The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-06-02
THE ATONEMENT DOCTRINE In SEW
ERAL FORMS.


Several different theories have been
invented to explain the way in which
the death Of Christ procures our for
giveness. The Greek and Latin Christ
ian writers. during some centuries,
taught that the death of Christ was a
ransom paid to the devil to redeem from
his power the souls which had legally
fallen into his hands and become his
property in consequence of their sins.
The apostle Paul expresses thought
older than Christianity and borrows
figure from paganism when he says,
that "to whom ye yield yourselves
slaves to obey, his slaves are ye to whom
ye obey" BY and by when Christians
had taken the devil bodily into their
theology and given him very impor-
tant share in the management of the
world, we find their writers discussing
this notion of the blood of Christ being
the price of our redemption paid to the
devil. Origen in the third century,
and Augustine in the fourth century,
wrote on this subject. But the doc
trine was not universally taken up.
We find one writer arguing that it
would be shameful thing indeed if
such price was paid to the Wicked
One, while another is of opinion that
although so paid, it was more than he
was fairly entitled to. Some even say
that our redemption might have been
effected by Christ in some other way
than by his death.
The second theory was that which
arose in the middle ages, and is known
in these days as the scheme of "Satis-
faction" Anselm, Archbishop of Can
terbury, who died in 100, was one of
the first to teach that the death Of
Christ was an equivalent for the debt
due to God on account Of human trans
gression, and that, the debt being paid,
the debtors might be forgiven. This
view prevailed for many hundred years,
but not altogether to the exclusion of
the first. Some writers show mixed
doctrine. Thus Thomas Aquinas, who
died in 1874, says, that in conse-
quence of sin man was debtor to God
as a Judge, and to the devil as tor
mentor, and with respect to God, justice
required that man should be redeemed,
but not with respect to the devil, SO
that Christ paid his blood to God and
not to the DEVIL This doctrine of
Satisfaction, or atonement made to
God by the death of Christ, was taken
up by the Reformers in the sixteenth
century, and was reduced by them to a
regular system, with the added notions
of transferred guilt and imputed right
eousness. The original idea that sin
lays us under debt to God is figure
of speech used by Jesus, who bids US
pray to our Father in heaven to forgive
us our debts and his parable of the
servant who owed ten thousand talents
and was not able to pay, is true repre-
sentation Of some of the strongest feel
ings Of conscience; but against the in
consistency and absurdity of building
this unreal structure upon it, we may
quote the Wq0DB of Faustus Socinus, the
italian Unitarian, who took refuge in
Pennsylvania at the time of the r efor-
nation, and who endeavored to explain
after his fashion the true way in which
Christianity obtains for us the forgive
ness Of God. "This method of rescu-
ing us from the punishment of our
SINS" he says, ''i is very different from
that which implies a satisfaction for
them. Nothing can be more repugnant
to each other than free pardon and
satisfaction.
The third theory Of redemption was
that of Grotius, who taught that the
death of Christ was a manifestation of
Gods displeasure against sin, and was
necessary to enable God, as moral
governor, to forgive the sinner without
impairing the respect due to the moral
law. This has been called the theory
of "public Justice" and some of the
orthodox writers have illustrated it by
the story of the King of the Locrians.
1t was law among this people, we are
told, that in cases of grave crime the
criminal was to lose both his eyes. But
when the Kings own son was found to
be guilty, and was brought before his
father to be judged, the King broke his
own law by saving one of his sons
eyes and plucking out one of his own
eyes instead. The claims of justice
were hereby supposed to be met. But
the story to the modern mind is SIM
ply an example of the ignorance of
barbarous age, which it is absurd and
misleading to bring forward today as
serious argument.
These two forms of the Atonement
doctrine are still to be met with. The
older and sterner Calvinists of last CEN
fury held the scheme Of satisfaction, the
modern orthodox more commonly in
cline to the theory of public justice. The
three forms are very clearly and neatly
put side by side by DR.. Freeman Clarke
in his little volume on the Christian
Doctrine of Forgiveness of Sin. The