Consistency Between Atonement Theory and Biblical Narrative

Christie insb said:

I have read criticisms against the penal substitution theory. To me it makes no sense but I really haven't heard any different theories that make more sense. I will have to think about the Ransom theory more..... When I was reading Milton, I was exposed to the concept of the Fortunate Fall. This gives the. Power back to God. I don't have a big problem with not understanding God's every motive; He is God, after all. But I am open to a different theological interpretation.

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Unless there is a text that pre-dates the adoption of penal substitution, which came in at around 1000AD, I doubt there will be a fair representation of the idea. I see the case for the ransom part, but references I have found to the theory are almost always refutations.

And the biggest problem with these refutations is they essentially turn ransom theory into a straw man. They take the system of ideas developed around penal substitution, and then patch on the ransom hypothesis on top of it. But naturally it doesn't fit! This is like putting the hood from one model of car and putting it on a completely different model of car, and then pronouncing that the hood doesn't fit, so therefore the whole car is wrong!

If you do a google search, this is the type of thing you will find. So I think it is unlikely that you will find a comprehensive explanation of what the old ransom theory actually was. I mean, it was replaced 1,000 years ago!

So unless you are a scholar with access to ancient manuscripts, you'll likely need to do what I'm attempting to do, which is to start over.

~Anastasia~ said:

I think it's important to realize that the fruit wasn't some magical thing that somehow transformed Adam and Eve.

I disagree that it was a contract per se, but you can be somewhat on the right track, since we are all essentially slaves to sin in the state in which we are born - with a damaged will that is inclined to self, we will all eventually choose to sin (and generally about as soon as we are developed enough in mind to make a choice at all).

But rather than the fruit creating some magical reaction, what happened is that beings who had no concept of what it was to disobey or rebel, chose to rebel. We can experience this sometimes in a small way in our lives today. Sometimes we can do a thing and know instantly it was wrong, and feel a conviction for it.

Adam and Eve had no such frame of reference in their personal experience before they fell. To sin was a drastic action for them, since sin was not any part of the material world prior to that (angels are created beings but not part of the material order). This is why all of creation fell under a curse because of Adam's sin. It represented an entire change of kind for the entire physical world and everything in it.

The important take-away is ... we are formed by what we do. Adam and Eve were literally changed by the act of sinning ... they understood what it was to sin, and their selfish desires were given rein that had not happened before.

Again we can see this today if someone who was formerly free of a thing first gets involved with an addictive substance or activity - it begins to change our desires, which changes our actions, which changes us.

The ancestral sin was the first such thing that changed man. And sins of people since then have done the same thing.

God IS love - yes, I know that might be difficult to understand/accept in light of certain passages, but when we encounter such contradiction it is always true that our understanding is faulty and often deeper understanding can resolve the issue. But "God is agape/love" is a clear statement. Agape love is a particular type that always desires the good of the object of the love - the ultimate good - and not understanding this can confuse us sometimes too.

I'm not sure if this is off the track of your concerns with PSA - just attempting to reply to a couple of points I've seen brought up in the thread.

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My point of view is to understand in the way I would understand how a machine works. It is one thing to say that the wheels are spinning and the linkages are moving back and forth. But it is quite another thing to say which wheel and pulley is linked to which shaft and lever, and to explain exactly what their affect is and the necessity of them being the way they are.

I think we desperately need to put the abstractions aside and just read the story. Stories follow rules (which are universal over time and between cultures), and stories can be easily understood. But it seems we are having trouble understanding the story for what it is. Why? Because we prefer abstractions. Abstractions make us look smart! Instead of seeing how the details of the Bible are connected, the common practice is to build a unique abstraction from each detail, and each of these abstractions is a work of fiction!

I'm looking for an explanation where the clear details point back and forth at each other. And I want to push back against the idea that details point outwards to things that we don't know anything about, but love to claim knowledge of. When everything points outward, we are free to imagine whatever we want and vehemently claim it's God's word. But claims like these are impossible to prove or disprove. How many times do people fight with Bible verses they think prove their point, and others reply with their own set of verses supporting a completely opposite claim?

If details point inward, we can observe patterns and gain a clear understanding. If we do this, we can build clear arguments that can be cross examined without relying on pre-existing abstractions unique to the one presenting the argument.


We must understand that God is complicated. God is a person. God exists apart from us, and God existed from eternity, which is a long time, and we weren't there for most of it. God does what he chooses to do.

Christians love to approach religion as a riddle to be cracked, and if they do the right things in the right way, they'll unlock the key and get to heaven. But God is sovereign, and doing everything right doesn't force God's hand. God still makes the decision.

Recall the parable of the wedding feast, where the poor people are rounded up to share the feast...and then the Lord sees one individual who isn't wearing wedding clothing, and throws him out. God reserves that right....is this an expression of "love"?

The biggest failing here is that there is no definition of "love". if you want to say that God = Love, you can do that. But when explaining, you end up saying god = love = god = love = God. It means nothing.

If you create a definition of "love" that is sufficiently deep and complicated to encompass the entire character of God, it is going to be a very different from the lazy and highly emotional definition that the whole world assumes when you say "love".

I'm not saying that this is 100% wrong; I'm saying it is 100% inadequate! The Bible says that "God is love", but it also says, "For our God is a consuming fire." A consuming fire is violent, destructive, and difficult to contain or control; it's dangerous! This is the opposite of what people think of when they talk about "love".

Ron Gurley said:

Research>
1. Substitution
2. Atonement
3. Subtitutionary Atonement

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Huh??? (What is the phonetic spelling of Scooby Doo's vocalization when he's just seen a ghost?)

How about this: Penalty + Substitution + Atonement

"Penal Substitution" and "Substutionary Atonement" are the same concept. Maybe there is an arguement that these terms are used in different sects, and therefore carry some nuance? But they're the same general belief.

Ron Gurley said:

Atonement / Reconciliation:

Exodus chapt. 29-30

9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement....Romans 5

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I want to have a productive discussion, and your response doesn't do a good job explaining your position. What is your point? The Bible passages you quote don't speak for themselves. Besides, do you think I haven't read them before? It is no revelation!

If it is so important to say penal substitution theory of atonement is different that substitutionary atonement, (Is it also fundamentally different from satisfaction theory?) what is the nature of this critical difference? What is your argument to say that substutitionary atonement is not actually the same theory with the first word chopped off the front? I think the reality of mankind suffering a penalty/ consequence for eating the fruit is self evident. Who can say otherwise?

What is a substantive difference?

I conceded there are nuances, but if the pattern of events is the same, I consider them it to be the same thing. If you want me to consider them to be different, please explain the nature of the difference and the significance of this difference.

~Anastasia~ said:

Actually no, the two are not the same.

There are aspects of truth in simple substitutionary atonement.

Orthodoxy rejects Penal Substitution Atonement on the following grounds (and perhaps other minor ones I overlook) ...

• Sin is God's problem, not man's
• God is incomplete - "needs" something
• It sets the Father and Son at opposing purposes - which is impossible
• It is the pain/punishment which "satisfies" God - making Him a bloodthirsty monster!
• It subjugates God to cosmic "rules" even against His will

Christ IS our substitution. But we would say more than that, He is our victory over death and reconciles us to God, and more.

But the "Penal" aspect of PSA is abhorrent to us.

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Okay, but I'm not Orthodox. I'm not talking about Orthodoxy!

----Nobody believes that Jesus and God have "opposing purposes"--Jesus died at the father's bidding. Jesus begged to be spared, but then he said, "Not my will, but yours be done." Jesus isn't scheming and conniving to trick God into letting us into heaven!

----If you're saying that God and Jesus being opposed is that God forced Jesus UNWILLINGLY, then it seems that God and Jesus have conflicting desires and motivations that contradict the "God is love" theory. Thus contradicting Bling's theory stated as follows:

"Starting with God, God is Love (the epitome of Love), which means God is totally unselfish and is not doing stuff for His own sake, but is doing everything for the sake of man which is also God’s desire and might be referred to as His sake."

----God declares that there are rules; Satan says God is full of BS and is trying to prove God wrong! (I know, that's my theory, but for the record...




How is "simple substitutionary atonement" any better aside from being vague?

My objection is that you still have to address the nature of sin and the mechanism by which Jesus' act of dying in our place (i.e. substitution) makes sense.

It is obvious that there is a penalty for sin--death! Or is it just a "consequence"? But God decided how this world functions, so God is still the one who decided what happens because of our sin.

The Bible does seem to confirm that we deserve a punishment for our sins with all the talk about sin being bad and sinners not going to heaven. But then Jesus dies, in our place, as a substitute for us, which "saves" us. Jesus' death "in our place" implies that we would have had to die...and that sounds like a penalty for being sinful?

Are you suggesting you believe in a different sequence of events?



I too reject the idea that God is satisfied by pain and suffering; I am saying that Satan is satisfied by Jesus' pain and suffering!

There is no debate over whether or not Jesus experienced pain and suffering; the debate is about why he had to do it. The pain and the suffering was real, and somehow necessary. Why was death necessary? A truly loving God wouldn't need to solve anything with the death of his own son.

~Anastasia~ said:

1) "You are suggesting that Satan demanded someone must suffer torment, and Jesus suffered in order to satisfy Satan's requirement? We would reject that as well. Satan has no right to demand anything. God owes him nothing. Neither do we. Frankly, that idea (I don't know if you're suggesting it?) is an affront to the dignity of God on some levels. I'm not saying this to pick a fight - not at all (and please forgive me if it sounds so - I know of no softer way to state how we would respond to that idea). But Satan is a created being, as are human beings, and neither he nor we are in a position to demand anything of God.

I might reiterate here that God is not subject to any arbitrary cosmic laws. He is true to His own nature, not because He is constrained, but because - He Is Who He Is. And if whatever theories we might develop don't mesh with that, we must conclude that our theories are wrong. We cannot - must not - attempt to understand God though our lens"



2) Here's a question ... if Christ's death had been quick and painless, do you suppose it would have been sufficient? If not, why not?

3) And as a follow-up ... what sacrificial animals in the shadows of the OT sacrificial system were tortured and made to suffer before being killed?

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1) You say, "Satan has no right to demand anything." What is your validation for this statement? This is a very broad statement that requires support if it is going to be the basis for an argument!

Your statement is the idea I've seen attributed to Anselm of Canterbury, and I find it baseless. It has been accepted for the last ~1,000 years, but it has no scholarly merit. The entire Bible portrays Satan as having power and being a serious enemy. Yet this seemingly clear narrative is rejected with the pre-supposition, "Satan is a rebel, a created being, and therefore has no power over God."


There are probably 20 interconnected arguments required to demonstrate my position, but that is too tedious for the average attention span of the typical forum user. So instead of arguing, I will explain the sequence of events as I see them reflected by various Biblical stories.


Before the book of Genesis begins, God was the ruler of heaven. And God claimed to be a righteous king, arbitrating perfect justice and truth. God claims to know absolutely what is good and what is evil; God says he deserve to be rule over the angels because of his attributes. God says truth defines who he is, rather than the more devious, "Whatever I say is truth" that is typical of a dictator.

Satan is credited as being "The father of lies", and he doubted God's claim. Satan's lie is what we read in Genesis, "You can be like God, knowing good and evil." This lie undermines God's claim to the throne. If Satan and all the angels believe they are capable of knowing/ deciding what is good and evil for themselves, they are condescending God. They are saying, "We know better," or "We know differently", but either way they are saying that God's claim of truth and justice is arbitrary. And if God imposes an arbitrarily defined set of rules on the angels, God would be a controlling dictator and a tyrant, instead of being the just, noble, and benevolent king God claims to be.

This is the lie that spread through heaven, and 1/3 the angels believed it. This is a very dangerous lie, and it put God in a bad situation. How is he going to re-unite his kingdom? How is he going to deal with the traitor Satan?

The problem is easy to understand. If Satan is accusing God of being a tyrant, and God responds by destroying him, God's action confirms the lie, making Satan a myrtr. When the angels see it, they will reject God and deny his authority, which destroy's the kingdom. And once this happens, there is no way for God to restore his kingdom without using force--this would make God an actual tyrant.

If God knows what's on Satan's mind and makes Satan disappear before the lie can be spread, Satan's absence will be noticed. When Satan's plight is discovered, God will be required to give an explanation for what happened. And what will God say? "Satan was going to tell a lie that was going cause all sorts of problems, so nipped it in the bud to protect our peaceful existence." But the problem with this is that God's foreknowledge, assuming God has such an ability in the heavenly realm, is not proof. There are plenty of Sci-Fi movies making this same point--arresting someone for a crime that hasn't been committed yet is hugely problematic. Even if it is true, it is easy to suspect it is arbitrary and an abuse of power. So again, God would turn into a tyrant in his attempt to suppress Satan's lie.

So what did God do? God created the opportunity for Satan to test his theory in clear view of all the angels; God created us and all the living creatures on the earth. Satan and all the fallen angels were cast down to earth, where they are free to do whatever they want. God did this so all the angels could see for themselves how wrong Satan is. And when all of Satan's attempts have ended in failure, God will condemn Satan for his true crime, which is sabotaging heaven! And when this happens, all of heaven will celebrate God's wisdom, justice. God's kingdom will be restored.

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In Genesis, we see God and Satan visiting Adam and Eve, and there is a choice to be made. The two trees symbolize a choice, and Adam and Eve choose Satan's tree. What does this mean? Satan's tree symbolizes Satan's lie, and eating the fruit is to accept Satan's lie. (I said it is functionally the same as the modern act of signing a contract.) Adam and Eve rejected God, choosing Satan instead of God.

Once Adam and Eve choose to follow Satan, they are under Satan's authority. And because of all the arguments above, God can't "just" take us away from Satan on his whim. Why? Because this would be interference! God has given Satan complete freedom and authority, and if God were to revoke that freedom or interfere in Satan's plans, then that would invalidate the outcome. That's the last thing that God wants.

So instead, God honors the rules he created. This means that God is negotiating with Satan, as we see in the story of Job.

God says, "I want to redeem the people who desire to follow me." Satan says, "If you really want them back, you'll have to do something for me." And being Satan, he makes the most cruel demand imaginable. Why? Because he is testing God. He likely believes that God does not love enough to sacrifice, and he would very much like to reveal such a limitation. But even if God does go through with it, Satan has still humiliated Jesus, which is almost as good in his mind. He doesn't do this because he values people; he does it because his control of us gives him leverage!

Anyway, this is a brief explanation of the backstory that explains everything that his happening on heaven and earth.



2) If Jesus death had been quick and painless? It wouldn't have satisfied Satan's demand...but that doesn't help explain until we understand what Satan's demand was.

The skeptics are right that Jesus' death is anti-climatic, and his death is easily seen as the death of the Jewish hope. Jesus inspired the people to hope, and then that hope was torn away. Jesus fulfilled the prophecies, and then died without doing any of the things they fervently hoped for. Only a fool would say this is not a recipe for deep disappointment!

I think we're being short sighted when we assume that Jesus' physical death was all that happened. Jesus' sacrifice to save us was carried out in a way that crushed the hope of the people who were looking for salvation! It is the kind of disappointment that could destroy a religion; I don't think this was at all an accident! Satan would likely say to Jesus, "What good is your salvation if nobody believes in you?"



3) What sacrificial animals were tortured and killed? This is a badly formed question! It's a confusing mess of contradicting presuppositions, and I feel confident you would not agree with with them if they were all unraveled!

Let me substitute a different question that is far more helpful. Why didn't God make Abraham go through with sacrificing Isaac?

Kierkegaard spends a lot of time focusing on how Abraham could have been willing to sacrifice his son, but I think he overlooked this more compelling question: "Why would God stop Abraham when he was about to complete the request?"

I think the answer is simple; God didn't want Abraham to live with the consequences of the action! And even if Isaac were to be raised from the dead, to further the prophetic nature of the event, how could Isaac live with the knowledge that his father was willing to kill him, and had actually done so? Psychologically this would be horrible!

Kierkegaard wanted to know how someone could do something like this out of faith, and his confused reasoning only demonstrates his lack of experience with faith! It is easy to act in faith, but it is much more difficult to live with the consequences. Doubt is viscious; waking to nightmares of killing his son; that would have ruined him!

Later in the history of the Jews, they used animal sacrifices as a reminder. Animal sacrifice is a much less traumatic than a father killing his son. And why no torture? God didn't want them to play the role of vicious executioner! If they strung up a lamb and tortured it, they would be acting out Satan's fantasy, rather than remembering God's promise.

I think the takeaway is that God wants to lay the foundation for understanding what happened, but God doesn't want us to do it in a way that causes psychological trauma to ourselves.

Ron Gurley said:

God the Father did not "punish" God the Son for all the sins for all men for all time.

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It all seems the same to me--Jesus suffered and died equally as much, whether or not we say it was a punishment or something else.

The various atonement theories all have the same problem--they lack an antagonist! Because they lack an antagonist, they become circular, and they try to create an antagonist out of thin air. Christus victor says that "death" is the antagonist; penal substitution says that humans are the antagonist. Maybe simple substitution doesn't name an antagonist directly, but the existence of an antagonist is still implied. Jesus can't be victorious without someone or something to defeat! And we can't be saved if there is nothing to save us from.



I'm saying that I don't think any of the accepted theories are adequate.

I think a major misstep was made when Anselm rewrote atonement theology. I think that a plain and simple reading of the Bible, if we can block out the presuppositions of religious tradition, leads us to a belief much like Ransom theory, although I'm not sure that we really understand what that belief was about. The only references to it that I have found are written by it's opponents, so I think it is worth the effort to re-discover the whole system of ideas.

Ransom theory is the oldest belief, which by itself should lend it some credibility!

Serving Zion said:

I would like to reduce the whole purpose of atonement...

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Hopefully we all have the best intentions, and I thank you for this comment above. It leads me to the next key point!

All of Western thought is dominated by "reductionist" methodology. It is an accompanying idea of materialism (i.e. the philosophy of) and the scientific method. This belief has become integral to Western thought, and Christian ideology has not escaped it's influence. It is an idea that is now known to be false in the case of complex deterministic systems (i.e. chaos theory), but that is another subject.

Reductionism is the idea that if you isolate and study individual components of a system, you can precisely predict the behavior of the entire system. The more you reduce a problem, the more accurate your results. Scientists area always isolating variables, which is the essence of reductionism. The false part is the assumption that reducing produces greater accuracy--review of research has shown that the accuracy and consistency of measurements have the same variation regardless of the scope of study.

It is clear to me that religious authorities interpret the bible by these reductionist principles. It is evident to everyone that the Bible is divided into chapters and verses, and then theologians study the individual verses word by word. The assumption is that this is the best way to discover the absolute truth. But I see evidence saying that the results disprove the assumption--this method does not yield more accurate results, as is demonstrated on this forum, as well as in the rest of Christendom.

I am offering a critique of this methodology, and of the results of this methodology.


Westerners are particularly bad at interpreting oral history. And the Bible is an oral history that is preserved in writing.

Take Easter Island as an example of how Westerners are bad at interpreting oral history. The example is the famous standing stones. Researchers asked the native people about how the stones got there, and the people said, "They walked."

The researchers automatically dismissed what they were told. They are smart; they know that rocks can't walk. So they rejected the oral history, and they struggled for many years to find their own solution.

But then another researcher stumbled across an alternative hypothesis--what if this "they walked" is actually a description of how the stones were moved? He analyzed the shape of the stones, the paths they were moved along, the position of fallen stones along the paths. He came up with the theory that the stones were moved in an upright position, held upright by ropes, and the base was cut in a shape that caused the stone to "walk" when the ropes pulled from side to side.

And then he created a replica stone, and he demonstrated that his method worked. His theory explained why everything was the way it was. And it is easy to see why the natives said, "They walked."



I am saying that the story we read IS the story. And I am saying that the reductionist method of studying the Bible is actually distorting our understanding! "Claiming to be wise, they became fools."--this verse seems to apply.

And I am also saying that the story is a little jumbled up, like a box of puzzle pieces. This means we have to put the pieces together. When they all fit together neatly, the puzzle is solved!