To all:
“… A similar mingling of the true and the incomplete is seen in the aspect of Substitution or Vicarious Punishment. In this view the idea of ransom passes into that of Christ as our substitute. His precious blood is our price and more than our price, because the shedding of it represents what we deserved. His death is in place of our death, his suffering in place of our punishment. Now undoubtedly there is a truth contained in such statements, because the language with a slight change is the traditional Catholic language, and we all use it when we wish to speak of the Sacrifice of the Cross. But again it is not the full truth. If instead of using “in the place of,” the holders of this view had written, “on behalf of,” their version would have served well. The Latin language with its preposition “pro,” and the English use of “for,” tend to confuse what St. Paul kept quite distinct. The death of Christ for him is ”
for our sake,” “
on our behalf,” (
ύπέρ not
άvτί ) and not “in our stead” ; and if his words do imply some kind of substitution, it is a substitution based on an intimate union of Christ with us, and not on a mere exchange.
Code:
“This meaning and the implications of St. Paul’s view will be developed later. It is mentioned here to bring out the resemblance between it and the representation of it, which is also partly a misrepresentation, under the form of an exchange or substitution of the innocent for the guilty. Those who support this latter theory do so on the ground that expiatory sacrifice generally takes the form of the offering of a victim in place of the guilty persons. They regard the ritual of such sacrifice as marking this transposition. An innocent victim is chosen, the priest lays his hands upon it in token of the substitution, then its blood is shed, and the blood signifies the life of the offerers which is then made over to God. Evidence to support this explanation is sought in the Jewish sacrifice, and the scapegoat is regarded as the best illustration.
“This interpretation of expiatory sacrifice needs to be supplemented by other aspects. Taken independently it may hold good of certain primitive sacrifices where religious worship is debased by the intrusion of magic. But it does not do justice to all the features of Jewish sacrifice, and it is worth noting that in the example of the scapegoat which best suits the view there is no slaying or shedding of blood of the victim. When then this aspect is converted into a rigid theory of our Lord’s sacrifice, great caution is needed. Its exponents suggest that our Lord, like the scapegoat, suffers in place of man and endures all the penalties which, if he had not taken the place of man, man would have suffered. Now, as was said, there is a truth imbedded in the theory, and many outside the Church are under the impression that the theory without qualification contains the whole Christian and Catholic doctrine of the Redemption. Hence many minds have been turned away scandalized. Not without some justification they regard the conception of God contained in the view indefensible. We have no longer the “Our Father” of Christ but a pagan God who maltreats the innocent because his lust for punishment must be sated. And even if the justice of God, as it is claimed, demand the punishment either of the guilty or the guiltless, there is far too great an insistence on that justice as distinct from the divine mercy. This quality of mercy is everywhere present in Christian theology, and the Christian God is no Rhadamanthus who ruthlessly condemns the innocent to suffer in place of the guilty. It should be added that the theory does not work out, because the death of Christ ought, if it is a substitute for the death of man, to procure a release for all mankind from the penalty of death.
“The aspect of substitution, therefore, if pressed, cannot be maintained as a complete explanation of the Redemption. Undoubtedly there are traces of it at least as a theory among certain of the Fathers, but almost always the theory is an exaggeration of what is straightforward and accurate. As was said above, the theory needs a small but important emendation to be wholly right, and it is because the meaning of our Lord’s sacrifice was never lost in the tradition of the Church that the somewhat ambiguous statement of it in terms of vicarious suffering has always been intelligible and, when properly understood, accurate.
“The immaturity of both the above theories led to a more sophisticated explanation when theology first began to be scholastic. This explanation is what is called the theory or aspect of Satisfaction, and its author was St. Anselm. As might be expected, St. Anselm avoids the crudities inherent in the preceding views, and starts with the premise that sin is an offence against God. Now since sin against God is an infinite wrong, and since the honour of God must needs be vindicated, only Christ the God-Man could repair this wrong, appease the justice of God, and save mankind from the fate in which sin involved them. Hence the Redemption of Christ is morally necessary, and Christ by his willing acceptance of Calvary makes abundant reparation, manifests the justice of God, and obtains propitiation and redemption for all mankind.
“The faultiness of the view lies in this, that it is still too rigid, too coloured by legal ideas. God is not bound to enforce an infinite satisfaction. If that is given by Christ, there must be some special motive attending his voluntary act. Again it is not clear why and how Christ, who is innocent, offers satisfaction for the guilty and transfers the merit which is his to those to whom it does not belong. Once again, therefore, we have a truth recognisable, indeed, in the form of which it is expressed, but nevertheless imperfectly expressed and therefore open to serious misinterpretation.
continued . . .
