To be sure, Anselm of Canterbury (1033/4-1109) inaugurated the most serious declension of atonement theology up to his time. But a more decisive tipping point came with John Calvin (1509-1564), born four centuries after Anselm’s death. It was he who “penalized” or “criminalized” Anselm’s doctrine of civil or honorial (feudal) satisfaction into something barely shy of diabolical in its representation of God, the Father. [3/7/11]
The justification doctrine of Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) actually functions powerfully and quite effectually in spite of its deficiency regarding the indispensable operation of the Holy Spirit—i.e., as the “payoff” (in part) of Christ’s suffering abuse—by virtue of the fact that the Gospel itself includes this reality in Christian practice anyway. Deficient beliefs and theologies do not totally crimp the power of the Spirit (depending, of course, on whether or not there are any built-in quenching or grieving, much less blasphemous, factors present). Socinus by no means excluded “the promise of the Holy Spirit, to be obtained by all believers,” the source and substance of all the blessings of God’s kingdom, for “[s]ince the Old Covenant lacks and lacked all these, and offered an earthly felicity, the superiority of the New Covenant can be easily recognized at this point” (pp. 32-3 in Themata de Officio Christi*).
*Robert Franks, A History of the Doctrine of the Work of Christ (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2001) 373-74; originally titled The Work of Christ: A Historical Study of Christian Doctrine (Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1962). [3/8/11]
The power of Martin Luther’s Reformation is illustrative of how truly transformative is a recognition of the premial side of God’s justice, for even though he misunderstood that the phrase, “God’s righteousness,” as Paul employs it, referred to God the Father’s rather than to Jesus the Son’s, still, the premial insight nonetheless shone through and proved incomparably gripping and life-changing. What wonders might ensue whenever we should happen to get this feature even more recognizably correct and better integrated? [3/9/11]
When penal substitution advocates preach that we “shouldn’t expect” penal substitution to show up in the parable of the prodigal son, since Jesus was actually making “another point” there (despite the prominent role of forgiveness, which they deviantly allege is inextricably dependent upon our heavenly Father’s exacting full, complete, even exhaustive punishment and payment from an innocent substitute), then either the conscience-stricken hearer slinks away, troubled in soul, thinking, “I knew it! I just knew it! God is, at bottom, still remorselessly vengeful after all!” or perhaps the chafing, embittered listener, licking wounds or meditating losses from wrongful injuries, turns away with tesolve to keep holding a grudge “like our Father in Heaven does.” Such crabbed attitudes then get embedded in the Christian psyche where they secretly lie in wait to burst forth under sufficient pressure, like conditioned responses at misopportune moments, and forcibly quench any stray impulse from the Holy Spirit that might prompt behavior more in line with what Jesus seems to be teaching about the graciousness of his Father. Do our heedless pulpiteers have any idea of the whilrwind they may reap by peddling such naively off-center notions so glibly to their audiences? [7/12/11; 3/27/24]
The Premial Atonement 