Scholars Scuffle Over The Atonement Part One

Kevin Harris: Bill, your book on the atonement, Atonement and the Death of Christ from Baylor University Press, has become one of the players in a current controversy concerning the meaning and nature of Christ’s death on the cross. You’ve done interviews, including one with Sean McDowell, in response to a book by Andrew Rillera called Lamb of the Free that challenges the penal substitutionary atonement. Let’s revisit the subject for the Reasonable Faith podcast. And in case there’s someone who is unfamiliar with the penal substitutionary atonement—we often call it PSA—please define it for us again.

Dr. Craig: Penal substitutionary atonement is the doctrine that Christ endured the suffering that we deserved as the punishment for our sins, thereby freeing us from our liability to punishment.

Kevin Harris: Let’s look at one of the responses to your interview with Sean and see what some of the objections are. This one is from Max Botner. He’s associate professor of biblical studies at Jessup University, which is in California. This is a big topic so we only have time to look at some of Dr. Botner’s objections. I’m sure there are going to be a lot more responses, and they’ll begin to double and triple, and there will be a lot of response to this, but this will hopefully give you a chance to elaborate on some of the points you’ve been making. Here’s the first excerpt.

Dr. Craig (recording): Most criticisms of penal substitutionary atonement focus on the first aspect, the penal aspect. They want to deny that punitive aspect of the doctrine that Christ was punished for our sins. The argument is usually that an innocent person cannot be punished for the sins of another. But that plays almost no role in Rillera’s book. It almost never comes up. Rather remarkably, his critique is aimed at the second and third element, namely substitution and atonement, of all things. He does not believe that Christ’s death atoned for our sins.

Dr. Botner (recording): So this is actually highly misleading and a misreading of the book. First off, the reason why the book is not dealing as much with the first part of penal is because that part of it tends to come up in the more theological, philosophical discussions of atonement, which is not particularly what Rillera is doing in his book. It is clear that he has issues with the penal part, and that comes through in parts of the book, but his is primarily a biblical theological look at that. So that’s why the penal part doesn’t come up as much. In terms of the substitution, yes, Rillera thinks that substitution is an inappropriate category to describe atonement dynamics in the biblical text. That’s something that I disagree with him on. I think there are elements of substitution as has been understood in the tradition, and I don’t think that substitution and participation have to be pitted at odds with one another. So that’s probably an area where I have something of a substantive disagreement with Rillera. But to Dr. Craig’s last point about denying that there’s atoning value to Jesus’s death, that’s absolutely not Rillera’s argument. And this is a huge issue. The way that McDowell and Craig are framing this conversation misses the point right at the outset. Rillera is focusing on the concept of atonement as described in the priestly source of the biblical text, the verb kipper, the Piel stem of the kpr root, what that means in sacrificial contexts and what sacrificial atonement looks like. That has a particular dynamic, and that word gets translated “to make atonement.” So it’s very easy for us as English readers to assume that our synthetic theological concept of atonement is all embedded in the word when we find it in the Bible. And Rillera is wanting to distinguish those two, to distinguish between what we might call sacrificial atonement and atonement writ large. And in that larger sense of eschatological atonement, absolutely he thinks that’s exactly what Jesus’s death and resurrection does for us. He says that throughout the book. So I don’t understand how Dr. Craig could come to that point. What Rillera is arguing is that the idea of sacrificial atonement as operating within the cult doesn’t play a leading role, and he would maybe argue even almost no role, in how Jesus’s death as salvific is presented in the New Testament. To say that he doesn’t think atonement is in play in Jesus’s death and resurrection is highly misleading. It’s a misreading of the book, and it’s a failure to understand the distinction between, again, what’s happening with the word used in our English Bibles, “atone,” in the Old Testament versus our larger theological concept of atonement.

Kevin Harris: So he disagrees with Rillera as well on the substitutionary aspect, but thinks you’ve mischaracterized Rillera’s book, Bill.

Dr. Craig: Right. Dr. Botner agrees that Rillera’s book does not deal substantively with the penal aspect of penal substitutionary atonement. Moreover, he thinks that Rillera is wrong to deny substitution. But concerning atonement, he thinks that I failed to distinguish two senses of atonement. But in fact in my book Atonement and the Death of Christ, I go into these two different senses in some detail. I explain that the English word “atonement” is ambiguous. On the one hand, there is the etymological meaning of the word “atonement.” The English word “atonement” comes from an ancient Middle English root meaning “at-one-ment,” or a state of harmony. The word “reconciliation” would be the New Testament word that would be synonymous with this broad etymological sense of atonement. But then there is a narrower biblical sense of atonement, which means to cleanse, to purify, to expiate. And this is carried by the Hebrew word kipper in the Old Testament. I actually indict contemporary writers on the atonement for failing to differentiate these two senses of the English word. I point out that German theologians actually have a great advantage here because they have two different words for these senses of atonement. For the etymological sense of atonement, German theologians call this Versöhnung. For the biblical expiatory sense of atonement, the word is Sühne. So they distinguish between Versöhnung and Sühne. But in English we can’t do that because we’ve got this one ambiguous word. I actually make this distinction and insist on it myself. And Botner agrees with me that Rillera rejects Christ’s death as an atoning sacrifice for sin in the sense of that kipper cleansing or expiatory sense. He only accepts atonement in the broader etymological sense of the word. Moreover, later in his podcast, Dr. Botner agrees with me that Rillera’s attempt to deny that Christ’s death was an atoning sacrifice is mistaken. He says Rillera fails to offer a convincing interpretation of Romans 3:25. And he says we can’t get away from it in the Johannine texts and the book of Hebrews. So, ironically, despite our disagreement on the minor details, we agree on the major points. We agree that Rillera has said nothing to undermine the penal aspect of the doctrine, that Rillera is wrong to deny substitution, and that Rillera is wrong to deny that Christ’s death is an atoning sacrifice in the kipper biblical sense.

Kevin Harris: Let’s look at the next clip, then. Here you give some more of your impressions of Rillera’s book.

Sean McDowell (recording): What’s your sense of why you think this book has gotten the attention that it’s gotten? After all, there are regular critiques of penal substitutionary atonement.

Dr. Craig (recording): Well, for one thing, it is the most detailed biblical critique of the doctrine that I have yet seen, and so that would be important. But then also, I have to say that this book is really appealing to those who are attracted to so-called progressive Christianity.

Dr. Botner (recording): All right, I’m just going to pause it here. I didn’t watch the full video in responding, so this is going to be an interesting experience. I just watched the first few minutes, and this is the part where I felt like I really did need to respond. To frame this conversation as one of a conservative, traditional evangelical versus progressive is profoundly stupid. It’s driving me crazy. The conversation here has nothing to do with progressive Christianity. It has everything to do with exegesis and understanding of the biblical text. And Rillera might be wrong on certain points. I think he is wrong on certain points, but his understanding of the Old Testament sacrificial system is on point for the most part, in my opinion.

Kevin Harris: Well, I guess I’m stupid too, because I think that political, social, and reaction to the current culture is glaring in the introduction and even the title of this book. We always examine our biases and our bents because they certainly can influence our theology and exegesis and perhaps even corrupt it.

Dr. Craig: What you say about the foreword and introduction to the book is undeniable. Rillera is very explicit there. But in fact, Botner himself will later admit, around the timestamp 21 in his podcast, that it is Rillera who has framed the book in such a way as to elicit a response. The vehement reaction on social media to my comments indicates that I really touched a raw nerve. Now, Dr. Botner seems to think that I’m rejecting Rillera’s views because of his political agenda, but that’s not at all true. Listen again to Sean McDowell’s question: “Why do you think this book has gotten so much attention?” I think there’s no doubt that neoliberal Protestants find this book appealing because it fits into their agenda. Now, that’s not to say that that agenda is wrong. It’s just to say that Rillera’s book supports what neoliberal Protestants have been saying all along about PSA, and so they find this book appealing.

Kevin Harris: Let’s continue with Botner’s reactions. Here’s the next clip.

Dr. Craig (recording): An effort to deconstruct traditional Christianity and to reconstruct in its place a different version of Christianity . . .

Dr. Botner (recording): The other thing I would just point out is that while I do think that the doctrine of penal substitution, rightly understood, rightly explicated, has merit, the idea that it is just traditional Christianity is also really problematic. Would a Protestant be able to say to an Eastern Orthodox person who doesn’t really have the doctrine of penal substitution as part of their life of worship and theology that they’re the more traditional? We have to be honest here. This is not at the very center. We’re making something absolutely central which is not traditionally central for Christianity. The theologian Robert Jenson says you can believe basically anything you want when it comes to the doctrine of the atonement. If your Christology is on point, you’re good. There’s no council, there’s no creed that says you have to believe X, Y, or Z when it comes to the atonement to be an orthodox Christian. So there’s just no historical grounds for that. Does that not mean you can find elements of substitution throughout the church fathers? Absolutely. Yes, absolutely you can. And I don’t think the church fathers pitted substitution and participation against one another. I don’t see evidence for that. But this idea that penal substitution is at the very center of the Christian faith, and like anything beyond that is going out into dangerous progressivism, I think is unfortunate that he’s framing it this way.

Kevin Harris: So what did you mean by “traditional view” here, Bill? The PSA is certainly one of the main traditional views, but is it the traditional view?

Dr. Craig: Dr. Botner’s comments in this regard are confused. If you look again at my statement carefully, I didn’t say that penal substitutionary atonement is the traditional view. And Botner himself admits that it is to be found in the church fathers. That is true both for the Western Latin-speaking theologians as well as for the Eastern Greek-speaking theologians, and it is in that sense traditional. Robert Jenson, whom he quotes, is clearly mistaken when he says that you can believe anything about the atonement. In 1 Corinthians 15:3, Paul summarizes the gospel that was preached by all the apostles, and he begins, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.” Christ’s death for our sins is thus a vital part of any biblical doctrine of the atonement. So one cannot hold, for example, that our reconciliation to God was brought about merely by the incarnation, Christ’s taking on our human nature. Nor can one say that reconciliation was brought about through our obedience to the teaching of Christ. Now, certainly there are many theories of the atonement, which I survey in my book, but they must include the central truth that Christ died for our sins if they are to be a biblical theory of the atonement.

Kevin Harris: And next up, you summarize some of your critiques of the book. The first objection concerns methodological problems. Here’s the next clip.

Dr. Craig (recording): Number one is that one of the major methodological failures of Rillera’s treatment of the atoning significance of Jesus’s death is that rather than allowing Jesus and the New Testament authors to reinterpret Old Testament sacrifices, Rillera uses the Old Testament narratives as a sort of Procrustean bed or constraint upon New Testament theology. And since we know that New Testament authors felt free to reshape Old Testament materials, this is just bad methodology.

Dr. Botner (recording): OK. There’s an extent to which I might agree with Dr. Craig on this point. Most of the book is focused on Old Testament sacrificial texts, and I think Rillera demonstrates that he understands this material quite well. I think the issue then is that I’m not sure that one can jump strictly from the priestly theology of Leviticus directly to the New Testament without paying attention to the ways in which concepts of atonement, metaphors, and things like that have shifted and morphed. So in some ways, you could say the book is an exercise in rigorously applying Jacob Milgrom’s analysis of the priestly source to all sacrificial language in the New Testament and running that exercise in that way. And I think that that’s problematic. So I think Dr. Craig is right in principle. On the other hand, it is the case that Rillera looks at all the New Testament texts and evaluates them on their own merits. So he’s not simply taking his reading or his theory of Old Testament sacrifice and plopping it on without thinking. He is looking through the New Testament texts. But I do think there are places where maybe his reading is colored by a larger schema that he’s bringing in. So it’s a worthwhile point to consider for sure with this book.

Kevin Harris: Botner largely agrees with you here, Bill, on a lot of things. So explain your objection. Do you think Rillera mostly bypasses the New Testament authors’ freedom to interpret Old Testament teachings, or at least doesn’t take it into consideration?

Dr. Craig: Yes, I think that he underestimates that. A good example is the reshaping of the meaning of the Passover sacrifice. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is portrayed as the Passover lamb. John the Baptist says of Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” And at the Last Supper, Jesus saw the Passover bread and wine as symbolizing his atoning death for sins. It’s futile to object to this by trying to impose the original non-atoning function of the Passover on Jesus and the New Testament authors. They are free to reinterpret this as they desire.

Kevin Harris: Okay, let’s stop right there, and we’re going to pick it up next time right here on Reasonable Faith for part two. It’s Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig.^[1]