So, this is a complicated question, because our Greek brethren don't have any dogmatic way to unify doctrine (unlike the Teaching Church / ecclesia docens in Anglicanism). And thus you find a thousand different EO views on just about everything (justification, sacraments), and more to the point of this thread, you will find a vast jumble of views on atonement. In general, though, you will find the Greeks reacting against the Western church, so that the formulations found in the West will be thoroughly exorcised in the Greek churches. One such case is here, where many Greek theologians today will assert that they reject all of the concepts in the Latin (Western) church, and therefore don't believe in God's wrath, in the existence of Hell, or even in the concept of the Atonement. Indeed, as you will find in the video below, many Greek theologians state that they don't believe in any concept of the Atonement at all! We Anglicans have a clear and robust teaching on the atonement, from the Articles and the Prayer Book, namely Substitutionary Atonement. We have sinned against God infinitely, and therefore God must needs punish us infinitely, and to save us he incarnated and sent his Son to die on our behalf. This teaching is found in our churches for hundreds of years, and obviously many of the Greeks would castigate it as "Latin" or "Western" thinking and would thoroughly reject anything like substitution, satisfaction, atonement, sacrifice, hell, etc. EXCEPT-- Here is a video of two Eastern Orthodox discussing atonement with each other (far from Anglican eyes). And they basically confess a bit of shame of how Substitutionary Atonement is basically found among the Church Fathers. And how the EO church has abandoned the apostolic teaching. They go through other models current amongst EO theologians (such as the 'moral example' theory) and laugh them out of the room as totally alien to the apostolic church. They cite several church fathers, most especially St. Cyril's Catechetical Lectures 13.33, which teaches Substitutionary Atonement in clear and simple terms. They also concede that the Sacred Scriptures obviously teaches this doctrine in the Book of Romans. You really don't want to miss this, and hopefully more EO will slowly come back to the apostolic and Anglican teachings:
In fairness, firstly of course you are correct in terms of recognising the difference in approach between the East and the West, when it comes to the matter of theology. Sometimes I see it in terms of the Lawyer in Luke 10, who wants to limit his responsibilities, as asks 'who is my neighbour', and Jesus poses the question in an entirely different way through the narrative of the Good Samaritan, a story I am sure we all know well. The difficulty I have is that often when we in the West come up with a theory of atonement, it then seems that we push that barrow as the correct way to understand it. Age has no doubt wearied me, however I find that every approach seems to have some virtues, so long as you don't push it too far. I am happy to see ideas of substitutionary atonement both in scripture and in the Fathers. I grew up with a hard doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement being present as the only correct way to understand the atonement, and as required for salvation. I think it was Anselm in Cur Deus Homo who finally opened my eyes to other approaches. Death is swallowed up in victory. Christ raised from the dead has lead a host of captives. God became human that we might share in the divine. In Christ the image and likeness we were called to bear has been restored. Christ died to pay for our sins, and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world. The advantage I see in the broadly Eastern approach of the ineffability (unable to be told) of the actions of God in the Atonement is that it asks us to be open to God, and open the the world that he loves. I believe that we in the West have much to learn from the East, and I suspect we may have something to contribute as well. I don't see it as simply a one sided relationship.
Except that human beings are incapable of doing anything infinitely, even sinning. We are however alienated from God by our sins, which are what separate us from him, rendering us incapable, under our own steam, of rectifying the situation. Much as a mental patient is often incapable of knowing the extent of their insanity, though it be plainly obvious to others. God both diagnosed and provided the healing remedy for our guilty disease and has annointed us with the balm of Giliad which is Jesus Christ The Righteous, the propitiation for our sins because of our inherent incapacity to heal ourselves. It is a mistake therefore to imagine that human beings were infinitely reprobate. Even slightly reprobate is enough to have come down terminally with the disease. It is a mistake to think human kind was so utterly corrupt that it was not worth dying for on a cross, because God actually contradicts that notion by having willingly done so, counting us therefore worthy of the pain and effort of saving us, even in our unsaved and morbid sinful condition. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Rom.5:6-8. This speaks more to us of the LOVE that God commends toward us sinners, than it does concerning God's requirement for perfection and sinlessness in his creatures. From Christ's point of view, unregenerate, unrepentant sinners are not so much 'dead in trespasses and in infinite sin' as they are: 'lost, cold, sodden, shivering and terrified, exposed on a misty, rainswept and thunderstruck hillside with precipices on all sides, bleating for rescue by the shepherd they've numbheadedly sheeplike, rejected since birth. Of course the cross must be central to all theories of the atonement, but it was not the only example of God's mission to mankind that Jesus Christ himself illustrated in explanation of our need of salvation. Luke 15:4-7. .
Look into the teaching of Anselm of Canterbury, and St. Augustine. Any sin committed against an infinite Being becomes itself infinite.
If I understand Anselm correctly, we owe our entire being to God, and in sinning we have taken from God something that is owed to God, we have no other resources by which we may repay God, so we needed that which we did not have so God became man (Cur Deus Homo) that man might repay God all that we owed to him. It is not, as I understand it the sin that is infinite, so much as the consequence of the sin that is infinite, and the infinity of that consequence is brought to a close, when God paid the price for us in Jesus stretched out upon the Cross.
Thanks for that, as I was probably too hasty to formulate it precisely. Another way I've seen it formulated it is, "Because God is of infinite honor, any sin against him requires an infinite payment". Either way, in a universe where we live next to God, anything we do against him is something that unfortunately, or sadly, or however you want to phrase it -- merits infinite punishment, because you've gone against an infinite (rather than a finite) being. To insult God means you just insulted him to an infinite extent, and for infinitely long. Unlike an offense against a contingent being like another person, an offense against God is truly terrible and awful in its consequences.
By what chain of logic is such a conclusion reached though? Could the following statement also be considered true in any way? "Any righteous deed committed in obedience to an infinite Being becomes itself infinite." We know this cannot be true simply because the righteous deeds of the saints did not render them infinitely righteous. Revelation 19:8. for all have sinned and perfection is unattainable to us apart from by imputation of the righteousness of Christ alone. It does not seem logical for either statement truthfully to be taken at face value. Any finite sin or finite righteous deed remains so no matter whom it is perpetrated against or done in obedience to. It is the deed that defines the crime not the victim. Anselm of Canterbury and St Augustine (of Canterbury or of Hippo) were not infinitely wise in all their pronouncements nor infinitely wrong in most of their statements. I only need to look into the pages of scripture to know that all have sinned, and no one has all knowledge except God, and the knowledge we think we have here is often imperfect if not even defective. The question of finite sins against an infinite God being logical or not. .
Yes, actually. That should be true, in theory. The only problem is, that scripture says "we do nothing righteous in God's sight". That's why the gospel is so remarkable, and consistent with itself. Unlike the roman church which teaches that we can do actually righteous things in the sight of God which he'll have to recognize, we believe that the only righteousness we may have is in context of other human beings; in context of God we have no righteousness. "Everything men do falls short of the glory of God." The only way we get in the good graces of someone who's such an infinite judge, is through faith. And even then, the faith which he gives us.
This is the core of the Protestant critique of the Roman church -- we cannot achieve salvation by works, because we have no power to save ourselves. We are saved by faith alone, through God's grace alone. No works-based penance, no limbo where our sin "debt" gradually gets paid down after we die. We cannot earn God's grace; it is given as a gift, one we do not deserve but are granted through God's boundless love for His children. Protestants however sometimes take this too far and assume that works are unnecessary. Good works are evidence of saving faith, and as such are to be encouraged. (Though believing Christians should not have to be prodded to give evidence of their salvation in the world through good works. It should be a spontaneous expression of joy in our salvation and a desire to imitate Christ in our own lives.)
I have no argument with what you say here, only with your assertion that human being are capable of committing infinite sin. We do not have the capacity to do anything infinite. Everything we do is finite, but even any finite sin, makes us infinitely culpable, but that is not comitting infinite sin, it is just being infinitely held accountable for every finite sin. .
Good works are what we are naturally created and supposed to do. We get no credit for just doing what God made us to be capable of. It is when we fail to do good works and instead behave contrary to what we were designed to do that we have sinned and fallen short of the Glory that God intended of us. .
I think much of this depends upon what is meant by “substitutionary” atonement. People often confuse Anselm’s satisfaction theory from Cur Deus Homo? with the later theory of penal substitution.