Two Views of the Atonement

What is happening here?

The Reformed View:

• God the Father poured out His wrath on Jesus for every sin that you and I have ever committed
• Jesus literally took upon himself our sin
• Therefore, the crucifixion was a just act. Jesus was as guilty as a prostitute, murderer or thief and deserved death in lieu of Him being imputed the guilt for all the sins of the elect.

On the Reformed view, Christ received the wrath of the Father as the sacrificial lamb.

The Catholic View:

• Christ offered himself to the Father as the perfect sacrifice for our sins.
• Jesus literally became the sin sacrifice for us.
• Therefore, the crucifixion was an unjust act. Jesus was not guilty yet he suffered like he was guilty.

On the Catholic view, Christ "shut off the spigot" of God's wrath -- so to speak -- because he was the perfect sacrificial lamb. In other words, His sacrifice was sufficient for all of our sins -- past and present -- because it was a perfect sacrifice.

__________________________________________________

Think about the Old Testament. The Hebrew people made their sacrifice to appease the wrath of God. The lamb did not receive the wrath of God, but rather acted in proxy for the people and appeased God. It appeased God because they were obedient, not because the injuries suffered to the lamb were somehow sufficient -- materially -- to satiate a blood lusting deity. Similarly, God the Father did not yearn for the torture of His Son, but rather yearned for you and I. The Cross is not a story of wrath but of love. Love dying on the cross, Perfect Love acting in space and time so that mercy and justice could eternally kiss.

God's wrath is appeased, but not because the torture of Christ was somehow the quantitative sum of all of the torture deserved by you and I. No. God's wrath was appeased because in Christ -- our Paschal Victim -- God received the perfect sacrifice that could atone for our sins. That perfect sacrifice was Himself.

And even death cannot hold Love in the grave

Click Here To Subscribe to Almost Not Catholic

The Bible...It's Easy As 1, 2, 3!

On various Reformed blogs, I have read in one form or another an argument that goes like this:

• The Bible is perspicuous (easy to understand), therefore
• If you practice the rules of good reading comprehension you can glean from it right doctrine
• The reason people don't get right doctrine is many times a defect of reading comprehension, thus
• Through discursive dialog one person should be able to convince another what the right interpretation of Scripture is. However,
• If that person disagrees, they do so at their own peril because the Bible is sufficiently clear so as to be understood by anyone willing to attend his or her intellect to its meaning

Did you catch that? Denominations that disagree with basic Reformed tenets (denominations like the Disciples of Christ, Pentecostals, etc.) suffer from a deficiency in reading comprehension. (You credo-baptist Zwinglians, hold your breath) Here's my problem. This view of Scripture turns the Bible, inevitably, into a math book, God the Great Mathematician, and us, apparently, in dire need of prime number remediation. 

Among other problems*, one glaring problem is that this reduces the Sacred Scriptures to merely fined tuned intellectual jargon. However, if God were wanting to accomplish that end, poetry, metaphor, parables, and so forth are hardly the best methods for so doing. Now, in no way do I think that Sacred Scripture is not marvelously composed -- I just think the Reformed requirements for it make it almost completely meaningless. Scripture is far more than finely tuned intellectual jargon. Not to mention that the Reformed view makes every person meaningless.

Okay, since I brought it up...

...in another place, I have said that sola scriptura robs us of our unique dignity. This particular take on sola scriptura raises the ante. It creates, of necessity, a caste system of the intelligentsia. M.Div., pass go, select possible leadership position of a Christian sect. Simpleton, like St. Therese of Lisieux, go directly to the jail of the theological flash cards.

Repeat:

"No works, just faith, no works, just faith"

Catholic Theologian

St. Therese: "But, didn't Jesus say, "Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven?"

Poor Therese. She just needed to go over her flash cards more. Repeat after me:

"No works, just faith, no works, just faith"

All right, now every denomination in the world let out a big, "Wait a minute!"

That felt good didn't it? (especially you Arminians out there)

Full Stop.

This particular Reformed argument is reckless, wrong-headed, and another word that starts with "w" that I can't think of right now. Seriously, the 490-plus year math problem has never been solved. A new theorist is born every day, and a new "school of math" founded every month. It appears that there is no dawn in the horizon, no hope that the engineers will come back with an answer. The edifice, or rather theory, is collapsing.

Peter's barque is still here.

Be. Catholic.

Protestant Mathema...I mean Theologian

*I could see the Reformed having something on the Evangelicals and Pentecostals back when both contemporary forms were kind of resistant to formal education. However, both communities now have scholars, peer reviewed journals, etc. You would expect that by now, given the Reformed thesis, that each community would have discovered the magical Reformed doctrines buried away in Scripture, like a new geometry student proving CPCTC for the first time.

Consider subscribing to Almost Not Catholic. Click here to make it happen.