“When we speak of the centrality of the Atonement, I have said, we mean much more, worlds more, than its place in a religious system. We are speaking of that which is the centre, not of thought, but of actual life, conscience, history and destiny. We speak of what is the life-power of the moral world and its historic crisis, the ground of the Church’s existence, and the sole meaning of Christ himself. Christ is to us just what His cross is. All that Christ was in heaven or on earth was put into what he did there. And all that man’s moral soul needs doing for it eternally was done centrally there.
Category Archives: Atonement
Gunton (via Thiselton) on Atonement
In chapter nine of Thiselton’s 2015 Systematic Theology, he asks the question, ‘Why Consider Historical Theologies of the Atonement?’ The section he covers on Colin Gunton’s 1988 work ‘The Actuality of the Atonement: A Study in Metaphor, Rationality, and the Christian Tradition’ is not only astonishingly concise but well worth popping into this blog:
“Colin Gunton (1941-2003). Gunton also contributed a classic modern study in his Actuality of the Atonement…He had two aims. One was to show that interpretations of, and approaches to, atonement were complimentary, not alternatives. The other was to exhibit the value and power of metaphors among images of atonement. He regarded Kant, Schleiermacher, and Hegel as indirectly responsible for the “intellectual and cultural poverty” that characterizes much of our age. He singled out especially Hegel’s devaluation of “images” (Vorstellungen) in religion, as against the critical “concept” (Begriff) in philosophy. Metaphor, Gunton argued, was “an indispensable means for the advance of cognitive knowledge and understanding” (17). Janet Martin Soskice and Paul Avis also argued this convincingly. Metaphor and discovery occur together “with metaphor serving as the vehicle of discovery” (31). He appealed for this explicitly to Paul Ricoeur, Eberhard Jungel, and Janet Martin Soskice, as well as to Coleridge.
In the course of more detailed theological argument, Gunton challenged the comprehensiveness of [Gustav] Aulen’s [Christus Victor) approach, and showed concern that he advocated “too triumphalist a view of the atonement” (58). He valued the victory motif as a metaphor, rather than the “laws for a theory of the atonement” (61). This approach also tended too readily to personify the devil, which seems to happen in Gregory of Nyssa. “Evil powers” may includes “political, social, economic, and religious structures of power,” as George Caird, Oscar Cullmann, and others have maintained (65).
In his chapter 4 Gunton considered the justice of God, and corrected misunderstandings of Anselm. God governs the universe in a way analogous to the duty of the feudal ruler “to maintain the order of rights and obligations without which society would collapse” (89). He affirmed the grace and love of God, but insisted on “some objective righting of the balance” in the governance of the universe (91). Here he appealed to P. T. Forsyth, Balthasar, and Barth, as well as to Anselm and Luther. This governance is “the central metaphor” (112).
In chapter 5 Gunton sought to rescue the concept of “sacrifice” from being regarded as an outworn, “dead” metaphor. He carefully examined sacrifice in the OT, together with the work by Mary Douglas and Francis Young. In this respect, he argued, Calvin was faithful to priesthood and sacrifice in Hebrews, and to the passage about “correct exchange” that we noted in the early Epistle to Diognetus. He concluded, “There are in Calvin elements of a substitutionary understanding of the atonement; indeed it seems unlikely that any conception that remains true to the Bible can avoid it” (130). The two final chapters return to Gunton’s regular theme of the Holy Trinity, and the need to reconcile the various approaches to the atonement. He concluded: Jesus is “our substitute because he does for us what we cannot do for ourselves” (165, italics mine).
Among Gunton’s eighteen or so books, this book is a masterpiece. It seems to address a central nerve in the [atonement] debate, and should not be underestimated. “
Dodman’s Point, Cornwall
“Mighty is the water in the seas — yet is it too weak for atonement”
Blessed be He Who was baptized that He might baptize you, that ye should be absolved from your offences.
1. The Spirit came down from on high, — and hallowed the waters by His brooding. — In the baptism of John, — He passed by the rest and abode on One: — but now He has descended and abode, — on all that are born of the water.
2. Out of all that John baptized, — on One it was that the Spirit dwelt: — but now He has flown and come down, — that He may dwell on the many; — and as each after each comes up, — He loves him and abides on him.
3. A marvel it is that surpasses all! — To the water He went down and was baptized. — The seas declared it blessed, — that river wherein Thou wast baptized: — even…
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