Atonement theories

Discussion in 'Theology and Doctrine' started by Celtic1, Dec 15, 2012.

  1. An Awkward Aardvark

    An Awkward Aardvark New Member

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    I'm a day (really 8 months) late and a dollar short, but I found this thread to be interesting. Personally, I think we need each prism of the classic Christian theories of the Atonement to attempt to understand the wonderful mystery that Christ accomplished in his death and resurrection. Also, any reliance on any one theory: Christ the Victor, Ransom, Substitution, Satisfaction, or Recapitulation; will result in a denial of the fullness of the Gospel and can lead to warped notions of God.

    For example, much of today's books and blogs from the Orthodox Church members on the Atonement ridicule and reject any hint of a substitution, satisfaction, or wrath theories of the Atonement. I can't help but disagree when St. Cyril says in his Lecture 13:



    http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.ii.xvii.html
    Lecture XIII: On the words, Crucified and Buried.
    The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril
     
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  2. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    first off, welcome to the forums Awkward Aardvark! that's a great quote. When it comes to atonement theories, I think it's a little like blind sages trying to guess the elephant. by being too dogmatically narrow in our view of atonement--by seeing only one thing happening-- we risk missing out on the possibility that multiple things may be occuring in the atonement. i don't see any or at least most of these theories as being mutually exclusive. Maybe it's the episcopalian in me, but it think this isn't so much an either/or question, but rather a question of both/and.
     
  3. Lux Christi

    Lux Christi Active Member

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    I totally agree, Lowly Layman! The Atonement of Christ should be regarded as much a Mystery as the Consecration of the Holy Eucharist on the Altar. I actually very much like the Mormon view of the Atonement, where it occurred right in the night of Gethsemane, all the way to the Resurrection. I also do appeal to the moral view of the Atonement as well.

    However, I do understand that such things are mere limitations of a divine act of God. And as such, it remains a transformative act of redemptive love and mercy, from the burden of the old covenant, to the renewal of this new Covenant of reconciliation unto God.
     
  4. Ogygopsis

    Ogygopsis Active Member

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    I've been through many discussions of atonement and the purpose of Jesus crucifixion and resurrection, the theology of it all. I even took some philosophy and religion classes both as a univ student in the 1970s and as lay continuing education from the Anglican seminary. I am far too dim to really get it. It seems too intellectual to have theories about it all. One of the helpful things I was told by an archbishop while lunching with him and a bishop (that's another story as to how I was invited to be the third person in such a luncheon) is that we must also understand these things through our aesthetic senses, the felt and real truths we understand beyond purely proven facts. Thus, Jesus was arrested after some scheming between Romans and the Jewish religious authorities, put on trial and killed, people then provided independent corroboration of the resurrection. Them's the facts. The focus of Christians was then to acknowledge these facts and then to form their lives in accord with the principles Jesus taught and demonstrated. The various theories and ideas about atonement are not the facts, nor are they necessarily self-evident from it. They are attempts by humans to explain how it all works in the other-worldly divine sphere. These understandings will necessarily be true and confusing, some of them will appeal more to others than some other explanations. But they all have truth attached to them. But critical: does a particular way of understanding move you personally or corporately (i.e., as a parish) toward or away from God?

    I'm not explaining I feel that well or completely. But I think it is important to know that we cannot understand when we are here in earth, and when we have those snippets of grace of understanding, then we actually do know briefly, in ineffable and undiscussable ways. Thus what many of us 'get' (and all may have if they only want it) with eucharist and communion, and also some other times.

    (I'm completely unversed in Mormon anything, and had thought they were somewhere outside of Christianity, a Christianity hybridized with some novel and not really Christian ideas. I get they have an authentic faith, but are they Christian?)
     
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  5. Stephanos

    Stephanos New Member

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  6. Cable

    Cable New Member

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    I've always liked St. Anselm's theory of the atonement. I also think that most, if not all, of the atonement theories have something valuable to offer. St. Anselm just resonates with me. Maybe the Lord allowed different kinds of theologians to emphasize different aspects of His redeeming work, so that different kinds of people could be impacted by them.
     
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