“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree” (Galatians 3:13)
So what is the point of forgiveness if the debt has been paid? If a Judge orders me to pay a fine and my friend pays the fine for me, the judge doesn't have to forgive anything.
This is precisely the point. It is as if a guarantor settles the debt of a borrower he underwrote; the borrower's debt is discharged, and he has no further obligations to the creditor because of the guarantor's payment. Similarly, we were subject to a fine that we could not satisfy. Therefore, Christ graciously paid our debt, and it is not held to our account to the extent that we are joined to Him. In other words, the Father looks to Christ and remits our obligations because of the price that He rendered on our behalf. Of course, to avoid an arbitrary extrincism, this vicarious and substitutionary dynamic entails the mystical union of Head and members. Thus we enjoy the benefits to Christ insofar as we are grafted into Him, and we daily draw upon these spiritual boons through faith, hope, and charity, and the sacraments of the same. Naturally, this language is inadequate to the mystery under consideration, and financial and judicial terms must be supplemented and enriched by those from other dimensions of human experience.
Now, with respect to the post proper. Erick, I agree and acknowledge that the fathers speak of Christ as bearing our penalty in our stead. However, it is less obvious to me that this penalty is the wrath of God, as opposed to weakness, suffering, and death (the condition of the "sinful flesh"). Occasionally, you see explicit or implicit reference to the wrath of God (Chrysostom, I think, goes there sometimes). But, unlike with the reformers, wrath-bearing does not seem to be the central motif. The curse Christ took is above all death, and death within the context of a guilty verdict. Though I am very open to correction on this mark.
Glad I do not have to agree with this to join the church, otherwise I would not. I find this idea abhorrent, and is the reason I left the protestant churches and was an atheist for 30 years. I hope these ideas stay in the Protestant churches and do not infect the Catholic church too much.
I'm sorry to have disturbed you, my friend. Nevertheless, the concept of a debt owed by man but paid by Christ long predates the reformers (so-called). Indeed, its roots are in divine revelation itself, and it is familiar to the fathers and doctors. The dispute is only whether Christ's substitutionary payment is properly satisfactory or penal; and, if penal, whether the punishment is best understood as wrath or death. I tend to think it's hard to draw sharp distinctions between these alternatives.
A few brief examples. St. Thomas teaches that man was under a "debt of punishment, to the payment of which man was held fast by God's justice," but that "Christ made satisfaction, not by giving money or anything of the sort, but by bestowing what was of greatest price - Himself - for us" (Summa Theologiae III, 48, 4, resp.). Again, he teaches, "Christ freed us from punishment by enduring our punishment and our death which came upon us from the very curse of sin" (Commentary on Galatians, Ch. 3, Lect. 5). Some nine centuries years earlier, St. John Chrysostom elucidated the mystery of the cross in these terms: "If one that was himself a king, beholding a robber and malefactor under punishment, gave his well-beloved son, his only-begotten and true, to be slain; and transferred the death and the guilt as well, from him to his son, (who was himself of no such character,) that he might both save the condemned man and clear him from his evil reputation" (Commentary on 2 Corinthians, Homily 11). Similar language runs all through the ancient liturgies, east and west.
Erick has many posts and presentations on this matter, which you might consider searching on Google.
Of course, as I said originally, this paradigm limps: it is quite imperfect when compared to the mystery at issue, and must be augmented and enriched with other motifs and images.
In any event, a Catholic is not obligated to hold any particular theory of the atonement, so long as he affirms that we are saved by the death and resurrection of Christ in some respect. Such is my poor understanding, at least.
No need to apologize. I am not disturbed, just passionate about this heresy. I've come to terms with the fact that PSA is so imbedded in our culture that even Catholics see it where it does not exist. Similar to how Catholics now use the protestant definition of salvation in most discussions. Its the water we swim in. Many Atheists or Atheist Converts were atheist because of this view of God. I am just thankful that I have broken out, thanks in a large part to EO writers. I no longer see PSA when I read quotes from church father's similar to the ones you have quoted.
For example the quote from Chrystom. The entire homily has nothing to do with PSA. The entire point of his analogy is to ask the listener how they would feel if they were pardoned and then continued to break the law. Would you not feel even worse? But you read into it PSA because that is what you know. I think the Saint would be very confused by this reading.
You even said yourself above that this penalty is not obviously the wrath of God, but our condition of 'weakness, suffering, and death (the condition of the "sinful flesh")'. Its not only NOT obviously the wrath of God explained in PSA, it is a protestant heresy. A form of Nestorianism. Yes, there is the idea of Satisfaction and turning aside God's wrath, but in none of the examples in scripture is someone forced to endure God's wrath for another. Usually prayer (intersession), worship and fasting is enough.
I just hope as more Protestants find the true Church, they can reject this horrible view of God the Father and find the Father that sent his only Son out of Love, not to fulfill his Wrath. Christ became Man so that Man could become like God, not so he could appease an angry Father.
Chrysostom says a lot more about the atoning death of Jesus in his corpus. I plan on writing a small book on this. I think there is a great deal of misunderstanding. I'll bring in the best theologians from the Protestant side.
As the name suggests, penal substitutionary atonement only requires that Christ endure a punishment that is rightly ours (impliedly, that we might enjoy a blessing that is rightly His). Whether this punishment is "wrath" is another question. I think that there is an orthodox acceptation of the assertion that Christ bore the "wrath" of God for us. But there are many unorthodox formulations of this principle, which subtly import heretical notions. Nevertheless, I do not see how PSA is per se a heresy, and I don't believe the Church has ever anathematized it, or even come close to doing so.
For what it's worth, I don't think you do justice to the Chrysostom quote. And, as Erick indicates, similar remarks appear throughout his work. I opened almost at random his collected homies and saw this: "[W]e all were under sin and punishment. He Himself, through suffering punishment, did away with both the sin and the punishment, and He was punished on the cross" (Homily VI on Colossians). There is arguably a way to construe this in a satisfactory manner, rather than a penal substitutionary manner, although as I said before, I actually think these paradigms are harder to distinguish than is often suggested.
If you broaden the definition as you describe, then we are not talking about the same thing. But I am not sure why you would want to? The ancient church already has rich theology of atonement, why bring in Protestant theology that requires the Trinity to be split, among other heresies?
I think this would be consistent with PSA, but whether it would show if Theophylact believed in Penal Substitutionary Atonement depends on how PSA is defined and understood. In Protestant theology it’s frequently taught that the righteousness of Christ is forensically imputed to us while our sin is forensically applied to Christ when the wrath of God is poured out on Jesus. That’s not entirely entailed by Jesus redeeming us by paying the price. And if someone uses an analogy (“This is like an innocent …) of a man dying in another’s place it doesn’t have the same metaphysical claims as the aforesaid view. The New Testament and Fathers speak frequently of Christ paying the price as a ransom, but that in nowise entails penal substitutionary atonement.
I’m well aware. While we are at it, What do you think the metaphysic of wrath is in Protestant theology? And please provide a source that goes beyond use of language but specifies the divine nature of wrath. Thanks
I’m not educated in that area, but I assume it would emphasize the impassibility of God and conceptualize wrath not as an emotional aspect of God but instead, based upon his holiness and righteousness, his will to punish evil and sin.
Exactly. So no Protestant is saying God is actually angry with Jesus. Rather, he bears the sin of man in the sense that he takes on the penalty of death. Seems biblical and Patristic to me
Well that would follow if “actually being angry” would correspond to emotional anger, and not willing the punishment of evil. The Bible describes God as angry, and I think we should say he is actually angry, but to qualify this anger as being not emotional but in the way we described. I would disagree that it’s biblical and patristic since many integral elements are absent from the Scripture and the Tradition. For example the Bible, especially St. Paul, only describes Christ paying the price in civil terms not in criminal terms. Lutron, antilutron, etc. are slave-freeing payments. And the recipient of the payment in the Patristics wasn’t God but Death or the Devil (cf. Catechetical Discourse, St. Gregory of Nyssa).
I understand where you are coming from. I will be releasing a florilegium on this that manifests not just language but the concrete logic and mechanic of penal substitution in the Church Fathers.
Okay thank you. I look forward to it. I have a feeling a lot of this comes down to precision. Are we saying Christ accomplished what we can not, paying a price we can not, and receiving the consequences of our sin to free us. Or that plus our forensic rightousnesses are exchanged and the wrath of the Father is directed at the Son giving us the rightousness of Christ, and any rightousness we have is solely this imputation. A big problem with the latter one is that it seems to imply that wrath is a personal property of the Father not a natural property shared by each of the persons. That one of the Trinity could be angry with another person of the Trinity sounds like a big problem.
So what is the point of forgiveness if the debt has been paid? If a Judge orders me to pay a fine and my friend pays the fine for me, the judge doesn't have to forgive anything.
This is precisely the point. It is as if a guarantor settles the debt of a borrower he underwrote; the borrower's debt is discharged, and he has no further obligations to the creditor because of the guarantor's payment. Similarly, we were subject to a fine that we could not satisfy. Therefore, Christ graciously paid our debt, and it is not held to our account to the extent that we are joined to Him. In other words, the Father looks to Christ and remits our obligations because of the price that He rendered on our behalf. Of course, to avoid an arbitrary extrincism, this vicarious and substitutionary dynamic entails the mystical union of Head and members. Thus we enjoy the benefits to Christ insofar as we are grafted into Him, and we daily draw upon these spiritual boons through faith, hope, and charity, and the sacraments of the same. Naturally, this language is inadequate to the mystery under consideration, and financial and judicial terms must be supplemented and enriched by those from other dimensions of human experience.
Now, with respect to the post proper. Erick, I agree and acknowledge that the fathers speak of Christ as bearing our penalty in our stead. However, it is less obvious to me that this penalty is the wrath of God, as opposed to weakness, suffering, and death (the condition of the "sinful flesh"). Occasionally, you see explicit or implicit reference to the wrath of God (Chrysostom, I think, goes there sometimes). But, unlike with the reformers, wrath-bearing does not seem to be the central motif. The curse Christ took is above all death, and death within the context of a guilty verdict. Though I am very open to correction on this mark.
Glad I do not have to agree with this to join the church, otherwise I would not. I find this idea abhorrent, and is the reason I left the protestant churches and was an atheist for 30 years. I hope these ideas stay in the Protestant churches and do not infect the Catholic church too much.
I'm sorry to have disturbed you, my friend. Nevertheless, the concept of a debt owed by man but paid by Christ long predates the reformers (so-called). Indeed, its roots are in divine revelation itself, and it is familiar to the fathers and doctors. The dispute is only whether Christ's substitutionary payment is properly satisfactory or penal; and, if penal, whether the punishment is best understood as wrath or death. I tend to think it's hard to draw sharp distinctions between these alternatives.
A few brief examples. St. Thomas teaches that man was under a "debt of punishment, to the payment of which man was held fast by God's justice," but that "Christ made satisfaction, not by giving money or anything of the sort, but by bestowing what was of greatest price - Himself - for us" (Summa Theologiae III, 48, 4, resp.). Again, he teaches, "Christ freed us from punishment by enduring our punishment and our death which came upon us from the very curse of sin" (Commentary on Galatians, Ch. 3, Lect. 5). Some nine centuries years earlier, St. John Chrysostom elucidated the mystery of the cross in these terms: "If one that was himself a king, beholding a robber and malefactor under punishment, gave his well-beloved son, his only-begotten and true, to be slain; and transferred the death and the guilt as well, from him to his son, (who was himself of no such character,) that he might both save the condemned man and clear him from his evil reputation" (Commentary on 2 Corinthians, Homily 11). Similar language runs all through the ancient liturgies, east and west.
Erick has many posts and presentations on this matter, which you might consider searching on Google.
Of course, as I said originally, this paradigm limps: it is quite imperfect when compared to the mystery at issue, and must be augmented and enriched with other motifs and images.
In any event, a Catholic is not obligated to hold any particular theory of the atonement, so long as he affirms that we are saved by the death and resurrection of Christ in some respect. Such is my poor understanding, at least.
In Christ,
Philip
No need to apologize. I am not disturbed, just passionate about this heresy. I've come to terms with the fact that PSA is so imbedded in our culture that even Catholics see it where it does not exist. Similar to how Catholics now use the protestant definition of salvation in most discussions. Its the water we swim in. Many Atheists or Atheist Converts were atheist because of this view of God. I am just thankful that I have broken out, thanks in a large part to EO writers. I no longer see PSA when I read quotes from church father's similar to the ones you have quoted.
For example the quote from Chrystom. The entire homily has nothing to do with PSA. The entire point of his analogy is to ask the listener how they would feel if they were pardoned and then continued to break the law. Would you not feel even worse? But you read into it PSA because that is what you know. I think the Saint would be very confused by this reading.
You even said yourself above that this penalty is not obviously the wrath of God, but our condition of 'weakness, suffering, and death (the condition of the "sinful flesh")'. Its not only NOT obviously the wrath of God explained in PSA, it is a protestant heresy. A form of Nestorianism. Yes, there is the idea of Satisfaction and turning aside God's wrath, but in none of the examples in scripture is someone forced to endure God's wrath for another. Usually prayer (intersession), worship and fasting is enough.
I just hope as more Protestants find the true Church, they can reject this horrible view of God the Father and find the Father that sent his only Son out of Love, not to fulfill his Wrath. Christ became Man so that Man could become like God, not so he could appease an angry Father.
God Bless,
Chrysostom says a lot more about the atoning death of Jesus in his corpus. I plan on writing a small book on this. I think there is a great deal of misunderstanding. I'll bring in the best theologians from the Protestant side.
As the name suggests, penal substitutionary atonement only requires that Christ endure a punishment that is rightly ours (impliedly, that we might enjoy a blessing that is rightly His). Whether this punishment is "wrath" is another question. I think that there is an orthodox acceptation of the assertion that Christ bore the "wrath" of God for us. But there are many unorthodox formulations of this principle, which subtly import heretical notions. Nevertheless, I do not see how PSA is per se a heresy, and I don't believe the Church has ever anathematized it, or even come close to doing so.
For what it's worth, I don't think you do justice to the Chrysostom quote. And, as Erick indicates, similar remarks appear throughout his work. I opened almost at random his collected homies and saw this: "[W]e all were under sin and punishment. He Himself, through suffering punishment, did away with both the sin and the punishment, and He was punished on the cross" (Homily VI on Colossians). There is arguably a way to construe this in a satisfactory manner, rather than a penal substitutionary manner, although as I said before, I actually think these paradigms are harder to distinguish than is often suggested.
In Christ, Philip.
If you broaden the definition as you describe, then we are not talking about the same thing. But I am not sure why you would want to? The ancient church already has rich theology of atonement, why bring in Protestant theology that requires the Trinity to be split, among other heresies?
Or perhaps I should say, "endure a punishment that is rightly ours and in our stead" But I am working with a minimalist definition, either way.
I think this would be consistent with PSA, but whether it would show if Theophylact believed in Penal Substitutionary Atonement depends on how PSA is defined and understood. In Protestant theology it’s frequently taught that the righteousness of Christ is forensically imputed to us while our sin is forensically applied to Christ when the wrath of God is poured out on Jesus. That’s not entirely entailed by Jesus redeeming us by paying the price. And if someone uses an analogy (“This is like an innocent …) of a man dying in another’s place it doesn’t have the same metaphysical claims as the aforesaid view. The New Testament and Fathers speak frequently of Christ paying the price as a ransom, but that in nowise entails penal substitutionary atonement.
I’m well aware. While we are at it, What do you think the metaphysic of wrath is in Protestant theology? And please provide a source that goes beyond use of language but specifies the divine nature of wrath. Thanks
I’m not educated in that area, but I assume it would emphasize the impassibility of God and conceptualize wrath not as an emotional aspect of God but instead, based upon his holiness and righteousness, his will to punish evil and sin.
Exactly. So no Protestant is saying God is actually angry with Jesus. Rather, he bears the sin of man in the sense that he takes on the penalty of death. Seems biblical and Patristic to me
Well that would follow if “actually being angry” would correspond to emotional anger, and not willing the punishment of evil. The Bible describes God as angry, and I think we should say he is actually angry, but to qualify this anger as being not emotional but in the way we described. I would disagree that it’s biblical and patristic since many integral elements are absent from the Scripture and the Tradition. For example the Bible, especially St. Paul, only describes Christ paying the price in civil terms not in criminal terms. Lutron, antilutron, etc. are slave-freeing payments. And the recipient of the payment in the Patristics wasn’t God but Death or the Devil (cf. Catechetical Discourse, St. Gregory of Nyssa).
I understand where you are coming from. I will be releasing a florilegium on this that manifests not just language but the concrete logic and mechanic of penal substitution in the Church Fathers.
Okay thank you. I look forward to it. I have a feeling a lot of this comes down to precision. Are we saying Christ accomplished what we can not, paying a price we can not, and receiving the consequences of our sin to free us. Or that plus our forensic rightousnesses are exchanged and the wrath of the Father is directed at the Son giving us the rightousness of Christ, and any rightousness we have is solely this imputation. A big problem with the latter one is that it seems to imply that wrath is a personal property of the Father not a natural property shared by each of the persons. That one of the Trinity could be angry with another person of the Trinity sounds like a big problem.