The Cross and Human Sacrifice: Learning from the Prophets
It is an odd fact in the history of Christian doctrine that the Church has never produced an official theology of atonement. All orthodox Christians believe that Christ’s death on the cross was constitutive of our salvation, but there are dozens of different theories and variations of theories to explain exactly how Christ’s cross, that is, his death, is saving. Unlike the great Christological and Trinitarian debates in the early Church, this question has never disturbed the Church’s life in such a way that a Council felt the need to pronounce authoritatively and so, to this day, we are at liberty to profess all kinds of theories about the cross provided one thing, that we profess Christ’s death saves us.
This is healthy. The Church need not pronounce on every detail and force people to accept a particular explanation for every doctrine. This is only necessary when the core of the gospel and/or the unity of the Church is threatened. On the other hand, this does not mean that the theology of the cross is a matter of indifference. Indeed, while there may be many theories of the cross that are acceptable to orthodox Christianity, there are also theories that are not acceptable. A theory is not acceptable if it runs up against other Christian doctrines in an irreconcilable way. As regards the atonement, the most obvious way this can happen is when a particular theory obscures the claim that God is love.
Theories of atonement that make God into a sadist or an arbitrary punisher of sin must be avoided. It is too often the case, however, that many popular versions of the Christian story involve God in, essentially, human sacrifice. The argument goes something like this: the wages of sin is death (i.e., spiritual death, hell), and all are sinners, so all must die (i.e., go to hell) if God is truly just. But, being merciful as well as just, God sent his son to take the punishment due to us. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross becomes a simple replacement for the death God, in justice, must demand from every human person.
There are at least half a dozen problems that jump off the page here. If everyone sins, isn’t there some fault with the maker? How can it be just to damn humanity en masse for sin when they had no legitimate shot at not sinning? Why does Jesus’ physical death cancel our spiritual death? If God really accepts his death as a substitute for ours, and the death that we are really concerned with is spiritual death, shouldn’t Jesus be damned for eternity? Why is our own death not enough to pay the wages of sin? Why did Jesus’ death need to be so terrible? If what God needed really needed to cancel our debt was blood, couldn’t it have been got in a more humane way? Why does God need blood to cancel debt anyways? Can’t God cancel debt be mere fiat? Etc. etc.
Now, in the course of Christian history, there are those who have tried to answer this or that question. I cannot rebut every proposed solution here. Suffice to say that the whole series of questions (and it could be longer), stems from a misunderstanding. As Frank Sheed put it:
It was not as if Christ said to his Father: “All men deserve death. Would you mind killing me instead of them?” That would have been either horrible or meaningless. What in effect he said was: “Because of my obedience in doing your will, teaching your will, attacking powerful men who are perverting your will, they are determined to kill me. Will you accept my death and apply it to the needs of all men?” (What Difference Does Jesus Make?, p. 200)
Deserving death is not really the issue. The wages of sin are death, yes. But not because God needs to punish us. Rather, as any honest observer will attest, we have spent our history murdering one another. God doesn’t punish sin arbitrarily. He grants us the freedom to love, without which love is impossible. His respect for that freedom means that he hands us over to the consequences of our own actions. This “handing over” is a frequent way for Scripture to talk about God’s punishment for sin. He lets us punish ourselves.
On the other hand, in his great love, God has consented to bear that burden as well. The Father doesn’t punish the Son for sin. He sends the Son to bear the burden of sin that we are already inflicting on each other. Christ wasn’t crucified by himself, but between two sinners. Who knows how many thousands or tens of thousands the Romans crucified? And not just the Romans. The friendship of Herod and Pilate forged at the time of Jesus’ condemnation symbolizes that the whole world (Jews (Herod) and Gentiles (Pilate), from the Jewish author’s point of view) is guilty of violence. We are all responsible for the violence against Christ, yes, but that only makes sense in the context of constant human violence against one another. It is not conceivable that Jesus be the first murder victim in our history. We are a murderous race, killing our brothers and sisters, almost from the beginning.
It was into this violence that Christ inserted himself. Just think of him stepping in front of the crowd about to stone the woman caught in adultery. And the Gospels make it clear he knew what he was doing. He knew that cleansing the temple would not go over well. But he also knew it was God’s will. It is not that it was God’s will to have Christ killed, but rather that doing God’s will often gets one killed. If you need contemporary examples, look no further than Martin Luther King and Oscar Romero. Indeed, as the lives of these three men indicate, sometimes you can be certain that doing God’s will will get you killed.
As St. Anselm, so often misunderstood on the question of atonement, so germanely pointed out, ‘Why did Jesus have to die?” is the wrong question. Anselm laconically points out that Jesus had to die because we killed him. The real question is, rather, “Why was this death saving?”
I want to look at this question by looking at the idea of sacrifice. Why was Jesus’ death an acceptable sacrifice? Now, sacrifice is a widely misunderstood term. When we think of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice it is very tempting to fall into a reading of Scripture, especially the letter to the Hebrews, which matches up very closely with the God who needs blood to forgive sins.
But this is exactly the opposite of the point of Hebrews. Like the prophets of the Old Testament, Hebrews insists that God does not want blood. When the ancient Israelites thought that killing an animal would appease God’s wrath, they were excoriated by the prophets. If you think that you can be right with God through ritual killing, the prophets insisted, you have misunderstood God entirely. God wants your obedience, your contrition. God wants you to act justly, especially to the most disenfranchised among you. To read the letter to the Hebrews as if its argument was that goats’ blood could not satisfy God, but (sinless) human blood could, is to pervert the Gospel.
The ancient Israelites, like virtually every society on earth, understood that sacrifice was necessary to live in community. However articulated, this basic conviction is universal. Just think of the last time you had to host a family function, never mind living with some other person for 50 years or raising children with that person. Without sacrifice, without a person learning to get over him or herself, these relationships inevitably fall apart. That’s why marriage is good preparation for heaven.
And like every culture, ancient Israel expressed its basic convictions through story and ritual. The problem, of course, is that sinful humanity often loses sight of the heart of the issue. Instead of understanding their sacrifices in the temple as symbolic of their gifts of self (“give me your very best!”), necessary to live in harmony with God and neighbor, the Israelites often understood their sacrifices as a way to manipulate God. But Israel was not like every other culture in every aspect. God sent them prophets to remind them of what God really wanted.
Now it is a terrible shame if we Christians, self-consciously heirs to this great tradition (the early Church insisted on keeping the Old Testament), forget its lessons on so central a question as the cross. As the New Testament makes very clear, Christ was able to make of his death an acceptable sacrifice, a gift of himself, precisely by doing what the prophets called for. He obeyed God’s will, he acted with justice to the least, he was even contrite on our behalf. That he died is essential in as far as it gave a context for how he died. Jesus had taught the beatitudes, but here he was given a chance to exemplify them in a way that simply cannot be paralleled in a non-life-threatening situation.
Goats and sheep could never appease God because, being offered by sinful humans, they could never really achieve a perfect getting over oneself. Even in our best moments we find little hints of our egotism creeping in. We can’t trust that our motives are perfectly pure. Our best attempts at self-sacrifice fall short and, as Hebrews points out, we must try over and over and over again. We are incapable of a perfect sacrifice, not because our livestock don’t please God, but because our hearts don’t.
But, if we are to live in harmony with God and neighbor in eternity, perfect sacrifice is needed. We must get over ourselves completely or heaven will not be heaven. It is this total lack of self-concern that defines Jesus’ sacrifice as perfect and, therefore, saving. But the real miracle is this: as Paul indicates in that odd passage to the Colossians, Christ’s suffering lacks something to be made up by us, his body. Why is it miraculous that Christ’s sacrifice needs something to complete it? Because this means that Christ’s sacrifice is not for him alone, but must be applied to all of us, members of his body. Christ’s sacrifice was perfect in itself, but it must be applied throughout history to make us perfect. We could never do this on our own, but in union with him, we can offer what little we have and it will bear fruit. Slowly our motivations can be purified, our egotism weakened, our charity increased until we will finally be like Him because we see him face to face.
God doesn’t need blood to forgive sins, as the prophets never ceased to announce. But God does demand human sacrifice. We must value God’s will over our own. We must love truth more than we despise suffering. And where we fail in this, God joins us, even to the Cross.
Brett Salkeld is a doctoral student in theology at Regis College in Toronto. He is a father of two (so far) and husband of one.
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I think you’re right on. It’s about Christ being willing to obey God’s will no matter how painful, nay, even if it killed him. And we are to follow in his footsteps. And of course God’s will is that we love him with our whole heart, mind and will, and our neighbors as ourselves.
On first read, what a truly masterful piece. I do so hope my comment does not inflate your ego. I need to let this one roll through my head (1873 words) somewhat like it were an expanded post of Henry’s, but so far, this is resonating with a very solid tone.
On a slightly humorous note your line:
“That’s why marriage is good preparation for heaven.”
while most beautiful and true provoked the thought that in some cases, marriage is excellent preparation for Hell.
I just finished Benedict’s Behold the Pierced One. On the last page he plays on Sartre’s “Hell is other people” and writes that “Heaven is other people.” I suppose “other people” includes spouses in either case. ;)
We are in deep trouble when we lose him. He is an amazing writer, a truly once in a lifetime talent. He has been the brains of the Church for working on half a century.
The Holy Spirit may well see fit to provide for us again. But yes, the man can write.
If memory serves you are currently in pursuit of the Phd and about 20 years old.
As a writer myself I must say in my humble opinion that if you keep writing like this, I may be forced (as they say) to “throw my sax in the river” and nominate you for a replacement.
Thank you gisher. I wish I was 20. In fact, I was one of the very last things to come out of the 1970s. And I am a married person and therefore lacking not only the spiritual and intellectual gifts needed for the job, but also the canonical status.
instead of understanding their sacrifices in the temple as symbolic of their gifts of self (“give me your very best!”)
Yet Cain was rejected for doing precisely this. It seems to me there remains some subtle treasure yet buried here which is begging to be unearthed.
Dan,
Subtle indeed. Could you elaborate?
I don’t have anything worked out. I am left with a strong feeling that there’s something undeveloped here – something important in how Christ’s sacrifice relates to Cain and Abel’s respective sacrifices, and what that means. But unfortunately I have nothing but conjecture on the matter, and I would defer to someone who has spent more time unravelling the meaning behind the Genesis account.
Furthermore, I’m also left with a nagging feeling that your exposition – while brilliant – doesn’t really adequately answer the initial question – why does Christ’s sacrifice save us? If your hypothesis is true, then Christ’s sacrifice doesn’t actually save us, but rather his example teaches us how to save ourselves. Is that really what the gospel is to be reduced to?
Regardless, it still begs the question – save us from what? Is “save” the correct terminology here?
I’ve been thinking about this very question of Cain and Abel’s sacrifice’s over the last few weeks, and I’ve noticed something very interesting about the Genesis story.
We are not told why God rejects one and accepts the other, but notice how quickly Cain’s “obedience to God” unravels in the face of that rejection. It’s as if the rejection serves to bring into the light Cain’s deep lack of obedience and love, so profound a lack that envy and jealousy drive him to murder. I mean, whatever happened to pausing and asking God “what is missing, teach me your ways….”
In this sense, Cain’s reaction exposes both his sin and God’s wisdom in rejecting the sacrifice.
With that in mind, I’d like to propose a preliminary answer to the questions “save us from what” and “save how”. Christ’s sacrifice redeems us from ourselves and our ingrained orientation to do violence to each other (and ourselves!) through pride and envy. How? Not just as an example (though certainly as an example to be imitated) but also as FOUNDING a new community by “infecting” his followers with his love. Just as envy is an infection that spreads from one human to another and creates spiritual disorder in me, so the love Christ shows me on the Cross reaches me, infects me and heals and restores me, reestablishing friendship with God and with my neighbour, so that a new social order rooted in divine charity actually exists in the world through the Church.
I struggle with finding the right word, and infection is the best thing I’ve come up with so far, to talk about how the Cross can CAUSE transformation and reconciliation. Still working on it though, not entirely happy.
I haven’t thought much (or seen much) about the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, but I think you’re right that there is something interesting here. I’ll watch for it moving forward.
As to the deeper question about salvation, more later. But I’ll leave you with this for now:
“For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.” (2 Cor. 5:14-15)
We must really participate in Christ and his cross, not just passively accept its benefits.
I wonder, Brett, what you make of Von Balthasar’s theologia crucis? Let me state more precisely what I have in mind. It seems to me that one of the things that makes Balthasar’s account so persuasive is precisely that thing that makes it run up against (or beyond?) the limits of Trinitarian orthodoxy. Seeing Christ as the “Lamb sacrificed before the foundation of the world,” who from all eternity willingly takes unto himself the consequences of human freedom–sin and death and yea, separation from the Divine Life itself–avoids many of the crass formulations you rightly note. But it does involve us in the supposition that when Christ gives up his spirit (pneuma) in John 19, he really is giving up the spirit that had descended upon him in John 1 and signals his participation in the Divine life. This is all reconstituted, but I’m wondering if there are insuperable problems (on your view) for this account’s understanding of the Trinity. Perhaps you could write a post on this sometime.
In any case, really good post here.
Nice job with Anselm, Brett!
Brett,
I would recommend you check out the work of Slavoj Zizek on the crucifixion. The book I read, The Puppet and the Dwarf, is slow going (like all his books) but rewarding. And there are several commentaries on it that are helpful: search “Zizek” and “theology” in Amazon or a good library catalog.
Zizek is a marxist and an atheist materialist, but he takes the gospel accounts of the crucifixion and the founding of Christianity very seriously (perhaps more seriously than some Christians do). His interpretation is thoroughly embedded in his interpretation of Lacanian psychoanalysis, but is extremely insightful. Indeed, I really think that his ideas can be “baptised” in the way that Aristotle was baptised by Aquinas.
In a (easily misunderstood) nutshell: Zizek sees the Crucifixion as the key act by which Jesus “traverses the fantasy” and thereby makes it possible for his followers to do the same. Traversing the fantasy means accepting the fact that there are gaps in the symbolic order (the social construction by which we understand reality) that we cannot fill. To Lacan, fantasies are the ways in which we fill these gaps. I see this as the way in which we express the ultimate sin of pride: that we really know what is going on, that we have full understanding of good and evil. Jesus “tears the veil” and shows us this gap through which “the Real” appears. To Zizek, the atheist, this gap is the void, an emptiness, but in a Christian reading it is clearly God. The sacrifice of the cross is necessary because human reason alone cannot escape the symbolic order, cannot break free of the fantasies we construct to explain reality. Only God can do that.
As a point of clarification, Anselm explicitly *rejects* the claim here attributed to him, viz. “that Jesus had to die because he was a human.” On the contrary, as Anselm argues in Cur Deus homo, even as human, the God Man need not have died, as indeed Adam and Eve need not have died. It is precisely because his death was not in any way “due” that it was a free offering, and precisely because it was the death of the God Man that it was a saving death.
What is disappointing about many readings of Anselm (I do not suggest that you do so here, mind you!) is that Anselm is accused of the kind of “angry God” or, at best, “God with his hands tied because while he wants to be merciful he must uphold justice” (as we see, to some extent, in Milton’s Paradise Lost). Anselm explicitly wants to hold off the accusations that God was either (1) limited (i.e. he could save man in no other way), (2) foolish (i.e. he could have saved man in another way, but chose this painful and difficult way), or (3) wicked (i.e. that God was free to save man in a number of ways but nonetheless chose freely and happily to require the painful death of the Son). Ultimately, Anselm directs our attention to the fact that God made us for happiness, and enmeshed in sin as we are, we cannot be happy. Indeed, simply overlooking our sin would not be enough, as we would suffer the pains of knowing what we could have been, and will for eternity fail to be. So, God, accd. to Anselm, sought out a plan of salvation which was both (1) more than sufficient and abundant in its goodness [and thus is more than the death of a good man in a bad world; after all, we have Socrates for that story --- my addition here, not Anselm's!] and (2) such that we could truly experience that redemption as *our own*, and in some sense the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve setting right what they had seemingly irrevocably ruined.
Indeed, despite attempts to distinguish “objective” and “subjective” accounts of salvation among the Medieval theologians, the fact is that they all, Anselm as much as Abelard or Aquinas, touch both on the objective (what God did to respond to the real effects of sin) and subjective (how Christ’s redeeming death on the Cross serves to transform *us* morally, as opposed to “appeasing God”) dimensions.
Father Dominic,
Thanks for the correction. I have changed the line in question, though I am still looking into things a bit and so it might change again. Do you like the new version?
As St. Anselm, so often misunderstood on the question of atonement, so germanely pointed out, ‘Why did Jesus have to die?” is the wrong question. Anselm laconically points out that Jesus had to die because we killed him. The real question is, rather, “Why was this death saving?”
I might suggest something like this:
As St. Anselm, so often misunderstood on the question of atonement, pointed out, ‘Why did Jesus have to die?’ is the an ambiguous question. In an obvious sense, Jesus died because he was killed by evil men. In a deeper sense, it was he who laid down his life in freedom. That is, for Anselm, he need not have died, but, out of love for sinful man, he chose to die in loving obedience to the Father, to do for man what man could not do for himself, but which he had to do to come to that happiness for which he was made. The pressing question, then, is rather “Why was this death saving?”
I put it this way because every Christian, in light of Jesus’ own words, has to allow that, in some way, “it was necessary that the Christ should suffer, and so enter into his glory.” I put forward my suggestion above as a way to do honor to that, and Anselm, while still making what I take to be your point.
I still think that the fundamental question yet to be answered is precisely what we’re being saved from, and how some innocent party’s death enacts said salvation. It seems that the answers to the former are not adequately embodied in the latter without invoking some sort of obscure heresy.
Dan, I wonder if wanting to know “precisely” what we’re being saved from is the best place to start. At least, if we allow that “precisely” may rightly have a *plural* answer, we would probably do justice to what God has revealed to us. Minimally, we would want to address (a) the corruption of human nature which arises from sin and the Fall (the “body of death”), (b) our moral rebellion, decay and blindness (i.e. in Pauline language, being “enemies of God” and “falling short”), and (c) the power of evil spiritual forces at work against us (i.e. “the devil and his angels”). All three of these are well attested in the New Testament as that which Jesus was sent to overcome, viz. Death, Sin, the Devil. More than that, we would want to remember that Christ’s work on the Cross *also* effected positive things, inaugurating for us the way to everlasting life and a share in the divine life of the Trinity. So, “precisely” may be too strong a demand!
Also, we may want to keep away from generic descriptors such as “some innocent party.” Jesus Christ is not just some innocent party, he is the Son of God, the Word Incarnate. We probably could not produce a generic argument to account for how “some innocent party” could, by his death, produce the effects in the paragraph above. However, what is at stake here is what God has done and is doing in Christ.
I agree with your comments on the plural nature of what we’re saved from – I do think the answer is multi-faceted. But the fact that we, as Christians, sprout that we need Jesus to be saved, yet we really don’t understand what we’re being saved from (most Christians would likely say hell and it would end there), has always puzzled me.
This circles back to the original post. If Christ’s death was simply significant, then really Jesus is no different from other spiritual leaders who were killed for their cause – Jesus was simply the most perfect example. The fact that it was God participating seems irrelevant – as God participates fully in each of our lives today.
Dan writes, “most Christians would likely say hell and it would end there”.
I can go along with there being multiple things we are saved from. For example sin itself. But isn’t hell the primary thing? With all the talk of what we are saved from, hell has hardly been mentioned except in connection with explanations that are being discounted (for example in paragraph 3 of the original post).
If Dominic is right that we are saved from (a) corruption, (b) moral rebellion and (c) evil spiritual forces — well, why do we need saving from those things? Just because they’re unpleasant? or because they will have ultimate consequences?
I hate to seem terribly dense, but why would I not want to be freed from corruption, rebellion, and evil spiritual forces? From our perspective, they undo what it means to be human, which means our very desires and happiness, all that it means to flourish as being human, is frustrated, distorted, and undone by them.
If we trust the Scriptures, then God would want to free us for at least two kinds of reasons. First, out of love. He loves us, even while we are still enemies. At least as important, however, is God’s glory. The Psalms repeat again and again on behalf of Israel that, even if God has no motive to forgive Israel for Israel’s sake, he does have a motive to do so for the sake of his Name. If God made the world out of his abundant love for his own good pleasure, and if corruption, rebellion, and the assaults of the Evil One undermine the good he wants for his human creatures, then we can see why God might want to, even if in his sovereign goodness he need not, deliver us from evil.
Perhaps Agellius’s remark was motivated for other reasons but many Christians that I have known seemingly failed to discern that much of Christ’s teachings were focused on improving their life with the intent of helping them to flourish within their lives, rather than to just assure that one carries the football across the proper goal line in the afterlife.
Some of this may be the result of how each individual is taught the scriptures, where the emphasis is placed, and perhaps that is something we could improve.
I suspect in many cases this has more to do with the focus of each individual on their specific goals in life as well as within the afterlife.
Dominic writes, “I hate to seem terribly dense, but why would I not want to be freed from corruption, rebellion, and evil spiritual forces?”
I agree that you would want to. My question is, why would you want to?
You answer, “From our perspective, they undo what it means to be human, which means our very desires and happiness, all that it means to flourish as being human, is frustrated, distorted, and undone by them.”
Then basically your answer is that we would want to be freed from those things because otherwise we can’t be happy. But do you mean, happy for eternity, or just happy here on earth?
If you mean for eternity, then what you say basically amounts to, because if you’re not freed from them then you would be unhappy for eternity. Which to me sounds like hell.
Which again begs the question – why did Jesus need to die? And how does his death actually save us?
To Agellius I would say that I think I mentioned that I thought you were working another angle so I was not addressing you specifically. As a matter of fact, I actually agree with your latter comments on the matter in total.
To Dan as to why did Jesus have to die, I can only suggest that there is no higher sacrifice than giving one’s life. There could not be a higher expression of love and devotion than to offer one’s life. I could go much deeper into the theoretical here but this combox is getting so tiny it is becoming quite aggravating.
In summary, I still fail to understand the necessity of Christ’s sacrifice. If I don’t understand the necessity, I certainly can’t understand the nature.
In the simplest terms, it strikes me that what we are saved from is division. This is nicely portrayed by the Babel-Pentecost dynamic. Sin has divided the human family and that division is deepened and reinforced by the violence we inflict on one another. That is what we are saved from.
All honest human experience shows that overcoming division requires sacrifice. Just think of the effort of will it takes to shake hands and say “Peace be with you” to someone who has seriously (or not so seriously) wronged you. Turning the other cheek and going the extra mile indicate that, if we demand strict justice from our adversaries we will get nothing but more violence. The only way out is forgiveness and forgiveness is a great sacrifice! (“Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”) Imagine if someone murdered your parents or raped your children. The sacrifice of offering forgiveness here is huge. But without it, the human family will never be whole.
And yes, this means being saved from hell. Hell is the division of humanity hardened for eternity. Heaven is the fruit of reconciliation. As I noted above, Ratzinger says, “heaven is other people.”
So sacrifice is necessary for communion. And Christ’s sacrifice was necessary because we are actually incapable of the kind of death to self that could forgive every wrong. At least, we are incapable left to our own devices. But we are not left to our own devices. By grace, we can grow into the stature of Christ and make the final offering of ourselves. We can take up our crosses. For most of us the final death to self will happen in purgatory, God’s ultimate act of mercy.
Hmm, probably should have just written another post. We’ll see.
Still doesn’t say why Christ had to die. This is a theology of example, not of atonement.
I should clarify the premise behind that statement – you’re saying that his death was not required, but rather inevitable because of how he lived. While this is a salient point, it places the emphasis on Christ’s life rather than his death and resurrection. This seems to contradict the boldness with which the scriptures stress the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection as atonement to God for our sins – even Jesus himself indicated that moment is why he came into the world.
I don’t think anything you’ve said is incorrect, but it feels like a greywash.
It’s not clear to me how I can be accused of promoting a theology of mere example when I explicitly claim that Christ does something we are incapable of doing ourselves.
But the Catholic Church has always insisted on real righteousness, not just imputed righteousness. Christ can and does make us holy by allowing us to participate in his cross. The most explicit way he does this is in the sacraments, but there are innumerable other ways as well.
My language was stronger than I intended. I don’t believe you are promoting a theology of example. I meant that there is a gap in your presentation about the relationship between inevitability and necessity specifically as it relates to atonement. Without elucidation on this point, your argument can be reduced to a theology of example, which I don’t think it your intention.
I fundamentally agree with everything you’ve said, but to me, the scriptures are pretty clear about the nature of Christ’s death as an (perhaps “the”) essential component of the atoning sacrifice – such that it would not be complete without it. Based on the text of your post, it appears that Christ’s death does not seem like a fundamental constituent of atonement under this framework – had Christ died a natural death (or, frankly, never died at all), everything you have said would still apply in equal measure. Christ death may have been inevitable, but I’m still cloudy on the connection between inevitability and necessity. The necessity you refer to simply seems to be an explanation of the depth of our fallen nature.
I’m sure you’ve thought this through, which is why I’m pressing the point, as I have a personal interest in the answer to this question.
I wouldn’t say it emphasizes his life rather than the death and resurrection, but it certainly does contextualize his cross and resurrection so that they cannot be interpreted in a “God-just-needed-some-blood” kinda way. The cross must be read in light of Jesus’ life and ministry. Otherwise, the evangelists wasted a lot of time getting to the point.
The cross was the inevitable outcome of a life lived fully according to God’s will. If we were not a murderous race that would not be true, but then we would not need to be saved from our “murderousness.” In a way, it is required because it is inevitable. If it were not inevitable it wouldn’t be necessary.
Brett,
Perhaps it would be helpful to see if I have your argument correct before proceeding:
The human race separated itself from God through disobedience. It is us who separates ourselves from God, not God who separates himself from us. Therefore, in order to reunite ourselves fully with God, we must achieve perfect obedience, which requires perfect sacrifice. We, as a fallen race stained by Original sin, are incapable of such perfect sacrifice. Christ achieved perfect obedience through his perfect sacrifice – a sacrifice which, because of his obedience, inevitably resulted in his death. However, in remaining obedient until death, he completed the perfect life in communion with God; a communion which he allows us to share in. By partaking in his life, we are able to be reconciled with God through him.
Is that correct?
Sorry I’m taking so long to reply Dan. I’m going to try write something up for you tonight. I’ll post it at the bottom to avoid the narrowing of my comments. if it ends up being long enough and if I think it would stand on its own, I might turn it in to a post in its own right. We’ll see.
Brett writes, “Christ’s sacrifice was necessary because we are actually incapable of the kind of death to self that could forgive every wrong. At least, we are incapable left to our own devies. But we are not left to our own devices. By grace, we can grow into the stature of Christ and make the final offering of ourselves. We can take up our crosses. For most of us the final death to self will happen in purgatory, God’s ultimate act of mercy.”
I can go along with that for the most part.
What I would emphasize is that it’s necessary for human beings to die to self in order to live in eternity in Heaven. Luke 17:33 “Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” Also, Luke 14:27 “Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
So maybe it’s not necessarily that Christ had to die, but that we need to die to self, and Christ chose that mode of sacrifice to show us how it’s done.
Now Dan might say, “Well that’s just showing us how to save ourselves”; and he would be right, except that it’s not the whole story.
John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Also, Christ is the head, and we are the members of his Body (1 Cor. 12:27).
By baptism we are incorporated into this Body. Thus, when Christ offers himself, we offer ourselves along with him — primarily through the Mass. In this way we partake of Christ’s dying to himself, by joining our (admittedly piddling) efforts at dying to ourselves, with his perfect dying to himself, i.e. perfect submission of his will to his Father’s — in other words, join our piddling efforts at sacrifice with his perfect sacrifice. (This is why I bemoan the contemporary lack of emphasis on the sacrificial nature of the Mass. Instead it’s a “family meal”. So instead of joining our sacrifices with his, we share our supper. No wonder it’s hard to see what the Mass has to do with salvation.)
In so doing we gradually acquire the grace to die to ourselves more and more — at least, the grace is available to us in the Mass and the other sacraments. The extent to which we actually acquire it varies in the case of each person, depending on his cooperation with that grace.
Of course dying to self involves giving up sin. Sin working in us is the reason we need to die to ourselves, since it creates enmity between what we know we should be and what we actually are. Thus baptism doesn’t merely join us to Christ, it also cleanses us from sin and makes us holy:
Heb 10:19 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
And eliminates the enmity:
Eph 2:15 by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, 16and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.
What I think is underempasized today is that there remains the danger of separating ourselves from him through sin and losing access to the heavenly tabernacle — the ability to unite our sacrifices with his own perfect sacrifice — and thus our salvation:
Heb 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; 24and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, 25not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. 26For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.
Further, we participate in sacrifice by partaking of the thing offered: 1 Cor. 10:18ff: “Look at the nation Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers in the altar?” Therefore, “16Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?”
Thus, we share in Christ’s sacrifice most fully when we partake of Communion. Mortal sin, cutting us off from God, cuts us off from Communion, and therefore from the fruits of Christ’s sacrifice. What then can we do? Can we die to ourselves without joining our sacrifice of self to Christ’s? On the contrary, the fact of our sin shows that we have not died to ourselves — that we would rather die to God than to ourselves. The only remedy is to repent and have our sin absolved, thereby being reconciled to the Body, outside of which there is no life.
In summary, Col 1:21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, 22yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through *death* [his and ours], in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.
Agellius,
I agree with the broad outline here. But I would hesitate to be too dismissive of the meal aspect of the Eucharist. This aspect highlights the Catholic insistence that salvation is communal, not individualistic. The meal is the primary Scriptural metaphor for heaven and Catholics do insist that the Mass is heaven on earth.
I am going to try put a post together on this tonight, so maybe we can discuss this more in a new thread.
PS. I stumbled into this work on atonement precisely because of my work on Eucharist as sacrifice. It’s nice to see the connection show up in the com boxes.
Brett writes, “But I would hesitate to be too dismissive of the meal aspect of the Eucharist.”
I see your point. But I still think the meal aspect has been overemphasized at the expense of the sacrificial aspect in recent decades, to our detriment.
But say, isn’t it really both? A sacrifice followed by a meal? So again, one should not be emphasized at the expense of the other. There are all these modern songs about “one bread, one body”, we’re all one, we’re all gathered together, etc. But how many modern hymns talk explicitly about sacrifice?
There is a lovely discussion from a Thomistic point of view in Eleonore Stump’s Aquinas (ch. 15, “Atonement”). Her explanation has lots of subtleties and distinctions as befits a philosopher of her stature, but I think I can pick out some relevant ideas here. She presents the example of a man (David) who is an alcoholic, who is loved by and loves a woman (Susan). In the example, David, while drunk, takes Susan’s daughter for a ride in his car, gets into an accident (b/c of his drunkenness) and as a result Susan’s daughter dies and his alcoholism becomes public knowledge. So, here’s the question: What needs to happen to repair David’s relationship with Susan?
There are at least two crucial things that have to happen. On the one hand, David must at least want to do something to undo the evil he had done. Even knowing he cannot restore Susan’s daughter, he cannot shrug his shoulders and consider Susan unjust for holding this as an obstacle to their being in a loving relationship. After all, what kind of person would David be even not to want and hope that somehow, something could be done to restore the evil he had done? For all her desire for his good, how could Susan be in a relationship with someone who did not at least seek out to set things right? Even if it escapes his power to set it right, apart from a real, objective satisfaction of some kind, of a kind that manifests that his loves as concerns are really and truly aligned with Susan’s, he will be at peace neither with himself nor with Susan. Whether he himself do something, or someone with whom he is united in loves do something on his behalf and for his sake to manifest his contrition, his abjection, and he love for Susan, something must be done.
Then, there is a second problem, namely David’s addiction. So long as David desires the effects of alcohol more than he desires to live in loving ways with himself and those he loves and who love him, his relationships are hopelessly impaired. Somehow, he must be able to be led to love in a way he does not know how, to a degree he does not have it within himself to do. He must have the confidence that the desire to be the kind of person whose love for drink is not greater that his love for the well-being of other persons is not in vain, that such a transformation is really, truly possible.
On the classic Christian (at least from Thomas’ perspective) view, of the many things the suffering and death of Christ on the Cross does, it certainly attends to these two concerns. To quote Stump at length (448-449):
“So consider again David, and alcoholic who kills a child while driving drunk. Suppose that David is a Christian (of a Thomistic sort) and that shortly after his dreadful accident, still in the grip of his alcoholism but nonetheless full of sorrow and remorse over his killing of the child, he returns to church; and in this state of sorrow and remorse he participates in the sacrament of the Eucharist. What will this experience be like for David? [Let me add editorially here that this book was written just before Eleonore's conversion to Catholicism. Let us overlook her omission of the sacrament of Penance for the moment!]
“Consider first what he believes (on the supposition that he is a Thomistic sort of Christian). He believes that he has done something morally reprehensible and that he did it because of his continuing enslavement to alcohol, and that he will see himself in consequence as a hateful person. Since he is a Christian, however, he also believes that God does not hate him but rather loves him intensely. God himself is perfectly good, holy in righteousness, and he also sees completely all the evil in David’s will and actions. And yet Christ’s love for David, for the hateful, alcoholic David, was so great that he voluntarily undertook the shame and agony of crucifixion for him. And for what purpose? To heal David of his sin; to offer for David what David himself could not offer to God, so that he might be reconciled to God, no matter what awful evil he had done, and to transform David from something hateful into someone holy, into someone like Christ.
“Furthermore, Christ’s great love for David is not just part of some old historical narrative or abstruse theological argument. On the contrary, the divine person who love David so intensely as to die for him in order to keep David from dying in his sin is right there in the sacrament, present to David’s spirit even if hidden from his eyes. In fact, not only is he present, but (David will believe) in the sacrament of the Eucharist the God who loves him comes closer to him and is more intimately united to him than is possible for two created persons in this life. That is because, David himself believes (since he is a Thomistic Christian), in receiving the sacrament David receives the body and blood of Christ in such a way that he himself becomes a part of the body of Christ, bound together with Christ into one spiritual entity.
“If David believes all this, what is the effect on him likely to be? In the first place, his feelings of guilt will be assuaged; Christ has made satisfaction to God for David’s sin and restored the relationship between David and God which David’s past sin had disrupted. In consequence, David’s hostility to himself will be alleviated; the judge most in a position to despise and condemn him instead loves him and means to rescue him from his evil. Then, too, David’s hope for himself will be strengthened. God, who sees David as he is and who can do anything, is himself on David’s side. It is God’s intention that David be turned into a righteous person, at peace with God and with himself. And if God be for him, what can be against him? Furthermore, David will feel a great debt of gratitude to Christ, who suffered so to free him, and with that gratitude will come a determination that Christ’s suffering should not be for nothing. Finally, David will feel a surge of love for Christ, who so loved him, and also a sense of joy, for the divine person who loves David is present to him now and united with him.”
But will that cause him to make amends to Susan?
Christ has made satisfaction to God for David’s sin and restored the relationship between David and God which David’s past sin had disrupted.
Susan never got her daughter back. You could argue that David deserved death as justice to right the relationship with Susan, but we all know that wouldn’t fix anything – only make it worse.
So now you’re telling me that, instead of David who deserved it, some innocent party getting tortured and killed somehow rights the relationship between Susan, David, and her Daughter? Worse yet, this violence somehow sets David right with God? I thought two wrongs didn’t make a right….
True, Susan did not get her daughter back, because that is beyond David’s power. David probably also deserves death in justice. However, what is Susan to do if she wants to be in a loving relationship with David? Or, better, what can be done to and for David so that he can be restored in love to Susan?
I have to repeat here: Jesus is not “some innocent party.” He is the Son of God. Any attempts to understand his work simply as the case of what some generic innocent party does will lead us terribly astray. So, no, I am not saying that “instead of David who deserved it, some innocent party getting tortured and killed somehow rights the relationship between Susan, David, and her Daughter.”
You are right to recoil from understanding Christ’s work as an example of God taking an innocent party and implicating him in the horrible deeds of another, making him pay some terrible price through torture and death. What, however, if we think about someone who willingly does for another, out of love, what that one cannot do himself? Does this change our perspective?
It also helps to consider what it is that is most in need of restoration. Strange as it seems, in light of the resurrection, the death of Susan’s daughter is not the worst thing in this scenario, terrible as it is. Rather, the worst thing is the corruption of David’s intellect and will, his becoming more deeply the kind of person whose love of drink would permit him to recklessly cause the death of someone he loves. Unchecked, this will make him into a moral monster. So, while bodily death is a terrible thing, and one which we rejoice that God has overcome in Christ, it is the spiritual corruption of David that is even more at issue here. To quote from Stump again: “In Aquinas’s terms, the immediate effect of sin is to leave something like a stain on the soul; and the cumulative stains of sin lessen or destroy the soul’s comeliness, so that by sinning a person directly mars part of God’s creation, namely, himself.” (439)
Thomas helpfully notes that God need not have required satisfaction, but that he freely chose to require it, not for his own good or needs, but for our good, that is, the good of sinners in need of redemption.
Again, pardon the long quotation: “The restoration involved in making satisfaction for human sinning, then, is a matter of presenting God with an instance of human nature which is marked by perfect obedience, humility, and charity and which is at least as precious in God’s eyes as the marring of humanity by sin is offensive. But this is just what the second person of the Trinity does by taking on human nature and voluntarily suffering a painful and shameful death. By being willing to move from the exaltation of deity to the humiliation of the crucifixion, Christ shows boundless humility; and by consenting to suffer the agony of his passion and death because God willed it when something in his own nature shrank powerfully from it, Christ manifests absolute obedience. Finally, because he undertakes all his suffering and humiliation out of love for shameful human beings, Christ exhibits the most intense charity. So in his passion and death, Christ restores what sin has marred in human nature, because he gives God a particularly precious instance of human nature with the greatest possible humility, obedience, and charity. So one answer to the question why Christ had to suffer is that humility, obedience, and charity are present in suffering that is voluntary and obediently endured for someone else’s sake in a way in which they could not be, for example, in Christ’s preaching or healing the sick.” (Stump, Aquinas, 439)
Since we are joined to Christ in baptism, made one body, members of a body of which he is the head, his offering really although mysteriously becomes our offering, his example our example, his glory our glory. We are also, as joined to him, joined more intimately to all other who are actually joined to him, in this life and the next, and directed more powerfully in love to those not yet members of his body and still enslaved to sin, even as he looked upon these in love. Hence, in joining to Christ, David is restored more powerfully to Susan and her daughter than any physical restoration of the daughter would produce. Of course, the glory of the Resurrection (another thread surely!) is that the loss of the daughter is not permanent or irrevocable. Even so, here and now, David can be joined to her in Christ, restored, even made more perfect, in a loving relationship with her and Susan, because of what Christ has done for them on the Cross.
I have to repeat here: Jesus is not “some innocent party.” He is the Son of God.
So is Jesus, either as God or man, somehow responsible for David’s actions? If not, he is an innocent party, no matter which way you shake it. I understand the whole “perfect love/obedience” thing, but if his death (or life) atones for our sins, there is a gap between that and how such actions restore the relationship between David and Susan.
We want to be sure not to equivocate about “innocent party”. If we mean, by innocence “without sin” then certainly, I concede that Jesus is “an innocent party”.
However, should we mean by “innocent party” something like “a third party who is not involved” then I would certainly deny this. Given who God is and what it means to be a creature, God is more, not less, aggrieved by David’s actions than Susan, or even Susan’s daughter (or David himself, for that matter). [After all, at least part of the analogy Stump presents calls on us to analogize the relationship between David and Susan as between the sinner and God.]
As a third point, God is not simply “one more party” among many. It is always a mistake to regard God as just one more agent, even if an especially big and powerful one, who can be lined up alongside others. This is why noting that Jesus is God is crucially relevant here. What it means for the Son of God to do even in his assumed human nature is of an order radically different from what it means for any created person to do.
Now, I tried (obviously unsuccessfully) to advert to your concern about the “gap” when I noted what it meant to be in union with Christ. To have Christ as head is a more intimate union than even between my own soul and body, and certainly more than between any created persons as such. As a result, what is Christ’s, including the worthiness of his work on the Cross, becomes really mine to the extent I remain in union with him. This is why, in Christ, David can know he has offered something of greater value than the evil done by his sin, and a deed altogether pleasing to God, and so can know himself, in Christ, freed from guilt, sin, and death. Likewise, he can know himself as in a loving, reconciled relationship with anyone else who is in Christ, since he will be more profoundly united with them in Christ than anything they shared apart from Christ. Susan, if she will be united to Christ’s work, can receive Christ’s own forgiveness of and love for David as her own. Even Susan’s daughter, dead as she is, if alive in Christ, is more united to David through Christ, and her death is no barrier to this relationship. This is why there is no “gap” between David and Susan.
Now, if any of them refuse union with Christ in a lasting way, then ultimately they will not be in Christ’s body, and their relationship will be radically severed. In this life, however, there is always hope, which is why Christians can and must hold themselves as bound in love to all those who may yet be members of Christ’s body, even if as yet they are enemies of that body, since they themselves were once enemies, and for such as them Christ died on the Cross.
Dominic,
Thank you for your honest and sincere reply. I think the part that I’m struggling with is how Christ’s sacrifice somehow atones for someone else’s sin. Why does Christ suffering and dying on the cross somehow make everything better? If I steal your TV, Jesus dying on the cross doesn’t get your TV back. If it was just a question of unity and reconciliation, Jesus’ suffering death should not be necessary – the grace that we experience in Christ which heals our relationship and makes us whole should not require an act of violence. That’s the part I’m missing.
Suppose you steal my TV, and then you break it irreparably. Can I get my TV back? Well, no, not strictly. What you can do, indeed what you are obliged to do in justice, is to restore to me something at least as precious as what you stole and caused to be lost to me.
Now, if we are to continue to relate to one another in charity, a few other things have to happen, but principally there needs to be a change in *you* as a subject. You need to become the sort of person who no longer identifies with the stealing of my TV as something you would want to do. Indeed, you have to be as grieved by my loss of the TV as I am.
In justice, I am of course free to forgive the debt and require nothing in return. The question is, however, whether I help you to become the sort of person you need to be without requiring some recompense from you. If my main goal is your restoration so that our friendship can be restored, I might quite reasonably insist on some sort of satisfaction, the doing of which will be transformative of you, and restorative of our friendship, which, to be true friendship, calls on us to love what the other loves.
Now, replace me with God and the TV with your integrity as a person, moral and otherwise. If you destroy the moral integrity which God has created, God could, of course, forgive you, in that he can continue to want your good and overlook the wickedness. But suppose he wants to be in friendship with you? In this case, you need to be the sort of person who loves what God loves.
Now, God is under no strict necessity to require satisfaction (as a triangle necessarily has 180 degrees), nor is he under the necessity that arises from something required by supposition (e.g. if I want an omelette, it is necessary that I crack some eggs, although of course, I don’t have to have an omelette at all). There is, however, another kind of necessity, one of “fittingness”, which is kin to the idea of the “best” way to do something in practical wisdom. An artist who says that a character “needs” to die at a certain point in the story or a traveler who says he needs to take a plane to get from New York to Los Angeles may be examples. Neither is necessary in any strict sense. One could write a successful novel without the character’s death just so, and travel across the country by other means. Still, to pursue the goods one wants as one wants them, some means are just more fitting than others.
St Thomas Aquinas holds that the necessity of Christ’s death is a necessity of this third sort. God chose to require satisfaction from sinful man, not because he could not forgive without it, but because it was better for the restoration of man that it be required. Likewise, while even the simplest act of the Incarnate Word was of infinite value, more precious than the goodness of anything marred by sin, nonetheless the shameful death on the Cross is capable of being at once an act of supreme humility, obedience and love to fulfill the required satisfaction (viz. that a perfect example of human life be presented to God in reparation for the marred examples of sinful humanity) and an act of such wondrous love as to melt the resistance of even the stoniest of hearts.
The reason Christ’s work is relevant to your sin is that, be being aligned with Christ, indeed more than that, by becoming a member of his body in baptism and renewed in that life by the Eucharist, being made daily more and more conformed to him who is your Head and more intimately joined to you than your soul to your body, his satisfaction truly is your satisfaction.
So, Christ’s death is necessary in that God, from eternity, willed to restore us just so, through the joining of his elect to his Son made man, that we might, in him, restore to God what we had marred, and infinitely more besides, and by his work, find our hostility and guilt removed, knowing fully, because of the awful and terrible love of the Cross, that we are restored in friendship to God.
This looks not unlike Dorothy Sayers’ explanation for the necessity of purgatory in her intro to the Purgatorio of Dante.
I used a quick and dirty version of it in my own book on Purgatory.
Gisher writes, “Perhaps Agellius’s remark was motivated for other reasons but many Christians that I have known seemingly failed to discern that much of Christ’s teachings were focused on improving their life with the intent of helping them to flourish within their lives, rather than to just assure that one carries the football across the proper goal line in the afterlife.”
In my view there is no necessary dichotomy between the two. I would assume that what’s good for you in terms of the afterlife would also be good for your happiness and peace of mind in this life.
Whether acting as a believing Christian would help one to “flourish” in this life, to me is questionable since after all, the Christian faith is opposed to the world and many Christians have been killed for behaving according to Christ’s teachings. But maybe that’s not what you meant.
Whether acting as a believing Christian would help one to “flourish” in this life, to me is questionable since after all, the Christian faith is opposed to the world and many Christians have been killed for behaving according to Christ’s teachings. But maybe that’s not what you meant.
I think the challenge of the Gospel, already indicated in the Old Testament, is to realize that it is in fact more a case of flourishing to live a short life, even one with a brutal end, but in fidelity to God and charity to God and neighbor, than a long, comfortable life far removed from love. This is why the Scriptures remind us that precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints.
Ultimately, of course, every tear will be wiped away and there will be no more sorrow or weeping. However, in this fallen world, we are reminded that we need to experience a conversion of heart about what constitutes human flourishing. This is, among other things, what the Cross does. It is in fact the hour of Christ’s glory, the crowning of a life well lived in love, obedience and service. Likewise, Herod’s life is a failure whereas John the Baptist, not in spite of but ironically because of his beheading, can be said to have flourished.
Dominic:
I’m with you completely here.