One of the most important teachings of Christianity is that Jesus Christ,
through his death on a cross, took away the sins of the world and redeemed all sinners.
Every Christian, everywhere, believes this.
But HOW did he accomplish this? What specifically
about his death on the cross made anything different than before?
While the New Testament offers many METAPHORS for what happened—that we were redeemed,
saved, justified, set free, cleansed—there is no explanation in the New Testament as
to what technically happened. For this reason, theologians have presented many
theories of atonement over the years, each with its own benefits
and drawbacks. What are these theories and what do we make of them? This is Catholicism in Focus.
At face value and on a dogmatic level, the idea of atonement is quite simple:
through our sin, we created separation from God, and so God sought to bring us back together,
literally, to be “at one” again.
Gotta love when the etymology of a word is the language you already speak!
Unfortunately, this is where things stop being simple.
As strange as it may sound, the Catholic Church has never dogmatically defined
HOW this happens. For this reason, more than a few theories have been presented over the years,
grouped loosely into one of three categories: substitutional, moral, and incarnational.
As the name indicates, substitutionary models emphasize the fact that Jesus
served as a substitute for us. His death paid something that we could not afford.
The most ancient in this category is what is known as the ransom theory. Drawing from metaphor used
in the first letter of St. Peter, that “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your
fathers,” the theory suggests that Adam and Eve sold humanity into slavery because of their sins,
and Christ’s death paid a ransom to redeem them, literally, to buy us back.
It’s an incredibly common phrase that Christians use today and the image itself makes sense, but it
does raise an obvious question: to whom was this ransom paid? Who received the debt to set us free?
According to the patristic fathers that supported this theory,
the debt was paid to Satan who was tricked into receiving it. Gregory of Nyssa writes,
“in order to secure that the ransom in our behalf might be easily accepted by him who required it,
the Deity was hidden under the veil of our nature, that so, as with ravenous fish,
the hook of the Deity might be gulped down along with the bait of flesh,
and thus, life being introduced into the house of death, and light shining in darkness,
that which is diametrically opposed to light and life might vanish.” (Great Catechism ch. 24)
Basically, because of our sin, the Satan had a rightful power over us. Seeking to set us free,
Jesus came in flesh, offering himself in our place. Satan let us go for this payment,
but this, of course, was bait on a hook, as Jesus was perfect and without sin,
meaning that, Satan, having no right to possess him, was forced to let him go as well.
A perfect rescue mission for sure.
Except… where in the Bible does it say that Satan has a rightful claim over sinners,
and why would God have to negotiate with him to save us? It would seem far more logical that
any ransom, if there truly was one, would need to go to God the Father, not Satan.
It was with that in mind that St. Anselm
presented the satisfaction theory of atonement in the 11th century.
Largely influenced by the feudal world around him at the time,
Anselm interpreted our relationship with God as similar to a serf to king,
owing honor and service. If a subject shames a lord with dishonor, he weakens his power,
needing satisfaction to restore social order. To simply forgive the subject without
punishment is not possible, as the whole system of honor and shame would crumble.
Unfortunately for humans, the only thing that we can offer God is our lives,
which we owe God anyway. Hence, there is nothing we can do that
goes above and beyond to make up for our sins. We need a savior.
What Christ did by taking on flesh and dying a sinless man
was offer something that he did not owe, paying what we could not afford.
Being God, his payment was infinite, thus saving us all no matter our sins.
On the one hand, it makes more sense than the ransom theory,
as payment should go to God, but it also presents a new problem:
what sort of God demands his son die so that his honor can be restored?
This problem is further highlighted with the penal substitution theory, promoted by
Martin Luther and John Calvin,, before being more concretely articulated by Charles Hodge.
As in the satisfaction model, a debt must be repaid to God, only it is not about restoring
a sense of justice and honor in God, but rather in finding a source for God’s wrath due to our sin.
Jesus took our place, taking upon himself the curse of immeasurable
pain that was rightfully ours, so that we could go free.
Again, what sort of God is so
filled with wrath that he demands his son die so that he can be satisfied?
While both the satisfaction and penal substitution models make sense in a juridical sense, offering a
one-to-one exchange that preserves God’s rights, it does leave the Christian wondering about
forgiveness. In light of Jesus’ ministry in which he freely healed the sick and forgave the sinner,
in reading how the Father unconditionally forgave in the parable of the prodigal son,
why does God NEED payment? Substitution models don’t have a clear answer.
It’s for this reason that others have taken an entirely different approach to atonement,
instead suggesting that what Christ accomplished on the cross
was morally significant: it wasn’t for the benefit of a cosmic being, God or Satan, but for us.
Fundamentally subjective in nature, these theories do not posit any essential change in ontology,
soteriology, or eschatology—objective realities that change how the world works—but rather suggest
that the event of the cross offers a divine witness meant to change the way we approach God.
In both the moral influence theory proposed by Abelard and the moral example theory,
proposed by Fausto Paolo Sozzini, the cross was meant to be a sign of God’s love for humanity,
an unmistakeable sacrifice intended to turn our hearts back to God. In witnessing what
Christ has done for us, we, as his followers, should be so inspired to do so for others.
Biblically, there is a lot of support for this approach. Particularly in the Gospel of John,
Jesus connects the cross with the last supper mandantum to love one another.
In the synoptic Gospels, Jesus explicitly says that we must take up our own crosses if we are
to be his disciples. There is certainly an element of imitation to the cross.
Rene Girard builds upon this with his scapegoat theory of atonement. Unlike the substitution
models in which Jesus is an actual scapegoat meant to take away our sins, Girard suggests that
the witness of Christ being scapegoated by evil people, the victim of a heinous crime, is meant to
expose the lie that violence solves our problems, awakening us to a peaceful, just existence.
Again, biblically, there is some true to this approach. Jesus’ ministry continually
undermined the futility of violence. In the garden before his passion he admonishes those
who use the sword to defend him. Furthermore, it places God on the side of the non-violent victim,
freeing God from some of the moral issues found in the substitution theories.
And yet, neither of these models are without their own issues, most notably, the fact that they
espouse a form of the heresy called pelagianism. If all the cross did was teach a lesson,
then it can be argued that some people may not have needed it—meaning that the cross doesn’t
add anything new to salvation. We possessed within us the power to be saved all along.
This is clearly problematic.
It’s for this reason that third approach to the question has picked up some ground over the past
century, even though its roots are ancient. Focusing on the incarnational significance
of atonement, proponents of this approach look not just to the cross in isolation,
but to the cross as it relates to Christ’s life and resurrection.
Looking to the work of St. Irenaeus in the 2nd century, we see a heavy emphasis on the idea of
recapitulation, that Christ’s life was a retelling of the story of Adam with different results: while
Adam sinned because of a tree, Christ was obedient to the point of death on a tree. For Irenaeus
and other ancients, what was significant about Christ’s life wasn’t just that he died for our
sins, it’s that his perfect life of undoing sin included death, culminating in the resurrection.
This changed the course of history corrupted by sin,
but more importantly, intimately restored and connected us to God.
In taking on flesh and experiencing all that we experience but sin, even death, Irenaeus
posits that Christ “became what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”
In this way, the purpose of the cross is not suffering in itself; it does not pay a debt in
itself; it is not even the most essential part of the plan of salvation—what Christ sought to
accomplish was the destruction of sin and death, and so did so by being sinless and dying himself.
What matters, in a sense, is not so much HOW he died, but rather THAT he died, for it was
through death that the means of our salvation was truly accomplished: the resurrection.
For now, as St. Paul says, when we have united ourselves to Christ’s death through baptism,
we also unite ourselves to his life in the resurrection. It is not because
of the literal nature of the cross, the accidental reality of pain and suffering,
as if God needed payment or a target on which to take out his wrath—it’s
because Christ has divinized humanity, conquering sin and death once for all.
In 1931, Gustaf Aulén incorporated Irenaeus’ thought into a theory of his own,
the Christus Victor theory of atonement. For Aulén,
“The work of Christ is first and foremost a victory over the powers which hold mankind in
bondage: sin, death, and the devil.” Because of this, more attention is given to the fact
that we are enslaved by corporate sins, stuck in a broken history that we alone cannot fix.
In distinction to the other models in which Christ’s satisfaction
is the victory, Aulén responds that Christ’s victory is the satisfaction.
It’s a clever play on words, and certainly an appealing model.
So what might we say is wrong with it? Basically… that it isn’t the other models.
While the substitution and moral models bear serious flaws, they also capture an important
aspect of our theology deeply rooted in scripture. The Apostles tell us definitively that the cross
IS a ransom; it IS expiation for our sins; it IS redemption, and it most certainly is meant
to be imitated for the conversion of souls. The fact that these Incarnational models do
not include explanations of this language, even at times refuting them, leaves it incomplete.
Which, we could say, is kind of the beauty of the process, is it not? What we’re dealing with in the
theology of atonement is not an empirical fact, it bears no observational data to be studied.
It is a mystery. It is a matter of wondering deeply into the heart of God and asking,
“How could God save a sinner like me?” The fact that we have so many theories, each capturing a
facet of the truth, is to the benefit of our souls; the fact that no one theory captures
every facet of the truth invites us to keep searching. Mysteries begin with a truth—THAT
the cross atones for our sins—but are not meant to be solved—we may never know HOW. Sometimes, all we
can do is enter that mystery and allow our God to draw us deeper and deeper into his saving love.