Beyond moral influence to an atoning life

Theology Today, Oct 1995 by Young, Pamela Dickey

To place a central salvific emphasis on God's suffering in Jesus the Christ, as Bruemmer does, also fails to grapple with the fact that, by placing the emphasis on suffering divinity, he neglects the aspect of suffering humanity. It is not at all clear why God must suffer in humanity. Even given the unity of will that Bruemmer emphasizes between the first and second persons of the Trinity, thereby seeking to guard against a notion that the first person of the Trinity demands justice which the second person of the Trinity pays, the idea that the incarnate Jesus must necessarily suffer as human in order for our reconciliation to be effected looks like the inflicting of suffering on humanity for the sake of a formulaic or contractual arrangement. Nor is it a long step to the idea that, because Jesus suffered, suffering is an example somehow to be lauded, sought, or imposed on others to aid human-to-human reconciliation.

Further, even granted that God's suffering, in whatever way, reveals the depth of God's pain at the world's brokenness, the emphasis of reconciliation would seem to be far better placed on God's offer of grace despite the suffering. And that continuous offer of grace, of integrity, of fellowship restored, was experienced by followers throughout Jesus' life and in his resurrection, not solely, or even necessarily, in his suffering.

On the human level, to forgive does mean to take into oneself the pain of a broken relationship and yet to offer renewed relationship because the relationship itself is important to one and because integrity is the goal sought. It is difficult to see why the physical suffering on the cross becomes the focal point for comprehending the pain of broken relationship that surely involves the suffering of the whole person, not just of a physical body. Nor should physical suffering in and of itself be seen as the moment of reconciliation. The moment of reconciliation is the moment of the offer of renewed relationship.

Certainly, Jesus' death demands interpretation, but so also do his life and his resurrection. To place salvific emphasis on Jesus' death fails to see the grace of God offered and accepted, the broken relationships restored, in the accounts of Jesus' encounters with those he met throughout his ministry. In the Gospels, it is these encounters with Jesus that provide the context for and the need to interpret Jesus' death, not the other way around.

RETHINKING THE TRADITIONAL CATEGORIES

Most contemporary treatments of atonement hark back to Gustav Aulen's Christus Victor for their interpretive categories. Aulen discerns three types of atonement theory: the classic or Christus Victor type, the Latin or satisfaction type, and the subjective type. In Aulen's hands, the subjective view of atonement gets short shrift: God is no longer thought to be the actor; the locus of atonement is the human being's own acceptance of Jesus Christ and conversion and amendment of one's ways following on that. And sin is thought not to be taken seriously enough. In contrast, in the classic (Christus Victor) view, the view Aulen favors, God is the actor and graciously acts to redeem. God is said objectively to triumph over sin, death, and the devil.(12) In both the classic and Latin views of atonement, the locus of the reconciliation is in the once-for-all death (and resurrection?) of Jesus Christ. Some of Aulen's criticisms of the Latin or satisfaction view of atonement are that legalism triumphs over grace, that the personal relationship between God and individual human beings is obscured by a legalistic transaction, and that the atonement is a past act with little real connection to the present.