonement.