Romans 5:7-9

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

A Comparison of Christ's Atonement in the Medieval Scholastic Period - Theological Comparisons: Abelard - 1


Theological Comparisons
Abelard
Peter Abelard’s view of the atonement is quite less obvious from a simple reading of his writings on logic and on the interaction of the Christian with unbelievers as in Dialogue Between a Philosopher, a Jew and a Christian. One must make more interpretation and speculate on his doctrine than when engaging Anselm or Thomas on the same topic, although, in his commentary on Romans there are a couple of revealing statements. In large part, the scholars among those who do now or have in the past held to the “Moral Theory” or “Exemplary Theory” of the atonement generally attribute the theories infancy to Abelard. This theory and his reasons behind Christ’s death were somewhat in the face of Anselm’s; where Anselm would have claimed that Christ’s punishment on the cross was a necessity born out of our offence toward His honor, Abelard would have claimed that His death was a cosmic illustration of the sheer love God had for humanity and we are called by such love, to love others in such a way—first receiving the love of Christ through the presentation of it on the cross and therefore loving others likewise, thus justifying ourselves before a loving God. So it is not so much that we owe God holiness and cannot provide it so Christ did on our behalf, but that God is so loving that we must show that quality (certainly by God’s grace) so that we are rendered righteous and acceptable. An Abelardian formula might be this: God is love so we must love in order to be reconciled to Him. On the other hand, the Anselmian formula might be like this: God is honorable so we must have Christ’s holiness to be reconciled to Him because our sin dishonors Him. So the primary effect of the atonement was not to satisfy God’s wrath against ungodliness but rather, to provide the ultimate example whereby we might become holy ourselves and accepted by a holy God. In the final analysis Abelard, while not technically an advocate of the “Moral Theory” of the atonement (for to say such a thing is to engage in anachronism) does emphasis the reason for Christ’s death as being the love of God toward men nearly to the exclusion of the Anselmian necessity of Christ’s death for the purpose of appeasing the Father’s honor. Thus he is interpreted by those actual proponents of an exclusively moral influence view of the atonement and credited as the theological forbearer of their own novel ideas of Christ’s work. What I find most interesting is that Abelard, as he describes his understanding of the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice, he seems to expose a sort of semi-Augustinian view of salvation. Whether his view of man’s capacity to actually love God in some satisfactory sort of way as to cause his merit leads to his view of the atonement or vice-versa, I dare not say with any degree of certainty. But I will say that it is easy to observe the relationship and ask this question: having rejected the “Ransom Theory” as the atonement’s exclusive purpose, did Abelard adopt a semi-Augustinian anthropology and henceforth react with the proposition of another extreme theory whereby sinners are made righteous before God by the exhibition of their own love for Him. Like most theologians, Abelard betrayed himself and appeared to answer both “sic et non”; “yes” and “no”. Here is one instance of such an amalgamation of these two ideas: justification is by faith (not yet alone as so strongly put forth by Luther four centuries later) and justification is by love,
I said that by particular works of the written law, that is, by those formal precepts of which natural law knows nothing, no one is justified in God’s sight; but now, in this dispensation of grace, a righteousness [translated justice elsewhere] of God—something which God approves and by which we are justified in God’s sight, namely love—has been manifested, through the teaching of the gospel, of course, apart from the law with its external and particular requirements. Still, this is a ‘righteousness witnessed by the law and the prophets,’ who also enjoin it. Upon what righteousness depends he [Paul] adds immediately by saying, ‘The justice of God’ [Rom. 3:22]. He means the faith of Christ which we hold concerning him—either by believing him or by believing in him. And when he [Paul] continued, ‘Them that believe,’ he did not specify anyone in particular, that it might impartially extended over all.”[i]


[i] Peter Abelard, Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, trans. and ed. by Eugene R. Fairweather, M.A., B.D., Th.D, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1956), 278.

No comments: