A
Ana_v
Guest
I read through St. Thomas Aquinas’ On the Reasons of the Faith against the Saracens, Greeks and Armenians, to the Cantor of Antioch
Under Chapter 7 (paragraphs 12 & 13), he writes the following:
It’s my understanding that penal substitution was born out of the Reformation, and that the Church regards it as heretical.
Yet, the words of St. Thomas Aquinas sound awfully similar to what Protestants describe as the purpose behind Christ’s death on the Cross – a legalistic, payment-of-a-debt-owed- to-God theory of atonement.
Under Chapter 7 (paragraphs 12 & 13), he writes the following:
The whole human race was subject to sin. To be restored to the state of justice, there would have to be a penalty which man would take upon himself in order to fulfil the order of divine justice. **But no mere man could satisfy God sufficiently **by accepting some voluntary punishment, even for his own sin, to say nothing of the sin of the whole human race. For when man sins he transgresses the law of God and tries, were he able, to do injury to the God of infinite majesty. The greater the person offended, the greater the crime; we see, for instance, that someone who strikes a soldier is punished more than someone who strikes a farmer, and much more if he strikes a king or prince. Therefore a sin committed against the law of God is somehow an infinite offence.
(emphasis mine)Again we must observe that the dignity of the person making reparation is also to be considered. For example, one word of a king asking for pardon of an offence is considered greater than if someone lower went on his knees and showed any other sign of humiliation to beg pardon from the one who suffered the injury. But no mere man has the infinite dignity required to satisfy justly an offence against God. Therefore there had to be a man of infinite dignity who would undergo the penalty for all so as to satisfy fully for the sins of the whole world. Therefore the only-begotten Word of God, true God and Son of God, assumed a human nature and willed to suffer death in it so as to purify the whole human race indebted by sin. Thus Peter says (1 Pet 3:18): “Christ himself died once and for all for sins, the upright for the sake of the guilty.”
It’s my understanding that penal substitution was born out of the Reformation, and that the Church regards it as heretical.
Yet, the words of St. Thomas Aquinas sound awfully similar to what Protestants describe as the purpose behind Christ’s death on the Cross – a legalistic, payment-of-a-debt-owed- to-God theory of atonement.