A perhaps underemphasized aspect of Christ's atonement

Usually, Christ’s sacrifice of the Cross is thought of as atonement for our sins before God. This leads to old theological question: Why can’t God simply forgive our sins, without the need for any atoning sacrifice? Aquinas’s answer is: God could, but it’s more fitting that the debt be paid. I want to explore a different answer.

Suppose that when you do a wrong to someone, you come to owe it to them to be punished. But now instead of thinking of God as the aggrieved party, think of all the times when we have done wrong to other human beings. Some of them have released or will release us from our debt through forgiveness. But, probably, not everyone. But what, now, if we think of Christ’s sacrifice as atomenent for our sins before the unforgiving. We don’t need to pay to other unforgiving humans the debt of being punished, because Christ has paid it on our behalf.

This neatly answers the question of why God’s can’t simply forgive us our sins: God can simply release us from our debt to God, but it is either impossible or at least significantly unfitting for God to simply release us from our debt to fellow human beings.

Here is a consequence of the story. If we fail to forgive our fellow human beings, that is yet another way in which we become shamefully co-responsible for Christ’s sufferings, since now Christ is atoning for these fellow human beings before us. We should then be ashamed of ourselves, especially given that Christ is also suffering for us.

The story isn’t complete. Christ’s atonement applies not just to my sins against my neighbor, but also to my sins against God alone and my sins against myself. But once we have seen that some atoning sacrifice is needed on our behalf, the idea of a total atoning sacrifice, capable of atoning for everyone’s debts to everyone, including to God, looks even more fitting.

On monkeys and exemplar theories of salvation

On “exemplar” theories of salvation, Christ’s work of the cross saves us by providing a deeply inspiring example of love, sacrifice, or the like.

Such theories of salvation have the following unsavory consequence: they imply that it would be possible for us to be saved by a monkey.

For imagine that a monkey typing on a typerwriter at random wrote a fictitious story of a life in morally relevant respects like that of Christ, and people started believing that story. If Christ saves us by providing an inspiring example, then we could have gotten the very same effect by reading that fictitious story typed at random by a monkey and erroneously thinking the story to be true.

Of course, that’s just a particularly vivid way of putting the standard objection against exemplar theories that they are Pelagian. I have nothing against monkeys except that they are creatures, and so that if it is possible to be saved by a monkey, then it is possible to be saved by creatures, which is Pelagianism.

A Christian argument against divine suffering

Some Christians think that God changes and is capable of changing emotions such as suffering. Now, if God is capable of suffering, then God feels empathetic suffering whenever an evil befalls us, and does so to the extent of how bad he understand the evil to be.

The worst evil that can happen to us is to sin. God knows how bad our sin is better than any human being can. Thus, if God can suffer, he suffers compassionately for our sins. He suffers this qua God and independently of any Incarnation, more intensely than any human being can.

But if so, that undercuts one of the central points of the Incarnation, which is to allow the Second Person of the Trinity to suffer for our sins.

A view on which God is capable of emotions such as suffering makes the Incarnation and Christ’s sacrifice of the Cross rather underwhelming: God’s divine suffering would be greater than Christ’s suffering on the Cross. This is theologically unacceptable.

Emotional perception

On Friday I was feeling somewhat poorly and in the interests of public health (not that I minded!) I opted out of participation in the PhD graduation dinner and Saturday's commencement. Sunday I felt somewhat worse, and today rather worse (nothing serious, just the usual "flu-like" symptoms, and both of our big kids had such in the preceding two weeks). But there is one piece of relief: It is good to have been right about the fact that I was getting sick.

It is not particularly bad to have suffered physically and similarly it is not particularly good to have enjoyed physical pleasure. But it is bad (or at least it feels bad--which is evidence for its being bad!) to have been wrong and similarly it is good to have been right. The value here isn't the value of being recognized by others as having been right or wrong. Nor is it the value of oneself presently recognizing oneself as right or wrong. For one hopes (though perhaps not simpliciter, if the prospect is particularly nasty) that one be right and that one not be wrong, not just that one recognize oneself or be recognized as right or wrong. The recognition is just the icing or mould on the top of a good or bad cake.

Eternalists have a difficulty with the fact that it doesn't seem bad to have suffered physically (bracketing any present suffering from painful memories, of course), even though past suffering is just as real as present suffering. Presentists have a difficulty with the fact that it seems to be bad to have been wrong and to be good to have been right.

I think eternalists can make a better go of it, though. Feelings like the pleasure of having been right or the pain of having been wrong are a kind of perception of normative features of the world. But not all truth is equally perceived. I am now visually aware that I have two hands, and properly so. But were I now visually aware that you have a head, my visual system would be malfunctioning. For although, dear reader, you do have a head, your head is not presently within my field of view. It is thus a part of the correct functioning of my visual apparatus that I be presently aware of my hands but not your head, even though all three parts (my two hands and your one head) are equally real.

Likewise, then, some goods and bads are appropriately within my emotional field of view--e.g., my having been right about getting sick--and some goods and bads are not appropriately within my emotional field of view--e.g., the unpleasantness of the last time I had a cavity filled. These goods and bads may be equally real (assuming that pain itself really is bad--there is room for discussion here, but it is at least extrinsically bad), but it could be (I am not sure about the first one, actually) that my having been right is appropriately within my emotional field of view while my having suffered (not at all severely--he really is an excellent dentist) at a past dental visit is not.

But we sometimes mistake absence of perception for perception of absence, like an infant who cries that the parent has left the room or the adult who sees no objection to an action and all too hastily concludes the action is permissible. Not emotionally seeing the past pain as bad--i.e., a not being pained by the past pain--is mistaken by us for seeing the past pain as not being bad.

The eternalist should thus say that the past physical pains and pleasures are bad or good, in the same way that present ones are, but we do not see their badness or goodness. Thus, the eternalist attributes to the agent a misinterpretation of absence of perception. The presentist, however, should say that having been right or wrong is not presently good or bad (though maybe it was good or bad), but we misperceive it as such. The eternalist thus attributes more correctness to our emotional perception, while attributing a well-known generalized cognitive error in explaining what went wrong. The presentist has to say our emotional perception is just wrong. I prefer the eternalist explanation.

A similar issue comes up for Christ's suffering on the cross. With a number of theologians, I take the center of our Savior's suffering not to be the horrific suffering of nails ripping through his flesh, but his deep emotional awareness of the horribleness of the totality of our sins (perhaps with the help of the hypostatic union or beatific vision bringing the particularities of all of humankind's sins to him). But this leads to a query: Why did Christ only have this awareness on the cross? We do not see him constantly and equally weighed down by this suffering earlier in life? Was he failing to have a correct emotional awareness? But now we can say: Not at all. It is the salient goods or bads that are within the field of view of correct emotional perception. And it is on the cross, at the high point of the sacrifice for our salvation from these sins (the high point: for all his life was such a sacrifice), that this became fully salient, in such a way that this perfect man--who is also true God--emotionally bore the full weight of our sin.

Note, too, that this is a story about Christ's sufferings that is difficult for the presentist to give. For it is difficult for the presentist to explain why earlier and later, and hence then-unreal, sins were bad at the time of Christ's crucifixion. Perhaps the presentist has to say that Christ's suffering came from an erroneous emotional perception of past and future sins as then-bad?

Penal substitution theories of the atonement

According to the penal substitution theory of the atonement, Christ's sufferings satisfy justice in place of our being punished. That is, basically, the theory as found in Anselm's Cur Deus Homo.

Some contemporary Christians, mainly Protestant, add the claim that Christ was punished by the Father, and his punishment substitutes for our punishment. We can call the resulting theory punishment by punishment substitution (PBPS). PBPS isn't Anselm's theory, and as Mark Murphy has pointed out it may even be incoherent, since a part of punishing is the showing of disapproval at the person being punished, while God cannot show disapproval at an innocent person.

The Heidelberg Catechism explicitly only says that Christ satisfies for us. But it says in the answer to Question 14 that no mere creature can satisfy for us because "God will not punish any other creature for the sin which man has committed", which may implicate that satisfaction involves being punished. Still, it does not say that it does so in the case of Christ.

In any case, it seems to me that the biblical theory is not that the punishment of Christ substitutes for our punishment, but that the sacrifice of Christ substitutes for our punishment. Old Testament sacrifices for our sins were not punishments of the animals, except in the extended sense of the word as when we speak of "the punishing heat of Texas summer." It is central to the idea of sacrifice in the Old Testament that it is the best that is sacrificed. To sacrifice something is to treat it as the best that is available. But when someone is being punished, then he is far from being treated as the best—he is being treated as one of the worst. Thus, the biblical picture of Christ as sacrificed is in serious tension with PBPS.

That the sacrifice of Christ substitutes for our punishment isn't yet a theory of the atonement. To make it a theory of the atonement one would have to say how it does so.

Christ's sacrifice and presentism

After it took place, Christ's sacrifice had never ceased to be a part of reality. But Christ's sacrifice did not continue to be always a part of the present. (Christ's sacrifice is present during the Mass, but there have been times, since Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, during which no Mass was being celebrated.) Hence, the present and reality are not coextensive.

Whether this contradicts presentism depends on what one makes of the imprecise predicates "is a part of reality" and "is a part of the present".

Desiderata for a theory of atonement

My previous post on atonement implicitly identified one constraint ("must") and one desideratum ("should") for a theory of atonement:

1. The theory must be able to apply in cases where the person saved lacks personal sin.
2. The theory should not require explicit beliefs on the part of the person saved.

There is another desideratum that I think is important but somewhat vague:

3. At least one of the facts that Jesus Christ actually lived among us, died on the cross and rose again should in every case be central to the mechanism of salvation.

This condition rules out theories on which the mechanism of atonement is that we are transformed by the example of Jesus Christ (this will be a subset of what my previous post calls "epistemic theories"). For in those theories, the central part of the mechanism of atonement is not that Jesus Christ actually lived, died and rose again, but that we believe that Jesus Christ actually lived, died and rose again. The reason Jesus Christ had to actually live, die and rise again is not for the mechanism of salvation to work, but only because God is not a deceiver and so God could not teach us that Jesus Christ lived, died and rose again unless this was actually true. But the soteriologically important thing on such theories is the belief that this happened, not that this happened. And hence such theories are unsatisfactory.

Penal substitution

The penal substitution theory consists of two claims:

1. Christ's sufferings are a substitute for our justly deserved punishment.
2. Christ's sufferings are a punishment of Christ.

Here is something that to me is interesting. Claims (1) and (2) appear to be logically independent. It is possible to hold (2) without holding (1), though this would be a rather pointless theory. It is also possible to hold (1) without holding (2).

The gravest objection—the inappropriateness of Christ's being punished—to the penal substitution theory is an objection not to (1) but to (2). At the same time, the Biblical evidence for the penal substitution theory is largely evidence only for (1), not for (2). Consequently, it seems like one would do well to simply adopt (1), while rejecting (2). The resulting theory would be a theory of Christ's substitutionary sacrifice, but it would be penal only on our side, not on Christ's side. (This idea is inspired by a paper Adam Pelser gave at the SCP meeting in Niagara last year; Pelser was advocating a particular theory that entailed (1) without committing him to (2).)

I am not claiming that holding on to (1) while rejecting (2) solves all the problems of the atonement. The major difficulty of just how (1) manages to be true—just how Christ's sufferings manage to substitute for our punishment—remains.

I think (1) is plausible in some cases. Suppose I raped Captain Smith and tortured him to within inches of his life while I was working for a terrorist organization that captured Captain Smith. Later, Captain Smith jumped on a grenade to save my life, yelling that he forgave me what I did to him. Even if the death penalty were appropriate for my rape and torture of Captain Smith (I think rape and torture deserve the death penalty, though I also think we have a duty of mercy which prohibits us from employing the death penalty unless it is necessary for the protection of society), if I've accepted Captain Smith's forgiveness (and thus repented—it's not a real acceptance of forgiveness otherwise, I think), I think there would be something inappropriate about executing me for what I did to Captain Smith—there is a way in which his suffering death on my behalf substitutes for the punishment owing me. (This does not solve all of the problems with the atonement. One of the difficulties is with the way Christ's sufferings atones for sins we committed not just against God—there, I think we need to say something about how all sins are primarily against God. But it is enough to show that (1) is not in and of itself absurd.)

Atonement

According to substitutionary views of the atonement, Christ suffered a suffering that was due to us for our sins. Substitutionary views come in two varieties: (1) penal substitution views hold that Christ's suffering was a punishment of Christ for our sins; (2) non-penal substitution views hold that Christ was not punished but that nonetheless somehow his suffering was a substitute for our suffering. Penal substitution views are, arguably, incoherent: y can only punish x for what y believes x to have done; anything else is an imposition of suffering, just or unjust, but not a penalty. It is difficult to figure out exactly how a non-penal substitution views would work, but there has been some recent work on this (Adam Pelser had some interesting ideas in a paper he presented at a recent SCP meeting, and I have recently read some good in-progress work from someone else).

In this post, I want to discuss how one can respond to a criticism (not an original one) that would apply equally to penal and non-penal substitutionary views. The criticism is that according to Christian doctrine, Christ's suffering redeemed us from eternal damnation. In other words, Christ's suffering must have been a sufficient substitute for eternal damnation. But while dying on the cross is very painful, people have suffered worse, and it seems likely that on orthodox views of hell as involving eternal physical pain, dying on the cross, even when one adds severe flogging beforehand, is not a sufficient substitute for an eternity in hell. And even if one adds the psychological suffering of being abandoned by most of one's friends, and maybe even bereft of God, to feel that suffering for less than twenty-four hours is not a sufficient substitute for an eternity of psychological suffering in hell—for, after all, orthodoxy holds that hell involves non-physical suffering as well. This is the "Insufficiency Criticism" (IC)—Christ didn't suffer enough for his suffering to substitute for our punishment.

One answer to this is to allow that the total suffering in hell is only finite, and that Christ's suffering during his passion might in fact have matched the greatest degree of deserved suffering in hell. But while it is possible for eternal suffering to be finite, it still seems likely, given what the Christian tradition has said about hell, that the suffering is very, very great in total, this is probably not the best response.

In response to the IC, I want to offer first a partial theory as to one aspect of Christ's spiritual suffering on the cross. According to Aristotle, the virtuous person enjoys doing virtuous activity. A virtuous person's emotions correctly track the truth of the matter: the virtuous person feels good about virtue and bad about vice. Now, I want to say something odd: if a perfectly virtuous person were to engage in a gravely vicious activity, she would find such engagement more spiritually painful than just about anything else that could happen. Of course, this is a per impossibile counterfactual. But I can justify it by pointing to three genuine possibilities. First, suppose that a presently virtuous person contemplates a past grave evil that she did and which evil has not yet been mended. This contemplation gives her great pain. Second, suppose that a presently virtuous person contemplates the fact that some presently virtuous people go on to become quite wicked over the years, and hence that she herself might do so. To the extent that she takes this thought emotionally seriously, she is deeply pained by the possibility of future vicious action. Third, recall that Aristotle says that a virtuous person enjoys the virtuous deeds of a friend, in a friendship of the best sort, as if they were her own, because the friend is another self. Now Aristotle thought one could only be a friend, in the best sense, of a virtuous person. Be that as it may, what he says about friendship can be said about love more generally, and it is possible to love a vicious person. And if a virtuous person loves a vicious, then the deeds of the vicious beloved can give the lover the kind of pain that they should give the beloved. These three cases should make clear the magnitude of spiritual pain it would be appropriate to feel at an evil action while one were committing it. After all, what would we not give not to be someone who had committed a murder, say?

Now, let us suppose that on the cross Christ, being not only a perfectly virtuous man but also God, is aware of all the evils ever done, fully understands the evil in its interpersonal and theological significance, and yet loves the evildoers. This makes it possible for him to feel the spiritual pain at the evil which the evildoer did not fully feel while doing the deed, a spiritual pain of immense magnitude. The offense was against the infinite God. Christ on the cross, on this theory, experiences that offense in its immense magnitude, and this suffering, though concentrated in time, is a sufficient substitution.

A difficulty with this theory is that one wonders why this substitutionary suffering had to be on the cross. After all, wouldn't Christ have felt the same spiritual pain earlier in his life, say while sipping wine at the end of a hard week's work and reflecting on the magnitude of evil? This theory does not do justice to the importance of the cross.

But I think we can bring the cross back to it. For Aristotle is not actually right in thinking that the virtuous person's emotions always correctly track reality. Emotions come and go. No matter how virtuous a person is, if she has been deprived of sleep for too many hours, whether by torturers or by parenthood, she will not have much in the way of appropriate emotions. She will, if she remains virtuous, act rightly, but may feel simply numb. A virtuous person's emotions correctly track reality only in circumstances which are appropriate for this tracking of reality. A virtuous person knows that parenting is a good, but she does not feel the warm glow of it except in appropriate observing conditions, typically ones incompatible with sleep deprivation, just as an art expert may not recognize the fake Rembrandt except in good light.

Now, Christ on the cross was, we might say, in ideal observing conditions in respect of evil. His emotions were genuinely human ones. Suffering has much to teach us experientially, which we may have already known theoretically. On the cross, as the perfectly innocent divine victim, he could humanly experience the fullness of the evils of the world, evils that he already divinely knew, and that he even theoretically already knew as a human being. Moreover, even if his physical pain did not have the same magnitude that the pain of someone being tortured to death over the period of a month might have had, the physical pain he did suffer was of sufficient magnitude to fuel an empathy that would humanly enable him to be spiritually pained at that victim's pain of being tortured over a month—or even at the physical pains of eternity in hell. He suffered, then, not just his own sufferings on the cross, but these sufferings of his own made it possible for him to suffer with the victims of all the past and future crimes he knew of, as well as to suffer, even more profoundly, with the perpetrators of these.

I do not think this exhausts what happened on the cross. In fact, I am very much unsatisfied with what I wrote. I don't even want to say that the theory I offer is true. But the availability of theories like this one shows that the IC should not be as persuasive as it initially seems.