A little while ago I wrote a critique of Anselm’s commercial theory of the Atonement. Since then, I have thought of another objection against a strict commercial understanding the Atonement. The objection is that if Christ’s death on the cross is just a literal payment of debt - the balancing of scales, then not only is repentance made redundant, as I said in my original blog, but we are also lead the position whereby union with Christ can play no part in Christ’s atoning work; for why do we need to be unified with Christ for Him to pay our debt? After all, I don’t need to be unified with a person if I am paying his debt or he is paying mine.
Of course, one might deny that union with Christ has got anything to do with the Atonement. However, for many this is an unacceptable solution. Edwards, for instance, saw union with Christ as essential to how Christ’s atoning work is applied to us. He writes:
What is real is the union between Christ and his people, is the foundation of what is legal; that is, it is something really in them, and between them, uniting them, that is the ground of the suitableness of their being accounted as one by the Judge: and if there is any act, or qualification in believers, that is of that uniting nature, that it is meet on that account that the Judge should look upon ‘em, an accept ‘em as one, no wonder that upon the account of the same act or qualification, he should accept the satisfaction and merits of the one, for the other, as if it were their satisfaction and merits: it necessarily follows, or rather is implied. ('Justification by Faith', in Sermons and Discourses, 1734-1738, 158)
So, if we are persuaded, along with Edwards, that union with Christ plays an essential part in the Atonement, a commercial theory of it will need to be rejected.
1. Commercial theory of atonement implies that union with Christ is unnecessary for atonement.
ReplyDelete2. Union with Christ is necessary for atonement.
3. Therefore, commercial theory of atonement is false.
Here is a reason to doubt (1). Depending on your statement of debt payment, a debtor can become "unified" with their guarantor by legal procedures. For example, I promise to pay my rent on time. If I fail to pay rent then I am in debt to the real estate agency/landlord. There are certain conditions wherein someone else agrees to be my guarantor so that they are held legally liable for my debt. A guarantor is legally unified with me and is punished on my behalf by paying my debt. My debt becomes their debt by their agreeing to be my guarantor.
Thoughts?
Thank you for your question, Apeiros. You make an interesting point. However, I see two potential problems with your argument.
ReplyDeleteFirst, in the example you have given, the reason one is legally unified with the tenant is to provide security to the landlord. But God needs no such security. Christ's unification with us is not so that our debt might be paid just in case we fail to pay it; it is to actually pay the debt, and it is hard to see why union is needed in this case. Arguing that Christ's unification is to secure payment of future sins after redemption won't help either, since God as an omniscient being would know that Christ will pay any debt that we occur and therefore does not need a legal guarantee. Perhaps the best route of argument now would be to say that union if for our benefit, it gives us assurance that our debts will be paid in the future; but I see this as a weak argument. Why legal union instead of just an unbreakable promise from God? A final argument might be that union allows God to forcibly exact payment from Christ; howbeit, why this is needed I cannot see.
Second, this understanding perhaps falls short on the essence of the union. Is the union JUST a legal one, or is it something more? Augustine and Edwards would see the union as means where we become metaphysically one with Christ. If these two were right, then the necessity of this for the Atonement is left unexplained.