moral exemplar

JC as a teacher

• Humans are ignorant and Jesus provide us with a way to salvation through his knowledge and wisdom.  

• Jesus is described as “the way, the truth and the life” and the “light of the world” both illuminating our way to salvation.  

• He teaches people through His Sermon on the Mount, within which there are ethical teachings emphasised by modern liberal Protestants. 

• Jesus teaches love 

• Provides a moral example for us to copy, which will lead us to salvation 

abelard

• Peter Abelard (1079-1142) developed the theory as a reaction against Anselm’s satisfaction theory 

• Demonstrates that the death and resurrection of Christ is the best example of God’s love 

• God’s justice might want an atoning payment to restore his honour, but God’s love is so boundless and unlimited that it overrules his need for honour -> omnibenevolent nature means nothing stops him from forgiving humanity (no satisfaction/ substitution needed) 

role of JC’s death

• Abelard doesn’t completely reject the idea that JC’s death involved some form of payment for our sins -> his theory is the Moral Example is central and defining of the atonement 

• god forgave us for our sins and the point of the cross is to show his righteousness so he could be the ‘justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus’ 

• Abelard concludes from this that the cross was atoning by representing such an inspiring moral e.g. that humanity is influenced by it to avoid sin. 

• JC’s sacrifice doesn’t directly save us from sins, but bc he was such an inspiring case of a moral role model that he has the indirect power to influence us to act more morally ourselves, which will ultimately save us from sin. 

• BY FOLLOWING JC’S EXAMPLE, HUMANITY GAINS ACCESS TO A LIFE WHICH CAN PLEASE GOD + GAIN SALVATION (WWJD) 

WEAKNESS: conflicts w crucifizion

•  the moral example theory is criticised bc JC did not need to be a moral example; if that were God’s goal, there would have been another way to achieve it 

• If JC was simply a moral example, God’s method was unnecessarily cruel 

• Undermines the MET because Abelard’s notion of a loving God wouldn’t do something unnecessarily cruel, and a cruel God does not make a good moral example 

COUNTER to crucifixion

could be said it serves to show the depth of human depravity and sin and God’s hatred of sin. Furthermore, it serves to show the vast extent of God’s love for humanity, that he himself would take on human flesh and go to such depths in order to redeem us to himself

WEAKNESS: semi-pelagianism

• Tends to frame justification within semi-Pelagianism by claiming that one great act of grace enables humanity to perfectly follow the law 

• The Law becomes weak and loses its significance, not because death has been covered or conquered by Christ, but because those who break Natural Law do not need to be punished 

• By reducing the serious nature of the Law and focusing primarily on moral behaviour, this theory also struggles to explain original sin 

• There is no need for imputed righteousness and therefore no imputation of sin onto christ which devalues and questions the purpose of His death 

STRONG: scriptual basis

• criptural basis for the acts of Christ 

• Abelard’s theory rests on : 

• Romans 5:8: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Out of God's great love for us He sent His only Son to pay the debt for our sins, even though we were His enemies, powerless and ungodly. God's display of love was not conditional. 

• 1 John 4:19: We love because he first loved us".God's love changes our hearts and makes us capable of love. 

•  Romans 3:19-26: Paul claims that although humanity is sinful, we are redeemed through faith in christ whom God put forward as a ‘propitation’ in order to ‘show God’s righteousness’ as God’s divine self-control lets him ‘pass over former sins’ 

COUNTER to scripural basis

HOWEVER it can be argued that the moral picture of atonement quickly departs from what the WHOLE of scripture says concerning the accomplisments of Christ’s death and resurrection (i.e. JC as a sacrifice etc)