There seems to be a lot of controversy around atonement theory, especially in regard to those who advocate for so called Penal 
Subsitutionary Atonement (PSA) theory, and those who donโt. I used to be a strong advocate of PSA as the touchstone of what holds all other theories of the atonement together. But I have shifted, of course. In evangelical Calvinism, along with Thomas Torrance (and others), I have advocated for the ontological theory of the atonement (I have written about that somewhere else). The underlying premise behind the ontological theory is that sin has so affected who we are as people (at an ontic level) that we need to be recreated, or in โbiblicalโ terms, resurrected (the Apostle Paul seems to agree, see Romans 6โ8). The underlying premise behind a PSA view is that Godโs holy law has been broken, thus a penalty incurred, thus this penalty needs to be paid for. To further complicate this (the PSA view), all of the terms and categories it has received come through a late medieval conception of salvation known as Covenant or Federal theology; it is this basis that informs and shapes, I will assert, popular and even academic conceptions of PSA today. But without getting further into fleshing out definitions, comparisons and contrasts between PSA and the Ontological theory (among other theories), letโs hear from Christian Kettler on Karl Barthโs approach to atonement theory (it fits with the Ontological theory of the atonement that us Evangelical Calvinists believe should be primary in this ongoing discussion). Here is Kettler on Barth:
The New Testament description of this โhistoryโ [Jesusโ history] speaks of a particular, once for all event which consists of three parts. The first consists of the sayings and acts of Jesus in Galilee, where he is in control, and, in a sense, remote from others in his purity. The second part consists of Gethsemane and the Passion. Jesus is no longer the subject but the object of what happens. A judgment takes place, not upon the guilty, but upon the Judge.
The real commentary is in the third part of the story, the resurrection narrative. It tells us that the gospel story is โsignificant in itself.โ There is no power beyond the object which can cause it to become significant. In the case of Jesus, it is the power of the Judge to take the place of those who are judged, โthe power of the corresponding becoming.โ Therefore our subjectivity is not something which could begin to add anything to this greatest of โfacts.โ
He speaks for Himself whenever He is spoken of and His story is told and heard. It is not He that needs proclamation but proclamation that needs Him. [Karl Barth]
In addition, if Christ is present today, one cannot relegate the history of Jesus Christ to the past. No, it is โa history which is the new history for every man.โ The reality of salvation is found for Barth not in the history of religious experiences of humanity but in the history of one man, the man who has taken the place of humanity in judgment.[1]
So for Karl Barth atonement theory reposes in and from Godโs identification with us in the Incarnation of His Son, Jesus Christ. If we are going to have a forensic language connected to what happened in atonement, and we must, since the Bible has such language, then this is the alternative we should follow; the alternative is grounded in a thoroughgoing doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ. The idea that the Judge became judged for us takes the forensic components and collapses them where they need to be collapsed. Not into a quid-pro-quo Covenantal schema imposed upon Scriptural categories which gives us the Penal Substitutionary Atonement theory, but it collapses such legal language back into its rightful context as given, sustained, and realized in Godโs life of Triune love for us in his elected life with us in Jesus Christ. Note Kettler further on Barth and the importance of the vicarious humanity of Christ at this point:
Barth states that Jesus Christ is โfor usโ because he took our place as judge. Instead of the arrogance of humanity which assumes the place of judge, God has intervened in Jesus Christ, having claimed that place for himself, and has judged the sin of humanity. This is not simply an intellectual exposure of the arrogance of humanity, but a taking away of its place by the humanity of Christ. This is the radicality of the vicarious nature of the humanity of Christ in Barthโs doctrine of the atonement. Such radicality has great implications for the comprehensiveness of the gospel, since โJesus as very man and God has taken the place of every man.โ Ethical implications are relevant here, also. This is a โreplacement,โ not a new prohibition or commandment from eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In summary, โreplacementโ speaks of โvicarious humanity.โ[2]
If we are going to say that we affirm historic and orthodox Chalcedonian christology (i.e. two natures Christology), then we must follow its reduction where it leads; it leads to a radical doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ. He is the Judge who has freely been judged for us!
I am feeling pretty passionate about all of this as I write this, I am having to constrain myself from really saying what I think about this whole online atonement discussion that has been taking place between so called Progressive and Conservative (primarily of a certain Reformed variety) Christians. It just seems like it is missing the boat.
[1] Christian Kettler, The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Reality of Salvation (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1991), 241.
[2] Ibid., 242-43.
On this topic, Bobby, the ratio of self-disclosures to insights in blogospheric comment is higher than usual.
Comments often tell us so much more about those making them than about God that you start speculating about their childhoods. “Was he spanked as a child?” “Was he also a finicky eater?” “Was there a bully in the schoolyard?” Yet although types may be drawn to poles, I doubt that all at either pole are the same. Each, after all, has had fully half of Christendom.
The most polarized are either hot or cold to the components of the theories.
(1) One of the camps insists on the individual as a discrete character at the center of a hot drama, while the other is content with the individual as a participant in a cooler if grander scheme of things.
(2) Their two pictures of creation apart from Christ are seldom switched or combined– a shining steady-state law that is more valued than humanity; mortal enemies of humanity who are both frightening and invincible. A creation that is all overhead fluorescent lighting over cube farms and another that is all parking garages with figures in shadows.
Some have strong feelings about the plurality of theories.
(3) Many for PSA and a few for CV are adamant that, if a few theories are held together, their theory must be the dominant one in the mix. One can conceive of an exegetical argument for such a view, but these seem to be, rather. demands of the heart.
(4) All-or-nothing thinking– “That’s just no salvation at all”– can be heard from the most polarized on either side, but it seems to surface fastest for the PSA side.
(5) This is, alas, one of those topics on which some at each pole feel disgust at those near the other.
It’s not a bad thing that people care about the atonement. As they do, it’s not surprising that they feel differently about the images of which divers doctrine are assembled. However, it would be a better discussion if the malevolent ‘righteous mind’ that some bring to these differences were to dissipate. Or is the prospect of combat what attracts some minds to theology in the first place?
Is this postmodernity?– people discovering themselves as personalities as they drift through theological space into identities reminiscent of the past? Nothing dies, all recycles. “Writing from the Muenster tradition…” A century ago, people wrote as though doctrines were clearly true or false, right or wrong. The elimination of error seemed a reasonable goal. Now it’s not unusual for people to shrug off what seems to be conclusive refutation from scripture to be true to their brand. They are not testing the strength of their arguments against other arguments; perhaps they are instead testing the indissolubility of their adopted identities against the flux?
“If we are going to say that we affirm historic and orthodox Chalcedonian christology (i.e. two natures Christology), then we must follow its reduction where it leads; it leads to a radical doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ. He is the Judge who has freely been judged for us!”
(1) To some (eg Daniel Boyarin, the Berkeley talmudist) the representative christology of CV is explicit in Ezekiel 1.26 and Daniel 7.13, well before Jesus or Chalcedon.
(2) Unlike some alternatives, CV can draw on texts from the Exile as well as the Fall.
Psychologically, CV is just plain easier to defend against all enemies foreign and domestic. I wonder if this does not antagonize the antagonistic?
Or: “Does this [ie that CV is just plain easier to defend] antagonize the antagonistic [who seem drawn to more doctrine that is hard to defend than we can explain by their circumstances]?”