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Author Topic:   Anselm's Doctrine of Substitution
Archer Opteryx
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Message 1 of 2 (477809)
08-08-2008 1:19 AM


'Christ went to the cross in our place. It is really all of us who deserve to go.'
Everyone has heard this idea. Many Christians have heard themselves repeat it. Everyone recognizes it as standard Christian doctrine...
...except all the Christians who lived on this planet for the first ten centuries AD.
'For us' how?
For centuries Christians said in their creed that Jesus lived and died 'for us.' It was easy to understand how a life of service--teaching and healing--was a live lived 'for us.' But how exactly was a cruel and unjust execution 'for us'? This went unexplained. Christians held a variety of views on the matter.
The most detailed discussion Christians had available in their canon came in the book of Hebrews (New Testament). Its unnamed author takes animal sacrifice as a given. Readers are simply expected to grant that animal sacrifice is a good thing. The author interprets Jesus' death in the context of that tradition. The author describes Jesus' work as the culmination of the sacrificial system. By implication, his work renders Temple worship obsolete.
The meaning and relevance of Temple rituals were a subject of enormous interest for Christians, many of whom were Jews, in the generation that saw the Jerusalem Temple destroyed. They found themselves in a situation where it was no longer possible to worship as their God had instructed them. The theologians were busy explaining why, now that Jesus had come, this was okay. Still, it's worth noting that the author of Hebrews, in discussing atonement, was far more concerned to present Jesus as the ultimate 'high priest' than as the ultimate sacrificial animal.
It took ten centuries for Christianity to offer a precise explanation of how Christ's death was 'for us.' The person who did it is Anselm of Canterbury. In 1099 his work Cur Deus Homo (Why God as Human?) presented what is now known as the Anselmic Doctrine of Satisfaction. The argument is that God, by reason of his perfect character, demands payment when wrongdoing occurs. It is only in this way that God can be perfectly just. But God, being perfect, is also perfectly merciful. When humanity went wrong God had to reconcile these two demands of his character. God did so by providing a perfect sacrifice in the form of Jesus, who would pay the required penalty.
Anselm is the person who defined atonement as substitution. It is we who belong on the cross, says Anselm. Christ went there in our place.
The doctrine has its problems, to be sure. Anselm's concept of sin is far removed from the first-century Jewish concept. Animal sacrifice, an omnipresent practice in the first century, has little to do with his argument. Much had changed over the centuries. But Anselm's idea proved durable.
The Anselmic doctrine of substitution was absorbed wholesale by Protestants.
Anselm's idea today
Anselm's doctrine of substitution is so ingrained in Protestant theology that few Protestants today notice the teaching isn't in their canon. They simply read phrases like 'atonement' and 'propitiation' and 'sacrifice' and interpret them as Anselmic doctrine has conditioned them. Yet the interpretation is an anachronism. The New Testament writings were authored by people for whom the doctrine didn't exist.
The Protestant belief that it is 'we' who belong on the cross instead of Jesus, that Jesus went to the cross 'in our place,' is vintage Anselm. It appears plainly stated in the hymns of Wesley, the sermons of Luther and Calvin and Edwards, the cantatas of Bach, and the telecasts of Billy Graham. The teaching is everywhere in Protestant culture and is ingrained in the Protestant view. Everyone has seen this.
Catholics embrace the doctrine as well, as attested by a recent film from Mel Gibson.
What you don't see is a statement of this doctrine anywhere in the Christian canon. No gospel, no epistle says 'we' belonged on the cross instead of Christ. The idea of substitution isn't there.
What is present is the synoptic picture of Jesus' personal teaching on 'satisfaction.' Leave the sacrifice on the altar, he says, and make things right with your fellow human beings. God will forgive you as you forgive others.
Theology, please.
-------
Anselm: Cur Deus Homo
Chapter 11: What it is to sin, and to make satisfaction for sin
Edited by Archer Opterix, : URL.
Edited by Archer Opterix, : title.

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Message 2 of 2 (477828)
08-08-2008 7:08 AM


Thread copied to the Anselm's Doctrine of Substitution thread in the Faith and Belief forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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