The Doctrine of Justification: Augustine is Catholic

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

Today is the feast day of St. Augustine, and though I have a lot of other things on my plate today, I thought it was an opportune time to make a first post in a matter that’s been boiling over in my head for a while. A couple of months ago I finished reading Alister McGrath’s Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, a compelling and masterful work on that subject of such importance to the ongoing schism of the Protestant Reformation. In only a few hundred pages, McGrath surveys the whole Western theological tradition, cutting to the crux of major theologians and theologies from Augustine to Barth, and digging to the root of the disagreements and controversies. He shows a thorough command of the literature, especially into the voluminous corpus of St. Augustine, but also likewise into a number of important medieval thinkers, and into Luther and Calvin. (In the second edition which I read, he was even so hardcore as to leave primary source quotations in their original Greek, Latin, and German. In the third edition, more accessible to a general audience, he does translate these quotations — which, brushing aside the vestiges of my academic snobbery, is a welcome relief. Reading it the first time was a world of brainhurt!)

McGrath is an honest and insightful historian, and so thoroughly versed in his material that this work should be considered the authority on the matter. I would like to give a full review — or even share a series of posts on some of the important points — but I think that will have to wait a little while. For today, I would like to share a few quotes from McGrath’s chapter on Augustine, whom he calls the “fountainhead” of the doctrine of justification, the first western theologian to devote his substantial energies to it, and the one in whose wake all later theologians would follow. In McGrath’s words, “All medieval theology is ‘Augustinian’, to a greater or lesser extent,” and even the Protestant Reformers attempted to stake a claim to an Augustinian heritage. But I felt vindicated as a Catholic in discovering that, by the judgment of even a Protestant scholar, Augustine’s theology is thoroughly catholic, and that the teachings of the Catholic Church on justification have been, have never ceased to be, and are still today, essentially Augustinian.

St. Augustine (c. 1645-1650), Philippe de Champaigne.

Giving only a few quotations will be difficult — since I have most of the chapter highlighted! — but I will pick out a few passages highlighted in red: those that I found to be the most piercing and profound.

In rejecting the teachings of Pelagianism — that man has the power to save himself by his own free will apart from grace — Augustine did not reject that man has free will. He was careful to distinguish between liberum arbitrium (free will) and liberum arbitrium captivatum (free will taken captive or enslaved by sin). It is only by grace that our will is freed to pursue God. “Grace, far from abolishing the free will, actually establishes it.”

In a firm rejection of the Calvinistic notion of “monergism,” and in full accord with Catholic teaching, McGrath states:

For Augustine, the human liberum arbitrium captivatum is incapable of desiring or attaining justification. How, then, does faith, the fulcrum about which justification takes place, arise in the individual? According to Augustine, the act of faith is itself a divine gift, in which God acts upon the rational soul in such a way that it comes to believe. Whether this action on the will leads to its subsequent assent to justification is a matter for humanity, rather than for God. ‘The one who created you without you will not justify you without you’ (‘Qui fecit te sine te, non te iustificat sine te’). Although God is the origin of the gift which humans are able to receive and possess, the acts of receiving and possessing themselves can be said to be the humans’.

McGrath continues:

To meet what he regarded as Pelagian evasions, Augustine drew a distinction between operative and co-operative grace. God operates to initiate humanity’s justification, in that humans are given a will capable of desiring good, and subsequently co-operate with that good will to perform good works, to bring that justification to perfection. God operates upon the bad desires of the liberum arbitrium captivatum to allow it to will good, and subsequently co-operates with the liberum arbitrium liberatum to actualise that good will in a good action.

I wonder where he ever got an idea like that?

Regarding Augustine and the doctrine of merit, McGrath quotes:

The classic Augustinian statement on the relation between eternal life, merit and grace is the celebrated dictum of Epistle 194: ‘When God crowns our merits, he crowns nothing but his own gifts.’

Concerning the “righteousness of God,” the namesake of the book, he writes:

Central to Augustine’s doctrine of justification is his understanding of the ‘righteousness of God’, iustitia Dei. The righteousness of God is not that righteousness by which he is himself righteous, but that by which he justifies sinners. The righteousness of God, veiled in the Old Testament and revealed in the New, and supremely in Jesus Christ, is so called because, by bestowing it upon humans, God make them righteous.

Finally, dealing a deathblow to any inkling that Augustine ever held a doctrine of “justification by faith alone”:

Regeneration is itself the work of the Holy Spirit. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which is given to us in justification. The appropriation of the divine love to the person of the Holy Spirit may be regarded as one of the most profound aspects of Augustine’s doctrine of the Trinity. Amare Deum, Dei donum est. [To love God is the gift of God.] The Holy Spirit enables humans to be inflamed with the love of God and the love of neighbours — indeed, the Holy Spirit is love. Faith can exist without love, on the basis of Augustine’s strongly intellectualist concept of faith, but is of no value in the sight of God. God’s other gifts, such as faith and hope, cannot bring us to God unless they are accompanied or preceded by love. The motif of amor Dei [the love of God] dominates Augustine’s theology of justification, just as that of sola fide would dominate that of one of his later interpreters. Faith without love is of no value.

But what of Paul’s references to justification by faith?

So how does Augustine understand those passages in the Pauline corpus which speak of justification by faith (e.g., Romans 5:1)? This question brings us to the classic Augustinian concept of ‘faith working through love’, fides quae per dilectionem operatur, which would dominate western Christian thinking on the nature of justifying faith for the next thousand years. The process by which Augustine arrives at this understanding of the nature of justifying faith illustrates his desire to do justice to the total biblical view on the matter, rather than a few isolated Pauline gobbets.

Ouch!

In summation to this point:

It is unacceptable to summarise Augustine’s doctrine of justification as sola fide iustificamur [we are justified by faith alone] — if any such summary is acceptable, it is sola caritate iustificamur [we are justified by love alone]. For Augustine, it is love, rather than faith, which is the power which brings about the conversion of people. Just as cupiditas is the root of all evil, so caritas is the root of all good. The personal union of individuals with the Godhead, which forms the basis of their justification, is brought about by love, and not by faith.

The word “love” is used in Scripture more than 500 times, versus about forty times the words “justifiction” or “to justify” are used. It is no accident that the greatest commandments, according to Jesus, are to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength” and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27); or that, in Paul’s teachings, “Love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10). I think that in focusing so heavily on a “few isolated gobbets” of Paul, and fixating on the doctrine of justification to the detriment of the rest of Scripture, the Protestant Reformers may have missed the boat entirely.

(And this only gets me about halfway through the chapter! I will have to pick up the rest next time.)

Pope Benedict ordered change in baptismal liturgy before resigning

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

A post that’s relevant to our recent focus here on Baptism just came across the feed.

From the Deacon’s Bench:

The Sunday after the Epiphany is the Sunday of the baptism of Jesus. And on each of these Sundays, year after year, Benedict XVI administered the first sacrament of Christian initiation to a certain number of children, in the Sistine Chapel.

Each time, therefore, he had occasion to pronounce the formulas supplied by the rite of baptism in effect since 1969. But two of the words in this rite never entirely convinced him.

And so, before renouncing the chair of Peter, he ordered that they should be changed in the original Latin, and as a result in the modern languages as well.

The current baptismal liturgy reads in Latin, Magno gaudio communitas christiana te (vos) excipit, “The Christian community receives [or welcomes] you with great joy.” But in Pope Benedict’s judgment — and I quite agree — that doesn’t quite capture the fullness of truth that the Church of God subsists in the Catholic Church. Even Protestant churches are “Christian communities.” But this is the Church that Christ founded and gave to us.

In practice pope Joseph Ratzinger, as a sophisticated theologian, wanted that in the baptismal rite it should be clearly said that it is the Church of God – which subsists fully in the Catholic Church – that receives those who are being baptized, and not generically the “Christian community,” a term that also signifies the individual local communities or non-Catholic confessions, like the Protestants.

The alteration is slight but profound: from now on, at the end of the rite of reception, before signing with the cross the forehead of the child or catechumen, the priest will now say, Magno gaudio Ecclesia Dei te (vos) excipit, “The Church of God welcomes you with great joy.”

Read the whole original article by Sandro Magister, or the full piece at the Deacon’s Bench.

Types for Baptism in the Old Testament (Baptism In Depth)

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

The Baptism of Christ, stained glass from Mariawald Abbey, by Gerhard Rhemish, The Master of St. Severin, Germany (Victoria and Albert Museum).

Part of an ongoing series on Baptism In Depth.

An important context for understanding what Baptism is and how the New Testament Church viewed it can be found in the Old Testament types (Greek τύποι, ‘examples’, ‘figures’) which New Testament authors saw to foreshadow Baptism. The two most important types for Baptism which the Apostles themselves understood are the Israelites’ crossing of the Red Sea with Moses, which St. Paul explores in 1 Corinthians 10:1–6, and the miraculous salvation of Noah and his family from the Great Flood, to which St. Peter alludes in 1 Peter 3:18–22.

Paul presents the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt as a type of Christ’s salvation in several respects:

I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did.

Paul sees the manna, “bread from heaven,” and the water from the rock, as symbols of the Eucharist, the “supernatural food and drink” of Christ the Rock’s own Body and Blood (as Christ Himself illustrated in John 6:48–51). In the pillar of cloud which led the Israelites through the desert (Exodus 13:21–22) and the crossing of the Red Sea led by Moses (Exodus 14:15–31), he observes the basic elements of the Sacrament of Baptism — the Holy Spirit and water (cf. Titus 3:5). Paul sees that in their passage through the desert and through the sea, the Israelites were “baptized into Moses” — as in Christian Baptism, we are “baptized into Christ” (Romans 6:3). Just as in the exodus, the Israelites passed from bondage into the Old Covenant, and were bound to Moses and to the Law, so do we, through Baptism, pass from being dead in sin to new life in the New Covenant, and are incorporated into the Body of Christ. (Saint Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians, The Navarre Bible [Dublin; New York: Four Courts Press; Scepter Publishers, 2005], 83.) Baptism, therefore, is a passage, an entrance into the life of Christ. Paul similarly understands Baptism to be “the circumcision of Christ,” initiating us into the New Covenant of Christ as circumcision initiated the Jews into the Abrahamic covenant (Colossians 2:11–14).

Passage of the Jews through the Red Sea (1891), by Ivan Aivazovsky (WikiPaintings).

Peter similarly understands Baptism to be a passage:

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him. (1 Peter 3:18–22)

Noah’s Ark (1966), by Marc Chagall (WikiPaintings).

Just as the Flood represented death for the great mass of sinful humanity, and Noah’s Ark provided safe passage and salvation for Noah and his family — so Baptism in water represents death to sin and burial with Christ (Romans 6:3-5), and through water we are saved. Baptism now saves us, not as a washing of literal dirt from our bodies, but as a deeper, spiritual cleansing (cf. Ephesians 5:25–27), and an appeal — Greek ἐπερώτημα, a question, request, appeal — but containing the idea of a pledge or commitment (literally συνειδήσεως ἀγαθῆς ἐπερώτημα εἰς θεόν, an appeal to God of or from a clean conscience). These verses may reference and quote from an early baptismal liturgy. (The Catholic Letters, The Navarre Bible [Dublin; New York: Four Courts Press; Scepter Publishers, 2005], 85.)

The imagery represented by both of these types is clear: that of salvation from bondage and death, and a passage into a new life. Next time we will examine how Baptism was practiced in the life of the Early Church — and how this reflects the Apostles’ theological understanding of the Sacrament.

Some more thoughts on Substitutionary Atonement

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

The Crucifixion (1311) (fragment), by Duccio (WikiPaintings)

Today, while reflecting on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, I had a few more thoughts about the recent controversy over Substitutionary Atonement.

Certainly there is a real sense in which the Atonement is substitutionary in the Catholic mind: For in the Sorrowful Mysteries, we are encouraged to think on Christ bearing the sufferings for our sins, the punishment and death that we deserve. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). “He is the true Lamb who has taken away the sins of the world; by dying He destroyed our death, and by rising restored our life” (Preface I of Easter). But the idea that Christ atones for our sins by satisfying or appeasing the wrath of God that would otherwise be poured out on sinners is just as surely contrary to everything we believe. If anything, in our mind, it is not God punishing Christ as we ourselves punishing Him through our sins. In the liturgy of His Passion, even, we the Church read the voices of Christ’s persecutors. Christ suffers for our sins, not because God pours out His wrath on Him, but because He in His Divine Mercy and love chose to take them on Himself.

El Greco, Christ Carrying the Cross (c. 1578)

She also posts a lot of beautiful artwork. Christ Carrying the Cross (c. 1578), by El Greco.

This idea of “penal satisfaction” stands opposed to the very idea of the Mass: In the Mass, we re-present the eternal sacrifice of Christ, together with the sacrifice of ourselves, to the Father — because this sacrifice is pleasing to Him, an act of total, self-emptying love, an act of worship; not because it satisfies His wrath. Christ “gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). We who share in His Body and Blood are partners in His altar (1 Corinthians 10:16–18), participating in His sacrifice, offering ourselves as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1).

But I think I can understand in this one of the reasons why some Protestants have such difficulty understanding and accepting the Mass, supposing that we are “re-sacrificing” Christ again and again, repeating His once and for all sacrifice (Hebrews 9:26). In their conception of the Atonement, because its primary purpose was to pay the penalty for our sins, and because He paid once and for all the penalty for all, for all times — because He satisfied the wrath of God once and for all — that sacrifice never has to be presented again. And in their minds, the very idea of re-presenting Christ’s sacrifice implies that we believe the wrath of God has returned and must be appeased again, that in our sins we have once again stirred His enmity. But we believe no such thing: In the Passion, Christ poured himself out wholly for us in love, a love that continues to flow, that is everlasting and never runs out; and in the Mass we continually join with Him in that love, in communion, in pouring out ourselves and offering ourselves wholly to God.

Addendum: I think, too, this might be a reason why Protestants misunderstand the Crucifix, the depiction of Christ “still on the Cross.” They object because this implies to them that we believe the work of the Cross, of the Atonement, is not finished; that Christ must continue to suffer again and again for our sins. But though His saving work on the Cross, the breaking of His Body and shedding of His Blood, is complete, He pours Himself our for us in love forever, a work that is never-ending. The grace, the love, mercy which flow from the Cross, will never cease to flow.

Going to the source: Some light on the Assumption of Mary from Munificentissimus Deus

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

Assumption of the Virgin, by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon (1758-1823) (WikiPaintings)

I don’t have a lot of time for an update today, and am in no mood for argument; but this is an important day: the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the celebration of our Blessed Mother being assumed body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life, as a sign of the promised resurrection for each of us. For me it is especially meaningful: for on this day seven years ago, I received in my own body a foretaste of that resurrection.

I made a meaty post last year which expounded some of the scriptural and patristic testimonies to the Assumption; it is worth a read. Today I took a few minutes to read and reflect on Munificentissimus Deus, the Apostolic Constitution by which Pope Pius XII declared the Assumption a dogma of the Catholic Faith on 1 November 1950. If any one is doubtful or insecure about the Catholic Church’s promulgation of a dogma that is not spelled out explicitly in Scripture — if any one feels that the Magisterium of the Church is free to pull fanciful doctrines out of hats, to invent and declare to a gullible public whatever is expedient or profitable for the prelates of the age — he need only read this document, to understand the prayer, caution, and deliberation that goes into such a declaration; the certainty and unanimity in a doctrine that is required; the research and reasoning and support from the deposit of faith that must form its foundation.

Venerable Pope Pius XII.

Here I’ll give a few quotations that stood out to me in particular. I would encourage anyone who is curious to learn more to read the whole thing (it’s not a very lengthy document), and read my post from last year.

Pope Pius XII, in a 1946 encyclical letter to all the bishops of the Church, Deiparae Virginis Mariae, asked what they thought of the notion of promulgating the Assumption (which has been held since the earliest centuries of the Church) as a dogma — if it could or should be done. To this he received a nearly unanimous response in favor (§16):

But those whom “the Holy Spirit has placed as bishops to rule the Church of God” (Acts 20:28) gave an almost unanimous affirmative response to both these questions. This “outstanding agreement of the Catholic prelates and the faithful” (Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus [1854]), affirming that the bodily Assumption of God’s Mother into heaven can be defined as a dogma of faith, since it shows us the concordant teaching of the Church’s ordinary doctrinal authority and the concordant faith of the Christian people which the same doctrinal authority sustains and directs, thus by itself and in an entirely certain and infallible way, manifests this privilege [the Assumption] as a truth revealed by God and contained in that divine deposit which Christ has delivered to his Spouse to be guarded faithfully and to be taught infallibly (First Vatican Council, Dei filius [1870]).

In other words: the near-unanimous response in favor proved that the teaching authority of the Church was in agreement with the faith of the Church.

Certainly this teaching authority of the Church, not by any merely human effort but under the protection of the Spirit of Truth (John 14:26), and therefore absolutely without error, carries out the commission entrusted to it, that of preserving the revealed truths pure and entire throughout every age, in such a way that it presents them undefiled, adding nothing to them and taking nothing away from them. For, as the Vatican Council teaches, “the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter in such a way that, by his revelation, they might manifest new doctrine, but so that, by his assistance, they might guard as sacred and might faithfully propose the revelation delivered through the apostles, or the deposit of faith.” (First Vatican Council, Pastor Aeternus [1870]).

Assumption of the Virgin (c. 1550), by Tintoretto (WikiPaintings)

This is where it leapt out at me: To the mind of the Church, to all the faithful who petitioned for the dogmatization of the Assumption, to all the bishops who affirmed it, this was not the promulgation of a “new doctrine,” but the protection of the Divine Revelation handed down by the Apostles, that had been a part of the deposit of faith for time immemorial.

Pope Pius then went on to lay out many testimonies and evidences from both Scripture and Tradition which affirm the truth of the Assumption. Noting that the Church had celebrated the Assumption in her liturgy since ancient times, he declared (§20):

However, since the liturgy of the Church does not engender the Catholic faith, but rather springs from it, in such a way that the practices of the sacred worship proceed from the faith as the fruit comes from the tree, it follows that the holy Fathers and the great Doctors, in the homilies and sermons they gave the people on this feast day, did not draw their teaching from the feast itself as from a primary source, but rather they spoke of this doctrine as something already known and accepted by Christ’s faithful. They presented it more clearly. They offered more profound explanations of its meaning and nature, bringing out into sharper light the fact that this feast shows, not only that the dead body of the Blessed Virgin Mary remained incorrupt, but that she gained a triumph out of death, her heavenly glorification after the example of her only begotten Son, Jesus Christ — truths that the liturgical books had frequently touched upon concisely and briefly.

We today are so fixated on primary sources, on declaring proofs for everything we do; but Pope Pius here makes an important point: that ancient Christians based their liturgy on the faith revealed to them, and that the Fathers who expounded on the Assumption did so from that very tradition handed down from the Apostles, not from the surviving liturgical texts which now we look to as proofs.

The Assumption of the Virgin (1650), by Nicolas Poussin (WikiPaintings).

Since the universal Church, within which dwells the Spirit of Truth who infallibly directs it toward an ever more perfect knowledge of the revealed truths, has expressed its own belief many times over the course of the centuries, and since the bishops of the entire world are almost unanimously petitioning that the truth of the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven should be defined as a dogma of divine and Catholic faith — this truth which is based on the Sacred Writings, which is thoroughly rooted in the minds of the faithful, which has been approved in ecclesiastical worship from the most remote times, which is completely in harmony with the other revealed truths, and which has been expounded and explained magnificently in the work, the science, and the wisdom of the theologians — we believe that the moment appointed in the plan of divine providence for the solemn proclamation of this outstanding privilege of the Virgin Mary has already arrived.

Pope Pius concluded (§41) that the overwhelming weight of evidence supports this declaration of the Assumption: not only its basis in Scripture, but the certainty in the minds of the faithful, in its celebration in liturgy since the most ancient times, in its harmony with all other revealed truths (something I wanted in particular to point out to critics), and in the extensive and learned exposition by all the theologians of the ages. This, truly, was not a case of “making stuff up”: it was a setting down of what was already known and believed.

Substitutionary Commotion

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Joseph T. Richardson

[NOTE: This is not to be confused with Substitutiary Locomotion.]

I suppose it’s time to raise my blowhole for a few moments.

The Crucifixion (ca. 1311), by Giotto (WikiPaintings).

It’s been a hard few weeks, with yet another ugly head rising from the stump of my thesis, just as soon as I thought I’d dealt the death blow. I pray, once again, that I nearly have the thing where I want it and can push to the end very soon. And I’ve been stressed out and struggling and grouchy and in a foul mood, so I apologize to anyone with whom I’ve gotten into an argument recently. And I’ve been staying away from the blogosphere the past week or so, probably to the benefit of getting work done.

I know I still have the series on Baptism on the stove, and the one on Indulgences. Please bear with me. I hope I’ll be able to serve up something worthwhile whenever I have time.

The past week or so there’s been something else on my mind that I wanted to write about, though I have the time neither to research it properly nor write it up fully right now. It’s this debacle recently in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the more mainline, liberal denomination of American Presbyterians, over removal of the modern hymn “In Christ Alone” from their new hymnal — allegedly over an objection to its reference to the “wrath of God,” though now the Presbyterians are saying that the offense was instead because of the reference to God’s wrath being “satisfied,” implying the satisfaction theory of atonement, which, I was surprised to learn, they reject (contrary to historic Presbyterian doctrine).

The offending lyric:

Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev’ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

Eugene Delacroix, Christ on the Cross (1853)

Christ on the Cross (1853), by Eugene Delacroix (WikiPaintings).

The truth is, I must confess, I’ve never understood the differences between the various theories of the atonement — neither how they differed from one another, or what the big deal was. I had heard, vaguely, that the Reformed and Evangelicals adhere to the doctrine of penal substitution; while I’d heard that we Catholics did not. But it seemed to me that in this, as in many other areas of doctrine, differing opinions might be compatible with one another and weren’t necessarily contradictory. Christ’s Crucifixion, Death, and Resurrection are the pivotal events of all history; can’t they have done more than one thing, or be validly understood more than one way? Can their mystery even really be comprehended fully by human understanding?

After all, don’t we all believe that Christ died to atone for our sins? Does Scripture not clearly say that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins — not just ours, but those of the whole world (1 John 2:2)? That God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of His Blood (Romans 3:25)? Yes, but beyond this, a number of understandings of the Atonement — why Christ died for our sins and how the propiation of our sins is accomplished — have been put forward. It’s here that the theological poverty of my upbringing really shows: I had never even heard of this until I began reading deeply into Reformed theology last year. (Thanks to Resting in His Grace for calling the matter to my attention this time around.)

Carl Bloch, The Resurrection of Christ (1875)

The Resurrection of Christ (1875), by Carl Bloch (WikiPaintings)

It is certainly true, as I suspected, that the Christus Victor understanding of Christ’s Death and Resurrection — that Christ conquered death, hell, and the grave (cf. Revelation 20:13–14) — was perfectly scriptural and in no way opposed to the idea, also perfectly scriptural, that Christ died in atonement for our sins (Romans 5:11). But it’s with this idea of atonement proper — how Jesus’s death atones for our sins — about which we have disagreements — in how to interpret Scripture. And these disagreements are compounded by confusion, by appeals and false appeals to the Early Church, by Reformed proponents finding antecedents of their view in Anselm or whomever, and Catholic scholars rejecting such suggestions, with the result that it’s unclear to me who was teaching what or when.

Even as an Evangelical, I didn’t understand this idea of penal substitution. But it truly pervades the Evangelical understanding. I took for granted growing up that Jesus “paid the price for our sins” and “died for our sins so we wouldn’t have to” — and have even thoughtlessly used such language as a Catholic. But the more I read about this doctrine, and learn what it truly rests on, the less I like it. What seemed on the surface to be hair-splitting nuance reflects a much deeper and more troubling misunderstanding of the love and mercy of God.

Bryan Cross has, as usual, a splendid and piercing exposition on the differences between the Catholic and Reformed conceptions of the Atonement. And I begin to understand what is meant by the statement that “as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.” In the understanding of Penal Substitution, God the Father punished Christ the Son for all the sins of humanity. Christ literally bore the penalty (poena) for our sins, the penalty we would otherwise suffer. God poured out His wrath, the wrath of judgment on sinners, on Christ the spotless lamb, who knew no sin.

Christ on the Cross (1665), by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (WikiPaintings)

Now, Bryan can give this matter much greater theological clarity and detail; what I offer is my gut reaction. I have always been troubled, even as an Evangelical, by the image of “sinners in the hands of an angry God” put forward by Jonathan Edwards — God as an angry, wrath-filled deity, ravenous to punish sinners. Certainly our loving and merciful God, who sent His only Son that we might be saved, does not want to punish sinners. Certainly He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but desires that he turn from his way and live (Ezekiel 33:11). So it seems utterly foreign to the idea of a loving God that He would punish His own Son. In my conception, even as an evangelical, Christ willingly bore our sins, was wounded for our transgressions — but it wasn’t God punishing Him so much as Christ giving Himself up for us. I can find nothing in Scripture to support the view of a wrathful God punishing an innocent Christ. Certainly God’s wrath is reserved for the wicked on the Day of their judgment (cf. Revelation 19:15); and certainly that wrath will not now be turned upon those of us who are saved in Christ Jesus. But the idea of God punishing Christ with our penalty, such that his wrath is satisfied, has an even deeper consequence that I never understood before.

It’s from this that the Reformed and Evangelicals receive their misunderstanding that “salvation” is a one-time thing, that when they have faith in Christ, they are “saved” and their sins are “covered” — not just their past sins, but every sin they will ever commit. Because Christ, in addition to atoning for our sins, purchasing our pardon (what we would call the ransom theory of atonement), paid the penalty that was meant for us, for all our sins forever — such that there is no more penalty left for us to pay. He has already suffered the penalty for any sin we could ever commit, so we will never have to suffer any penalty — ergo, all our sins are effectively already forgiven.

Rembrandt, The Sacrifice of Abraham (1635)

The Sacrifice of Abraham (1635), Rembrandt (WikiPaintings).

There is a fine nuance here: Certainly, we Catholics agree, Christ died to atone for all our sins, ever, for all time — even the sins we had not yet committed — since temporally, all of us sinners had not even been born yet, let alone committed any sins; and His mercy will still be there for many more generations of sinners after we die. We are redeemed — bought with a price — before we are born, before we sin — but we are not forgiven until we present ourselves repentant. There is certainly a limitless flow of the mercy and grace Christ bought for us, to forgive our every sin for all time; but rather than Christ paying a penalty that we will now never have to pay, He bought our redemption, to unshackle us from sin and death, when He calls us to Him to receive it.

I’m giving myself a headache. There is a whole lot more of this where it came from, and another deep hole of theology to fall into.

The Lonely Pilgrim

A Christian's Road Home to Rome and Journey Onward

Monthly Archives: August 2013