substitution

response to satisfaction theory

• Development of anselm’s satisfaction theory by protestant reformers (ML and calvin) 

• Regarded satisfaction theory as inadequate bc it was based on God’s offence taking/ honour, whereas reformers argued it should be based on God’s justice-> god is satisfied w/ punishing JC in the place of mankind 

• Anselm regarded JC’s death as making up for honour god lost in A+E’s offense, but PST (penal substitution theory) argues instead that rather than God’s honour being satisfied, it was God’s moral law that was satisfied 

• ML and calvin added more legal (or forensic) framework into this notion of the cross as satisfaction 

substitution

• By sinning, we have broken God’s Holy Law -> by sinning, we have broken the Law, and death is a just punishment 

• This situation leaves God unsatisfied 

• God is merciful and loving, and doesn’t want us to die 

• Mercifully sends his son as a substitute to stand in our place 

• JC set humans free from sin by taking the punishment himself on the cross in order to satisfy Gods wrath against human sin 

• God can now forgive the sinner because JC has been punished in the place of the sinner, in this way meeting the retributive requirements of god’s justice 

influence

• Based on the suffering servant songs in the OT where they made desrciptions of a suffering God (Isaiah 53:6, galatians 3:13) 

• Dominant amongst the reformed + evangelical. 

WEAK: redemptive violence

• Method of atonement god chose was so horrible that suggests God would be cruel for requiring such a sacrifice 

• Requirement of such a terrible treatment of his Son would make God a wrathful, bloodthirsty child abuser 

• A true understanding of God’s justice shows it would not be satisfied by a violent punishment, bc God is forgiving 

• Penal Substitution theory portrays God as unwilling to forgive past actions, but NT suggests God is willing to forgive if person has truly repented/ changed (same goes for his instructions of forgiveness for humans) 

• Seems that justice of the biblical God wouldn’t reqire crucifixion as payment for our sins, it would just allow forgiveness 

COUNTER to redemptive violence

• William L. Craig responds that to get absolution from guilt, we need a ‘pardon’, not just personal forgiveness 

• Forgiveness alone doesn’t deal w/ God’s retributive justice and our guilt which needs to be expiated 

• Levitical sacrifices show that animals bare the fate of death that the person doing the sacrifice deserves->  God’s justice does demand death but is willing to accept a substitution.  

• The purpose of these sacrifices was to symbolically expiate people’s guilt, so God would see them as righteous again-> Christ is a lamb (trad sacrificial animal).  

• while the Bible does present God as forgiving and loving, it also presents God as requiring substitutionary sacrifices to satisfy his justice and his wrath against sin.  

• Craig concludes that Christ saw his death as “expiatory sacrifice” to God which cleansed humanity of its sin and thereby reconciled them to God, similar to the animal sacrifices mentioned in the Old Testament that served to purge people of sin and impurity. 

STRONG: fulfilment of god’s justice

• Calvin argues that JC taking upon punishment to gift humanity salvation is a direct fulfilment of God’s justice 

• e.g. isiah 53:5 -”he was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him” 

• Christ’s suffering was not merely an example of love but a judicial act, where God’s righteous wrath against sin was poured out onto Christ instead of onto humanity 

• In Institutes of the Christian Religion, maintains that JC’s substitution is the foundation of salvation and w/o it, human sin would remain unatonedfor, and divine justice would be violated 

COUNTER to god’s justice

John Hick argues that PS portrays God as unjust, punishing an evil person instead of a guilty one 

WEAK: moltmann

• Moltman argues that Substitution misrepresents the Trinity 

• Moltmann argues that God suffers on the cross along side the son 

• This contradicts the idea of PS, in which the father punishes the son (and remains distant from suffering) and the son is abandones 

• Moltmann argues that the trinity is involved in the cross- God experiences suffering w/in himself , not just JC 

• -> God is not standing above human suffering but is present within it 

COUNTER to moltmann

• Undermines God’s impassibility (typical of traditional doctrine) 

• God’s impassibility aligns w/ PS in that: 

• God’s wrath must be satisfied, but God Himself does not suffer 

• Jesus suffers in His human nature, but God remains unchanged