There seems to be so many books written about the atonement at the moment that it is difficult to write one that is fresh and highly readable without resorting to sensationalism, but Stephen Finlan's latest book Problems With Atonement is a pleasing exception to this rule. Problems With Atonement is fairly short (just 144 pages) but is packed full of lucid argument and written in an engaging manner that will stimulate a lot of thought in the reader's mind, if not always leading to complete agreement with all of Finlan's suggestions.

Finlan argues that many of the core problems with the Christian faith (both inside and outside of the church) are caused by unhelpful and inaccurate explanations of the atonement, and the book starts with a brief overview of some of the widespread disagreements that have arisen in atonement studies over the last 150 years or so. Finlan suggests that it is now a part of received tradition in many Protestant churches that the death of Jesus was a means by which "God was persuaded to alter his verdict against humanity" (p1) or that the cross "functioned as some kind of pay-off". That some explanations of the atonement are objectionable is not really the problem (and if you're expecting Finlan's book to be a Chalke-esque dismissal of the cross as "cosmic child-abuse" you'll be disappointed), as the real problem lies in the confusing and conflicting way in which scholars have downplayed, ignored, or just plain fudged some expressions of atonement as objections have arisen to them:

"Most strategies for dealing with objections to these doctrines involve separating the objectionable from the biblical, either showing that the objectionable doctrines do not occur in the Bible, or that they do occur but are not objectionable when properly explained." (p1)

Sacrifice or scapegoat?

Neither of these approaches really work in Finlan's view, and the way ahead he suggests is not to simply offer another meta-explanation as to what the biblical data means for a theology of atonement. The reason for this is because such a systemisation of the atonement is not even necessarily desirable, if indeed it is even possible. Behind theological problems with atonement are really theological problems about sacrifice, and a poor understanding of the sacrificial ideas in scripture. Beliefs about sacrifice change and develop even within the biblical tradition itself, and the practical aspects of sacrifice are frequently rationalised, reinterpreted and spiritualised in later tradition so as to take on different meanings from ones they once had.

Many current problems with atonement models - even ones rooted in scripture - have arisen because interpreters have over-rationalised and overdeveloped sacrificial metaphors to a degree to which they were never intended.Finlan's argument begins not with "atonement" per se, but with a very helpful and fairly comprehensive survey of Hebrew understandings of sacrifice in the Old Testament. As Finlan suggests later on in the book, confusion over Paul's understanding of sacrifice and atonement is often based on the fact that he readily employs multiple metaphors (often in the same sentence) from the Old Testament that are not always immediately clear:"...we find Paul so difficult because he blends metaphors from the cultic, economic, and political realms [...] and social metaphors to describe the saving effects. Paul describes Christ as a purification sacrifice (peri hamartias, Rom 8:3); as the Paschal Lamb (1 Cor 5:7); as a new covenant sacrifice (1 Cor 11:25), and as the place where sacrificial purification takes place (the hilasterion or mercy-seat (Rom 3:25)."In addition to sacrificial metaphors, Paul also frequently resorts to using scapegoat metaphors to describe Christ as he bears away sin. He bears our curse (Gal 3:13), and is made to be sin (2 Cor 5:21) in what Finlan refers to as a "curse transmission ritual". Perhaps one of the most illuminating parts of Finlan's argument is in the time he takes to explain the key difference between sacrifice and scapegoat. The two motifs are used interchangeably in the New Testament and in later Christian tradition. This is not a problem necessarily in Finlan's view, but if pushed too far confusion and contradiction are inevitable since at heart the two key atonement motifs in scripture (sacrifice and scapegoat) are both different and perhaps even mutually exclusive. For instance a sacrifice is

i) pure

ii) offered up to Yahweh

iii) in a careful and controlled manner

iv) at the community's central sanctuary

Whereas a scapegoat is:

i) impure

ii) not an offering or gift

iii) is not given to Yahweh

iv) is ritually abused and mistreated

v) driven out of the sacred precincts, out of the city, into the realm of Azazel (probably a wilderness demon) (p7)

Expulsion by scapegoat and cleansing by blood sacrifice are two very different and even opposing cultic systems, and yet are still able to be applied to Christ without hesitation by Paul and other when the atonement is discussed. This only becomes problematic or contradictory when sacrificial and scapegoat metaphors (such as they are) are pushed further than is necessary or intended. Paul habitually conflates such metaphors (e.g in Rom 8:3 he combines purification language with the language of the law court ("condemnation") and with the language of scapegoat) but in Finlan's opinion Paul blends his metaphors for rhetoric effect and for persuasiveness, not to suggest that these metaphors ought to be extended into complex theological systems that are doomed from the outset to be conflicting and confused, since their metaphorical roots are drawn from two (or more) cultic practices that were hugely different in their intentions and outcome . For example we cannot hold that Christ is a pure-blooded innocent sacrifice whose blood cleanses his people whilst at the same time holding that he bears our guilt and curse (and is thus impure and unclean by implication). Not all will find Finlan to be wholly convincing on this point, but he makes an interesting case. I would criticise him slightly at this juncture though as he criticises Paul for making mistakes that have really been made by some of Paul's later interpreters. Some later theology may have become unclear or confusing, but that doesn't mean it was Paul's fault for mixing his metaphors in the first place. Finlan understands Paul to have God's graciousness at the heart of the Gospel, yet he also employs metaphors that may be interpreted as meaning that God was either "manipulated, bought off, or appeased" (p9), sometimes doing so even in the same passage (Finlan sees a conflict between God's generosity in 2 Cor 5:19 with his apparent need to be persuaded and appeased in 2 Cor 5:21, for example). The rest of the book is devoted to exploring some of these ideas in more detail. Finlan's assessment and critique of atonement in the Old Testament is extremely insightful and undergirds his argument well. He builds on the contrast between sacrifice and scapegoat that he outlines in the introduction. He avoids the pitfalls of an either-or decision about the kipper and hilaskomai word-groups, suggesting that both propiation and expiation belong together but that the primary meaning is to do with purification and cleansing, and that the divine wrath is propitiated as a result of the cleansing from sin that the sacrifice causes. Finlan also points out - correctly in my view - that it is incorrect to speak of a penal sacrifice, since penalty and guilt are ideas that are dealt with by the scapegoat, not by the sacrificial cult.

Finlan makes it very clear that the biblical writers themselves revise and reassess ideas about sacrifice and atonement. The introduction of substitution at early stage in Hebrew theology (Finlan suggests that human sacrifice was normative in some periods in Israel and other ANE cultures, and animal sacrifice was an early revision of this practice) developed in turn into moralising interpretations of the ritual, the internalising of the ritual (inner circumcision, prayer and right living instead of cultic sacrifice), and the increasingly metaphorical use of cultic language (suggesting that the spiritual meaning of the practice is more important than the cultic ritual itself). This in turn led to an actual rejection of sacrifice by some dissenters and radicals such as the prophets and psalmists (Ps 40:5, Amos 5:21 etc). Finally, by the time of the NT the church rejects cultic sacrifice altogether and sees the true meaning of sacrifice as a way to transformation (e.g. Rom 12:1). The aim of this transformation-through-sacrifice is theosis, which is Finlan detects hints of in both the Gospels (Mt 5:48) and in the apostolic writings (2 Pet 1:4). Furthermore, the introduction of typology and allegory in expressing ideas to do with sacrifice helps to illustrate the massive rethinking and development of the understanding of sacrifice that took place during the history of Israel and later in the church.

Mixing Pauline Metaphors

Having offered an outline of the various different attitudes to sacrifice and scapegoat in Jewish and early Christian thought, Finlan then turns his attention to the use of cultic imagery in Paul by analysing the key passages of Rom 3:25, 2 Cor 5:21, Gal 3:13, Rom 6-8 ("the body of sin"). His exegesis is well-argued, and he succeeds in showing that while Paul has conflated several different metaphors (ransom, sacrifice, judicial, scapegoat, and redemption) to express the overall effects of the saving death of the Messiah, Christian thinkers have all too often failed to recognise that the metaphors themselves need to be preserved and distinguished and not blended together or harmonised together, since an attempt to do so defeats the purpose of the metaphors and will lead to conflict and confusion. Finlan notes that

"Paul intertwines these images so thoroughly that Christians have ever since understood scapegoat as having judicial implications that it did not have in its original setting; have understood redemption as carrying sacrificial or scapegoat implications; have understood sacrifice as carrying weight on the day of final judgment. Christian discourse has so blended these ritual and ransoming images that they have long since ceased to be distinguished by most readers of the Bible. But we need to recognise what his original hearers undoubtedly knew, that he was blending different metaphors." (p52)

Finlan's discussion of Paul is aided somewhat by his choice to consider not only Jewish ideas about sacrifice and atonement, but also Hellenistic ones. Paul demonstrates a great familiarity with the backgrounds of his Hellenistic readers, and Finlan's analysis of Paul's atonement theology in the light of Hellenism as well as Judaism is supremely helpful in his discussion of what exactly Paul might have meant when he talks about Jesus dying "for us". Finlan also begins to see an increased discontinuity between the teaching of Jesus and Paul as regards their soteriologies. He draws on the contrast between Jesus' apparent willingness to forgive freely and independently of any sacrificial system, and Paul's insistence that sacrifice and appeasement had to take place before God could forgive and be reconciled to mankind.

The book then moves away from discussion of Pauline imagery to look at the development of atonement doctrine in church history, yet they differ from Paul in one crucial sense:

"A study of the key patristic developers of the Christian doctrine of atonement finds that they do something that Paul does (find saving significance in the death of Jesus) but they also do something that Paul never does: locate the full significance of salvation in one particular metaphor for death as an atoning act. Paul switches metaphors with such rapidity that suggests that any one metaphor, by itself, would be misleading."

Historical survey and critique

Finlan then takes us on a whistlestop tour of some of the key Christian thinkers on the doctrine of the atonement from Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, to Athanasius to Anselm, Calvin, and Luther, at each point looking at their preferred metaphors for explaining Christ's death and then suggesting ways in which their overdevelopment and overreliance on a single metaphor has lead to distorted and at times objectionable understandings of atonement. Finlan clearly prefers the patristic models the suggest salvation by theosis rather than by atonement, and for this reason he ultimately concludes that it is the incarnation and not the cross that should be primary in formulating soteriologies. He is particularly strong in his criticism of Luther and Calvin, in whom he sees a great deal of inconsistency and confusion, and a warped metaphor of atonement that suggests either an internal conflict within the Godhead where divine mercy restrains divine violence, or between the divine persons where the Father is severe but the Son is compassionate:

"the ironic result of this [doctrine of atonement] is a God who is legalistic in condemning but arbitarily extralegal in saving, who commands absolute obedience but expects universal rebellion, who justifies a few who do not deserve it and condemns many who are not to blame [...] Luther could declare independence from corrupt clerical practices but not from distorted dogma, and certainly not from his own internal conflicts and rage [...] This [doctrine] says...more about Luther's pained and complicated personal history than it does about God." (pp 78-79)

Finlan's sustained and deeply felt criticism of the main Reformed and Lutheran understandings of atonement are sometimes so strong that it can appear that he is attacking the doctrine for the sake of it and on a basis other than those he has established earlier in the book, though his criticisms of both many liberal and conservative doctrines of atonement are well-targeted. Above all, poor understanding and handling of Pauline sacrificial metaphors have contributed to the formation of doctrines that are distorted and even repulsive when made to carry a theological weight for which they were never intended. As Finlan remarks:

"...the sacrificial metaphors that Paul used were simplified and hardened into doctrine, giving us the soteriology that most Christians now take for granted. All of Paul's subtleties, as well as the implication that no one metaphor is sufficient, were forgotten by the later and lesser minds of Christianity. I do not believe that Paul ever intended that one should interpret his metaphors with the crudeness of Gregory the Great or the troubled self-loathing of Luther." (p 79)

After surveying the history of the doctrine of the atonement, Finlan critiques several modern explanations of it. The models with which he interacts are varied, and to Finlan's mind many of them are fatally flawed. He criticises Robert Sherman's trinitarian approach (King, Priest, and Prophet: A Trinitarian Theology of Atonement) for misusing the doctrine of the Trinity in an attempt to resolve a perceived conflict in the godhead, and in any case Finlan accuses Sherman of still avoiding the difficult questions as to how and why the punishment of an innocent brings about justice. Finlan also touches on the ideas of Girard, Hofius, and Hamerton-Kelly who in Finlan's view have tried to redefine sacrifice to escape some of its ugly connotations, but without necessarily succeeding. There is also an extensive discussion of the atonement theology of Walter Wink and also some feminist contributions, and although there is much to be gleaned from them, Finlan still highlights what he perceives to be fundamental misunderstandings and incorrect presuppositions about how atonement works in the work of these writers, and he does not suggest that any of their positions are wholly satisfactory.

The penultimate section of the book looks at the alleged inconsistency between the teachings of Jesus and Paul over the issue of salvation. Finlan is not the first to point this out, and he will not be the last, and while space limits him from developing the idea fully he makes an interesting start. "Did Jesus have to be killed?" asks Finlan (p109 ff), before suggesting that Jesus himself did not necessarily think so. Jesus seems to devote little time to teaching any soteriology at all, and offers very little in the way of theological reflection upon his imminent death. Using the parable of the vineyard as a basis (Mk 12:2ff), Finlan argues that the Father's sending of the Son was not to become a sacrifice, and that Jesus' death was the response of evil to the divine salvific initiative, but that in so doing God responds by raising Jesus from the dead in triumph. Elsewhere in the teaching of Jesus Finlan finds evidence that Jesus was prepared to offer salvation quite apart from any sacrificial intermediary. On six occasions Jesus tells people that their faith has already saved them, and that to receive from God they need only to ask in faith, and he will be generous to them.Finlan's arguments for beginning soteriology from the teaching of Jesus rather than Paul is compelling, but it suffers from being a little too underdeveloped in a book this short, and while there may still be some mileage in emphasising the difference in the soteriological approaches of the Gospels and Paul, more needs to be done to explain why Paul's approach to sacrifice and cultic language is so radically different to that of Jesus, and what that says about the development of the most primitive atonement traditions in the New Testament.

The Priority of the Incarnation

In closing Finlan returns to a point he originally made in the introduction - that while no two theologians can agree on the precise workings and mechanisms of the atonement and its subsequent theological interpretation, all must be in agreement about the incarnation. Indeed Finlan insists that it is the Incarnation that is the central Christian doctrine, and that atonement is only a secondary idea. A strength of this argument is that it forces us to consider not simply the saving effect of Jesus' death, but of his life as a whole, though many will feel uncomfortable with Finlan's apparent ease at dropping the idea of atonement from Christian theology almost entirely:"The Incarnation is an essential Christian idea; the Atonement - at least one that entails God as Sacrifice Demander and Jesus as punishment-bearer - is not. It is a mistake to identify atonement as the central Christian doctrine, although it is central to the Pauline tradition, to 1 Peter, Hebrews, 1 John, and Revelation. But these books, in their entirety, compose only 39 percent of the NT. The main positive function of the atonement doctrine has been to help transmit information about the divine Son. But that information can be transmitted just as well without atonement, as is seen in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles." (p 120)That's a fairly big statement to make, and I was somewhat disappointed when the book ended just four pages later although the closing arguments for placing theosis rather than transaction at the heart of our soteriology were compelling.

Conclusion

Finlan's book is certainly essential reading for anyone studying Pauline theology, or with an interest in issues relating to sacrifice and atonement. More conservative readers will be unlikely to give approval to much of Finlan's arguments, though he has offered a critique that is sufficient enough to at least pose some awkward questions to some atonement models. Although the book suffers from being a little too sparse in some areas (I often found myself wishing that Finlan would elaborate some of his points a little more), his explanation and assessment of the idea of sacrifice and its theological development within scripture is excellent and makes for a first-class overview of the OT sacrificial system. His painstaking efforts to distinguish clearly and carefully between atonement metaphors that have become blurred together help to illumine a great many problems and objections that have arisen with various atonement models at various times, although the greatest problem in Finlan's view is that the church has often singled out one particular metaphor and rationalised it to an excessive degree in a way that Paul did not intend. Paul was not trying to offer an exhaustive and systematic theology of atonement, but was rather trying to be rhetorically effective by demonstrating the superiority of Christ to all other forms of sacrifice and ritual that had gone before or that existed in his world at the time. Finlan's analysis of biblical metaphor and sacrifice is of the highest quality, though the ideas he develops on the back of this suffer from being confined in what is a relatively short work.

At a glance

Title: Problems With Atonement: The Origins of, and Controversy about, the Atonement Doctrine

Author: Stephen Finlan

Published by: Liturgical Press, Minnesota (2005)

Pages: 124 plus indexes and bibliography

You'll like if: You're wanting an insightful assessment of the atonement in biblical theology that is accessible, thorough, and not too much of a drain on the book budget

You'll hate it if: You expect a biblical assessment of the atonement to come out strongly in favour of penal substitution at the expense of all other atonement doctrines

Overall (out of ten): 8.5

Michael Spencer (aka The Internet Monk) is one of my favourite Christian bloggers and has very kindly agreed to answer a few questions about himself. In addition to writing over at the IMonk website, Michael is also the proprietor of The Boar's Head Tavern, an online public discussion about all things related to the church and theology. Sometimes they flip out and upset some Reformed watchbloggers too. Here's Michael:

1. As the "Internet Monk" you've chosen to make public some of your very real struggles and conflicts. What inspired you to first start sharing your thoughts across the internet in such a way?

2. Who would you say have been the greatest influences on you in your Christian life?

Yesterday I finished the temp job I've been doing for the last two months, which involved working in recruitment for a well-known insurance and banking company. My main job was to interview and assess candidates who wanted to work in the customer service department. It was quite a dull job but the sheer inability of some of the candidates was often cause for a (discreet) chuckle.

Exhibit A

Me: Just for our records, would you like to advise us of any known medical condition you have that you feel we should be aware of?

Candidate: Yes.

Me: Ok. What is it?

Candidate: I'm...um...circumcised.

After stifling my giggles in the light of the candidate's self-created (and completely unnecessary) embarrassment, I decided not to ask the standard follow up question, which is "Does your medical condition hinder your work performance in any way?"

Exhibit B

Me: How would you describe your ethnic origin?

Very nervous candidate: Er...er...outgoing personality who is good in groups and likes working with people.

Yes, I'll miss that job. Next week I start my proper job as a trainee manager, but more importantly I'll actually do some blogging on things related to theology and the Bible.

And it came to pass that on the 2nd of September 2006, the three wise cable engineers did visit Steven's house. Lo, they spake unto him thusly: "Peace to this house, for we have come to connect thy internet up and it will take approximately forty five minutes." And there was much rejoicing.

At about the second hour of the afternoon, the three wise cable engineers returned to the land of the east. As soon as they had gone, an angel appeared and spoke in a loud voice:

"Peace on earth and good will to all men,

For those who have been living in darkness

And risking disciplinary action by the using the internet at work

Have seen a great light."

And Steven was amazed at the angel, and he went on his way rejoicing and to tell the good news Pete his housemate.

My internet provider have promised me three times in the last month that they would ome to my house and install cable internet for me. They've almost managed it and all they had to do was dig up the pavement outside my house, which it has taken 6 engineers and 3 visits to figure out.

So hopefully I'll have the internet back on Saturday and I can start blogging again. I have loads to write about and have a few posts in the pipeline ready to go, and I plan to re-jig the blog design sometime soon.

*Crosses fingers and hops NTL come through*