A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Atonement or theosis?

I just finished Stephen Finlan’s book Problems with Atonement, a radical critique of traditional accounts of how the cross of Jesus saves us. I mean “radical” in the strict sense; Finlan, rather than trying to provide an atonement theory acceptable to moderns (or postmoderns), seeks to pull it up by the roots.

In Finlan’s account, the basic problem with almost all versions of atonement theory is that they picture salvation as a transaction wherein God needs to be bought off, or satisfied, before he can forgive sins and save people. But this, according to Finlan, is not only morally troubling but seems inconsistent with the kind of God preached by Jesus who freely forgives those who repent and wants to give all good things to his children.

The book includes two very informative chapters reviewing the rituals of sacrifice and atonement in the OT (helpfully distinguishing between sacrifice and scapegoat-type rituals) and discussing the atonement metaphors used by Paul. One problem with the history of atonement doctrines, according to Finlan, is that Paul heaps a number of different metaphors on top of one another in order to express something of the mystery of salvation (legal, penal, sacrificial, cultic, etc.), but later theologians have frequently taken one or more of these metaphors and used it as a literal account of how we are saved.

But Paul himself is not off the hook either. In Finlan’s view, Paul was not entirely consistent in talking about salvation. On the one hand, he says that salvation comes from God’s love and generosity; God love us, even though we’re sinners, and wants to reconcile us to himself. On the other hand, many of Paul’s atonement metaphors imply that the Father needs to be persuaded to be merciful to us and that Jesus’ death on the cross is the means of that persuasion. So it’s understandable that later theologians got mixed signals from Paul and constructed theories about a wrathful God being appeased by the innocent blood of his Son.

Fortunately, Finlan says, atonement can be jettisoned without losing anything essential to Christianity. Atonement is what he calls a “secondary doctrine,” while the primary and distinguishing doctrine of Christianity is incarnation. Finlan favors the Eastern and patristic notion of theosis as a better account of how God saves us through the incarnation of his Son. By becoming human, God enables us to participate in the divine life. Or, in Athanasius’ immortal formulation, “the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”

Promising as this sounds, Finlan unfortunately doesn’t spend much time spelling out how this is supposed to work. Some formulations of theosis seem to rely on the idea of a substantial human nature (in the manner of a Platonic form) which is “repaired” by the Incarnation. But this is surely a problematic notion for a variety of reasons. Are we then to think of theosis as imitation with Christ as our exemplar? This may be easier to comprehend, but doesn’t seem to do full justice to the unity and participation in Christ that Christians are said to enjoy. It seems a fuller account of our participation in Christ is needed to make sense of any idea of theosis. (Maybe pneumatology and a doctrine of the sacraments could help here?)

That said, this is a stimulating book. I like how Finlan cuts to the heart of what he sees as the problem – a transactional idea of salvation, which does, at least as frequently understood, seem to conflict with the idea of a God of abundant grace. And Finlan’s emphasis on theosis is a salutary reminder that salvation involves a change in us, freeing us from the power of sin, not just its consequences, as in some penal theories. Some readers may feel that some figures are rather cursorily dealt with (the chapters on the OT and Paul are outstanding, but the coverage of atonement theory after Paul doesn’t engage with figures like Anselm as much as some might like), but Finlan’s targeting of transactionalism and blood sacrifice is not simply a straw man argument.

Well worth reading.

13 responses to “Atonement or theosis?”

  1. Gaius

    Is he offering a theory he finds morally and theologically acceptable despite both ample conflicting biblical text and flat contradiction of the tradition?

    Is this, like liberal theology, intended as an alternative to tradition and orthodoxy?

    What will he do with the overarching Christian picture? You know, creation, sin, the wages of Adam’s sin is death for the whole creation, and then “Jesus paid it all” (as the bumper stickers say), and we are now waiting for the completion of the end-times and the new heaven and new earth, delayed (apparently contrary to Paul’s expectations) we know not why. That overarching picture.

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  2. Lee

    He admits that his view emphasizes some parts of the canon (the Gospels, Acts) and downplays others (Paul, Hebrews), which is problematic.

    Though, I think it is possible to detach certain understandings of atonement from the tradition w/o losing anything essential. The church in the broadest sense hasn’t codified any one understanding of how Jesus saves us, even if some theories have enjoyed more prestige than others.

    Finlan seems attracted to a view of sin that is closer to that of Irenaeus than Augustine – humanity as immature and off kilter rather than totally depraved. Clearly there’s precedent for that view in the tradition (particularly in the East), so I’m not sure he’s committed to any kind of wholesale revisionism.

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  3. Kevin Jones

    Does Finlan present atonement and theosis as mutually incompatible? Can one think of atonement as theosis?

    I believe there has been substantial work done in envisioning justification as theosis, but I don’t know if the same can be done here.

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  4. Lee

    Kevin, I think that would depend on what we mean by atonement. I think for Finlan atonement – at least as it has been used through most of Christian history – has an essential connection with the idea that the Father is somehow persuaded to become forgiving because of Jesus’ death. And this is primarily what he opposes.

    Now, there may be ways of formulating atonement that aren’t open to this charge. I’m not convinced he’s entirely fair to Anselm, for example, where the Incarnation and Atonement are about preserving the order of God’s good creation and not about assuaging God’s offended honor as one might some petty despot. So maybe there’s a way to think of theosis as complementary to atonement, or of two aspects to the entire process of salvation.

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  5. Lee

    If anyone’s interested, here’s a more in-depth review from a prof at a Lutheran Seminary in Canada:

    http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/5032_5300.pdf

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  6. Gaius

    However little sense it may make to us, the notion of displaced retribution was already a constant theme in the Bible before Jesus.

    The Scapegoat, after all, is no mere metaphor.

    And it only brings out what is already there, only less obviously, in the ritual animal sacrifice that was integral to ancient Jewish theology and practise.

    And the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Catholic theory says it is not merely a commemoration of Christ’s sacrificial death, but a real repetition of it.

    Anyway, for Christianity it all begins with our exile from Eden, with the whole world groaning under suffering and death, mankind included, in just retribution for Adam’s sin.

    To redeem both fallen man and the fallen world, it was necessary to do something else with an as good or better claim to be just retribution for that sin, so mankind and the world could be spared paying the price in their own persons of suffering and death.

    But “doing something else” required that the retribution be displaced from all mankind and the whole creation onto one sacrificial victim whose value was so great that His sacrifice was equivalent, and more than equivalent, to the suffering and death of all mankind and all creation.

    This is not peripheral to the Christian understanding. It is pretty much all there is. No theology is orthodox that tries to see daylight between the death of Jesus and the unique and alone redemptive sacrifice of the Lamb of God.

    Moderns may not like it. Others have not, before us. But that is orthodoxy, and to reject it is, if not to be liberal, then at least to be heterodox.

    How can you be orthodox without being pretty literal about Eschatology? And how can you be that about the end of the world while refusing to be that about the beginning?

    About creation, the fall of Adam, and the ruin of the whole creation that ensued as punishment visited on all of us and all creation for the sin of the first man, our father, Adam?

    And isn’t that already a displacement of retribution, visiting the sin of that particular father upon ALL succeeding generations … until the final displacement from all mankind onto Jesus, God’s own Son, whom he gave up as a sacrifice to His own justice, out of His own mercy, for us?

    Is it not clear that rejection of any part of that story is departure from orthodoxy?

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    1. Sean Germano

      Gaius I think the Traditional view is actually more theosis then penal sub(such a view is unheard of in the first millennium). In the view of theosis Christ did have to die btw. To take way the “sin” (separation) from the inner nature of man and God. Also the early church saw no problem with this ideology as compatible with Eucharistic ideology, i mean even today the Eucharist is only able to forgive not grave sins and purify us with grace, grave sins still require repentance. The idea that God has to punish a sin, and can not forgive a sin against his law is not at all consistent with the bible. How many people did Jesus forgive without punishment? I am not saying wrath, anger, and punishment are not part of the picture, but I think we make a huge mistake when we think they are the full picture.

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  7. Derek the Ænglican

    First, what is Torah for him? Is it all just one big mistake? And if not, how can he talk about the justice of God?

    Honestly–and it’s not your fault as summarist and commentator–I’m trying hard to see how this isn’t Marcion recycled…

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  8. Lee

    Derek – I think you’re onto something. Finlan has a tendency to pit the prophetic against the priestly in the OT with the prophets representing “englightened” ethical religion, and he downplays the extent to which even the prophets accepted the legitimacy of the sacrificial system. Just as he favors the NT books which in his view don’t emphasize sacrifice. To his credit, though, he’s up front about it.

    Gaius – Well, there’s orthodoxy and there’s orthodoxy. Are a literal Adam and a literal fall necessary for orthodoxy? I guess I think there was a historical fall in the sense that I think there was a time before and a time after which moral evil entered the world. And I think that the world we find ourselves in is one in which it’s very difficult to love God and neighbor due to our innate egoism. But I’m not sure I think – nor do I think it’s heterodox to think – that suffering and sin are retribution for Adam’s primal sin (though I suppose you could make the case that it’s a consequence). For one thing, in the story of the man born blind Jesus explicitly rejects the principle that suffering is punishment for one’s sins or those of one’s parents.

    And I think w/r/t Jesus’ death what orthodoxy says is that, somehow, on account of Jesus’ death we are put right with God, or the way to being put right with God is opened to us. But it doesn’t mandate a specific understanding of how that happens, be it sacrificial, penal, moral, etc.

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  9. Gaius

    I would have thought “the wages of sin is death” and the story of the exile of Adam and Eve from the garden for disobedience made the retribution thing pretty clear. Adam did a bad thing. We and the whole fallen creation are paying the price specifically for that.

    How is that NOT integral to the story Christianity has to tell?

    As for the question how literally the story of all mankind having a unique set of first parents for whose sin the whole of humanity paid with suffering and death has to be taken by the orthodox, I don’t see that anybody ever had much doubt about that prior to Darwin. Quite literally.

    Remove that, turn the story of the fall into a metaphor for the inherent sinfulness of man because the view of natural science conflicts with creationism and what excuse have you for accepting anything in the least bit supernatural or miraculous? ALL of it conflicts with science.

    The virgin birth. All of Jesus’ miracles. Everything supernatural in the Old and New Testaments.

    And the eschatological hope inherent to Christianity.

    All of this has to be de-mythologized because it conflicts with the world according to Biship Spong. Or none of it does.

    “Choose your poison,” as the drunkards say.

    PS. In the story of the man born blind perhaps Jesus is only saying it wasn’t punishment for the actual sin of any one of his ancestors … since Adam.

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  10. Buck Eschaton

    Two must reads if you want to understand the idea of atonement in Christianity, as far as I’m concerned, are Rene Girard, here Girardian interpreter James Alison discusses the atonement, and Margaret Barker who’s work on the symbolic origins of Christianity is simply astounding.

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  11. Lee

    Finlan actually has some pretty interesting criticisms of Girard and the Girardian school. I’m only somewhat familiar w/Girard’s work, so I can’t really speak to the accuracy of the criticisms.

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  12. Lee

    And in response to Gaius: I think there’s a distinction between death as a consequence of sin and death as retribution for sin. There is by no means uniformity in the tradition on these matters. Athanasius, for instance, emphasizes the fact that our turning away from God inevitably results in death b/c we’re cutting ourselves off from the source of our being, so it’s more of an inevitable consequence rather than punishment (though the penal element isn’t completely absent). There’s also a tradition that says that death is actually an act of mercy on God’s part b/c sinful humans with indefinite life spans would do too much damage!

    And I think the historicity of Adam and Eve was maintained for so long in part b/c there wasn’t really any reason to doubt it. But it has been called into doubt for us and, while I’m not going to rule out some of the criticisms of Darwinism, it still behooves Christians to think about their faith in light of what we think we know about human origins. I hardly think this is a retreat into Spongianism, unless the recent popes are to be counted as Spongians.

    As to whether the supernatural conflicts with “science,” I think that depends on what you think science does. For my money, science describes and elucidates the typical workings of nature, but it can’t tell us if or when God may choose to do something extraordinary. So miracles and so on are not strictly within it’s purview since, by definition, a miracle is an event which exceeds natural causal powers.

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