Disagreements about the Atonement

[JonC]

Well.....Yeah . You just answered the question. So we are not supposed to discuss the "father of Western Christianity's" views on one of the core issues of Western Christianity. Jon. You outdo yourself every time.

Exactly right....not on this thread.

Discuss YOUR views. This thread is about differing views we hold.

You can account for your beliefs, Augustine cannot. All we would get would be what you believe Augustine meant by specific quotes. Who cares what you believe a 4th century Catholic priest thought?

 

[JonC]

Well.....Yeah . You just answered the question. So we are not supposed to discuss the "father of Western Christianity's" views on one of the core issues of Western Christianity. Jon. You outdo yourself every time.

I started an Augustine thread for you. It actually could be a good resource to collect his writings on the atonement for those wanting to study him.

Augustine on the Atonement

I am starting this thread because @DaveXR650 insists that any discussion of the Cross has to include Augustine. Here we can read what Augustine taught in a larger context than snippets that can be misused. So...here we go The devil was conquered by his own trophy of victory. The devil...

www.baptistboard.com

 

[easternstar]

I appreciate your honesty here. And in the post above. That's really what I was wondering. I at least now understand where you are coming from. And from your answer I figure you either haven't discussed this with your pastor at the Baptist church or am I wrong in that. I just can't find any group of people who hate penal substitution who are not problematic in a host of other areas.

Thank you.
I have not discussed this in depth with my pastor, but I have not had the opportunity to do so.
And I would be the opposite of you, in that I have not found people who hold to PSA who are not problematic in other areas. Or maybe I shouldn't say "problematic", but rather holding wrong views of God.

 

[easternstar]

I would traditional anabaptist, but they hold the same view.

The Eastern Orthodox Church did not hold that doctrine first (they did not exist for the first several centuries of Christianity). But they did well in maintaining the early teachings. I suspect this is because it was not as localized as the Roman Catholic Church.

I disagree with the Latin side on the Atonement from the 10th century forward (from Anselm to Aquinas and finally Penal Substitution). The basis of each always shifted to that immediate worldview (from honor to justice as merit to legal justice).

Yes, you said about the EOC what I was trying to say.

I also prefer the early Anabaptist and Quaker view of the atonement.

 

[DaveXR650]

Exactly right....not on this thread.

Discuss YOUR views. This thread is about differing views we hold.

You can account for your beliefs, Augustine cannot.

I do not have a high enough opinion of my views to not feel the need to at least use support from well known sources. And I don't have a high enough opinion of your opinion without any support from anything except your own private interpretation to be worth discussing. So you guys have at it.

 

[DaveXR650]

I have not discussed this in depth with my pastor, but I have not had the opportunity to do so.
And I would be the opposite of you, in that I have not found people who hold to PSA who are not problematic in other areas. Or maybe I shouldn't say "problematic", but rather holding wrong views of God.

Thanks, that would at least let someone know where you are coming from.

 

[JonC]

I do not have a high enough opinion of my views to not feel the need to at least use support from well known sources. And I don't have a high enough opinion of your opinion without any support from anything except your own private interpretation to be worth discussing. So you guys have at it.

Good. We should not have a high opinion of our opinions. We lean on God's words.

The Bible is a well known source.

I do not have private interpretations. Mine are pretty well known.

You need to study Scripture and form a conclusion. Then make sure your conclusion is not in isolation.

That is what I did. It is why I can explain how I get to my views as well as verify it is not in isolation.

If you just hold another person's belief you cannot call truly call it yours (it is borrowed).

Like me you can find theologians who agree with your conclusions, but unlike me you only have the conclusions (not the actual belief...you can't get from the Bible to your conclusions and are forced only to read your conclusions into Scripture).

BUT....I did give you some of Augustine's writings on the Atonement since you say he holds your position. His explanation may help you understand your position better.

And, as you share his view we have much more in common than I thought. Still not fond of the mouse trap thing.

 

[easternstar]

I do not have a high enough opinion of my views to not feel the need to at least use support from well known sources. And I don't have a high enough opinion of your opinion without any support from anything except your own private interpretation to be worth discussing. So you guys have at it.

Oh, I have lots more than my own private interpretation. But having discussed this in depth and at length on other forums over the years, and to the point of the opposition getting nasty, I am just weary of it actually. So I'm just posting the facts, and people can take it or leave it.

 

[easternstar]

I don't mean to come off as arrogant or sound like a know-it-all. I'm not. I've questioned every belief I've held and doubted more than a few. But if there's one I'm certain about, it's the atonement, and that's based on scripture, the early church, subsequent church history, and Jesus Christ Himself and His words.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Again, you are misunderstanding the entirety of these verses. The word 'but' contrasts and corrects the previously mistaken view. Further, I might say for example, crushing my enemy would please me, but that doesn't mean that I would personally do the crushing.

I don't think I am. It's just a question of reading the plain meaning of the verses.
'Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted....' We can surely agree that on the cross our Lord was indeed 'stricken' and 'afflicted' - 'we' were right about that - but by whom? Verse 10 tells us: 'Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise (or 'crush') Him; He has put Him to grief.' Now unless you are going to follow @JonC and insist that what the verse means is that it did NOT please God to bruise the Lord Jesus and that He did NOT put Him to grief, then you are faced with the fact that it was God who struck Him. The 'but' is making the contrast that 'we' supposed that God struck Him for His own sins, when in fact, 'The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all ........ For the transgressions of my people He was stricken ....... For He shall bear their iniquities.'

I have recently questioned everything I once believed. The atonement is one thing that I remain 100% certain about, without any doubts whatsoever. PSA did not exist in the scriptures or the early church.

PSA is perfectly clear in the Scriptures. The ECFs did not tend to go into great detail concerning the atonement. They were more taken up with the Trinity and the Person of Christ. But where they did, they gave clear witness to Penal Substitution. I have given several examples of this over the last several years, and I suppose I can look them all out again if you insist. However, here are a couple of short ones from two of the earliest Fathers. First, Clement of Rome:

'In love the Ruler took us to Himself. Because of the love He had towards us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His blood for us by the will of God, His flesh for our flesh; His life for our life.' [Clement of Rome: Epistle to the Corinthians xlix]

Next, Irenaeus:

'He who was powerful Word and also truly man redeemed us by His own blood by a rational transaction, and gave Himself as a ransom for these who had been taken into captivity ......... The Lord redeemed us by His blood, and gave His life for our life, His flesh for our flesh, and poured out the Spirit of the Father to unite us and reconcile God and man.....'

These extracts are very brief, but they show that PSA existed, as it were, in embyro even among the earliest writers. Of course it did, since it is so clearly exhibited in the Bible.

It was invented by the church-statist Protestant Reformers. In fact, a large part of that side of the Reformation was just "Rome light", having taken the Anselmian theory of the atonement and made it much worse. Also kept was infant baptism and 'sacraments, and state-churchism, among other things.
It's amazing to me that most Protestants don't realize they are closer to Rome than they think. And even more amazing that Baptists and some other heirs of the Radical Reformation adhere to PSA.

You do a great dishonour to the many Protestant martyrs of the 16th Century who gave their lives in defence of Protestant teaching. However, light did not come all at once in the Reformation. John Robinson, leader of the Pilgrim Fathers when they were in Holland said, in his farewell speech to those leaving for America in 1620, charged them to follow him no further than he followed Christ, saying that, "It is not possible the Christian world should come so lately out of such thick Antichristian darkness [as that which pertained before the Reformation] and that full perfection of knowledge should break forth at once.'
[More on Robinson's speech here: John Robinson’s farewell to the Pilgrim fathers ]

It was the 17th Century Particular Baptists who, to my mind, went furthest in completing the Reformation. They brought to an end the last vestiges of Romanism: infant baptism and the state church, whilst holding firm to the Five Solas of the Reformation: Grace alone, Christ alone, Faith alone, the Scriptures alone, to the glory of God alone. Yet there is a sense in which the Reformation is never finished. The Reformers held that Ecclesia Reformata semper Reformanda; the Reformed church is always in need of reformation.

 

[Salty]

Six hour warning
This thread will be closed no sooner than 0730 GMT 130 am (Thr) /930 pm (Wed)

 

[JonC]

I don't think I am. It's just a question of reading the plain meaning of the verses.
'Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted....' We can surely agree that on the cross our Lord was indeed 'stricken' and 'afflicted' - 'we' were right about that - but by whom? Verse 10 tells us: 'Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise (or 'crush') Him; He has put Him to grief.' Now unless you are going to follow @JonC and insist that what the verse means is that it did NOT please God to bruise the Lord Jesus and that He did NOT put Him to grief, then you are faced with the fact that it was God who struck Him. The 'but' is making the contrast that 'we' supposed that God struck Him for His own sins, when in fact, 'The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all ........ For the transgressions of my people He was stricken ....... For He shall bear their iniquities.'

PSA is perfectly clear in the Scriptures. The ECFs did not tend to go into great detail concerning the atonement. They were more taken up with the Trinity and the Person of Christ. But where they did, they gave clear witness to Penal Substitution. I have given several examples of this over the last several years, and I suppose I can look them all out again if you insist. However, here are a couple of short ones from two of the earliest Fathers. First, Clement of Rome:

'In love the Ruler took us to Himself. Because of the love He had towards us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His blood for us by the will of God, His flesh for our flesh; His life for our life.' [Clement of Rome: Epistle to the Corinthians xlix]

Next, Irenaeus:

'He who was powerful Word and also truly man redeemed us by His own blood by a rational transaction, and gave Himself as a ransom for these who had been taken into captivity ......... The Lord redeemed us by His blood, and gave His life for our life, His flesh for our flesh, and poured out the Spirit of the Father to unite us and reconcile God and man.....'

These extracts are very brief, but they show that PSA existed, as it were, in embyro even among the earliest writers. Of course it did, since it is so clearly exhibited in the Bible.



You do a great dishonour to the many Protestant martyrs of the 16th Century who gave their lives in defence of Protestant teaching. However, light did not come all at once in the Reformation. John Robinson, leader of the Pilgrim Fathers when they were in Holland said, in his farewell speech to those leaving for America in 1620, charged them to follow him no further than he followed Christ, saying that, "It is not possible the Christian world should come so lately out of such thick Antichristian darkness [as that which pertained before the Reformation] and that full perfection of knowledge should break forth at once.'
[More on Robinson's speech here: John Robinson’s farewell to the Pilgrim fathers ]

It was the 17th Century Particular Baptists who, to my mind, went furthest in completing the Reformation. They brought to an end the last vestiges of Romanism: infant baptism and the state church, whilst holding firm to the Five Solas of the Reformation: Grace alone, Christ alone, Faith alone, the Scriptures alone, to the glory of God alone. Yet there is a sense in which the Reformation is never finished. The Reformers held that Ecclesia Reformata semper Reformanda; the Reformed church is always in need of reformation.

Now, no need to be dishonest. I said Christ's death DID please God (it was God's will).

You have a very bad habit of making false claims and denying passages to give your twist on them.

The problem is you are putting these parts of their (the ECF) writings into your own context.

Those writings are nothing that is foreign to all Christian belief.

But when you consider that Irenaeus and Clement both viewed the punishment that Jesus suffered to be Satan's wrath and through this we are "made anew" and therefore escaoe the wrath to come, you end up with a teaching that is counter to your theory.

You do the same with Scripture. You find words you can use but provide your own context.

Is penal substitution biblical? Yes, if you mean Christ suffered the punishment of Satan as a representative substitute (Second Adam).

But that is not your theory. Your theory is foreign to the Christian faith until the Reformation (a form of it, Satisfaction Theory, existed 500 years prior).

Anybody can read how Anselm developed his theory in Anselm's own words (Cur Deus Homo) and anybody can read how John Calvin developed the Penal Substitution Theory by reworking Anselm's theory in his own words (Institutio Christianae Religionis).

We do not have to believe your myth because Anselm tells us why and how he came up with Satisfaction Theory and Calvin tells us how he "corrected" Anselm's theory to write Penal Substitution Theory.