Many
of the doctrines central to Christianity have important philosophical
implications or presuppositions. In this article, we begin with a brief general
discussion of the relationship between philosophy and Christian dogma, and then
we turn our attention to three of the most philosophically challenging
Christian doctrines: the trinity, the incarnation, and the atonement. We take
these three as our focus because, unlike (for example) doctrines about
providence or the attributes of God, these are distinctive to Christian
theology and, unlike (for example) the doctrine of original sin or the Real
Presence of Christ in the eucharist, these have been the subject of a great
deal of discussion over the past couple of decades.
1. Philosophy and Christian Theology
2. Trinity
2.1 The Social Model
2.2 The Psychological Model
2.3 The Constitution Model
3. Incarnation
3.1. The Kenotic View
3.2 The Two Minds View
4. Atonement
4.1 The Ransom Theory
4.2. The Moral Exemplar Theory
4.3. Satisfaction Theories
4.4. Objections
Bibliography
General
Trinity
Incarnation
Atonement
Academic Tools
Other Internet Resources
Links on the Trinity
Links on the Incarnation
Links on Atonement
Related Entries
1.
Philosophy and Christian Theology
In
the history of Christian theology, philosophy has sometimes been seen as a
natural complement to theological reflection, whereas at other times
practitioners of the two disciplines have regarded each other as mortal
enemies. Some early Christian thinkers such as Tertullian were of the view that
any intrusion of secular philosophical reason into theological reflection was
out of order. Thus, even if certain theological claims seemed to fly in the
face of the standards of reasoning defended by philosophers, the religious
believer should not flinch. Other early Christian thinkers, such as St.
Augustine of Hippo, argued that philosophical reflection complemented theology,
but only when these philosophical reflections were firmly grounded in a prior
intellectual commitment to the underlying truth of the Christian faith. Thus,
the legitimacy of philosophy was derived from the legitimacy of the underlying
faith commitments.
Into
the High Middle Ages, Augustine's views were widely defended. It was during
this time however that St. Thomas Aquinas offered yet another model for the
relationship between philosophy and theology. According to the Thomistic model,
philosophy and theology are distinct enterprises, differing primarily in their
intellectual starting points. Philosophy takes as its data the deliverances of
our natural mental faculties: what we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. These
data can be accepted on the basis of the reliability of our natural faculties
with respect to the natural world. Theology, on the other hand takes as its
starting point the divine revelations contained in the Bible. These data can be
accepted on the basis of divine authority, in a way analogous to the way in
which we accept, for example, the claims made by a physics professor about the
basic facts of physics.
On
this way of seeing the two disciplines, if at least one of the premises of an
argument is derived from revelation, the argument falls in the domain of
theology; otherwise it falls into philosophy's domain. Since this way of
thinking about philosophy and theology sharply demarcates the disciplines, it
is possible in principle that the conclusions reached by one might be
contradicted by the other. According to advocates of this model, however, any
such conflict must be merely apparent. Since God both created the world which
is accessible to philosophy and revealed the texts accessible to theologians,
the claims yielded by one cannot conflict with the claims yielded by another
unless the philosopher or theologian has made some prior error.
Since
the deliverances of the two disciplines must then coincide, philosophy can be
put to the service of theology (and perhaps vice-versa). How might philosophy
play this complementary role? First, philosophical reasoning might persuade some
who do not accept the authority of purported divine revelation of the claims
contained in religious texts. Thus, an atheist who is unwilling to accept the
authority of religious texts might come to believe that God exists on the basis
of purely philosophical arguments. Second, distinctively philosophical
techniques might be brought to bear in helping the theologian clear up
imprecise or ambiguous theological claims. Thus, for example, theology might
provide us with information sufficient to conclude that Jesus Christ was a
single person with two natures, one human and one divine, but leave us in the
dark about exactly how this relationship between divine and human natures is to
be understood. The philosopher can provide some assistance here, since, among other
things, he or she can help the theologian discern which models are logically
inconsistent and thus not viable candidates for understanding the relationship
between the divine and human natures in Christ.
For
most of the twentieth century, the vast majority of English language
philosophy—including philosophy of religion—went on without much interaction
with theology at all. While there are a number of complex reasons for this
divorce, three are especially important.
The
first reason is that atheism was the predominant opinion among English language
philosophers throughout much of that century. A second, quite related reason is
that philosophers in the twentieth century regarded theological language as
either meaningless, or, at best, subject to scrutiny only insofar as that
language had a bearing on religious practice. The former belief (i.e., that
theological language was meaningless) was inspired by a tenet of logical
positivism, according to which any statement that lacks empirical content is
meaningless. Since much theological language, for example, language describing
the doctrine of the Trinity, lacks empirical content, such language must be
meaningless. The latter belief, inspired by Wittgenstein, holds that language
itself only has meaning in specific practical contexts, and thus that religious
language was not aiming to express truths about the world which could be
subjected to objective philosophical scrutiny.
A
third reason is that a great many academic theologians also became skeptical of
our ability to think and speak meaningfully about God; but, rather than simply
abandon traditional doctrines of Christianity, many of them turned away from
more “metaphysical” and quasi-scientific ways of doing theology, embracing
instead a variety of alternative construals and developments of these
doctrines—including, but not limited to, metaphorical, existentialist, and
postmodern construals. This, we might add, seems to be one reason why the
methodological rift between so-called “analytic” and “non-analytic”
philosophers has to some extent been replicated as a rift between analytic
philosophers of religion and their counterparts in theology.
In
the last forty years, however, philosophers of religion have returned to the
business of theorizing about many of the traditional doctrines of Christianity
and have begun to apply the tools of contemporary philosophy in ways that are
somewhat more eclectic than what was envisioned under the Augustinian or
Thomistic models. In keeping with the recent academic trend, contemporary
philosophers of religion have been unwilling to maintain hard and fast
distinctions between the two disciplines. As a result, it is often difficult in
reading recent work to distinguish what the philosophers are doing from what
the theologians (and philosophers) of past centuries regarded as strictly
within the theological domain. Indeed, philosophers and theologians alike are
now coming to use the term “analytic theology” to refer to theological work
that aims to explore and unpack theological doctrines in a way that draws on
the resources, methods, and relevant literature of contemporary analytic
philosophy. The use of this term reflects the heretofore largely unacknowledged
reality that the sort of work now being done under the label “philosophical
theology” is as much theology as it is philosophical.
In
what follows, we provide a brief survey of work on the three topics in
contemporary philosophical theology that—aside from general issues concerning
the nature, attributes, and providence of God—have received the most attention
from philosophers of religion over the past quarter century. We thus leave
aside such staple topics in philosophy of religion as traditional arguments for
the existence of God, the problem of evil, the epistemology of religious
belief, the nature and function of religious language. We also leave aside a
variety of important but less-discussed topics in philosophical theology, such
as the nature of divine revelation and scripture, original sin, the authority
of tradition, and the like. (For discussions of work falling under some of
these topics, see the Related Entries section below, as well as the works under
the “General” heading in the bibliography.)
2.
Trinity
From
the beginning, Christians have affirmed the claim that there is one God, and
three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—each of whom is God. In 675 C.E.,
the Council of Toledo framed this doctrine as follows:
Although we profess three persons we do not
profess three substances but one substance and three persons … If we are asked
about the individual Person, we must answer that he is God. Therefore, we may
say God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; but they are not
three Gods, he is one God … Each single Person is wholly God in himself and …
all three persons together are one God.
Cornelius
Plantinga, Jr., reflecting on the Council of Toledo's formulation, remarks that
it “possesses great puzzling power” (Plantinga 1989, 22). No doubt this is an
understatement. The doctrine of the trinity is deeply puzzling, and it is so in
a way that has led some of Christianity's critics to claim that it is outright
incoherent. Indeed, it looks like we can derive a contradiction from the
doctrine, as follows: The doctrine states that there is exactly one God; that
the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God; and that Father, Son,
and Spirit are distinct. Now, ‘is God’ either means ‘is identical God’ or ‘is
divine’. Either way, however, we have a problem. If the Father is identical to
God and the Son is identical to God, then (by the transitivity of identity) the
Father is identical to the Son, contrary to the doctrine. On the other hand, if
the Father is divine and the Son is divine and the Father is distinct from the
Son, then there are at least two divine persons—i.e., two Gods—also contrary to
the doctrine. Either way, then, the doctrine seems incoherent.
This
puzzle is sometimes called “the threeness-oneness problem”, or “the logical
problem of the trinity”. At first blush, it might seem rather easy to solve.
Why not say, for example, that God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in much
the same way that Clark Kent is the mild-mannered friend of Lois Lane, the
biological son of Jor-El the Kryptonian, and the Man of Steel? Or why not say
that Father, Son, and Spirit count as one God in just the way that the various
items in your shopping cart might count as “one order”? The answer, in short,
is that the Christian tradition has set boundaries on how the doctrine is to be
explicated, and these sorts of models fall afoul of those boundaries. Two of
the most salient “errors” to be avoided are modalism and tritheism. In the
words of the so-called Athanasian Creed, the doctrine of the trinity is to be
understood without either “confounding the persons” or “dividing the
substance”. Modalism confounds the persons. It is the view that Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit are mere manifestations, modes, or roles played by the one and
only God. Ruling out modalism thus rules out analogies like the Superman
analogy just given. Tritheism divides the substance. It is a bit tricky
(because controversial) to say exactly what tritheism, or polytheism more
generally, is. (For discussion, see Rea 2006.) But whatever else it might be,
it is certainly implied by the view that there are three distinct divine
substances. Assuming the items in your shopping cart count as multiple distinct
substances, then, the problem with the shopping cart analogy is that it
suggests polytheism.
In
what follows, we will consider several more sophisticated models of the
trinity: the social model, the psychological model, and the constitution model.
These do not exhaust the field of possible solutions, but they are the ones to
which the most attention has been paid in the recent literature. (For more
detailed surveys, see Rea (2009) and, at book length, McCall (2011).)
2.1
The Social Model
Throughout
the gospels, the first two persons of the trinity are referred to as ‘Father’
and ‘Son’. This suggests the analogy of a family, or, more generally, a
society. Thus, the persons of the trinity might be thought of as one in just
the way that the members of a family are one: they are three individual human
beings, but taken together they are a single family. Since there is no
contradiction in thinking of a family as three and one in this way, this
analogy appears to solve the problem. Those who attempt to understand the
trinity primarily in terms of this analogy are typically called social
trinitarians. This approach has been (controversially) associated with the
Eastern Church, tracing its roots to the Cappadocian Fathers—Basil of Caesarea,
his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and their friend Gregory Nazianzen. (Until
recently, it was fairly common to distinguish “Latin” or “Western” models of
the Trinity from “Greek” or “Eastern” models. Against this practice, see
especially Ayres 2004 and Barnes 1995b.)
Critics
point out that if ‘familial unity’ is all there is to trinitarian oneness, and
so all that is required for monotheism, then it is hard to see why various
polytheistic systems fail to count as versions of monotheism. Consider, for
example, the children of Chronos in Greek mythology, of whom Zeus was the
liberator. These children included Zeus, Hera, Ares, and a variety of other
Olympian deities—all members of a divine family. Nobody, however, thinks that
the fact that Zeus and his siblings (nor even, say, Zeus and his begotten
daughter Athena) count in any meaningful sense as one god.
For
this reason, social trinitarians are often quick to note that there are other
relations that hold between members of the trinity that contribute, along with
their being members of a single divine family, to their counting as one God.
Richard Swinburne, for example, has defended a version of this view according
to which the unity among the divine persons is secured by several facts in
conjunction with one another. First, the divine persons share all of the
essential characteristics of divinity: omniscience, omnipotence, moral
perfection, and so forth. Second, unlike the deities of familiar polytheistic
systems, their wills are necessarily harmonious, so that they can never come
into conflict with one another. Third, they stand in a relationship of perfect
love and necessary mutual interdependence. On this sort of view, there is one
God because the community of divine persons is so closely interconnected that,
although they are three distinct persons, they nonetheless function as if they
were a single entity. One might think that if we were to consider a group of
three human persons who exhibited these characteristics of necessary unity,
volitional harmony, and love, it would likewise be hard to regard them as
entirely distinct. And that is, of course, just the intuition that the view
aims to elicit.
Still,
many regard the sort of unity just described as not strong enough to secure a
respectable monotheism. Thus, some social trinitarians have attempted to give
other accounts of what unifies the divine persons. Perhaps the most popular
such account is the part–whole model. C.S. Lewis's version of this analogy
(Lewis 1958, Bk IV, Ch 2) has it that God is “three Persons while remaining one
Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one cube”. More recently,
J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig (2003) have argued that the relation
between the persons of the Trinity can be thought of as analogous to the
relation we might suppose to obtain between the three dog-like beings that
compose Cerberus, the mythical guardian of the underworld. One might say that
each of the three heads—or each of the three souls associated with the heads—is
a fully canine individual, and yet there is only one being, Cerberus, with the
full canine nature.
Three
“persons” of a sort, and yet just one dog.
The
Moreland & Craig proposal is clearly quite different from Swinburne's and,
as should be obvious, it in no way invokes the analogy of a family or a
society. At this point, therefore, it is natural to wonder what exactly it is
that makes both proposals count as versions of social trinitarianism.
Unfortunately, this is a question to which self-proclaimed social trinitarians
have not given a very clear answer. Perhaps the most common answer is that
part–whole models like Moreland & Craig's resemble society and family
models simply by virtue of “starting with the threeness in the Trinity and
trying to explain the oneness”. However, this answer is less than fully illuminating.
What is needed is some characterization of the common core underlying the
diverse views that are generally regarded as versions of social trinitarianism.
The following two theses seem to capture that core: (i) the divine persons are
not numerically the same substance, and (ii) monotheism does not require that
there be exactly one divine substance—rather, it can be secured by the
obtaining of relations like the part—whole relation, or necessary mutual
interdependence, or some other sort of relation among numerically distinct
divine substances. Together, these two theses seem to express the central idea
underlying both the family analogy and the models developed by Swinburne and
Moreland & Craig. As explained earlier, this core idea provides a solution
to the problem of the trinity by showing how one might deny the inference from
‘the Father is divine, the Son is divine, and the Spirit is divine; and Father,
Son, and Spirit are distinct from one another’ to the conclusion that there is
more than one God.
Still,
despite its attractions, many critics remain unsatisfied by the Moreland &
Craig proposal. One of the more serious problems is that it is inconsistent
with the Nicene Creed. The creed opens with “I believe in God, the Father
Almighty”; but proponents of the Moreland & Craig model cannot say this
because, on their view, God (analogous to Cerberus) is not the Father Almighty
(analogous to one of the heads, or the soul of one of the heads). Likewise, the
Creed says that Father and Son are consubstantial. This claim is absolutely
central to the doctrine of the trinity, and the notion of consubstantiality lay
at the very heart of the debates in the 4th Century C.E. that shaped the Nicene
Creed's expression of the doctrine. But the three souls, or centers of
consciousness, of the heads of Cerberus are not in any sense consubstantial. If
they are substances at all (which Moreland & Craig take them to be), they
are three distinct substances.
Other
versions of the part–whole model raise further worries. A cube, for example, is
a seventh thing in addition to its six sides; but we do not want to say that
God is a fourth thing in addition to its three parts. The reason is that saying
this forces a dilemma: Either God is a person, or God is not. If the former, then
we have a quaternity rather than a trinity. If the latter, then we seem to
commit ourselves to claims that are decidedly anti-theistic: God doesn't know
anything (since only persons can be knowers); God doesn't love anybody (since
only persons can love); God is amoral (since only persons are part of the moral
community); and so on. Bad news either way, then. Thus, many are motivated to
seek other models.
2.2
The Psychological Model
Many
theologians have looked to features of the human mind or “psyche” to find
models to help illuminate the doctrine of the trinity. Historically, the use of
psychological analogies is especially associated with thinkers in the
Latin-speaking West, particularly from Augustine onward. Augustine himself
suggested several important analogies, as did others in the medieval Latin
tradition. However, since our focus in this article is on more contemporary
models, we will pass over these here and focus instead on two more recently
developed psychological analogies.
Thomas
V. Morris has suggested that we can find an analogy for the trinity in the
psychological condition known as multiple personality disorder: just as a
single human being can have multiple personalities, so too a single God can
exist in three persons (though, of course, in the case of God this is a
cognitive virtue, not a defect) (Morris 1986). Others—Trenton Merricks for
example—have suggested that we can conceive of the divine persons on analogy
with the separate spheres of consciousness that result from commissurotomy(Merricks
2006). Commissurotomy is a procedure, sometimes used to treat epilepsy, that
involves cutting the bundle of nerves (the corpus callosum) by which the two
hemispheres of the brain communicate. Those who have undergone this procedure
typically function normally in daily life; but, under certain kinds of
experimental conditions, they display psychological characteristics that
suggest that there are two distinct spheres of consciousness associated with
the two hemispheres of their brain. Thus, according to this analogy, just as a
single human can, in that way, have two distinct spheres of consciousness, so
too a single divine being can exist in three persons, each of which is a
distinct sphere of consciousness.
As
with social trinitarianism, each of these analogies solves the problem of the
trinity by offering a way of denying the inference from ‘the Father is divine,
the Son is divine, and the Spirit is divine; and Father, Son, and Spirit are
distinct from one another’ to the conclusion that there is more than one God.
Moreover, both analogies seem to have this advantage over social
trinitarianism: both seem to present real-life cases in which a single rational
substance is nonetheless “divided” into multiple personalities or centers of
consciousness. Precisely this feature of the analogies, however, also raises
the spectre of modalism. In the case of multiple personality disorder, there is
no real temptatiom to reify the distinct personalities, to treat them as
distinct person-like beings subsisting in or as a single substance. They are,
rather, quite straightforwardly understandable as distinct aspects of a single,
albeit fragmented, psychological subject. Similarly in the case of the
commissurotomy analogy. It is highly unnatural to treat the distinct centers of
consciousness as distinct persons; rather, it is most plausible to treat them
as mere aspects of a single subject. Note, too, that it is hard to see how the
personalities and centers of consciousness that figure into these analogies
could be viewed as the same substance as one another, as the doctrine of the
trinity requires us to say of the divine persons. Again, it is natural to see
them merely as distinct aspects of a single substance. This, then, seems to be
the primary objection that proponents of these sorts of analogies need to
overcome.
2.3
The Constitution Model
The
third and final solution to the problem of the trinity that we want to explore
invokes the notion of “relative sameness.” This is the idea that things can be
the same relative to one kind of thing, but distinct relative to another. More
formally:
Relative Sameness: It is possible that
there are x, y, F, and G such that x is an F, y is an F, x is a G, y is a G, x
is the same F as y, but x is not the same G as y.
If
this claim is true, then it is open to us to say that the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit are the same God but distinct persons. Notice, however, that this is all
we need to make sense of the trinity. If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are
the same God (and there are no other Gods), then there will be exactly one God;
but if they are also distinct persons (and there are only three of them), then
there will be three persons.
The
main challenge for this solution is to show that the Relative Sameness assumption
is coherent, and to show that the doctrine of the trinity can be stated in a
way that is demonstrably consistent given the assumption of relative identity.
Peter van Inwagen's work on the trinity (1988, 2003) has been mostly concerned
with addressing this challenge. An additional, related challenge, however, is
to provide some further explanation or analogy that can help us to see what it
might mean to say that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit stand in the relation of
‘relative sameness’. Initially, it is not at all clear what this might mean,
for it seems that the statement ‘x is the same F as y’ means nothing more or
less than ‘x is an F, y is an F and x=y’, contrary to the assumption of
Relative Sameness (above). This challenge has been undertaken by Michael Rea
and Jeffrey Brower (2005a, b; Brower 2004; Rea 2009c). Their suggestion is that
reflection on cases of material constitution (e.g., statues and the lumps of
matter that constitute them) can help us to see how two things can be the same
material object but otherwise different entities. If this is right, then, by
analogy, such reflection can also help us to see how Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit can be the same God but three different persons.
Consider
Rodin's famous bronze statue, The Thinker. It is a single material object; but
it can be truly described both as a statue (which is one kind of thing), and as
a lump of bronze (which is another kind of thing). A little reflection,
moreover, reveals that the statue is distinct from the lump of bronze. For example,
if the statue were melted down, we would no longer have both a lump and a
statue: the lump would remain (albeit in a different shape) but Rodin's Thinker
would no longer exist. This seems to show that the lump is something distinct
from the statue, since one thing can exist apart from another only if they're
distinct. If this is right, then this is not a case in which one thing simply
appears in two different ways, or is referred to by two different labels. It
is, rather, a case in which two distinct things occupy exactly the same region
of space at the same time.
Most
of us readily accept the idea that distinct things, broadly construed, can
occupy the same place at the same time. The event of your sitting, for example,
occupies exactly the same place that you do when you are seated. But we are
more reluctant to say that distinct material objects occupy the same place at
the same time. Philosophers have therefore suggested various ways of making
sense of the phenomenon of material constitution. One way of doing so is to say
that the statue and the lump are the same material object even though they are
distinct relative to some other kind (e.g., hylomorphic compound). The
advantage of this idea is that it allows us to say that the statue and the lump
count as one material object, thus preserving the principle of one material
object to a place. The cost, however, is that we commit ourselves to the
initially puzzling idea that two distinct things can be the same material
object. What, we might wonder, would it even mean for this to be true? But
suppose we add that all it means for one thing and another to be “the same
material object” is just for them to share all of their matter in common. It is
hard to see why such a claim should be objectionable; and if it is right, then
our problem is solved. The lump of bronze in our example is clearly distinct
from The Thinker, since it can exist without The Thinker; but it also clearly
shares all the same matter in common with The Thinker, and hence, on this view,
counts as the same material object.
Likewise,
then, we might say that all it means for one person and another to be the same
God is for them to do something analogous to sharing in common all of whatever
is analogous to matter in divine beings. On this view, the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit are the same God but different persons in just the way a statue and
its constitutive lump are the same material object but different form-matter
compounds. Of course, God is not material; so this can only be an analogy. But
still, it helps to provide an illuminating account of inter-trinitarian
relations, and it does so in a way that seems (at least initially) to avoid
both modalism and polytheism. Brower and Rea maintain that each person of the
trinity is a substance; thus, none is a mere aspect of a substance, and so
modalism is avoided. And yet they are the same substance; and so polytheism is
avoided.
This
account is not entirely free of difficulties however. It is tempting to see the
view as simply playing a verbal trick: Brower and Rea say that Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit are to be counted as one God; but since the divine Persons are
fully distinct from one another, it is natural to take the admonition to ‘count
them as one’ as nothing more than the proposal of a mere linguistic convention.
Critics also object that this view does not directly answer the question of how
many material objects are present for any given region, lump, or chunk. Is
there an objective way of deciding how many objects are constituted by the lump
of bronze that composes The Thinker? Are there only two things (statue and
lump) or are there many more (paperweight, battering ram, etc.)? And if there
are more, what determines how many there are? Unless we can answer this
question it is hard to know why the “divine matter” constitutes exactly three
persons (and not more).
3.
Incarnation
The
doctrine of the Incarnation holds that, at a time roughly two thousand years in
the past, the second person of the trinity took on himself a distinct, fully human
nature. As a result, he was a single person in full possession of two distinct
natures, one human and one divine. The Council of Chalcedon (451 C.E.)
articulates the doctrine as follows:
We confess one and the same our Lord Jesus
Christ… the same perfect in Godhead, the same in perfect manhood, truly God and
truly man … acknowledged in two natures without confusion, without change,
without division, without separation—the difference of natures being by no
means taken away because of the union, but rather the distinctive character of
each nature being preserved, and combining into one person and hypostasis—not
divided or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and only
begotten God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ.
Critics
have held this doctrine to be “impossible, self-contradictory, incoherent,
absurd, and even unintelligible.” (Morris 1986: 18) The central difficulty for
the doctrine is that it seems to attribute to one person characteristics that
are not logically compatible. For example, it seems on the one hand that human
beings are necessarily created beings, and that they are necessarily limited in
power, presence, knowledge, and so on. On the other hand, divine beings are
essentially the opposite of all those things. Thus, it appears that one person
could bear both natures, human and divine, only if such a person could be both
limited and unlimited in various ways, created and uncreated, and so forth. And
this is surely impossible.
Two
main strategies have been pursued in an attempt to resolve this apparent
paradox. The first is the kenotic view. The second is the two-minds view. We
shall take each in turn.
3.1
The Kenotic View
The
kenotic view (from the Greek kenosis meaning ’to empty’) finds its motivation
in a New Testament passage which claims that Christ Jesus
“…though he was in the form of God, did not
regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in
human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death…”.
(Phillipians 2:6–8, NRSV).
According
to this view, in becoming incarnate, God the Son voluntarily and temporarily
laid aside some of his divine attributes in order to take on a human nature and
thus his earthly mission.
If
the kenotic view is correct, then (contrary to what theists are normally
inclined to think) properties like omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence
are not essential to divinity: something can remain divine even after putting
some or all of those properties aside. The problem, however, is that if these
properties aren't essential to divinity, then it is hard to see what would be
essential. The so-called ‘omni-properties’ seem to be constitutive of divinity;
they are the properties in terms of which divinity is defined. If we say that
something can be divine while lacking those properties, then we lose all grip
on what it means to be divine.
One
might respond to this worry by saying that the only property that is essential
to divine beings as such is the property being divine. This reply, however,
makes divinity out to be a primitive, unanalyzable property. Critics like John
Hick (1993: 73) complain that such a move makes divinity out to be unacceptably
mysterious. Alternatively, one might simply deny that any properties are
necessary for divinity. It is widely held in the philosophy of biology, for
example, that there are no properties possession of which are jointly necessary
andsufficient for membership in, say, the kind humanity. Moreover, it is very
hard to find any interesting properties—apart from properties like ‘having
mass’ or ‘being an organism'—that are even merely necessary for being human.
That is, it seems that for any (interesting) property you might think of as
partly definitive of humanity, there are or could be humans who lack that
property. Thus, many philosophers think that membership in the kind is
determined simply by family resemblance to paradigm examples of the kind.
Something counts as human, in other words, if, and only if, it shares enough of
the properties that are typical of humanity. If we were to say the same thing
about divinity, there would be no in-principle objection to the idea that Jesus
counts as divine despite lacking omniscience or other properties like, perhaps,
omnipotence, omnipresence, or even perfect goodness. One might just say that he
is knowledgeable, powerful, and good enough that, given his other attributes,
he bears the right sort of family resemblance to the other members of the
Godhead to count as divine.
Some
have offered more refined versions of the kenotic theory, arguing that the
basic view mischaracterizes the divine attributes. According to these versions
of the kenotic view, rather than attribute to God properties like ommniscience,
omipotence, and the like, we should instead say that God has properties like
the following: being
omniscient-unless-temporarily-and-freely-choosing-to-be-otherwise, being
omnipotent-unless-temporarily-and-freely-choosing-to-be-otherwise, and so
forth. These latter sorts of properties can be retained without contradiction
even when certain powers are laid aside. In this way, then, Jesus can divest
himself of some of his powers to become fully human while still remaining fully
divine. (Feenstra, 1989: 128–152) Unfortunately, however, this response only
raises a further question, namely: if Christ's incarnation required his
temporarily surrendering omniscience, then his later exaltation must have
involved continued non-omniscience or the loss of his humanity. However, Christians
have typically argued that the exalted Christ is omniscient while retaining his
humanity. It is hard to see how this view can respond to such an objection.
(But for one response see Feenstra 2007: 539).
Moving
away from the standard version of the kenotic theory, some philosophers and
theologians endorse views according to which it only seems as if Christ lacked
divine attributes like omniscience, omnipotence, and so on. Views according to
which it simply seems to us (ordinary human beings) as if he lacks those
attributes are called “krypsis” accounts of the incarnation. They are views
according to which the apparent loss of divine attributes is only pretense or
illusion. Among other things, this raises the concern that the incarnation is
somehow a grand deception, thus casting doubt on Christ's moral perfection.
More acceptable, then, are views according to which it somehow seems even to
Christ himself as if certain divine attributes which he actually possesses have
been laid aside. On this view, the loss of omniscience, omnipotence, and so on
is only simulated. Christ retains all of the traditional divine attributes. But
from his point of view it is, nevertheless, as if those attributes are gone. A
view like this might be characterized as positing a “functional kenosis.” (Cf.
Crisp 2007, Ch. 2.)
One
concern that might be raised with respect to the doctrine of functional kenosis
is that it is hard to see how a divine being could possibly simulate (to
himself, without outright pretense) the loss of attributes like omniscience or
omnipotence. But perhaps the resources for addressing this worry are to be
found in what is now widely seen as the main rival to the traditional kenotic
theory: Thomas V. Morris's “two minds view.”
3.2
The Two Minds View
Morris
(1986) develops the two minds view in two steps, one defensive, the other
constructive. First, Morris claims that the incoherence charge against the
incarnation rests on a mistake. The critic assumes that, for example, humans
are essentially non-omniscient. But what are the grounds for this assertion?
Unless we think that we have some special direct insight into the essential
properties of human nature, our grounds are that all of the human beings we
have encountered have that property. But this merely suffices to show that the
property is common to humans, not that it is essential. As Morris points out,
it may be universally true that all human beings, for example, were born within
ten miles of the surface of the earth, but this does not mean that this is an
essential property of human beings. An offspring of human parents born on the
international space station would still be human. If this is right, the
defender of the incarnation can reject the critic's characterization of human
nature, and thereby eliminate the conflict between divine attributes and human
nature so characterized.
This
merely provides a way to fend off the critic, however, without supplying any
positive model for how the incarnation should be understood. In the second
step, then, Morris proposes that we think about the incarnation as the
realization of one person with two minds: a human mind and a divine mind. If
possession of a human mind and body is sufficient for something's being human,
then “merging” the divine mind with a human mind and conjoining both to a human
body will yield one person with two natures. During his earthly life, Morris
proposes, Jesus Christ had two minds, with consciousness centered in the human
mind. This human mind had partial access to the contents of the divine mind,
while God the Son's divine mind had full access to the corresponding human
mind.
The
chief difficulty this view faces concerns the threat of Nestorianism (the view,
formally condemned by the Church, that there are two persons in the incarnate
Christ). It is natural simply to identify persons with minds—or, at the very
least, to assume that the number of minds equals the number of persons. If we
go with such very natural assumptions, however, the two minds view leads
directly to the view that the incarnation gives us two persons, contrary to
orthodoxy. Moreover, one might wonder whether taking the two minds model
seriously leads us to the view that Christ suffers from something like multiple
personality disorder. In response to both objections, however, one might note
that contemporary psychology seems to provide resources which support the
viability of the two minds model. As Morris points out elsewhere, the human
mind is sometimes characterized as a system of somewhat autonomous subsystems.
The normal human mind, for example, includes (on these characterizations) both
a conscious mind (the seat of awareness) and an unconscious mind. It does not
really matter for present purposes whether this psychological story is correct;
the point is just that it seems coherent, and seems neither to involve multiple
personality nor to imply that what seems to be a single subject is, in reality,
two distinct persons. Morris proposes, then, that similar sorts of relations
can be supposed to obtain between the divine and human mind of Christ.
4.
Atonement
Traditional
Christianity maintains that human beings are subject to death and eternal
separation from God as a result of their sinfulness, but that they can be saved
from this condition somehow as a result of what we might refer to as “the work
of Jesus”, which work includes at least his suffering and death on the cross,
and perhaps also his sinless life, resurrection, and ascension. The so-called
‘theories of the atonement’ are theories about how the work of Jesus contributes
to human salvation.
First,
a brief note about terminology. We have used the term ‘theories of the
atonement’ here because that is the term most commonly used in the
philosophical literature on this topic, and it is a term often enough used in
theology as well. But it is not a neutral term. Rather, it already embodies a
partial theory about what human salvation involves and about what the work of
Christ accomplishes. In particular, it presupposes that saving human beings
from death and separation from God primarily involves atoning for sin rather
than (say) delivering human beings from some kind of bondage, repairing human
nature, or something else. In the New Testament we find various terms and
phrases (in addition to ‘salvation’) used to characterize or describe what the
work of Jesus accomplished on behalf of humanity—e.g., justification,
redemption or ransom, reconciliation, deliverance from sin, re-creation or
rebirth, the offering of an atoning sacrifice, abundant life, and eternal life.
Obviously these terms are not all synonymous; so part of the task of an overall
theology of salvation—a soteriology—is to sort out the relations among these
various terms and phrases (is salvation simply to be identified with eternal
life, for example?), to determine which are to be taken literally and which are
mere metaphors, and to explain which effects have been brought about by Jesus'
life, which by his death, which by his resurrection, and so on. In light of all
this, some theologians and philosophers deliberately avoid talking about
‘theories of the atonement’ and talk instead about (e.g.) ‘the theology of
reconciliation’ or theories about ‘the redemption’, etc. That said, however, we
do not ourselves intend to advocate on behalf of any particular terminology.
Instead, we simply note the issue and move on, retaining the language of
‘atonement’, but without intending to prejudge questions about what is
primarily accomplished by the work of Christ.
In
what follows, we shall discuss only three of the most well-known and widely
discussed theories (or families of theories) about what the work of Jesus
accomplishes on behalf of human beings. All take the suffering and death of
Jesus to be an integral part of his work on our behalf; but the first theory
holds Jesus' resurrection and ascension also to be absolutely central to that
work, and the second theory holds his sinless life to be of near-equal
importance. Discussing these theories under three separate headings as we do
below may foster the illusion that what we have are three mutually exclusive
views, each marking off a wholly distinct camp in the history of soteriological
theorizing, and each aiming to provide a full accounting of what Jesus' work
contributes to human salvation from death and separation from God. As we have
already indicated, however, a variety of terms and images are used in the Bible
to characterize what Jesus accomplished and, in contrast with the doctrines of
the trinity and incarnation, we do not have for the doctrine of salvation an
ecumenical conciliar prononouncement (i.e., a pronouncement from a Church
Council whose authority will be recognized by the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and
Protestant churches alike) that tells us how exactly we are to understand the
images and events that are generally associated with salvation. Consequently,
it is no surprise that many thinkers appropriate imagery from more than one of
the theories described below (or others besides) to explain their understanding
of the nature and efficacy of Jesus' work.
4.1
The Ransom Theory
The
ransom theory, also known as the Christus Victor theory is generally regarded
as the dominant theory of the Patristic period, and has been attributed to such
early Church Fathers as Origen, Athanasius, and especially Gregory of Nyssa. (One
might question, however, whether any of these theologians ever intended to
offer the ransom story about to be described as a theory of the atonement,
rather than simply an extended metaphor. What does seem clear, however, is that
they at least intended to emphasize victory over sin, death, and so on as one
of the principle salvific effects of the work of Christ.) The theory was
revived more recently by Gustaf Aulén (1931), and was given popular expression
in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.
The
ransom theory takes as its point of departure the idea that human beings are in
a kind of bondage to sin, death, and the Devil. The basic view, familiar enough
now from literature and film, is that God and the Devil are in a sort of
competition for souls, and the rules of the competition state that anyone
stained by sin must die and then forever exist as the Devil's prisoner in hell.
As the view is often developed, human sin gives the Devil a legitimate right to
the possession of human souls. Thus, much as God loves us and would otherwise
desire for us never to die and, furthermore, to enjoy life in heaven with him,
the sad fact is that we, by our sins, have secured a much different destiny for
ourselves.
But
here is where the work of Christ is supposed to come in. According to the
ransom view, it would be unfitting for God simply to violate the pre-ordained
rules of the competition and snatch our souls out of the Devil's grasp. But it
is not at all unfitting for God to pay the Devil a ransom in exchange for our
freedom. Christ's death is that ransom. By living a sinless life and then dying
like a sinner, Christ pays a price that, in the eyes of all parties to the
competition, earns back for God the right to our souls, and thus effects a
great triumph over the Devil, sin, and death.
4.2
The Moral Exemplar Theory
The
moral exemplar theory, pioneered by Peter Abelard, holds that the work of
Christ is fundamentally aimed at bringing about moral and spiritual reform in
the sinner—a kind of reform that is not fully possible apart from Christ's
work. The Son of God became incarnate, on this view, in order to set this
example and thus provide a necessary condition for the moral reform that is, in
turn, necessary for the full restoration of the relationship between creature
and Creator. On this picture, Jesus' sinless life is as much a part of his
soteriologically relevant work as his suffering and death on the cross.
Thus
far, it may sound as if the exemplar theory says that all there is to the
efficacy of Jesus' life and death for salvation is the provision of a fine
example for us to imitate. According to Philip L. Quinn (1993), however, to
present the theory this way is simply to caricature it. According to Quinn, the
dominant motif in Abelard's exemplar theory is one according to which human
moral character is, in a very robust sense transformed by Christ's love. He
writes:
My suggestion is that what Abelard has to
contribute to our thinking about the atonement is the idea that divine love,
made manifest throughout the life of Christ but especially in his suffering and
dying, has the power to transform human sinners, if they cooperate, in ways
that fit them for everlasting life in intimate union with God. ... On [this]
view, the love of God for us exhibited in the life of Christ is a good example
to imitate, but it is not merely an example. Above and beyond its exemplary
value, there is in it a surplus of mysterious causal efficacy that no merely
human love possesses. And the operation of divine love in that supernatural
mode is a causally necessary condition of there being implanted or kindled in
us the kind of responsive love of God that, as Abelard supposes, enables us to
do all things out of love and so to conquer the motives that would otherwise
keep us enslaved to sin.
In
Quinn's hands, then, the exemplar theory is one according to which the life and
death of Christ do indeed provide an example for us to imitate--and an example
that plays an important role in effecting the transformation that will make us
fit for fellowship with God. But, in contrast to the usual caricature of that
theory, the exemplary nature of Christ's love does not exhaust its
transformative power.
4.3
Satisfaction Theories
Satisfaction
theories start from the idea that human sin constitutes a grave offense against
God, the magnitude of which renders forgiveness and reconciliation morally
impossible unless something is done either to satisfy the demands of justice or
to compensate God for the wrong done to him. These theories go on to note that
human beings are absolutely incapable on their own of compensating God for the
wrong they have done to him, and that the only way for them to satisfy the
demands of justice is to suffer death and eternal separation from God. Thus, in
order to avoid this fate, they are in dire need of help. Christ, through his
death (and, on some versions, through his sinless life as well) has provided
that help. The different versions of the satisfaction theory are differentiated
by their claims about what sort of help the work of Christ has provided. Here
we'll discuss three versions: St. Anselm's debt-cancellation theory, the penal
substitution theory defended by John Calvin and many others in the reformed
tradition, and the penitential substitution theory, attributed to Thomas
Aquinas and defended most recently by Eleonore Stump and Richard Swinburne.
According
to Anselm, our sin puts us in a kind of debt toward God. As our creator, God is
entitled to our submission and obedience. By sinning, we therefore fail to give
God something that we owe him. Thus, we deserve to be punished until we do give
God what we owe him. Indeed, on Anselm's view, not only is it just for God to
punish us; it is, other things being equal, unfitting for him not to punish us.
For as long as we are not giving God his due, we are dishonoring him; and the
dishonoring of God is maximally intolerable. By allowing us to get away with
dishonoring him, then, God would be tolerating what is maximally intolerable.
Moreover, he would be behaving in a way that leaves sinners and the sinless in
substantially the same position before him, which, Anselm thinks, is unseemly.
But, of course, once we have sinned, it is impossible for us to give God the
perfect life that we owe him. So we are left in the position of a debtor who
cannot, under any circumstances, repay his own debt and is therefore stuck in
debtor's prison for the remainder of his existence.
By
living a sinless life, however, Christ was in a different position before God.
He was the one human being who gave God what God was owed. Thus, he deserved no
punishment; he did not even deserve death. And yet he submitted to death anyway
for the sake of obeying God. In doing this, he gave God more than he owed God;
and so, on Anselm's view, put God in the position of owing him something.
According to Anselm, just as it would be unfitting for God not to punish us, so
too it would be unfitting for God not to reward Jesus. But Jesus, as God
incarnate, has already at his disposal everything he could possibly need or
desire. So what reward could possibly be given to him? None, of course. But,
Anselm argues, the reward can be transferred; and, under the circumstances, it
would be unfitting for God not to transfer it. Thus, the reward that Jesus
claims is the cancellation of the collective debt of his friends. This allows
God to pay what he owes, and it allows him to suffer no dishonor in failing to
collect what is due him from us.
As
should be clear, the notion of substitution isn't really a part of Anselm's
theory of the atonement. (Contrary to the more common view in the liteature,
Richard Cross (2001) doesn't even take satisfaction to be part of Anselm's
theory. Instead, he characterizes Anselm's view as a ‘merit’ theory. Perhaps he
is right—the question seems to turn on whether part of what God the Father
receives in the overall transaction with Jesus is a kind of compensation for
the harm done by human sin. Many take the answer to be ‘yes’, and we shall not
dispute that here.)
Nevertheless,
substitution is a central part of other satisfaction theories. Thus, consider
the penal substitution theory. According to this theory, the just punishment
for sin is death and separation from God. Moreover, on this view, though God
strongly desires for us not to receive this punishment it would be unfitting
for God simply to waive our punishment. But, as in the case of monetary fines,
the punishment can be paid by a willing substitute. Thus, out of love for us,
God the Father sent the willing Son to be our substitute and to satisfy the
demands of justice on our behalf.
Richard
Swinburne's (1988, 1989) version of the satisfaction theory also includes a
substitutionary element. (See also Stump 1988. The views defended by Stump and
Swinburne are quite similar, and both attribute the same basic view to Aquinas.
Here we focus on Swinburne's development of the view.) According to Swinburne,
in human relationships, the process of making atonement for one's sin has four
parts: apology, repentance, reparation (where possible), and (in case of
serious wrongs) penance. Thus, suppose you angrily throw a brick through the
window of a friend's house. Later, you come to seek forgiveness. In order to
receive forgiveness, you will surely have to apologize and repent—i.e., you
will have to show regret and some sort of change of attitude toward your past
behavior. You ought also to agree to fix the broken window. Depending on the
circumstance, however, even this might not be enough. It might be that, in
addition to apologizing, repenting, and making reparations, you ought to do
something further to show that you are quite serious about your apology and
repentance. Perhaps, for example, you will send flowers every day for a week;
perhaps you will stand outside your friend's window with a portable stereo
playing a meaningful song; perhaps you will offer some other sort of gift or
sacrifice. This something further is penance. Importantly, penance isn't
punishment: it's not a bit of suffering that you deserve to have inflicted upon
you by someone else for the purpose of retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence,
or compensation. Rather, it's a bit of suffering that you voluntarily undergo
or a sacrifice that you voluntarily make in order to repair your relationship
with someone.
According
to Swinburne, the same four components are involved in our reconciliation with
God. Apology and repentance we can do on our own, but reparation and penance we
cannot. We owe God a life of perfect obedience. By sinning we have made it
impossible for God to get that from us. If, upon apologizing to God and
repenting of our sins we were thereafter to live a life of perfect obedience,
we would only be giving God what we already owe him; we would not thereby be
giving back to him anything that we have taken away. Thus, our very best
efforts would not suffice even to make reparations for what we have done. There
is nothing we can give God to compsensate him for his loss, and there is no
extra gift we can give or extra sacrifice we can make in order to do penance.
According
to Swinburne, it would be unfitting for God simply to overlook our sins,
ignoring the need for reparation and penance. It would also be unfitting for
God to leave us in the helpless situation of being unable to reconcile
ourselves to him. Thus, on his view, God sent Christ to earth so that Christ
might willingly offer his own sinless life and death as restitution and penance
for the sin of the world. In this way, then, God helps us to make restitution
and penance. We must apologize and repent on our own; we must also recognize
our own helplessness to make up for what we have done. But then we can look to
the life and death of Christ and offer that up to God on our own behalf as
reparation and penance.
4.4
Objections
Although
the Christus Victor theory is of historical importance and has exerted a great
deal of literary influence, it has been widely rejected since the middle ages,
in no small part because it is hard to take seriously the idea that God might
be in competition with or have obligations toward another being (much less a
being like the Devil) in the ways described above. Critics object to the idea,
which is typically part of this view, that salvation involves a sort of
transaction between God and the Devil; they object to the idea, present
particularly in Gregory of Nyssa's version of the view, that Christ's victory
over the Devil comes partly through divine deception (with Christ's divinity
being hidden from the Devil until after Christ's death, when he triumphantly
rises from the grave); and they sometimes also object to the reification and
personification of the forces of sin, death, and evil. For this reason, the
Abelardian and Anselmian views have been far and away the more popular theories
for the past millenium. But each of these remaining theories faces its share of
difficulties as well.
Penal
substitutionary theories, for example, maintain that it is morally impossible
for God simply to forgive our sins without exacting reparation or punishment.
Some have argued that this entails that God does not forgive sin at all.
(Stump, 1988: 61–5) Forgiveness involves a refusal to demand full reparation
and a willingness to let an offense go without punishment. Moreover, the penal
substitution theory faces the challenge of explaining how it could possibly be
just to allow a substitute to bear someone else's punishment. As David Lewis
(1997) notes, we do allow for penal substitution in the case of serious fines.
But the idea of allowing a substitute to bear someone else's death sentence (or
similarly serious punishment) seems, on the face of it, to be morally
repugnant. Indeed, the penal substitution model is seen by critics to be
morally offensive on multiple counts. Objectors claim that at the heart of the
model is the image of a wrathful deity who can be appeased by violent and
bloody sacrifice, and who has made the violent death of his own incarnate Son
the necessary condition for showing love and forgiveness to his human
creatures. (Cf. Finlan 2005, 2007) On this score, Swinburne's theory of
penitential substitution is on somewhat surer footing; but one problem with
Swinburne's view is that it is hard, ultimately, to see what it would even mean
to offer up another person's life and death as one's own reparation or penance.
The
Anselmian version of the satisfaction theory does not quite encounter these
difficulties. But, together with the moral exemplar theory and various other
versions of the satisfaction theory, it faces a different sort of problem. Both
views seem unable to account for the Biblical emphasis on the necessity of
Christ's passion to remedy the problems brought forth by sin. It is hard to see
why Christ's death plays any essential role in establishing him as moral
exemplar. Further, it is hard to see why it would be needed in order for him to
merit the sort of reward that Anselm thinks the Father owes him. Given that
Christ is a man, he owes it to the Father to live a sinless life; but why isn't
the incarnation itself sufficiently supererogatory to merit the debt-cancelling
reward? Moreover, even if we can discover some reason why Christ's death would
be necessary under these theories, it is hard to see why it would have to
involve such horrible suffering. For purposes of meriting a reward or for serving
as an exemplar, why would it not suffice for Christ to dwell among us, live a
perfect human life resisting all earthly temptation, and then die a quiet death
at home? Indeed, these theories seem unable to account even for the value in
Christ's passion, much less its necessity.
There
are, of course, responses to these objections in the literature; and each of
the theories just discussed has had able and prominent defenders within the
past century. Moreover, insofar as there is no well-developed and formally
recognized orthodoxy with respect to these matters, those who remain
unsatisfied with the theories just described have populated the literature with
a variety of alternative stories about the salvific efficacy of the work of
Jesus. Thus, even more than the other two theological loci we have discussed in
this article, the doctrine of salvation seems ripe for substantial further
research.
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Other
Internet Resources
Links
on the Trinity
Key texts from the Church Fathers concerning
the Trinity (compiled by Joseph Gallegos, Corunum Catholic Apologetic Web Site
The Athanasian Creed (Christian Classics
Ethereal Library)
Boethius, The Trinity is One God (Christian
Classics Ethereal Library)
Jonathan Edwards ‘Unpublished Essay on the
Trinity’ (Christian Classics Ethereal Library)
Links
on the Incarnation
St. Athanasius. On the Incarnation
Aquinas, Treatise on the Incarnation
(Christian Classics Ethereal Library)
St. Anselm, Cur Deus Homo (The Internet
Medieval Sourcebook, Paul Halsall (ed.), Fordham University)
Links
on Atonement
‘Doctrine of the Atonement’ (W.H. Kent,
Catholic Encyclopedia)
Understanding Atonement: A New and Orthodox
Theory, (Robin Collins, Philosophy, Messiah College)