Atonement?

A Reader writes, "My friend and I were having a debate about the concept of Christ dying for human sin. Since Christ would not have to have died such a terrible death if humans had not sinned, do Christians feel guilty about this? If so, is guilt over Christ's death a form of atonement?"

An extremely good question.  Let me expound.  Most Christians, if you ask them, will tell you that Christ died for our sins.  But if you ask them at a party, "yes, but HOW?"  They will get a slightly glazed look in their eyes and find a convenient excuse to visit the punch bowl, or possibly the bathroom where they will sing "Jesus loves me this I know" until the pain goes away.

The truth is, the church (in the universal sense) has always maintained that Jesus redeems our sins, but has not ever settled on one particular explanation as to exactly how this takes place.  The explanations are called "Atonement Theories."  The leading candidates are:

1. Restoration - Put forward by Athanasius in 318 AD.  The cross in not central, but the incarnation is.  By becoming human, Jesus restores the image of God in humanity to its original pre-fall state.  The cross was the result of love coming into the world, not the intention.
2. Satisfaction - Put forward by Anselm in 1100 or so.  Based in the thinking of the feudal system, our sin was a refusal to give our feudal lord (God) the proper honor he was due.  Since God's honor is so far above our own, we could not make proper satisfaction for the slight.  Only someone with equivalent honor (God again) could right it, so God did through Jesus by dying and taking on our dishonor.
3. Moral Example - Put forward by Peter Abelard around 1100 or so.  We have weak wills, but we are profane, not evil.  Jesus came to earth to show us how to live and by his cross showed us how to suffer and die in a way that honors God.
4. Christus Victor - Put forward by Gustav Aulen in 1879 or so.  We are weak when it comes to the influence of Evil.  Jesus' death breaks the power of hell and allows us to live free of those influences.

There are many, many more.  Some are blends of these four, others are distinct.  In the Western Church, Anselm's model became ascendant in the middle ages with its use by Thomas Aquinas in Eucharistic theology (theology about the presence of Jesus in the bread and wine of communion),  so in the Roman Catholic church, Anselm is heavily favored.  In the Anglican Church, I would say that most people hold some combination of Athanasias and Abelard.  In the Eastern Church, they just throw up their hands, say "it's a mystery" and worship it while refusing to answer the question, which may just be the best reaction.

But then, what is sin?  Sin is anything that separates us from God - things we do, things we don't do, things other people do on our behalf, etc.  It is a state of being, not a set of rules.  No one is sinless because things occur that separate us from God all the time.  Some we know about, and we are expected to work to eliminate those.  But there are others we might not be aware of. 

Let's take a fictional example.   The President of the United States orders a covert operation to take out a nest of insurgents, but the information was not good and the operatives kill innocents.  It's a secret operation and I have no knowledge about it.  However, my elected government has carried out a massacre involving men sworn to protect me and using my tax money.  This is sin on my part not because I could have prevented it, or because I would have approved of it, but because it in some way puts a barrier between me and God.  I may not be to blame, but the separation is there nonetheless.

As to whether we feel guilty about it, the answer is, "Yes."  Christians are really good at feeling guilty.   Whether we SHOULD feel guilty is another question.  After all, none of us made the choice that Adam and Eve mythically made.  We were born into the state of sinning (this is what original sin is about, not some idea that babies are evil). We would do much better to acknowledge it, ask forgiveness, and then move on.  One of the things I really like about our set of alternative liturgies in  Enriching our Worship (and there are a lot of things I don't like) is the confession:

"God of all mercy, we confess that we have sinned against you, opposing your will in our lives. We have denied your goodness in each other, in ourselves, and in the world you have created. We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf. Forgive, restore, and strengthen us through our Savior Jesus Christ, that we may abide in your love and serve only your will. Amen. " (EOW p. 56)

I think this confession says it all.  But the point is not to wallow in unworthiness.  That would only add sin to sin.  The point is for us to acknowledge that we do not have the strength in ourselves to overcome sin, to ask God for his strength and to commit ourselves to examination of ourselves and our world to root out those things that separate us from the God who loves us all so very much.  The rest we have to trust in God about.

David+

Comments

[Karen]

There is an alternative to atonement theory that fell out of favor in the West but is still very much alive in Eastern Christian theology: Gregory of Nyssa's "fish hook" idea. The Father uses Jesus as bait to defeat the devil. It's a theological explanation (grounded in patristic theology) that has been increasingly attractive to me because it places the cause of violence against Christ squarely on Satan's shoulders, not God's.

Gustav Aulen devotes a chapter to it in his book "Christus Victor" and explains it far better than I can.

[*Christopher]

Karen,

Luther used this model as well.

[Grant]

David:

Thanks for the post. This is interesting. I find some things in it that need comment, however.

First, the 4 theories on how Jesus atones for everyone else’s sin:

1.) This seems like a nice idea. But if Jesus restores us to a pre-fall state through incarnation, doesn’t he then largely largely eliminate the need for all the grace and other atonement-like things he’s supposed to provide?
2.) This one is just weird. It posits that God’s honor is so much more significant that ours that we couldn’t ever really properly atone for our sins on our own. First, this would appear to contradict all the atonement that is provided for in Scripture before the incarnation. But even if that weren’t the case, this idea runs into some real logical problems. We’re to assume God’s honor is greater than ours. I can accept that. But then we’re to assume that God would do something that we would only expect those of lesser personal honor to do: pay to himself the debt that he is due. It’s like some who makes a loan with cash from his 1st bank account and then pays the loan back to himself with money from his 2nd bank account. That’s just flat forgiveness of debt; it doesn’t actually repay (atone for) any debt. Also, given that humans are unlikely to treat debts in such a manner this seems to run contrary to the idea that God has greater honor and thus needs a more significant sacrifice.
3.) This seems to say that we should all seek to die as some sort of martyr. First of all, I struggle to see how that is a good thing. Second, this can’t be God’s intention because it is necessarily exclusionary and contrary to the idea of evangelism. If the evangelists are successful, the ability to die as a martyr is eliminated. Even if they were not successful, when the last person (who hasn’t yet dies as a martyr) is left, he/she wouldn’t be able to die as a martyr and thus wouldn’t be able to die in a manner that is pleasing to God. I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that God would set as a goal for us something that could not be accomplished by all.
4.) This one stands out as the most recent historically. We’re obviously not able to live free of the evil influences so either this explanation is just wrong, or Jesus did an awful job fulfilling his role on Earth. – Apparently he wrote a book on it thought so I’ll have to read that.

You mentioned there are other explanations. Are there any good ones? These all seem pretty poor. Maybe the Eastern response is the best. Just accept it as a mystery and then deal with it. Of course, if you do that you must deal with the fact that you’re believing God planned for some form of human sacrifice as the atonement for the sins of others. Additionally, the human sacrifice is supposed to have been a perfect, sinless sacrifice. That sounds awfully lot like pagan cultures sacrificing their children. It doesn’t, however, sound a whole lot like God.

About sin.
Where does you definition of sin come from? I don’t think I agree with it. But I can’t say it’s incorrect, so I’d like to read more about the source of that thinking. In the example you give we are essentially bound to all sin everyone at all times and there is no escaping it. That makes your definition of sin sound like an explanation that fabricates a need for Jesus. Furthermore, if, as you state, we are born into a state of sin and this sin is inescapable regardless of our own actions as your example seems to indicate then for what precisely are we to ask forgiveness when we acknowledge our sinfulness which we were born into an cannot escape? Being born? It seems based on what you’ve written here that that really is our only sin. Forgive me Father for I was born? This doesn’t make sense. What am I missing? I understand sin to mean missing the mark. Indeed, the Hebrew word for “sin” applies equally to a blind archer. Of course, missing the mark implies personal responsibility for sins much more than it does corporate or cooperative sin.

Side note: The confession above seems to acknowledge that the 4th explanation of how Jesus atones for the sins of all is bunk. Obviously, only one can be right, either Jesus freed us from evil or we’re under it enslaves us. OK, this is no longer a side note: This whole concept of being “enslaved” by evil is antithetical to free will. We are not enslaved to evil, nor to goodness. We have the free will to choose both good and evil. We are, however, called by God to choose good even when evil is more natural. Indeed, the ability to make that choice is what makes us human.

Thanks for keeping up this site. I think it’s great. (The “Jesus loves me this I know” song gives me the creeps, by the way. Thanks :-)