{"id":17876,"date":"2016-02-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=2699"},"modified":"2016-02-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T00:00:00","slug":"atonement-theory-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/02\/atonement-theory-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Atonement theory?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Since Harnack, theologians have glibly spoken of Anselm\u2019s Cur Deus Homo as a form of \u201catonement theory\u201d or a \u201cmodel\u201d of atonement. According to Katherine Sonderegger, Harnack told the story of atonement theology in terms of a set of \u201ccompeting \u2018models,\u2019 each with schools and eponymous heads\u201d: \u201cHarnack\u2019s nineteenth-century magisterial history, The History of Dogma<\/em>, set the tone and gave the language for the modern opposition to Anselm\u2019s doctrine: it was an \u2018objective model of the atonement,\u2019 he said, set over against the \u2018subjective model\u2019 offered by the twelfth-century scholastic and sometime monastic, Abelard, and provided the framework for the Protestant scholastic doctrine of \u2018penal substitutionary atonement\u2019\u201d (342).<\/p>\n

Treating Anselm as an \u201cicon\u201d of a school of atonement, though \u201cstylized . . . flattened and distorted\u201d his treatise. Not only does Anselm offer more than a \u201cmodel\u201d; the treatise is about more than \u201catonement,\u201d and its reasoning cannot be captured in Harnack\u2019s binaries of objective\/subjective or logical\/narrative. Sonderegger writes, \u201cCur Deus Homo examines the rational structure of the whole course of God\u2019s providential and redeeming work, showing how the scriptural record is intellectually sound, necessary and fitting, and God\u2019s character merciful, gracious and wise\u201d (343). <\/p>\n

Adam Johnson (Atonement: A Guide for the Perplexed<\/a>) offers a complementary analysis. He observes the \u201crich and varied account of the work of Christ\u201d that were developed by theologians from Irenaeus to Edwards, and argues that since the Enlightenment \u201cChrist\u2019s work tended to be treated one-dimensionally\u201d as \u201ctalk of \u2018theories\u2019 of atonement became commonplace\u201d (36).<\/p>\n

Framing can distort the picture within the frame, and perhaps our grasp of the work of Christ is twisted both by the category of \u201ctheory\u201d and by the very category of \u201catonement.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Sonderegger, \u201cAnselm, Defensor Fidei,\u201d IJST<\/em> 9:3 [2007]: 342-59.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since Harnack, theologians have glibly spoken of Anselm\u2019s Cur Deus Homo as a form of \u201catonement theory\u201d or a \u201cmodel\u201d of atonement. According to Katherine Sonderegger, Harnack told the story of atonement theology in terms of a set of \u201ccompeting \u2018models,\u2019 each with schools and eponymous heads\u201d: \u201cHarnack\u2019s nineteenth-century magisterial history, The History of Dogma, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[579],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atonement"],"yoast_head":"\nAtonement theory?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Since Harnack, theologians have glibly spoken of Anselm's Cur Deus Homo as a form of \u201catonement theory\u201d or a \u201cmodel\u201d of atonement. 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