Satisfaction Atonement

[Charlie24]

I agree with much of your post. What I disagree with is the 'wrath of God' part -- that is PSA and unscriptural.

Well, you know how it is with us humans, we've had around 2000 years to mess it up.

We have to wade through a swamp of false doctrine to find the truth, and then can't agree on the truth.

It's a good thing for us that correct doctrine throughout the Scripture is not the requirement for our salvation.

 

[easternstar]

Well, you know how it is with us humans, we've had around 2000 years to mess it up.

We have to wade through a swamp of false doctrine to find the truth, and then can't agree on the truth.

It's a good thing for us that correct doctrine throughout the Scripture is not the requirement for our salvation.

Charlie, I believe you're a good person. You're don't come across as belligerent or aggressive. I believe we can disagree on some things without the hostility that I have encountered from some, and in other places. Discussion is possible with you because of that, and I'm enjoying the discussion. God looks at the heart, and motives. We don't even have to be right to be saved, thank God.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

They didn't move too far away from RC error when they (Calvin and Luther) took Anselm's Satisfaction Theory and expanded and worsened it into PSA. Also, the Magisterial Protestant view of God and man fits right in with the Roman/Latin/Western errors.

The Reformers corrected 'Satisfaction theory,' and by going back to the Bible were able to point to the truth of Penal Substitution. Not that PSA was a new doctrine; it was well-known in the early Church as I have shown elsewhere. I can post the relevant quotations from the ECFs again if anyone wants.

Anselm was a medieval theologian and lived under the Feudal System that was current at that time.
Suppose that two serfs get into a fight and beat each other up. In such a case, satisfaction can be achieved simply by them pardoning each other. But if a serf were to strike his feudal lord, or worse yet, the king, how much greater would the offense be considered? The serf would be most severely punished, and probably put to death. So how much greater would be the offense of sinning against God! To Anselm and his contemporaries, sin was 'not to render one's due to God.' Anselm argued that if God merely forgave sin it would be unbecoming of Him; it would be inconsistent with His character and dignity. He wrote, "It is necessary that satisfaction or punishment must follow all sin." Because of the greatness of God's character, only one who is of the status of God can make such satisfaction. The problem is that it is humans who need to make that satisfation; they are the offenders, not God. Only Jesus, the God-man, is able to make such a satisfaction, hence the cross.

The problem with Anselm's understanding is that it minimizes grace. In his presentation, what motivates God is not a loving desire to redeem sinners, but that His honour and dignity are satisfied. However, a younger contemporary, Bernard of Clairvaux (b. 1090), that it is not God's honour that is at stake but His justice. He wrote, "I was made a sinner by deriving my being from Adam ... Shall generation by a sinner be sufficient to condemn me and shall not the blood of Christ be sufficient to justify me? ... Such is the justice which man has obtained through the Redeemer' (The errors of Peter Abelard, 6,16-17). He continued: "If one died for all, then all were dead, that the satisfaction of onemight be imputed to all, as He alone bore the sins of all; and now he who offended [i.e. sinners] and He who satisfied divine justice, are found the same, because the Head and the body is one Christ" (ibid). In his famous hymn, "O sacred head sore wounded," Bernard's thoughts are still upon Christ's substitutionary death and he rightly glories in it:
I read the wondrous story,
I joy to call Thee mine.
Thy grief and Thy compassion
Were all for sinners' gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression,
But Thine the deadly pain.

 

[JonC]

This is an excellent post.
JonC, I don't need to say much, with you posting.

Yep. Probably because we are the same person.

 

[JonC]

The Reformers corrected 'Satisfaction theory,' and by going back to the Bible ...

Yes. Calvin tried to correct Satisfaction theory by going back to the Bible. That is why PSA could never reflect Biblical doctrine.
The Reformers were wrong to try and make unbiblical doctrine biblical. Satisfaction Atonement was a doctrine Calvin should have simply abandoned (the framework was wrong).

When we start with a doctrine and go back to the Bible to make it biblical we always end up with error.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Penal Subtitution was there in the Binle long before Calvin, and long before Satisfaction Atonement, as I have shown several times.

 

[JonC]

Penal Subtitution was there in the Binle long before Calvin, and long before Satisfaction Atonement, as I have shown several times.

You did try to show it. You ultimately could not show that it was IN the Bible itself as it is foreign to the biblical text.

I think most know PSA is not in the Bible itself but is instead what people have reasoned out of Scripture (their view of the sacrifice system, if justice, etc.).

This is why you - although you flood threads with Scripture - have been unable to provide any passage stating PSA. It simply is not there.

But you do provide the reason you see it.

Calvin tried to correct the doctrine of Satisfaction Atonement. You also go back to Scripture carrying this fransmework, so you see what is not there.

That is why I suggested that you try to highlight the words in your Bible that state the doctrine PSA teaches. You can't because those words are not in the biblical text.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

You cannot see PSA because you have persuaded yourself it's not there and have blinded your eyes to it, exactly as JWs and Unitarians do the the doctrine of the Trinity. I expect they call is the Theory of the Trinity. Penal Substitution is all over the Bible eg. Romans 3:25-26; Isaiah 53:esp. 5-6, 8, 10-12.

 

[DaveXR650]

You cannot see PSA because you have persuaded yourself it's not there and have blinded your eyes to it, exactly as JWs and Unitarians do the the doctrine of the Trinity. I expect they call is the Theory of the Trinity. Penal Substitution is all over the Bible eg. Romans 3:25-26; Isaiah 53:esp. 5-6, 8, 10-12.

This is true and it's amazing that whether it be the early church fathers, or more pertinent to this thread, Anselm, but whenever they had time to meditate and write about their personal journey of faith in Christ, you begin to see a natural move towards aspects of penal substitutionary atonement. Not as an argument of a system but just as a natural outflow of devotion.
"What, O Chosen Child of my Lord God, hadst Thou done to deserve such bitterness, to deserve such shame? Nothing, nothing. Undone mortal that I am, 'tis I that was the cause of all Thy tribularion and all Thy shame; 'tis I who ate the sour grapes, and Thy teeth were numbed, for Thou hast paid what Thou tookest not away."
Anselm (Ninth Meditation of the Humanity of Christ).

I think the contribution of Anselm was that he (from the writings we have) was first to systematically look at the idea that was always in scripture - that a big part of our problem is between us and God directly. This was mentioned in early church writings, but not deeply looked into. Anselm is attributed with the idea that God's sense of honor was abused and needed appeasement. However, I have read that, like Jon mentioned in post #1, Anselm was aware of and discussed that it was God's sense of justice. That God would not simply forgive sin outright because it was not his nature to do so.