What if God doesn’t always define sins or their prices? What if those are based on eternal and natural laws? What if God just happens to know them better than us, and so he spells those out in rules and instructions (we call them commandments)? If we break them, we would have to suffer the sadness and grief that naturally come about as a result. What if the eternal suffering could be abated if someone else did it for us? Then, we’d have to tap into that act of kindness.

I don’t see God as a vindictive and petty being handing out his love to only certain people. I see him as trying to teach us how to be happy, both here in this life and in the eternities to come. That does, however, see God, the Father, as not being the be-all, end-all of existence. Maybe He works within an existing system.

Or, maybe I’m just a heretic…

I don’t understand the atonement either.

Very shrewd analysis, Orwell. It reflects my own views on the topics quite closely. I’d just add that I usually think of the principle of atonement as a guarantee that Jesus will smash me if I don’t avail myself of his suffering.

On the flipside, there are stories like the steadiers of the Arc, who are struck dead for seeking to keep the arc from falling over. This is the type of story that should fill all moral people with revulsion, and, if it is true, it reduces our god to the same sort of petty, power wielder as Baal or Zeus, so that he’s just unworthy of our worship. If one believes these kind of Bible stories, then she really needn’t give a damn about the atonement.

Ha…ditto. It just plain and simple does not make sense. Not even in a “God’s ways are higher” sort of way. When anyone stops to think about it for longer than 7 seconds, they realize how illogical it all is– and if they want to continue believing in it, they quickly stop trying to think about it.
Once, a few months after my husband got home from his mission, he was talking to his younger brother who had recently decided not to serve a mission. My husband was confused and a little upset, and asked “why?” My wise 19-year old brother-in-law responded, “because I don’t get the Jesus thing.”
He didn’t have a problem believing in Jesus as a man, didn’t have a problem believing that Jesus was an exemplary person who taught wonderful things…didn’t even have a problem believing he was crucified, for goodness sake. But the atonement concept? No way. When my husband told me that story several years ago, I was a little miffed, surprised by my BiL’s blasphemy. But years later, I get him, and I find myself agreeing with him. I don’t get the Jesus thing either. I tend to think the events surrounding Jesus’ death were gradually exaggerated as it was written down in the years following…but who knows.

First a disclaimer. I am no fan of Cleon Skousen and am loath to give him any positive attention.

That said, at the end of The First 2,000 Years there is a section on the atonement and priesthood that is interesting, and lines up with Mark Hansen’s #1. The basic idea is that the very material that the universe is made up of has a measure of intelligence. It chooses to obey God because it knows that he’s got a track record of good decisions. So in a sense God is constrained in that he needs to maintain the respect of the Universe. The point of the atonement is to satisfy not God, but the very matter that makes up the universe.

I’m not summarizing a pretty lengthy argument very well in a paragraph. I found some material from Skousen here, which I believe is similar to what he published in the book. In any case, I think he has an interesting and very different view on the atonement, which is a topic that I also do not claim to understand in the least.

arj, I never figured you for a Skousen groupie!

Really good post Orwell. I would be horrified to think that the atonement makes no sense at all. Is it like asserting “bliks jump over the moon” which we literally cannot believe because we can’t even understand what is asserted? If that is what our discourse about atonement is like, then it is basically meaningless and, worse, just nonsense.

However, I think that the atonement does make some sense — but not in terms of the Penal Substitution theory that I think Orson properly points out has been debunked and is nonscriptural. The Penal Substitution theory was developed primarily by John Calvin and, in my view, is truly reprehensible. I discuss it a bit here: http://blakeostler.com/docs/AtonementInMormonThought.pdf

I think that we can make some sense of it — tho in the end it is an interpersonal experience that can no more be explained than one’s love for one’s spouse or children. However, it requires accepting the view that God’s life can enter into us as the light that enlightens and enlivens us, and that we can enter into God by giving him our hearts in a similar sense.

Really enjoyed your post. One possible explanation(speculation) might run as follows:

There was a vote at the council in heaven, in which Christ’s plan won the majority. The council could have voted for some other plan, in which the atonement was left out, simplifying salvation to just a matter of God’s forgiveness. But it did not, so God is simply following through with how the council voted.

If, for the sake of argument, we assume this is the case, this raises other interesting questions. Why didn’t the council vote for a simpler, less violent plan? And if such a council were so key to determining why salvation works the way the it does, why don’t we have more detail about the council in scripture? We are given just the basics of a 2/3 vs. 1/3 vote.

MCQ: I am curious as to why you don’t believe that God can do something that we regularly do: forgive each other without requiring a pound of flesh in retribution.

I don’t understand a lot of things and neither do you.

I use a computer daily and have just superficial understanding of how it works. I could substitute the word “computer” in the prior sentence with a host of things I successfully use daily: TV, Car, VCR, camera, cell phone, and so forth and the same things applies. Everyone one of us knows very little about most things yet we get along using them.

What’s my point: I’ve experienced the power of the Atonement even though I only understand it superficially.

Hugh Nibley confessed that none of us knows very much. We can only really do two things well, he said–forgive and repent.

can’t understand: The penal substitution theory is not found in scripture. Apparently Christians for the first 1500 years just didn’t realize what their scriptures said until John Calvin pointed it out? Where do you find this theory in scripture?

“MCQ: I am curious as to why you don’t believe that God can do something that we regularly do: forgive each other without requiring a pound of flesh in retribution.”

We also regularly do many other things God cannot do, Blake: sin. Also, our forgiveness has little salvific power over others, so I expect there to be differences in the availablity of God’s forgiveness. But we really aren’t talking about forgiveness here. If I sin and then repent, God may forgive me, in fact, I believe he has, many times. But God’s forgiveness, by itself, doesn’t erase all the effects of sin, just as his forgiveness of Adam and Eve didn’t erase all the effects of the Fall. That is where the atonement is required.

@ can’t understand: Penal Substitution is the idea of “paying for sins.” Try as you might, you won’t find that term or idea in the scriptures. Atonement is the idea of God “taking sins upon him” and experiencing the punishment for them: Christ being punished for his OWN sins… not ones he committed, but ones he acquired (took upon himself) from us. And that WAS necessary for salvation. (Alma 7:13)

#24 Orson, skim down the online Topical Guide under Jesus Christ, Atonement Through. There are plenty of references to Him suffering for OUR sins. Moreover, your comment about taking upon himself our sins so that he OWNs them and then is punished for them seems contrary to the comments you made earlier. Why would Jesus be required to suffer for anything I do? And who would require him to do so?

Blake, I have not read your analysis of Penal Subsitution, but I do not see why it is necessary to posit that Calvin concocted the idea, although he may have been the first to call it by that name. Anyone reading the scriptures could find the concept all over the place. In fact, I have read many other analyses of the atonement, and to make a convincing argument against PS as a scriptural view of the atonement requires a lot of convoluted arguing. PS is just the simplest way of understanding what the scriptures say about the topic — not that I like it at all.

The question of the atonement is not related to forgiveness but rather to the satisfying of the demands of justice. I’m a little surprised no one except Orson in #12 has even brought up the actual scriptures.

Alma 34 gets into a discussion of the reason for the atonement. It’s not about forgiveness. Amulek speaks:

8 And now, behold, I will testify unto you of myself that these things are true. Behold, I say unto you, that I do know that Christ shall come among the children of men, to take upon him the transgressions of his people, and that he shall atone for the sins of the world; for the Lord God hath spoken it.
9 For it is expedient that an atonement should be made; for according to the great plan of the Eternal God there must be an atonement made, or else all mankind must unavoidably perish; yea, all are hardened; yea, all are fallen and are lost, and must perish except it be through the atonement which it is expedient should be made.
10 For it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice; yea, not a sacrifice of man, neither of beast, neither of any manner of fowl; for it shall not be a human sacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice.
11 Now there is not any man that can sacrifice his own blood which will atone for the sins of another. Now, if a man murdereth, behold will our law, which is just, take the life of his brother? I say unto you, Nay.
12 But the law requireth the life of him who hath murdered; therefore there can be nothing which is short of an infinite atonement which will suffice for the sins of the world.

I’m a little surprised no one has really brought up one of the central themes of the Book of Mormon in this debate. The question of mercy and justice is replete throughout the Book of Mormon.

Alma speaks to his son in Chapter 42:

22 But there is a law given, and a punishment affixed, and a repentance granted; which repentance, mercy claimeth; otherwise, justice claimeth the creature and executeth the claw, and the law inflicteth the punishment; if not so, the works of justice would be destroyed, and God would cease to be God.
23 But God ceaseth not to be God, and mercy claimeth the penitent, and mercy cometh because of the atonement; and the atonement bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead; and the resurrection of the dead bringeth back men into the presence of God; and thus they are restored into his presence, to be judged according to their works, according to the law and justice.
24 For behold, justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; and thus, none but the truly penitent are saved.
25 What, do ye suppose that mercy can rob justice? I say unto you, Nay; not one whit. If so, God would cease to be God.
26 And thus God bringeth about his great and eternal purposes, which were prepared from the foundation of the world. And thus cometh about the salvation and the redemption of men, and also their destruction and misery.

Jacob, the brother of Nephi writes in 2 Nephi 9 that the atonement satisfies the demands of justice. My understanding of the atonement is that our sins cause us to not be allowed back in the presence of God, because no unclean thing may enter the Kingdom of God. We cannot save ourselves, because we simply do not have the power to satisfy the demands that justice has upon our sins, nor is any man capable of atoning his blood for another. The only way the demands of justice can be met are with an infinite and eternal sacrifice by a Godly being, a perfect, sinless Lamb. Thus the importance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ: without that atonement, no human being could ever be saved, and every single human being would fall into “eternal damnation.” The atonement provides a way out for the penitent, for those who are meek and lowly in heart, who submit to the will of the Father and follow the Son. They will be saved by the Grace of Christ.

I’ve thought Jewish temple sacrifices were the best examples of penal substitution, which would make them an inescapable type for “explaining” the atonement.

MCQ: “We also regularly do many other things God cannot do, Blake: sin”

Of course he could sin, if he wanted to. He just doesn’t. He is free in a morally significant sense after all.

Can’t understand: Arguing against Penal Substitution is so easy that hardly any theologian will even defend it. So at the risk of just giving too much, here are the (to my mind decisive) arguments against — in addition to the fact that it isn’t scriptural:

The Penal Substitution Theory. The penal substitution theory arose in the Reformation and was developed primarily by John Calvin. The focus of the penal substitution theory of atonement is God’s holiness which cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. God cannot simply forgive us when we have violated his law because his holiness establishes the standard of law and his justice demands that his law be obeyed. He cannot simply forgive without violating his own nature and justice. If the law is violated, God’s attribute of justice demands that punishment must be inflicted on the violator. Thus, the violation of God’s law brings upon us the wrath of God’s justice. However, God is also merciful and thus he accepts Christ as a substitute sacrifice on our behalf. When we are justified by grace, God does not see us but Christ’s righteousness and judges us based upon Christ’s merits and sinlessness rather than our guilt deserving punishment. Thus, we escape the wrath of God because Christ is substituted in our place to receive the penalty of justice. Millard J. Erickson gives a good summary of the penal substitution theory of atonement in his comprehensive work Christian Theology:

Christ died to satisfy the justice of God’s nature. He rendered satisfaction to the Father so that we might be spared from the just deserts of our sins …. By offering himself as a sacrifice, by substituting himself for us, actually bearing punishment which should have been ours, Jesus appeased the Father and effected a reconciliation between God and man.

According to the penal theory of atonement, the effect of atonement is to appease or propitiate “God’s justice.” God’s justice demands that someone pay the price if a sin is committed. This theory of atonement assumes that there is an eternal law of retribution that God cannot annul without ceasing to be God – it assumes that the eternal law of justice is that a price must be paid if there is sin. Moreover, because God is essentially just, he must execute this law of retribution, for if he fails to do so he ceases to be just and therefore ceases to be God. Anselm’s theory of satisfaction is similar to the penal substitution theory, but differs in that instead of God’s justice, it is God’s honor that has been offended by our sin, and because his honor is an infinite attribute of deity, it can be paid only by an infinite sacrifice. Both versions of the substitution theory assume that justice is retribution – a price must be paid. Also implicit in these theories of atonement is the assumption that Christ died to satisfy the wrath of the Father who must be persuaded to avert the sword of justice that hangs over us. Atonement is therefore seen as a “propitiation,” a means of appeasing God’s anger.

Yet such an explanation presents the Father as a severe despot who demands justice and pits him against the merciful Son who persuades him that his demands are too severe. It assumes that God makes demands that are altogether unloving. It declares that God cancels the debt; but he requires is Son to pay the price for the that debt even though it has been cancelled. A similar view is promulgated by Richard Purtill who declares that “in suffering and dying, Christ was giving God [the Father] a good reason to punish us less and reward us more than we deserve on our own merits. His suffering and death for our sake give us a claim on God’s mercy and generosity. God became a man; as a man he offered his suffering and death for our sake. God now has good reason to show us justice and mercy.” So what is the good reason to punish the Son in our place? God could have forgiven our sin without Christ (or anyone else) suffering, but since we “do not seem to value what seems easy,” the Father offers his Son’s suffering to prove to us that it is costly to forgive sin. Yet the Father appears on such a view to make it much harder than it needs to be – he could forgive without his Son’s brutal suffering, but he offers up this sacrifice to prove to us that it just can’t be that easy. Yet Purtill offers no explanation as to just why God can’t just forgive us if we repent. Moreover, if Christ suffers in our place then sin is hard on Christ – but it is easy on us! Thus, the very attempt to prove how hard forgiving sin is proves precisely the opposite. These are among the several reasons which mandate that the penal substitution theory that has been popular among evangelicals and many Mormons ought to be rejected. Here I will present the objections that seem most compelling to me.

a. The Penal Theory Posits a Conflict Between Father and Son. This theory is open to the objection that it posits a conflict between the loving, forgiving Son who must persuade the Father to turn from his anger and wrath against our sin. Yet it has often been responded that there is no conflict between the Father’s wrath and the Son’s love because God’s wrath is a form of his love. Erickson argues: “Propitiation therefore does not detract from God’s love and mercy. It rather shows how great is that love. He could not overlook sin and still be God. But he was willing to go so far as to offer his own Son in order to appease his wrath against sin.” But does Erickson really respond to the problem? His response argues that there is no conflict between wrath and love because the Father offers his own Son to innocently suffer. Yet what would we think of a human father who demands that his son must be whipped with 30 lashes because he is angry at someone else? Is that really love? Imagine how great the love that refuses to forgive unless his own Son suffers excruciating pain and death on a Roman cross to appease his anger. The angry Father did not pay the price of sin himself, but sent his son to do his dirty work for him so that he could be convinced to forgive us when he otherwise refused to do so. Others are free to call this love if they desire, but it is a perverse sense of “love.”

It is often observed that somehow the notion of the Trinity as three “persons” in one being can answer the seeming injustice involved in God’s requiring the sacrificial death of his Son as a means of appeasing his wrath. Thus, the advocate of this theory may respond: “the Father did not place the punishment upon someone other than himself. Although the exact nature of the relationships among the persons of the Trinity is not known to us, it is clear that God is both the judge and the person paying the penalty…. It is as if the judge passes sentence upon the defendant, then removes the robes and goes off to serve the sentence in the defendant’s place.” But this response works only if a form of the heresy of modalism is adopted – the view that the divine persons are merely different modes or manifestations of the one being who is God. The objection is answered by suggesting that in Christ the Father himself suffered. But this answer works only if the Father and the Son are identical and the heresy of patripassionism is adopted – otherwise there is a conflict among the persons of the Trinity. Christ cannot appease the Father’s wrath if he is identical to the Father, for Christ has the intention of forgiving while the Father has the intention of punishing until persuaded otherwise. Moreover, our sense of justice is still violated: the guilty person escapes punishment while the punishment of the innocent is accepted as a satisfaction of the demand to appease the divine wrath. Why not just let go of the anger and forgive? How is God merciful if he demands a price to be paid and refuses to forgive unless it is paid?

b. The Penal Theory is Unjust. Not only is the wrathful sense of justice problematic for the penal substitution view, but this view assumes that the humans who deserve to be punished instead escape punishment while the only person in the history of the world who does not deserve punishment is punished in their place. Punishing an innocent person in the place of those who are guilty is unjust. Moreover, given the retributive theory of justice assumed by the penal theory of atonement, this outcome is precisely the opposite of justice. We deserve to be punished, but we are not. How is God just if retribution is the price demanded by justice and this price is not paid by the person who is guilty? The guilty do not satisfy the obligation owed and thus guilt goes unpunished. If it is answered that Christ paid the debt for us, then we violate the simple principle that it is unjust to punish someone who is innocent. Following Dennis Potter, I will call this the “innocence principle” – the principle that innocent persons should not be punished for crimes they did not commit.

It may be responded that it is not unjust to punish Christ for our guilt because he willingly submitted to it. However, is it just to punish an innocent person if he or she willingly submits to the punishment? The mere fact that an innocent person willingly submits to punishment does not make the punishment just. Consider a popular story about the atonement. A school master establishes rules at the beginning of the year that there is a punishment of being beaten with a cane over the bare back 50 times if any students are caught stealing. Someone steals an apple from a student who is older and stronger than the rest of the kids in the class. However, it is soon discovered that the youngest and weakest student in the class has stolen the apple. When he is caught he explains that he stole the apple only because he was so hungry and his parents couldn’t really afford to buy more food. The school master insists that the rules that all the students agreed to must be enforced so there must be a punishment for the theft. However, the stronger student is so moved by the younger student’s plight that he agrees to take the punishment in the place of the younger student. The school master then explains that there is a certain law that allows another to be punished in the place of the guilty party. So the school master beats the stronger student for the crime. The young student is so moved by the older student’s willingness to accept the punishment in his place that he loves the strong student.

Now this story captures some truths about the atonement. Christ willingly accepts the pain that he receives from us when he enters into union with us. His love for us is magnificently manifest in this willingness to enter into relationship with us even though he will experience pain resulting from our sins by doing so. However, the story is not an example of a just punishment of an innocent person for a crime that he did not commit. The school master is unjust to beat the stronger student even though he willingly accepted the punishment for the weaker student. The school master should have accepted the weaker student’s explanation of his hunger and poverty as fully mitigating any punishment for the weaker student – and he should never beat any student merely to enforce his unjust rules. Such an action would mandate immediate termination for cause and referral to child protective services for criminal prosecution under existing laws.

So why do such stories move us and seem to express some truth about the atonement even though they are morally reprehensible? When the school master in the story states that “there is a certain law” that allows a person to be punished for the crime of another, the story smuggles in intuitions about a very different type of law than is applicable in this case. It was natural for Anselm to think of atonement in terms of satisfaction for crimes because under feudal legal codes guilty parties could simply pay to escape punishment for any type of crime, including murder and mayhem. The punishment for all crimes was pecuniary in nature. Thus, if one was caught committing a crime such as rape, one could either pay a fine or find a benefactor who would pay it for him. If the benefactor were willing to pay the fine as a gift, the criminal would got off scot-free. There was no jail time mandated. However, our legal codes are different – and justly so. Crimes that are not pecuniary in nature cannot be paid for by merely paying a fine. Would we think for two seconds that the fact that the older boy voluntarily accepted the punishment of the younger boy were just if the younger boy’s crime were rape or child abuse? As Dennis Potter observed:

It probably does not seem unjust to us for a third party to pay our parking fines. However, if a fine were the means of punishment for murder, would we say the same? Clearly, we would not say that an innocent person should be punished, even if voluntarily, for a murder committed by another. We don’t want murderers to get off scot-free. And any system in which they can get off scot-free is unjust by our lights.

Where an action is viewed as wrong only because it is contrary to a statute, it is not evil or bad in itself or malum in se. Rather, the act is malum prohibitum or illegal solely because we have chosen to make it illegal. Thus, we may be fined for a parking ticket even though we have not committed a morally culpable act by parking in a parking place after the meter has run out. We are charged a fine solely because that is the means a governmental entity has chosen to raise money. However, crimes like rape, fraud and murder are morally wrong in addition to being illegal and thus are crimes malum in se. There is nothing unjust about allowing a third party to pay the fine for a parking ticket. However, we do not allow third parties to be sent to prison or executed in the place of those who have committed rape, fraud or murder. Thus, it seems to me that David Lewis is correct that the whatever intuitive appeal the penal substitution has is illegitimately procured by trading on our intuitions about what is just in situations of illegal acts that are illegal solely because we have made them so and acts for which we are morally culpable. As Lewis states his diagnosis of the penal substitution theory:

Here we have the makings of an explanation for why we sometimes waver in our rejection of penal substitution. It would go something like this. In the first place, we tolerate penal substitution in the case of fines because it is obviously impractical to prevent it. Since in the case of punishment by fines, the condition of being sentenced to punishment is the condition of owing a debt – literally – the metaphor of a ‘debt of punishment’ gets a grip on us. Then some of us persist in applying this metaphor, even when it is out of place because the ‘debt of punishment’ is nothing like a debt in a literal sense. That is how we fall for such nonsense as a penal substitution theory of the atonement.

The Penal theory also entails a legal fiction as the basis for our reconciliation. The Calvinist position assumes that the guilt of Adam’s sin can be imputed to us. However, it is unjust to impute the guilt of a guilty person to an innocent person. Similarly, the Penal Theory of Substitution assumes that: (1) our guilt can be legally imputed to Christ; and (2) the righteousness of Christ can be imputed to us though we are guilty and deserving of punishment. Such a view violates our most fundamental moral intuitions. Anyone who rejects original sin because it is unjust to punish someone for something that they didn’t do personally must also reject the Penal Substitution theory for the same reason. As Eleonore Stump insightfully observes:

[The Penal Substitution Theory] seems not to emphasize God’s justice but rests on the denial of it …. What [it] is in fact telling us is that any human being’s sins are so great that it is a violation of justice not to punish that person with damnation. What God does in response, however, is to punish not the sinner but a perfectly innocent person instead (a person who, even on the doctrine of the Trinity, is not the same person as God the Father, who does the punishing). But how is this just? Suppose that a mother with two sons, one innocent and one disobedient, inflicted all her disobedient son’s justly deserved punishment on her innocent son, on the grounds that the disobedient one was too little to bear his punishment and her justice required her to punish someone. We would not praise her justice, but rather condemn her as barbaric, even if the innocent son had assented to this procedure. If the mother could forego punishing the disobedient son, why did she not just do so without inflicting suffering on the other child? And how is justice served by punishing a completely innocent person?

Of course punishing Christ would be just if he were in fact guilty. Stephen Robinson suggests that penal substitution is appropriate because Christ assumes not merely our pain, but also our guilt: “Jesus did not just assume the punishment of our sins – he took the guilt as well. The sin … became his…. [H]e becomes the guilty party in our place – he becomes guilty for us and experiences our guilt. Robinson seems to suggest that Christ actually becomes culpable in our place and is thus justly punished in our place. Clearly if Christ is morally culpable, he can be justly punished. But such a view is simply nonsense. It entails that Christ was guilty even though he did nothing wrong. Indeed, it entails that Christ was simultaneously sinless and also culpable for a crime he did not commit. Such an explanation simply abuses what we mean by “culpable” or “guilty.” We do not hold persons guilty for things they have not done. However, perhaps Robinson only intended that Christ vicariously “experienced” our guilt and was guilty only in the sense that he experienced our feelings of being guilty in a sense that an omniscient being knows what we feel. However, if that is all that Robinson means, then his explanation cannot serve to explain how it is just to punish Christ in our place, for it entails that an innocent person is punished rather than a guilty person.

c. The Penal Theory Erroneously Assumes that Guilt Can Be Transferred. The assumption that moral guilt or righteousness can be transferred from one person to another like a debt that can be paid for another is problematic. The penal substitution theory rests on an equivocation between the nature of obligations that arise in an I-Thou relationship as opposed to those that arise in I-It relationships. The penal theory treats our sin as if it took place in the sphere of the It-world as an impersonal monetary transaction. The usual analogy used for the satisfaction theory is the paying of a debt by a benefactor for another who justly owes the debt. Yet monetary debts are formal and impersonal types of transactions that seem quite out of place when speaking of moral culpability. There is no injustice if Peter owes me $500, and I do not exact the debt from Peter because Paul paid to me the debt owed to me by Peter. Once the payment is made to me, I have received what I bargained for and I cannot justly demand anything more. But what would we think if Peter had murdered my daughter, and I agreed to let Peter off because Paul was willing to go to prison in his place? The penal theory mistakenly argues that we can buy an I-Thou relationship by engaging in a way of being in the world that characterizes I-It relationships. Our sense of moral justice arises only in the encounter of a Thou in interpersonal reciprocity. Moral obligation in the sphere of I-Thou relations is necessarily personal by its very nature. My obligations in an I-Thou relation can be performed only by me because I am the I in the relationship with a Thou. In the sphere of I-Thou relationships my obligations cannot be transferred to another because they are an expression of me in my uniqueness in relation to an other in uniqueness. Put more accountably, another cannot give my gift in the context of the I-Thou relationship, for it is myself that I am giving. When the only gift that can be given to pay the debt is the gift of myself, no other can stand in my place and give this gift that I alone have to give.

Amulek himself suggests that this monetary sense of justice is off the mark when it is life itself that is at stake: “Now, if a man murdereth, behold will our law, which is just, take the life his brother? I say unto you, Nay. But the law requireth the life of him who hath murdered.” (Alma 34;11-12; cf., Alma 42:19-21) Thus, Amulek adopts a principle that moral guilt is personal by its very nature. Our sense of justice dictates that moral culpability is personal, not something that can be transferred from one person to another. As C. Stephen Evans commented: “It is unclear how it could be just to punish an innocent person in place of some other guilty individual, even if the innocent person undergoes the punishment willingly, since moral guilt does not seem to be the kind of thing that can be transferred to another.”

Evangelical theologian Millard Erickson provides an insightful response to the argument that the monetary analogy inherent in the penal substitution theory violates our sense of justice:

This objection would be to a considerable extent valid if our relationship with Christ were this detached and he were quite aloof from us. Then it would be as if a total stranger paid the fine for a convicted criminal. But the individual believer is actually united with Christ…. [J]ustification, the transfer of the righteousness of Christ, and of what was accomplished by the atonement, is not an arm’s-length transaction. Rather, it is a matter of the two, Christ and the believer, becoming one in the sight of God.

Yet this answer asks us to engage is a divine lie, a fiction which claims that God sees the sinner as righteous and deserving of forgiveness when, given the Calvinist assumptions of this view, the truth is that the sinner deserves punishment. Once again, this response won’t work if the sinner is not identical with Christ so that the sinner deserving of punishment simply ceases to exist and only the righteous Christ actually exists. What Erickson’s response requires is not shared life in which the I-Thou relation is created, but absolute identity in which there is no “I” to give, no “other” to receive, no relationship to be entered, for there is only one person and not two. To enter into a relationship of oneness in shared life indwelling in one another is not the same as being one identical person. The face of the other is never obliterated in relationship but always remains other. That is the primary mistake of both the doctrine of Trinity when it is formulated as modalism and of the substitution theory of atonement – otherness is obliterated. The gift of myself that I alone have to give is denied. The possibility of an I-Thou relationship where I relate to an other to whom I say “Thou” is destroyed – and in its place a metaphor for an I-It relationship is substituted. My gift becomes money paid by an other to whom I could never say Thou, for the price of my soul has become merely the value of this monetary transaction. Something is given to buy my soul, but I am not involved in this transaction – some other thing has taken my place.

If Christ takes my place to receive the punishment that I deserve, then justice is not fulfilled because the one who deserves punishment is not punished. If Christ takes my place then mercy is not manifest because the price is still paid and not forgiven. As C. Stephen Evans observes: “[The Penal theory] does not really see God as forgiving sins. One could say that God releases us from a debt we owe, but it seems that God does not really forgive the debt, but extracts it from someone else.” Worse yet, we treat Christ’s life as a form of currency on this view. Christ’s life — the gift that only he can give – is given as a commodity to buy God’s appeasement.

d. The Penal Theory Limits God’s Power to Forgive. The Penal theory fails to explain why God can’t simply forgive us of our sins provided that we repent and walk away from our sins. The theory claims that because God is holy and just he must punish sin. Yet if we repent it is not unjust or contrary to holiness to forgive us. This view assumes that God can’t do what humans do– simply forgive one another without requiring someone to suffer. If persons are willing to change their ways and offer a genuine relationship of trusting love to us, we don’t demand that they or someone else must first suffer to satisfy our anger before we accept them. Why can’t God simply forgive us the way we can forgive one another? This is the question the satisfaction theory was created to answer.

According to Anselm, the problem is that a measure of honor and dignity is owed to God, and we have offended God’s honor by rebelling against his law and nature. God’s justice requires that his honor be satisfied so he cannot simply forgive this offense. Anselm based his theory on a feudal sense of justice in which the honor of a noble could not be sullied and which gave rise to a right of satisfaction of honor. Yet I have a hard time taking seriously this sense of nobility. For my sensibilities, this sense of honor is a peevish and immature sort of thin-skinned willingness to be offended by rather unreasonable demands that someone must suffer to restore the feudal nobility of God regardless of whether that person is in fact guilty of impugning the honor.

According to the Governmental theory, God cannot forgive us because it would disrupt the moral and legal order of the universe. The penal substitution theory need not be based on this feudal notion of noble honor. Rather, some of the reformers emphasized God’s inability to overlook sin because the very moral order of the universe would be jeopardized. As Erickson explains:

God is not merely a private person who has been wronged, but he is also the official administrator of the judicial system. As a private person he could in a sense forgive offenses against himself, just as humans forgive one another. But for God to remove or ignore the guilt of sin without requiring payment would in effect destroy the very moral fiber of the universe, the distinction between right and wrong. An additional element is that God is a being of infinite or perfect holiness and goodness. An offense against him is more serious than an offense against an ordinary sinful human.

So God cannot overlook sin because he must uphold a system of justice in the absence of which he would simply choose to forgive us. However, it hardly upholds the law to punish an innocent person. Further, if a person has repented, there is no reason that the moral order of the universe is threatened. Yet it seems incomprehensible that God would sell out to a system of justice that is unjust and refuses to forgive. Is the “moral order of the universe” really upset if God forgives rather than demands punishment? It seems much more offensive to the moral order to let those deserving of punishment get of Scott free while punishing the innocent. Moreover, is there really a “moral fiber of the universe” which makes demands on God and is therefore more ultimate than he is? This theory of atonement subordinates God to a moral law contrary to the voluntarist assumption of God’s sovereignty.

There are three compelling reasons for rejecting the view that punishment is necessary for forgiveness. First, our moral intuitions and moral experience support that view that forgiveness is possible without punishment. Given the fact that we do it we know that it is possible. Moreover, we see it not as unjust or sinful to forgive another without requiring punishment for sin, but as noble and virtuous. Forgiveness is simply a power that we have as moral agents. Second, God is viewed as maximally powerful and there is no logical or other constraint to support the view that it is impossible to forgive without punishment. The Reformers argued that it was contrary to God’s attributes of holiness and justice to forgive sin without punishment, and God cannot do anything that is contrary to his essential attributes. However, there is nothing inherent within the notions of holiness or justice that entails that punishment of someone is a necessary condition for forgiveness when the offender repents. This view assumes that God’s justice is “retributive” justice, or the requirement of punishment. However, there is just no available moral principle to ground the assertion that justice or holiness require punishment of those who wrong us if they repent and ask forgiveness. Third, requiring punishment even though we have repented is unloving.

Assume that my son becomes mad at me and attacks me, causing pain and physical injury. It is certainly within my right to bring an action for assault and battery against him. He may also be justly charged with a crime for doing so. However, assume that my son comes to me and sincerely apologizes and asks for forgiveness. Now I am not obligated to forgive him. I am legally entitled to press criminal charges and bring civil action against him. However, it is not morally wrong to forgive him without requiring that someone else must be punished first. Indeed, it is not morally wrong to forgive him and not require him to be punished criminally or pay civil damages if I see that he is sincere in his repentance. However, he is my son. I love him. So I choose to forgive him and trust that he will not do it again. I suggest that the course of forgiveness is the more loving course of action to follow provided that my son’s repentance is sincere. However, one thing is certain, I do not violate any moral or civil obligations if I choose to forgive my son without requiring him to be punished.

e. The Penal Theory Entails a Legal Fiction. I will discuss the problems with the view that God’s righteousness is legally imputed to us in the next chapter. Here it is worth noting that the Penal theory asserts that when a person is justified by grace, the righteousness of Christ is legally imputed to the sinner – and the sinner remains a sinner even though no longer under the dominion of sin. When God views the justified sinner, it is as if he sees Christ when he looks at us and thus sees only Christ’s righteousness and merit rather than our guilt and filth. God declares us righteous by grace rather than based on anything that we do. However, such a view entails that God engages in declaring a falsehood to be true. It entails that God in fact overlooks our sinfulness and instead regards us as righteous because Christ is – even though it is not true that we are in fact righteous. God’s abhorrence of sin is not overcome by any change in us but a change in him – he now disregards our sin and accepts the righteousness of another instead. Yet such a fiction does not vindicate God’s inability to tolerate sin in the least; it merely engages in a legal fiction to avoid dealing with our sin through a real change in us. Further, we are reconciled to God not because we choose to be reconciled or turn from what alienates us, but because God chooses to save some and leaves others to their damnation. This view of atonement assumes that God is the sole agent in our salvation and reconciliation.

I think that reality has a number of layers or parts that are knit together by ritual. As a result, on some levels, sin does not exist, on others it is a physical blot. What if God doesn’t always define sins or their prices? What if those are based on eternal and natural laws? appears to be very true in many ways, and we have system God moves within.

Having all the levels is important. Which means that being able to take care of sin is important.

Or so I think.

Dan(iel) #29, you’ve entirely missed my point.

First off, Alma 34 doesn’t help at all… if anything, it makes things more confusing. Verse 12 uses this magic word “infinite” to paper over why you can’t sacrifice your blood for another but Jesus can. How does that explain anything? What does that even mean? People at church dismiss all kinds of questions about the atonement by patiently explaining that “the atonement is infinite / perfect / eternal / whatever,” as if that somehow clarifies everything — when it really isn’t saying anything at all. It’s saying less. It’s exactly what you do here:

The only way the demands of justice can be met are with an infinite and eternal sacrifice by a Godly being, a perfect, sinless Lamb.

Great, we’ve all heard that a million times… but why? As I said in the original post, what kind of sicko would justice have to be to accept the torture and death of a perfect, spotless, innocent to satisfy its demands for some crime that someone else committed? These scriptures explain nothing.

Sure, Jacob can say that the atonement satisfies the demands of justice, but that just tells us that it works, not how or why it does.

Jacob: I think that your theory is great and accurate . . . as far as it goes. I don’t believe that it is really a theory of atonement at all because it doesn’t answer any of the questions that a theory of atonement ought to answer. However, I think that it is a great theory of prevenient grace.

#34:

Your main thrust seems to imply that the atonement’s true purpose cannot be explained because God can change the rules of justice. I posit that he can do no such thing. And I believe that’s scriptural.

Sure he can. Justice demands [whatever] from us because we sin. Sinning is consciously acting contrary to the will of God. God changes his will and what constitutes sin all the time — sin is not absolute. So, since God can easily manipulate our relationship to justice, whether he is the author of it or not (and I’m not saying he isn’t), it’s hard to see justice as absolute.

Besides, claiming that God’s notion of justice is beholden to natural laws is a hard path to argue — I’m not saying it’s wrong, I honestly don’t know, it’s just hard to conceptualize. As I already said to Mark, a system of natural laws of justice would have to really outdo the Pharisees in exceptions and caveats, because when it’s filtered through God’s will it comes out as awfully malleable and contingent.

If God / a natural law of justice (it really doesn’t matter which) is flexible enough to accept Jesus’ sacrifice in lieu of whatever it demands of us, why can’t it, by the same authority with which it bends its own rules, simply skip that step and absolve us if we do the best we can? That’s less of a stretch than sacrificing Jesus. Why should justice be satisfied with the blood of the wrong person? That depersonalizes it, making it just a quota, like in Packer’s mediator model. Are you going to tell me that the answer is that it’s because it is an “infinite” sacrifice? What does that mean?

“MCQ: “We also regularly do many other things God cannot do, Blake: sin”

Of course he could sin, if he wanted to. He just doesn’t. He is free in a morally significant sense after all.”

You’re not really addressing my comment here, Blake. You seem to want to argue that God can sin, which I think is ridiculous, but beside the point. Go back and read my comment (#23) again. After I just read that monstrosity of yours, you owe me.

MCQ,

not blake but wanted to respond anyways, you wrote

“If I sin and then repent, God may forgive me, in fact, I believe he has, many times. But God’s forgiveness, by itself, doesn’t erase all the effects of sin, just as his forgiveness of Adam and Eve didn’t erase all the effects of the Fall. That is where the atonement is required.”

what effect exactly do you think needs to be erased? Is it some sort of retributive punishment similar to our criminal system? If its that and someone has to pay it then its frankly a-scriptural and immoral.

On the other hand if you are talking simply about the law of harvest or the effect that sin has on our soul then yes something is required to change our heart or we remain in sin. I think amulek is right in his suggestion that the whole intent of the at-one-ment is to bring about the bowels of mercy so that we might exercise faith to change our paradigms, change our ways of thinking, and the path we are on. The atonement doesnt need to satisfy any penal, economic, or sacrificial demand. The justice everyone keep discussing ,as if its penal, is not part of a sacrificial economy. Alma 41 is clear that justice means restorative justice, law of harvest, and not our western notion of retributive justice.

Nicely stated Orwell. Over the last several years we have spilled a huge amount or cyber ink over at NCT trying to figure out the atonement. If I have learned anything it is this: Something’s gotta give. The common Mormon assumptions about the nature of reality and the universe just don’t jibe well with the atonement theories we largely inherited from creedal Christianity.

“God changes his will and what constitutes sin all the time”

You’ve said this a couple of times, Orwell, but I would say that God can change his will, but not what constitutes sin in most cases.

The most obvious analogy is found in the difference in the criminal law between acts malum in se (bad in themselves), and acts malum prohibitum (bad because they are prohibited). God may define certain things as sinful by giving a commandment like the word of wisdom, that applies sometimes and not others. But there are many things which are sinful in and of themselves, regardless of any commandment. I don’t think we need a whole book of commandments or pharasaical system of rules to understand this, because we have the light of Christ:

16 For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.
17 But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him.
18 And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by which ye may judge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye do not judge wrongfully; for with that same judgment which ye judge ye shall also be judged.
19 Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ.

Moroni 7:16-19

I think we know these things instictively. When we talk about “natural law” we’re really just talking about those things that are dictated by the light of Christ.

The light of Christ is even spoken of as “the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God” in D&C 88:13:

“The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things.”

God is then, subject to this law. God doesn’t control or change the light of Christ to tell us that certain things are wrong sometimes and not others. The light of Christ tells us, and we know, without God’s input, and those things don’t change.

Great post.

In my opinion, most of the problems are because we are taking the wrong postulates and applying deductive logic too doggedly. We then start to worry when we find contradictions. Analogies based on human understandings of legal procedures and money can teach us something, but they can only be carried so far because legal procedures and money are for this world and not the next.

I would try to give one example. We often hear from the pulpit that “I don’t know how Jesus’ suffering could be valid for another person”. Perhaps the assumption that we are totally separate from God is false, the same way that we tend to think mass or time are absolute and never suspect that it is the speed of light that is the constant. We are definitely not “at one” yet, but maybe what connection there is is much more profound than we can imagine, permitting the validity of vicarious actions. The same might be true for temple work and our connection to someone we have never met here on earth. Isn’t this better than a legalistic reading of vicarious actions? Thus our separateness may be only a painful and mental disease causing illusion. This is obviously true at the physical level, where we are much more deeply integrated in the processes of the earth’s ecosystem than we are typically aware of.

It may be that the atonement is essentially God saying, “you have gone off and done this bad stuff due to your own choices and you have also had other bad experiences that are not your fault, you are feeling unhappy, alone and unlovable (or maybe hardened, fallen, and lost would be a better way to describe it). You are wondering if things can be fixed. I have come and suffered your individual life as you will live it, with every pain and all the effects of your sins on yourselves, others and on me. I have undergone the full weight of all consequences without any conditions. Then you will know that my love for you is infinite and that I fully understand you. The consequences of your actions will still reverbate, but I am willing to suffer through them and you should be too. Just knowing how much I love you will totally change your perspective on your sins. Let’s get through this together and I will help you with anything you need. You can trust me. If you promise to work with me, I will never bring any of your past actions up and I will bring you back so we can be fully together. I am hoping that you will love me back with all your heart because then our relationship will not be hampered by selfishness. There are lots of wonderful experiences that I could provide that you don’t know about now. However, if you choose not to trust me, you will end up feeling this way for quite a while and you may never fully recover your ability to be “at one” with me and others.”

What if penal substitution theory is awful, unfair, morally twisted, and true?

I think Isaiah 53 argues for it, and the power of those verses is largely due to the fact that they express Isaiah’s sense of awe at the unfairness and wrongness of the atonement.

4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors: and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

I can’t help but think that dismissing penal substitution theory requires dismissing all the plain scriptural and modern-prophetic teachings about the atonement. To do that, I would need reasons stronger than It doesn’t square with my concepts of fairness, logic, etc., which seems to be the reasoning behind the criticisms here.

Fundamental to my understanding of the atonement are two things: 1) my own experiences with sin and redemption through the atonement, and 2) my acceptance of Isaiah 55:8-9:

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

I accept that our doctrines regarding the Atonement may be morally and intellectually indefensible, but that does not mean they are false.

I would be wary of calling God a sicko.

The only thing being called a sicko is the caricature of God that is portrayed in some attempts to understand the atonement.

Peter LLC (57)

I have no problem with the idea that pure justice is “sick” when the subjects of that justice are redeemable.

What I do have a problem with is the assertion that God, as revealed in all our scriptures and modern prophetic pronouncements, is sick. I think the prophets have taught plainly and unambiguously some form of penal substitution theory down through the ages, and the arguments against it sound to me like doctrinal trutherism.

Chris #58 — if saying that “Christ atoned for our sins” is equivalent to “Christ did something I have no clue about” then we don’t assert anything at all. Our central doctrine is not merely unintelligible but meaningless. That is a heck of a lot different than saying “I don’t know how a VCR works.” The fact is that I understand the electronics and electromagnetic principles that explain why and how it works. That is totally unlike saying “I don’t how or why the the atonement works.” On the other hand, I agree that we can understand that the atonement works without understanding how or why.

The lengthy and inconclusive discussion here and the similarly massive ones previously at NCT simply reinforce the main point of this post. No one understands the atonement, probably because no one can. No one can make weave all of the scriptures and logic statements pertaining to the matter into a coherent whole because God has never given us one simple comprehensive explanation of what is involved. It is likely that for some reason, we are presently incapable of understanding what the atonement did and does. Because of that, God and the prophets have given us analogies and allegories that simply cannot be pushed beyond their limits.

Consider the various competing theories in physics. Each breaks down at some point, but is useful at others. Physicists are still looking for the unifying theory of everything, but no one has been able to develop one that is entirely satisfactory. We are in the same situation with respect to the atonement.

Can’t Understand: Here is what we can understand. The Penal Substitution Theory doesn’t work. It is the dominant explanation — and it is a great step forward to realize that the usual explanation doesn’t explain anything and asserts false claims like our guilt can be transferred to Christ and his righteousness can be imputed to us. It is based on a reprehensible moral volunatarist moral theory and a false view of justice.

We can understand that the Restoration gives us considerable new information and resources as an optic to view the atonement. D&C 19s statements that we don’t suffer if we repent, but we do if we don’t; Christ suffers the very pain of our sins; Mosiah 16′s statements that Christ suffers so greatly that blood comes from ever pore and this his suffering is greater than any mere mortal could suffer is significant. The statements about mercy satisfying justice cited above in 2 Ne. 9 and Alma 34 and 42 are also significant. We are not stuck with wine in old goat skins for our view of atonement. Jettison Penal Substitution. We can do far better.

it’s how the Atonement works/functions that we struggle to grasp.

That sounds a lot like the original post: What I’m talking about here is how or why the atonement works, not if it works.

It might be simpler and more beautiful in some ways to just accept the atonement of Jesus Christ on faith, not understanding.

Blake and Jacob J, I appreciate your input here, especially that both of you have made admirable attempts at taking this thing seriously in your respective theories… I admit that I haven’t had time to go through each of your theories in depth yet as there were more pages than I had time to read at the moment.

J. Madson (44), I don’t think I can get on board completely with your interpretation of “He Took My Lickin,’” but I really like the “subversive” spin you’ve given it. Definitely more interesting that way.

Mark D. (46)

The first thing to recognize is that any rational theory of the atonement is incompatible with strict conception of divine omnipotence.

Yeah, I think you’ve nicely summarized one of the fundamental paradoxes of the whole thing.

Thanks for the link, Geoff J., that’s a lot of material (and I obviously haven’t been able to look through it all yet) — it looks like there’s a lot of good stuff there.

MCQ (49), I like your criminal law analogy. I’ll get to the natural law of justice (or things that are bad in themselves) in a minute.

Dan(iel) (54):

Do you have any scriptural evidence that God can, if he wanted to, just forgive us of our sins himself?

Sure, any scripture that attributes omnipotence to him.

You keep referring to my theories… like I’m an atonement denier that is trying to prove that God can just forgive us. That’s not it at all, I don’t have a theory, per se. Clearly, God can’t just forgive our sins and call it good or he would have done that to begin with. I’m playing devil’s advocate with commonly accepted notions of how the atonement works because none of them make sense to me. The point you keep turning into a theory is that if God is truly omnipotent, then the whole atonement thing is needlessly complicated.

I understand, though, that in your view, he isn’t omnipotent, but beholden to natural laws. I’ll get to that in a second.

I can’t believe you accept that killing a lamb under the Law of Moses would atone for the Israelites sins for a year… in that case all we have to do is sacrifice animals — Jesus is unnecessary. The Law of Moses was symbolic — its power was mostly in the exercise of obedience. I don’t believe for a second that animal sacrifices had any actual atoning effect over people. Again, that would totally depersonalize sin and leave us in Packer’s mediator paradigm.

You’ve totally made my point for me in your long paragraph about polygamy and the Word of Wisdom and such. You’ve just said that justice will hold people accountable in different ways depending on God’s law at the time, so you concede it isn’t absolute and you concede that God changing his mind about what constitutes sin affects justice’s demands. So, God is acting upon justice, not the other way around. You last paragraph in 54 says exactly the opposite of what you were explaining in the penultimate one. You’re better off piggybacking on MCQ’s argument because it’s way better than yours.

Now, MCQ and Dan(iel), to that argument that God is beholden to some natural law of justice or the Light of Christ or whatever you want to call it, that some things are inherently wrong no matter what, etc. Let me first say that, for all I know, that’s the truth. I honestly have no idea.

However, I can’t totally buy into that either. If this natural law of justice is some absolute, inanimate, impersonal, force, like gravity (which isn’t the best example because it’s not absolute either, but you know what I mean), it wouldn’t seem to be capable of bending to accept Christ in our place… we would be cheating justice, defying it, or finding ways around it, not fulfilling its demands.

From there, if justice is able to consciously decide, “Okay, I’ll take that deal, Him for all of you guys,” or whatever, this capacity for judgment seems to imply sentience, which means that we haven’t solved anything, we’ve just shifted all the problems up one level in the hierarchy (either to a higher God or some Star Wars Midi-chlorian theory). And if justice is at least sentient at some level, where does it get its authority? From itself? Well, then we’re stuck at the omnipotent problem again.

Anyway, my concerns don’t have the answers, I don’t know what they are. I’m just saying that evoking a natural law doesn’t do it for me either, especially since the issue of how Christ can be proxy for us remains a problem.

We don’t really understand it very well. But we do know that its real and that it works. That’s enough for me. There are some amazing well thought comments in this post.

Blake: (70) Will do! As a matter of fact, I ordered your Mormon Thought series recently. Pleasure to “meet” you in person!

Orwell,

Sure, any scripture that attributes omnipotence to him.

Are there no scriptures which indicate God can, has, or has considered, forgiving someone of their sins outside the proscribed path? Simply saying God is omnipotent, thus he can do anything, is not a very good answer, because the omnipotence charge can be faced with paradoxes. Can God make a rock so big he cannot lift it? There is actually a limit to omnipotence.

I can’t believe you accept that killing a lamb under the Law of Moses would atone for the Israelites sins for a year… in that case all we have to do is sacrifice animals — Jesus is unnecessary.

Hold on a sec. I’m going by what is written in the Law of Moses. The sacrificing of animals could not save humanity from death and from spiritual death. As Jacob writes in 2 Nephi 9:

7 Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement—save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man must needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more.

The sacrificing of animals was always a temporary solution, hence why the Israelites were given so many variations of sacrifices to offer up, as you can read in Leviticus. Jacob answers the why, why an infinite atonement. Because this corruption (our mortal, corrupted bodies) could not be transformed into incorruptible, immortal bodies without an infinite atonement. Why? Who knows the answer to that one. We haven’t had many incorruptible, immortal bodies to study to figure that one out. ;)

The Law of Moses was symbolic — its power was mostly in the exercise of obedience. I don’t believe for a second that animal sacrifices had any actual atoning effect over people. Again, that would totally depersonalize sin and leave us in Packer’s mediator paradigm.

The Law of Moses was definitely symbolic, when looking at it in hindsight, but it was most definitely real to the people back then (and certainly to the Jews today). Or are you saying God pulled a fast one by them, deluding them into thinking something was not real? If just symbolic, they would not have to actually sacrifice anything, but remember, the Lord demanded the best of their flock. This sacrifice was real for the Israelites.

You’ve totally made my point for me in your long paragraph about polygamy and the Word of Wisdom and such. You’ve just said that justice will hold people accountable in different ways depending on God’s law at the time, so you concede it isn’t absolute and you concede that God changing his mind about what constitutes sin affects justice’s demands.

I apologize for not being clearer. God changes the rules as he likes, but he cannot change what Justice demands. If you sinned, you are held accountable for your sin irrespective of God changing his mind at a later time and that sin you committed no longer is considered a sin. It is not justice that God changed, but what constitutes a sin. I deeply apologize I cannot make this point clearer. I wish I went to a better high school or something and learned to express my thoughts more cogently. :) I don’t have a problem piggybacking on MCQ’s comment. He did put it better than I did.

However, I can’t totally buy into that either. If this natural law of justice is some absolute, inanimate, impersonal, force, like gravity (which isn’t the best example because it’s not absolute either, but you know what I mean), it wouldn’t seem to be capable of bending to accept Christ in our place… we would be cheating justice, defying it, or finding ways around it, not fulfilling its demands.

How do you know this? Do you know better than God what justice demands in payment of sins? I’d wager not.

From there, if justice is able to consciously decide, “Okay, I’ll take that deal, Him for all of you guys,” or whatever, this capacity for judgment seems to imply sentience, which means that we haven’t solved anything, we’ve just shifted all the problems up one level in the hierarchy (either to a higher God or some Star Wars Midi-chlorian theory). And if justice is at least sentient at some level, where does it get its authority? From itself? Well, then we’re stuck at the omnipotent problem again.

Indeed, there is much we simply do not know about Justice, and the parameters of the Universe in which God resides.

I’m just saying that evoking a natural law doesn’t do it for me either, especially since the issue of how Christ can be proxy for us remains a problem.

Jesus Christ is a God. Do we understand what that means, to be on the same level as God, the Eternal Father? To have someone like that sacrifice His life, it has a special power. I frankly don’t need to know the details, because in my limited understanding in this corrupted world, I doubt I would be able to really comprehend what that really means. I think the answers so far from the scriptures on the meaning of the atonement are sufficient and not lacking any major logic.

J Madson,

Can you expound on your theory some more, because I read Alma 42 and I read this:

14 And thus we see that all mankind were fallen, and they were in the grasp of justice; yea, the justice of God, which consigned them forever to be cut off from his presence.

15 And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God

Where do I not follow the logic explained here by Alma?

Okay Madson, I’m cool with that. Where did I disagree with any of that in any of my comments? Except of course the one sentence you quote me. I have brought up that the atonement is more than just a cleansing of sin. That I haven’t used the word restorative (which I should have, certainly), doesn’t limit me to the atonement being solely about payment for sins. My wonder with this post is simply “where’s the fire?” I think the atonement is fairly clear.

Jacob, I think your last paragraph is exactly right. Focusing on forgiveness is not helpful with regard to the atonement. We need to focus on the “restoration” that J. Madson is talking about. That is the problem that the atonement is trying to fix, restoring fallen individuals and a fallen world to God.

Orwell:

“However, I can’t totally buy into that either. If this natural law of justice is some absolute, inanimate, impersonal, force, like gravity (which isn’t the best example because it’s not absolute either, but you know what I mean), it wouldn’t seem to be capable of bending to accept Christ in our place… we would be cheating justice, defying it, or finding ways around it, not fulfilling its demands.”

First of all, I recognize that talking about the light of Christ being the law and God being subject to law is just shifting things up the chain, but if you don’t recognize this argument then how do you deal with D&C 88? It must mean that God is subject to the law, which at least gets us out of the quandary of wondering why God requires this whole thing in the first place.

Next, I don’t think that Justice is some sentient Monty Hall that says, “I’ll take that deal!” I think Justice is a law similar to any physical law. God isn’t “cheating” justice by utilizing the atonement, any more than you are “cheating” gravity when you utilize an airplane.

Knowing how physical laws work means that you can utilize the proper mechanisms to accomplish your goal. If your goal is to fly you utilize the proper mechanisms to create the necessary lift to accomplish your goal. If your goal is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, then you utilize the proper mechanisms to restore a fallen world and its people to a state where they can become perfected. The atonement is somehow (in a way that I certainly don’t understand) the proper mechanism to accomplish that goal.

#80 and #84 Good Points

The following was written by Theodore M. Burton:

Click the link at the bottom to read the entire article.

As a General Authority, I have prepared information for the First Presidency to use in considering applications to readmit repentant transgressors into the Church and to restore priesthood and temple blessings. Many times a bishop will write, “I feel he has suffered enough!” But suffering is not repentance. Suffering comes from lack of complete repentance. A stake president will write, “I feel he has been punished enough!” But punishment is not repentance. Punishment follows disobedience and precedes repentance. A husband will write, “My wife has confessed everything!” But confession is not repentance. Confession is an admission of guilt that occurs as repentance begins. A wife will write, “My husband is filled with remorse!” But remorse is not repentance. Remorse and sorrow continue because a person has not yet fully repented. Suffering, punishment, confession, remorse, and sorrow may sometimes accompany repentance, but they are not repentance. What, then, is repentance?

http://www.ldsaliveinchrist.com/2008/01/classic-talk-the-meaning-of-repentance/

The idea that justice demands suffering for sin is one of the most damaging ideas in theology.

Absolutely. The idea that repairing the consequences of sin entails suffering is different though. And one of the requirements of justice is that the consequences of sin are remedied.

In the Old Testament you never get the idea that people are required to make sacrifices in order to be punished, the implication is always that one is making partial, and in large part symbolic restoration for the harm he has caused.

Even then, “the sacrifice of the wicked is abomination” and “to do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice” (Prov 21:3,27).

And what is to do justice if not to make personal reparation for the harms one has caused to others, and rely on the Lord to make up the difference for all the harms one cannot make reparation for?

I suggest that God suffers in the process of conducting, mediating, and coordinating the latter and in a very personal, spiritual, and emotional manner. And furthermore that all true Christians share in that suffering by degrees, by doing what they can to participate in the same work:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (Rom 12:1)

Daniel: According to Alma 34 and 42, what atonement does is make it possible for mercy to overcome justice by making repentance possible. Repentance is made possible by making us free to choose for ourselves, offering us an opportunity to restore the relationship that we have injured with God and each other by offering to forgive us based on our repentance. Justice doesn’t inflict punishment regardless of our repentance. If we repent, then we don’t suffer for our sins according to D&C 19. We are released from suffering by Christ’s suffering.

Blake,

Justice doesn’t inflict punishment regardless of our repentance. If we repent, then we don’t suffer for our sins according to D&C 19. We are released from suffering by Christ’s suffering.

So then you do agree that justice does inflict suffering upon someone, whether the sinner, or Christ, who took upon Himself the sins of the world, right? I’m just curious where one can say something like this:

The idea that justice demands suffering for sin is one of the most damaging ideas in theology.

Not that you said that (I believe that was Jacob). Doesn’t justice demand suffering for sin?

Daniel, the punishment spoken of in D&C 20:20 is of the second kind: withdrawal of the Spirit. Withdrawal of the Spirit means that one relies completely on his own wisdom and his own strength, and suffers the natural consequences of that weakness.

Whereas those who strive to repent have their burdens lifted through the grace of God, even though they commit many sins and errors along the way. That is what justification is all about. The scriptural witness is that the provision of these blessings causes God to suffer.

In other words, God suffered for all, not because suffering has any benefit as such, or justice “demands” suffering, but because suffering is a unavoidable side effect of his reconcilation or at-one-ment with those who are trying but not perfect.

And if he does not lift that burden, and completely withdraws his Spirit, we suffer the natural consequences of our own sins in the fullest degree. No divine subsidy.

In this case, I don’t think it is fair to say that justice “demands” suffering, what justice demands is that God not subsidize evil. Suffering is a natural consequence of both sin and the effort to undo its consequences. Nobody demands suffering.

Daniel: “So then you do agree that justice does inflict suffering upon someone, whether the sinner, or Christ, who took upon Himself the sins of the world, right?”

Not exactly. The sinner receives the natural consequences of his or her choices — they have restored to them evil for evil, good for good according to the Law of Restoration spoken of by Alma in Alma 41. It is the law of the harvest. However, if the sinner repents then justice has no sway — justice is satisfied by mercy when we repent. According to D&C 19, if we repent then we don’t suffer even though a retributive justice would require that we suffer.

Further, there is not a double punishment so that Christ suffers whether I repent or not. If I repent, then Christ suffers for what I would have suffered but for the repentance. If I don’t repent, then I suffer the natural consequences for my actions but Christ doesn’t suffer for sins of which I don’t repent. The Law of Restoration does not impose the injustice of double suffering so that I suffer and Christ also suffers for my unrepented sins.

Jacob,

Notice that in all of this justice doesn’t ever demand suffering. There is no sense in which if you have sinned, someone has to pay to appease the sadistic “justice” which can only be appeased by suffering.

I agree with your analysis up to this point here. The only way God is able to hold Justice at bay is through the suffering of Jesus Christ. Is that not true? Is not one of the purposes of the atonement that justice is stayed from demanding punishment? God says in D&C 19:20 “confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments” which are the same sufferings Christ endured.

Just want to say again, your analysis is well put and I appreciate that. I just can’t see where the scriptures indicate that justice doesn’t demand suffering. What is the suffering Christ endured then? What is the suffering we would endure if we do not repent? Does that demand for suffering not come from Justice?

Mark,

Daniel, the punishment spoken of in D&C 20:20 is of the second kind: withdrawal of the Spirit. Withdrawal of the Spirit means that one relies completely on his own wisdom and his own strength, and suffers the natural consequences of that weakness.

I don’t think that is the case. In D&C 19:20, God is saying that if you don’t repent, you’ll suffer “these” punishments of which he had spoken. He then indicates that Martin Harris (to whom this revelation was given) had experienced a “small part” of this punishment when the Spirit was withdrawn. God is indicating therefore that the actual punishment is far greater than the “small part” which is where the Spirit is withdrawn, and that it is more close to what Jesus actually endured. At least, that is my understanding of D&C 19.

Jacob,

I think justice and repentance are two different things though. Repentance only works through the application of the grace of Christ, whereas we would have no recourse if justice demands payment. I don’t feel badly about my past sins because I’ve learned through prayerful scripture study that I don’t have to pay the price for my sins because of Jesus Christ. That if I do my best in this life to follow His counsel, I will be just fine in the end. I agree that for probably most in this world, they cannot see the difference between the two.

Daniel,

I don’t have to pay the price for my sins because of Jesus Christ.

When you say that, what is the “price for my sins” that you have in mind? In what sense do sins incur a price?

Jacob:

I really like your comment #96. This makes a lot of sense to me, and brings your paper to life for me more. I am not sure why it takes months for this to happen – other than simply being a dope.

I’d just like to add to what Jacob stated since I think that he and I are essentially in agreement on these issues. God’s mercy consists in staying the execution of penalties of death. Alma 42 emphasizes that it would be just for God to exercise his judgment “immediately” without any wait. However, instead of rendering a verdict now and executing judgment by pronouncing sentence on us, God places us on probation and stays his decision until after we have had an opportunity to choose freely whether we want to be in relationship with him. Adam’s real sin wasn’t eating an apple, but choosing to alienate himself from God and to be case out of God’s presence. God’s mercy consists in giving us this mortal time-frame in which to change our minds about that decision to alienate ourselves from God [and each other]. The whole point of atonement is to give us freedom and time to choose freely whether we will be in relationship with him.

The atonement is essential to what God is really after — a change of heart and a time to repent during this probation. Further,it must be this way of necessity if loving relationships are to exist because love must be chosen freely — love cannot be coerced or result as a matter of necessity of some sort. Satan’s plan wasn’t even a possibility because it misunderstands the nature of divine love. The whole plan and the atonement is about God’s desire to have a loving relationship of indwelling unity with us that we must choose freely. The atonement makes such freely chosen relationships possible.

Reducing this type of choice to a monetary transactions is a category mistake and cheapens what is really at issue. That is why the Penal Substitution theory and the monetary analogies to debtors and creditors is objectionable. Such a model reduces the atonement to an economic transaction. The analogy to a debtor-creditor relationship is thus misleading and trivializes what Christ did for us.

The recognition that Christ suffers because it is painful to be in relationship with us is a major step forward in explaining what the atonement is, how it is accomplished and why it is necessary. I spell it out in the paper referred to in #13 above.

Such a model reduces the atonement to an economic transaction.

I don’t think the atonement is just an economic transaction, but it clearly involves economic components or many of the scriptures on the subject are incomprehensible.

For example “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor 6:20).

“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb 10:10)

The only way to argue that the atonement, including redemption from both death and hell does not involve an economic component is to deny that it involves the conservation of anything, including energy. Anything God feels as a consequence must then be purely superficial, superfluous, and self inflicted.

This is what I mean when I claim that a strict conception of divine omnipotence is incompatible with any rational theory of the atonement. If God has absolute power, nothing is necessary for him, and if nothing is necessary for him there is no reason for divine suffering except exhibitionary sadomasochism.

Jacob,

When you say that, what is the “price for my sins” that you have in mind? In what sense do sins incur a price?

The price of sin is the separation of me from God. Because of the atonement, and because I accept Jesus as my Savior, that price is covered by the atonement. But that cover is conditional on me continuing to adhere to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jacob,

I am in a fallen state because of my sins. Being separated from God is just a consequence of being fallen. I should have been clearer in my previous comment.

I’m going to bow out now, though. I feel like I’m just going to repeat myself. I’ve stated my views on what the atonement means, agreeing with many of your and others’ points. I was a little taken back by the belief that justice doesn’t mete out punishment, when our scriptures are quite clear that justice does indeed do this. I don’t want to proceed further, I’m merely recapping my thoughts.

Daniel, I think that there is no question that justice does mete out punishment in some cases. It just doesn’t meet out punishment in cases where the offender has truly repented, or to third parties.

God has no need of being punished, even if he participates by acquaintance in the suffering of those that are. And that is the whole problem with the “someone must be punished” theory. Being punished for the sins of others cannot possibly do anyone any good. Punishment is good for deterrence and penitence, beyond that it is worse than worthless.

God does not need to be deterred from sin, nor does he need to repent. So what good does it do for him to be punished for the sins of others? Speaking of which, where in the scriptures does it state that God is punished for anything?

I appreciated the responses given here regarding the atonement and have thought about them throughout the day. I agree with many of the posts expressing the metaphors often provided to teach the principle mechanics of the atonement have been less than satisfying. It has been a long held opinion of mine that the Lord, and the brethren for that matter, are satisfied to teach us partial truths to teach a concept, but often gaining a full understanding of a principle requires the undoing of that metaphor to the point that it is demonstrated to be entirely false. This is evident in both the economic metaphors and the justice metaphors like Elder Packard’s needed intercessory to pay the farmers debt, or President Hinckley’s often recited story of the boy who needed to be whipped for stealing. Both serve a good purpose insofar as they provide a framework of understanding of the basic mechanics and purpose of the atonement. But as one seeks greater light and truth on the matter one will find both types of analogies, along with ones like it, not only unsatisfying but an offense to the true doctrine of the atonement.

For sake of time and space I rather not address the former posts and theories of how it works, and just give you my thoughts on the matter after wrestling with this question for at least 15 years.

Please forgive me if I am a bit straight forward on this topic, I feel that the answers to this question regarding the nature of the atonement have been deeply satisfying and have caused my love for the Savior to deepen to levels that cause me to pause before writing this because of the sacred nature of the topic and the direction that leads to the answer. I do believe I have had answers regarding this, and that it is very possible to have the mysteries of the atonement revealed to us through personal revelation. The understanding of it is not bound up in philosophical theories, and is not accessible through the sheer application of mortal reason. Clarity and understanding of the atonement comes as we access its power through seeking to become sanctified, which is the same process of becoming like our Father in Heaven. As we are made in his image by receiving and obeying the spirit of Christ, the secrets of His atonement are made known to us. But it can only be made known to us as we become like him because understanding the atonement is not a cognitive process. I believe this is so because of the following doctrine.

First, questions regarding the atonement, as with most doctrinal questions, is often naturally answered when the doctrines of the nature of God and the nature of man are comprehended. Most gospel questions that are bounced around in blogs and in Sunday School are attributed to the problem that few LDS understand fundamentally who our Father In Heaven is, and who we are in relation to him. As we prayerfully study D&C 88, 50, 93, and 84 we can spiritually comprehend who God is and our relation to him.

Our Father is God because he possesses a fullness of light and truth. This light and truth is also called intelligence, and is also called glory. Because he possesses a fullness of light and truth his existential composition is intelligence. Because his being possesses a fullness, he participates in all intelligence throughout the realm of existence. He is a possessor of all things, which is also another way of saying he possesses a fullness of law, which is also another way of saying light and truth. Because he possesses all intelligence /light and truth/ law as a matter of the composition of who he is, his being literally is the law, light, and truth. It fundamentally is who he is in the very existence of his Being. (As a side note, the logical extension of this principle renders questions of whether God can sin, or if God is God because he keeps law or makes law, moot and nonsensical.)

We, as children of God, are also fundamentally composed of light and truth. That is to say, we are also intelligence as a matter of the fundamental composition of our beings. We possess a lesser portion of that intelligence due to the fall and what has flowed to our beings by virtue of the light of Christ. The light of Christ flows to us because of the atonement.

Christ was the only organized intelligence of our Father that did not resist in any portion the intelligence that flowed from the Father that literally establishes us as beings. The Father was the source of the sustaining life force light and truth that gave us existence and our beingness. To some degree all of us have resisted or not obeyed that free flow of light, which made Christ the only being capable of not being cut off from the Father when he descended to this earth. The Light of Truth flowed to his being without hindrance or resistance. Because of this condition, he was able to descend into complete darkness. Christ was able to descend below all things, leave the sustaining – existence establishing- presence of the Father to a place that if we were to descend, we would be cut off eternally. Christ could leave the presence of the Father, willingly take upon himself spiritual death, which is to have the power of life (intelligence, light, and truth) completely withdrawn from him, and ascend by virtue of that light and truth flowing to him independent of the Father.

When Christ reached that point in the atonement where all would be taken from him he exclaimed, “Father, why has thou forsaken me?” Perhaps this was the only question the Savior would ask that he did not comprehend the answer to. He could not comprehend it because for the first time he intellectually knew he would be the Savior, but intelligence had been withdrawn from him and he, for the first time, experienced faith. From his perspective, if he were to proceed, he would be eternally lost, never able to return, his life was being withdrawn from him and it appeared that there was no way to regain the presence of his Father. He went forward anyway. This is why, when this is comprehended, we fall to our knees and worship Christ as our Redeemer. From his diminishing perspective he was not just enduring a suffering. He thought he would die and not return. He was willing to descend and not come back.

But of course we know that he accomplished the atonement. On one level what this means is that he had the sustaining presence of the Father withdrawn from him leaving him in eternal death, but because he was a being that had never resisted the glory of the Father, he was capacitated to have glory flow back to him and possess it as an independent Father and God of us all. Because he descended, the light and truth that he now possesses can flow to all of us without compulsory means within the fallen state in which we live. If we, like Christ, learn to resonate and receive the light of truth, and not resist or obliterate it, the life giving force of intelligence will flow to us by what we perceive as the grace of Christ. (I believe this is also charity)

Understanding that Christ willingly went forward with the atonement believing his being would be extinguished will compel all of God’s children to fall to their knees and confess that he is the Christ. This act of true sacrifice, not just an endurance of pain, causes all of us to come unto Him and worship Him.

If a fallen son or daughter of our Father had attempted the atonement we would have had no power to come through. As we descended and were cut off from the Father , we, in our finite capacities, having not already been a possessor of all law, light, truth, intelligence, and glory, would have perished not having power to overcome the darkness and chaos. Christ was an infinite being. Because he was capacitated to receive a fullness, a fullness of glory flowed unto him without compulsory means. Only an infinite being could descend and atone. It could only be an infinite atonement of a God being immersed in a fullness of darkness, so that he could overcome by virtue of his power and capacity of his being.

This is a condensed explanation of what I consider a very sacred doctrine. One does not need to apply the tools of philosophy or theories of what God can and cannot do, he needs to approach the scriptures with prayerful focus and learn to repent so that the doctrines of Christ can be revealed to him. The doctrine of atonement can be revealed to anyone who seeks the power of sanctification. Again, understanding the atonement is not a cognitive process, but a process of beingness. As we become to possess the light and truth of our Father he is revealed to us and we are revealed to ourselves.

I read the Blake Ostler article that is linked in comment #13 – it seems pretty worthwhile to me.

I don’t know if I understand the Atonement all that much – but I do feel the article does a good job of going through quite a number of the possibilities.

I like post #117.

MCQ: I think that what I wrote would require a lot of follow up explanation. It is unfortunate that we can’t all just jump on a conference call and have group discussions on this.

Here are my premises:

1. Light, truth, intelligence, glory, spirit, law, charity, word, life, and agency are all synonyms. We use different terms to explain different aspects of the same thing. They are aspects in the same way that wetness is an aspect of water. It can not be separated as a distinctive thing separate from its entire nature.

2. What makes God and Christ who they are is that they possess as the fundamental property of their being a fulness of these aforementioned things. Lets call it Spirit even though when I use that term I am also saying light, truth, intelligence, glory, law, charity, word, life, and agency. Any of these terms, or aspects, can by used interchangeably. Without being possessed by a being these things would not exist. It is like asking can wetness exist without water.

3. We also, as children of our Father in Heaven, possess as the fundamental composition of who we are a portion of intelligence. As we yeild ourselves to Christ we increase in intelligence, and as we resist Christ we lose intelligence.

4. My final point is to make a distinction between cognitive functions and the possession of intelligence. Cognitive function could be described as the possession of facts, or information. Receiving spiritual knowledge/intelligence is not to merely have informaiton, but is to be in-formed (made in the form of). Meaning that we take possession of light and truth and becomes part of who we are, not just information. An example of this would be someone who is convinced that Christ is the Savior because of historical fact and theological argument versus someone who has received the witness of the spirit and they know the fact throughout their whole being. Factual knowledge does not have salvational merit.Spiritual knowledge,however, is not only prerequisite to salvation, but is in itself the process of salvation. This is why I think gaining spiritual understanding of the atonement (having the mysteries revealed to us) is largely predicated on our repentence and sanctification.

What I am describing is an existential description of how we gain (or lose) spiritual intelligence. If we don’t see it in an existential framework we will put comprehension of the atonement out of reach, and we will certainly not understand why Christ was necessary.

I think some of these discussions about whether it was a matter of Christ “taking my lickin’ for me,” or the economic analogies, or the bicycle, or company merger will at some point break down and need to be entirely discarded. They are useful in the same way someone wanting to climb Everest may stand on a stepping stool to see over the trees and look at the mountain. It might give them a framework of what the issue is, but in the end serves no meaningful purpose but to frame the issue for us. If you want to climb Everest you may peer from the stepping stool, but then it is probably useful to throw it in the bushes and get on with your climb because the stool has zero utility to get you to the top of the mountain. I think these various analogies are useful in the begining to frame the concept of an atonement, but should be discarded as the real work of scripture study, sanctification, and revelation begins.

There were a lot of issue brought up here, it would take forever to address all of them. I think for the most part when discussing the atonement if we don’t get the premises right, our concept of the atonement becomes inadequate.

MCQ – what is the Nine Moons for President blog about? I am interested

We Can:

The blog is called Nine Moons. One of the mastheads is just a spoof of a presidential campaign sign. If you click on the masthead you’ll see other mastheads, all of which were designed by our illustrious leader Rusty. Check it out. Hope you like it.

The apostle Paul makes the distinction over and over again. It seems to me the people of that time had the same difficulty understanding the apparent contradiction.

Another parable I really like about the Atonement is probably more popular with the world yet less often seen as an Atonement-parable. You might have even read it yourself. It’s a great book called “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” from the Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. Lewis is one of my favorite authors because he writes fascinating and entertaining novels (i.e.: The Chronicles of Narnia) but most of his books have a hidden metaphorical meaning like a parable or allegory that always has to do with God. If you haven’t read this book, I’d highly suggest you do, and if you have but you’ve never recognized the spiritual metaphors strewn throughout, I’d recommend you revisit it. If you want to do either of these things, don’t read my following summary and find out for yourself: The book is about four young children who are whisked from Europe into a magical place called Narnia through the doors of an enchanted wardrobe. They soon discover that they are destined to free Narnia from it’s bondage to the White Witch, who has claimed for herself the throne over the nation. Later, one of them is met by the Witch without realizing it is her, and is seduced by her riches and food. She gets him to betray his siblings by revealing to her their location. However, he soon finds himself trapped – he discovers that his hostess is none other than the Witch after it’s too late. Meanwhile, his three siblings find Aslan the lion, the true leader of Narnia, and they help him prepare for war against the Witch to free their brother and Narnia from her cruel clutches. The Witch approaches Aslan, bringing along her prisoner, but reminds him that the irrevocable law of the land is that all traitors must be killed on the Stone Table. Aslan offers himself up as a replacement. Aslan travels to the Stone Table alone, where the Witch humiliates and hurts him before killing him there. On the next day, however, he comes back to life in full glory. He explains to two of the children, “If the Witch knew the true meaning of sacrifice, she might have interpreted the deep magic differently. That when a willing victim who has committed no treachery, is killed in a traitor’s stead, the stone table will crack, and even death itself would turn backwards.” The war ensues, and, of course, Narnia is purged of the Witch and they all live happily ever after with Aslan as their leader. I think that C. S. Lewis, through the character of Aslan, aptly explains the atonement: “When a willing Savior who has committed no sin is killed in a sinner’s stead, the bonds of sin and death will shatter, and sin and death itself will turn backwards.” I know for myself through my own experiences that this can only be done, if God’s children will accept the Savior’s sacrifice for them. I don’t want to be a person who throws the atonement away by never repenting. I think the only way we can truly show gratitude for Christ’s atoning sacrifice for us, his brothers and sisters, is to accept it by repenting whenever we sin and praying for forgiveness. I’m so thankful for the atonement and I don’t know what I would ever do without it. I hope to understand it more as I study God’s word more and more throughout my life.

It’s okay, Kenny. We’re not about moving discussions forward. We’re about fighting amongst ourselves.

I tell you, though, CS Lewis understood God as few did.

I have read the posts here, and am intrigued by the questions raised. I agree that noone truly understands the atonement. I often wonder if the atonement is an ordinance that is necessary for salvation. Being such, everyone would need to have that ordinance performed, either by themselves or by a proxy in their stead. I have noted that all sacred ordinances in the church are performed for/as individuals. One at a time. So, did the Savior atone for us all, or did he atone for each and every one of us, one at a time? I think the latter. I have no evidence to back up these thoughts, but they seem to have some merit on a feeling level for me.

It wouldn’t really matter, except that it seems to me that every saving ordinance in the church is done for one person at a time, so I wonder if the Savior performed the atonement over and over for each of us one at a time. I don’t know. It would involve a time component that would not be easy to explain or understand, but you are absolutely correct, it doesn’t matter. It just seems to me to be more individual that way.

We can suffer for our sins, but we do not have the power to restore ourselves from a fallen state to a godly state.