Substitutionary Atonement?

[Melchior]

RBushlow:

I didn’t know that. What is the Orthodox belief as to why Christ went through is Passion and Death on the Cross if not to save us? Thank you.

The Orthodox do believe that Christ died to save us. But they view the Crucifixion more in light of the entire Incarnation. In other words, the act of the Incarnation is salvific and the the focus for them is not the Cross but the Resurrection. They believe His saving work on the Cross was primarily conquering death. Thus the Resurrection means much more in the Orhtodox view of Salvation than his death. In some sense in the Orhtodox scheme He could have died of natural causes because what is really (name removed by moderator)ortant is His rising.

Basically He died so He could rise, thus undoing the effects of the Fall, which to the Orhtodox, the primary effect is physical death.

Perhaps, Fr. Ambrose could say it better than me or even correct me if I am off a bit. But essentially understand this to be their view.

From a western perspective this is all true, but not the whole story. The bigger part they miss being His bearing our penalty on the Cross.

Mel

 

[Reformed_Rob]

I don’t have much to say here, but I should say that some months ago I read a Baptist guys’ Thesis paper on Eastern Orthodoxy. I was surprised to see that the Orthodox believe that Protestants have more in common with Catholics than they do with the Orthodox. I’m learning more about Orthodoxy, but it’s still hard to shake the ingrained belief that I have, namely that Orthodoxy shares more in common with Roman Catholicism. It’s just a new way of thinking for me, but this thread has shed more light on the differences betwixt the East and the West.

Regarding the topic of the post, I’m wondering, can anyone explain what was meant on a Catholic Answers Radio show (Q&A Live) where the Apologist for the day cautioned the caller regarding John Piper, saying there will be things in his works about the “Propitionary Atonement”? Why would a Catholic not like the “Propitionary Atonement”? Is it because it’s often cast in the judicial light, and not the judicial and infused way that Catholicism sees Justification?

 

[MalteseFalcon]

Woah woah woah! Catholics do NOT have a “wrath down” theory of the atonement. That is we do not believe God poured out his wrath on Jesus, thus saving us. Jesus did nothing wrong, God cannot be divided against himself.

Jesus performed a “love up” atonement. He performed an act of perfect obedience and love so that he could acquire an infinite merit. This merit he applies to those who accept it. Here is an article explaining the difference:

calledtocommunion.com/2010/04/catholic-and-reformed-conceptions-of-the-atonement/

You cannot punish an innocent person. But acts of love and obedience cause an accumulation of merit.

"How then were our sins paid for, if Christ was not punished by the Father? Christ made atonement for the sins of all men by offering to God a sacrifice of love that was more pleasing to the Father than the combined sins of all men of all time are displeasing to Him. Hence through the cross Christ merited grace for the salvation of all men. "

 

[fhansen]

Anselm’s theory of atonement is one of the pet peeves (to put it mildly!!) of the Eastern Churches. The bottom line is that it was unknown in the Church for the first thousand years, and for this reason it is a doctrine found only in the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

Just to say a few things in explanation of why the Orthodox will have no truck with Anselm and the atonement theology which he developed. I am reluctant to get into it too deeply - past experience has shown that there can be a negative reaction from Western Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, because they feel that the Orthodox are attacking one of the bedrock beliefs of the faith.

Anselm’s writing of Cur Deus Homo was a significant development in the West (we even had to study it at Catholic high school), but it did not affect the East at all. It profoundly changed the Western theology of the
atonement. For hundreds of years afterwards Western theology, Protestant as well as Catholic, traced its soteriology (the understanding of salvation and how we are saved) back to Anselm. Because of the split between East and West, Anselm’s theology had little or no influence in the East.

For this reason, Orthodox Christians tend to see Catholics and
Protestants as having far more in common with each other than either
does with Orthodoxy.

Anselm developed what has been called the “judicial” theory of the
atonement. In his book he sought to answer the question “Why did God become man?” He found the answer in a concept in the mediaeval law of his time - the concept of satisfaction. If one person wronged another, it harmed the other person’s honour, and so the wronged person demanded compensation, or “satisfaction”. Man’s sin had offended God, and because God is infinite, and God’s honour is infinite, the insult man’s sin causes to God’s honour demands infinite satisfaction. But man is in no position to provide this satisfaction, so God sent his Son to offer the satisfaction on behalf of man. By dying on the cross he appeased God’s wounded honour, and made the full and adequate satisfaction for man’s sin.

Of course you know all that already, and it is a very much oversimplified (but accurate) account of Anselm’s theology, as it has developed in the West, but Orthodox theology knew little of this. The Western theological development stressed salvation from an angry God, whereas Orthodox theology stressed, as it always had, salvation from sin, evil, death and the devil.

But doesn’t this sort of beg the question if Jesus’s Incarnation, including His act of sacrifice and resurrection, reversed the consequences of Adam’s sin? If, IOW, “sin, evil, death, and the devil” would still be our lot if not for Christ’s advent, how was salvation accomplished? What changed and why? If Jesus hadn’t conquered death then we’d still die. But why would we still be subject to death in that case?