A New View of the Atonement

KEVIN HARRIS: Bill, there is apparently something new under the sun. This view of the atonement we are going to be looking at is called by some “a new” theory of Christ’s atonement. It is spelled out in a paper in Faith and Philosophy by Meghan Page and Allison Krile Thornton entitled, “Have We No Shame? A Moral Exemplar Account of Atonement.”^[1] They reference you in the paper citing your published work on the atonement. You've addressed this view, Bill. You've talked about Peter Abelard. Before we define it, is there anything new about this view of the atonement?

DR. CRAIG: Well, I think that Page and Thornton's theory of the atonement extends the work of Eleonore Stump on the atonement which focuses on shame and dealing with shame which serves as an obstacle preventing us from being reconciled and at-one with God. So in that sense it continues that new thrust. But in another sense I found the article really disheartening. To me, it's just the same old-same old that we've come to expect from contemporary Christian philosophers; that is to say, theories of the atonement that are spun out of the philosophical imagination and only tangentially related to biblical doctrine. I think it's just vital that we understand in this connection the difference between a theory of the atonement and the doctrine of the atonement. The doctrine of the atonement refers to the biblical teaching about atonement. Atonement is a very rich and variegated theme throughout the Old and New Testament. The doctrine of the atonement has been very aptly compared to a beautiful multifaceted jewel. It has all sorts of different motifs that go to make up the doctrine of the atonement such as penal substitution, satisfaction, moral influence, ransom theory, and so forth. The goal of a theory of the atonement is to provide a systematization and explication of the biblical doctrine. So any adequate theory of the atonement has to do justice to all of those different facets of the biblical doctrine. And if it fails to do that, it simply is not an adequate theory of the atonement. I'm afraid that Thornton and Page don't merely neglect but they actually deny many of the other facets of the biblical doctrine of the atonement. By blowing up one facet – shame – they construct a theory, and they make that the entire theory of the atonement which is as a result a monstrous deformity of the biblical doctrine of atonement.

KEVIN HARRIS: OK. Let's define it then. What is the moral exemplar account? I'm sure there are several accounts of the atonement that would go under this heading perhaps.

DR. CRAIG: Usually this is what is called the moral influence theory of the atonement. I think they get this language of moral exemplar from the theologian Oliver Crisp who refers to it in that way. But in Peter Abelard, the medieval theologian, the idea was that at the cross we see the depth, the extent of God's love for us, and as a result that ignites within us a flame of love for God so that we naturally are drawn to God and approach God and seek to be reconciled to him. Now, so stated, the problem with that theory is that nothing really happens at the cross. There is no transaction between God and man at the cross. Our sins are not purged or atoned for. There is no punishment meted out for sin. No satisfaction made. Nothing really happens at the cross. It's just that the cross serves as a sort of magnet or spark that kindles within our hearts love of God so that we're drawn to God in turn. That's what is typically at the heart of the moral influence theory of the atonement.

KEVIN HARRIS: Early in the paper they write that they are arguing contra to you and people like Oliver Crisp who holds that our sin problem is dealt with first then we're reconciled to God. Rather, they think we're first reconciled to God then that takes care of the sin problem. So they think it's often expressed backwards. Do you have it backwards?

DR. CRAIG: No. I think they've got it backwards, and their view is utterly un-Jewish. The whole Levitical system of animal sacrifices in the Old Testament that were carried out in the tabernacle and in the temple was established in order to purge the people of sin and impurity and thereby to reconcile them to God. The words for atonement – in Hebrew, kpr – mean to cleanse or purify, and this was what these offerings were for. Like the sin offering – they were to purge of sin and impurity so that God could be in fellowship with the people. This motif is picked up in the New Testament which sees Christ's self-sacrificial death as the ultimate sacrifice for sin that reconciles us for all time to God by securing our divine pardon.

KEVIN HARRIS: A hallmark of the paper is their emphasis on human shame and how Jesus took care of the debilitating shame problem that we all have and which was exhibited in Adam and Eve, they say. I'm curious if they're perhaps substituting shame for sin.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. I think that's exactly right. You notice they leapfrog over the whole Levitical background to Christ's sacrificial death and jump all the way back to the story of the Fall which is not even an atonement passage. That passage has nothing to say about atonement. And moreover they enter into the story of the Fall too late in the story with Adam and Eve's shame before God and covering themselves because they saw that they were naked. What Thornton and Page do is ignore the earlier and crucial warning by God: “In the day that you eat of the tree you shall surely die.” This is a judicial statement; not merely about the consequences of sin but the punishment for sin. God in effect establishes the death penalty for sin, and Adam and Eve then experience that spiritual death and alienation from God. So they're ignoring this critical aspect of the story which is not about shame but it's about disobedience and their judicial condemnation. Notice in the article they say that Adam and Eve are not ashamed of their sin or their disobedience. They're ashamed of their vulnerability. Now, that cannot have been the intention of the Pentateuchal author because the Levitical system of animal sacrifices that he described was not established to deal with peoples’ being ashamed of their vulnerability. There was a guilt offering for sin, but there wasn't any vulnerability offering. Ironically, the most important shame motif in the Old Testament is not about our shame; it's about the shame that we bring upon God due to our disobedience and faithlessness. Over and over again the Lord says to the people, “You have made my name a reproach among the nations.” They have brought shame upon the name of God by their sin and disobedience. So Anselm's concern in his satisfaction theory with God's honor was not (as it's often said) a reflection of medieval feudalism. Rather, it was a very Jewish motif. Far more important than the modern psychological concern with our shame, it was the shame that we brought upon God that was really important.

KEVIN HARRIS: In other words, God didn't say, “In the day that you eat of the fruit, you're going to feel real naked.”

DR. CRAIG: Yeah, “You're going to be real vulnerable.”

KEVIN HARRIS: Or “neked” as we say in Texas. He said, “In the day that you eat the fruit, you will die.” That's a strong point. But let's cut to the chase. While they do discuss some interesting psychological issues concerning how all of us experience debilitating shame, I'm trying to understand how they think the Levitical law and sacrifices are addressed by their view. They say they need more space to fully answer this, and also acknowledge in a footnote that this is your objection to moral exemplar views of the atonement. We've just discussed that. I watched an interview with them, and they said, again, “Well, we want to do more research to more fully address this objection.” But they don't think it overturns their view. Bottom line, this is one of the reasons that you reject the view.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah. Their approach does not do justice to the Jewish background of atonement. Atonement in the biblical sense (that is kpr in the Hebrew, hilaskomai in the Greek New Testament) is about the purgation of sin and impurity through substitutionary sacrifice. The animal that is sacrificed dies in the place of the offerer. The animal experiences the fate that the offerer deserved as the punishment for his sin. Their approach simply doesn't do justice to that Old Testament background to atonement.

KEVIN HARRIS: They also claim that Christ's model on the cross is not merely a teaching example. You've pointed out that Jesus merely showing a good example does not even require him to be divine. I think Schleiermacher had a view something like that. So does the atonement require more than just a good moral example?

DR. CRAIG: Well, it seems like it, doesn't it? Otherwise why have an incarnation? Why not just a human Jesus who provides this good example to us that draws us to God and comes to us in our shame and absolves our shame? Why have a divine incarnation? It doesn't seem to require that.

KEVIN HARRIS: Let's take a look at a portion of their conclusion and then get your conclusions. They write,

In sum, we argue that we should rethink the mechanics of the atonement in light of shame, understood here as a fundamentally neurobiological and interpersonal phenomenon that results both from and in ruptured connections. Shame, we contend, not only isolates us from God, but also renders us incapable of resolving the isolation ourselves, a pattern we see not only in Genesis 3, but also in the socialization of young children and in our own experiences of shame. Careful reflection on shame highlights our need for a loving caregiver to reach out to us, meet us in our shame state, and actively model the way out. Christ’s life and death, we have argued, meet these criteria. The view we defend, therefore, is an exemplar account: in brief, Christ exemplifies how to break the shame cycle, and his example—as opposed to his participation in an objective transaction—is the key to restoring communion with God.

A couple of things I'm curious about. First, what should be our concerns when we think about the mechanics of the atonement? Is this another word for the transaction, whatever that was that took place?

DR. CRAIG: Yes. How is atonement actually achieved? For example, in penal substitution atonement is achieved through Christ's satisfying the demands of divine justice by bearing the suffering that would have been the punishment for our sins had it been inflicted upon us. And in their theory, Christ merely serves as a model for how to deal with shame. When we think about the mechanics of atonement, any theory has to do full justice to all of the biblical motifs, and shame is just a minor one of these motifs or facets. Therefore, their theory simply fails as a credible atonement theory. However philosophically appealing or congenial you might find it, if it doesn't do justice to the biblical doctrine then it just isn't a Christian theory of the atonement. I don't think that their theory is recognizably Christian.

KEVIN HARRIS: While your objections to this are primarily biblical, I'm curious whether you think that modern psychological discoveries and neurobiological insights can shed light on the atonement. Again, that seems to be the hallmark of their case.

DR. CRAIG: I'm not wanting to exclude it, but I have to say, honestly, that their article struck me as very touchy-feely. I think what we have here is the substitution of psychology for sound biblical theology, and when we start to substitute psychology for biblical theology I think that is a very dangerous trend and a pursuit that we should avoid.

KEVIN HARRIS: By the way, if you have not downloaded the Reasonable Faith app, be sure you do that. Go to ReasonableFaith.org. You can download it and have instant access to all the resources from Reasonable Faith right there on your device. While you are at ReasonableFaith.org, please consider giving a financial gift to the work of Reasonable Faith to help us continue to produce great content like this that reaches the world. Thanks so much. We’ll see you next time on Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig.^[2]