Atonement of Sins @ Cross ... per St. Thomas A

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Thomas Aquinas’ explanation was c/w Penal Substitution… was he correct ?
 
brb3 said:
Thomas Aquinas’ explanation was c/w Penal Substitution… was he correct ?
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Just from a logical standpoint, it seems that Jesus did in fact die as a substitute for sinners. Scripture reminds us that all men are sinners (Romans 3:9-18, 23) and the penalty for our sinfulness is death. Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Without Jesus’ atoning sacrifice we would all have been eternally separated from God due to our sins i.e. death.

It seems reasonable to conclude, from scripture, that Jesus chose to die in our stead when He was crucified on the cross i.e. every human deserved to be the ones placed on that cross to die because we are the ones who live sinful lives. However, Jesus took the punishment on Himself in our place; He substituted Himself for us and took what we rightly deserved. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us…”
 
brb3 said:
Thomas Aquinas’ explanation was c/w Penal Substitution… was he correct ?
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Aquinas didn’t hold to penal substitution. Penal substitution is the theory that Christ was literally punished for our sins by the Father. Penal substitution is a theory developed the most by Calvinist theologians and it is not part of the Catholic tradition. It is unjust and makes no sense to say an innocent person was punished for our sins. When we add into the picture that it is God the Father punishing and abandoning His own Son the theory borders on blasphemy. And depending on how ‘abandoning’ is spelled out it may contradict correct doctrine on the Holy Trinity; by the perichoresis (indwelling) of the three Divine Persons it makes almost no sense to say the Son was ‘separated’ from the Father in any substantive sense.

While Christ was a sacrifice for our sins and died for our sins he was not punished. Aquinas holds to a substitutionary theory of the atonement, but that doesn’t mean he holds to penal substitution theory. Substitutionary theories are a general category of theories on the atonement and penal substitution is just one type.
 
awatkins69 said:
Aquinas didn’t hold to penal substitution. Penal substitution is the theory that Christ was literally punished for our sins by the Father. Penal substitution is a theory developed the most by Calvinist theologians and it is not part of the Catholic tradition. It is unjust and makes no sense to say an innocent person was punished for our sins. When we add into the picture that it is God the Father punishing and abandoning His own Son the theory borders on blasphemy. And depending on how ‘abandoning’ is spelled out it may contradict correct doctrine on the Holy Trinity; by the perichoresis (indwelling) of the three Divine Persons it makes almost no sense to say the Son was ‘separated’ from the Father in any substantive sense.

While Christ was a sacrifice for our sins and died for our sins he was not punished. Aquinas holds to a substitutionary theory of the atonement, but that doesn’t mean he holds to penal substitution theory. Substitutionary theories are a general category of theories on the atonement and penal substitution is just one type.
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