Mapping Atonement: an appreciation

In February I was privileged to visit Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, to deliver two lectures. This was at the invitation of my longtime friend Bill Witt, who teaches systematic theology and ethics there. We became friends during our graduate studies at Notre Dame in the 1980s and have remained such ever since. While I was at Trinity, he presented me with a copy of his book, co-authored with his colleague Joel Scandrett, titled, Mapping Atonement: The Doctrine of Reconciliation in Christian History and Theology (Baker, 2022). I have no intention of analyzing and critiquing the book, as I am not a theologian, and the subject matter falls outside my fields of competence. But I will say something about the contents and indicate that I learned a lot that I hadn't known or thought about before.

As a Reformed Christian, I am naturally familiar with penal substitutionary atonement, which emphasizes that Jesus' death on the cross paid the price for our sins and delivers us from death. What I had not known is that, throughout the two millennia of Christian history, there have been other models of the atonement that emphasize different aspects of how God chose to reconcile humanity to himself through Jesus Christ. Taken together, these constitute a fuller account of the atonement than we may be accustomed to hear within our respective traditions. The authors take each of these models chapter by chapter.

The first chapter begins with the atonement as incarnation, as found in the theologies of Irenaeus of Lyons and Athanasius of Alexandria. According to this view, God becoming man in Jesus Christ is already decisive in our salvation. "As the second Adam, Jesus brings reconciliation by 'recapitulating' the human condition. Where Adam failed, Jesus has succeeded. He has undergone every aspect of human life, accomplishing atonement through his incarnation, death, and resurrection" (24). The emphasis on incarnation is typical of Orthodoxy and some strains in Anglicanism.

The second chapter is devoted to the Christus Victor model, which emphasizes the victory of Christ over the powers of sin and death through his resurrection. This metaphor is found in several of the church fathers and came to prominence in the 20th century with Swedish Lutheran theologian Gustaf Aulén (1879-1977). Here the focus is on the cosmic struggle between God and the forces of evil, over which Christ has triumphed. "Christus Victor understands atonement as a 'drama' with a series of key plot moments rather than a single incident" (54). Jesus' entire life is instrumental in our salvation.

The third chapter surveys the thought of Anselm of Canterbury, who emphasizes atonement as satisfaction. Here the metaphors are legal and expressed in terms of punishment, retribution, and the restoration of honour. Anselm's approach would heavily influence Reformed accounts of the atonement five centuries later.

The fourth chapter covers Peter Abelard and the Wesley brothers who viewed the atonement as a manifestation of divine love. "What is distinctive about Abelard's atonement theology, far from diminishing the objective work of Christ, is his reframing of it as the gracious working of God's love" (89). The Wesleys follow a similar model.

Chapter five explores the thought of Thomas Aquinas, who does not bring to the fore a single model of atonement but discusses it from more than one angle, summed up under the notion of fittingness. "God became incarnate not of necessity but because it was the most 'fitting' way to bring about salvation" (103).

In the sixth chapter, the authors finally arrive at penal substitution, as found in the theologies of Calvin and Princeton theologian Charles Hodge. In this model what Anselm called satisfaction is further developed into punishment: "God cannot forgive sin unless justice is satisfied, and satisfaction of justice demands punishment" (126). A distinctive emphasis enters the picture with Christ's sacrifice on the cross identified with appeasement of divine wrath.

In chapter seven, the authors move into quite different territory by looking at the modernist Anglican theologian Hastings Rashdall (1858-1924). While the previous chapters covered constitutive models of the atonement, whereby Christ himself has accomplished our redemption, Rashdall embraces an illustrative model, whereby Jesus, in his life, teachings, and death, merely provides an example for us to follow. Rashdall is at the edges of the Christian tradition, believing that Jesus was not the incarnate Son of God but a very good man in whom God was dwelling more fully than in others. This model of the atonement has been widely influential in the old line Protestant churches.

From here the authors look at Karl Barth (1886-1968), arguably the greatest Protestant theologian of the 20th century. The genius of Barth is that he draws on all the historic metaphors in his understanding of the atonement, putting together a multifaceted account of God's free act of reconciling humanity to himself through Jesus Christ. For Barth the atonement can be summed up in one word: Immanuel, "God with us."

Barth's primary metaphor is forensic: "The Judge Judged in Our Place." Yet when Barth speaks of "judgment," "punishment," the "wrath of God," or "satisfaction," he explains these metaphors through a logic reminiscent of patristic incarnational and Christus Victor models. Atonement does not bring about a change in God—moving God from wrath to love or from judgment to forgiveness. Rather, from beginning to end, the atonement is a revelation of God's love (200).

The final chapter looks at contemporary theologians, focussing on the prolific N. T. Wright and the late Thomas Torrance (1913-2007), a student of Barth who taught at the University of Edinburgh and an ordained Church of Scotland minister.

What I learned from this book is that in Jesus' birth, life, teachings, death, and resurrection taken together God has effected our salvation. Although this book was published only last year, I can see it becoming a standard textbook for undergraduate and seminary theology courses. It's an excellent survey of the various models of the atonement articulated over the past two millennia, with a solid analysis of each model. If you are not a theologian, but an ordinary Christian grateful to God for salvation in Jesus Christ, you can still get much out of this book. I certainly did.