Atonement and Theology

Atonement and Theology September 30, 2014

In his recent Atonement, Law, and Justice, Adonis Vidu examines historical atonement theories in relation to accepted notions of law and justice that were current in the world of the theologians who produced the theories. His book is “an interdisciplinary reading of the development of atonement theory from the perspective of its engagement with intellectual discourses relating to law and justice.” He claims that “atonement theories want to affirm that God preserves his justice in the process of redemption,” but then adds that “not all theologians operate with the same understandings of justice.”

But centrally, he argues, atonement theology raises questions about the nature of God. Atonement theology is ultimately theology proper. “Atonement theology seeks to ascribe a particular action to God. To put it differently, it seeks to assign responsibility for a particular action. We more or less know the Easter events, but the question is, What precisely is God doing in those events? Does he send Jesus to the cross? If so, does he punish Jesus through the cross? Does he intend his death more like a ruse to fool the devil? Or perhaps Jesus goes to the cross as a demonstration of his love for God and God’s love for us? The conflicts among these theories arise over assigning value to the facts. In other words, the conflict is over ascribing responsibility to God.” Like a prosecutor or defense attorney, the theologian assesses the character of the agent, asking the question of whether it is plausible or implausible that this God could have done this deed. Difference understandings of justice are linked to different understandings of God.

Vidu recognizes that the analogy with explanation of human action breaks down because God, unlike human beings, is simple: “Divine attributes are not more or less balanced. They do not exist in a certain combination. They don’t because, as the church has traditionally affirmed, God’s being is simple. God does not have attributes: he is his attributes.” As a result, “God is present in his actions in a different way than we are present in ours.” His simplicity “strictly qualifies the way in which we may ascribe actions to God.” 

Whatever we say about atonement, we cannot, he argues, say anything that would put God in conflict with Himself, or put one attribute in conflict with another.


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