In this chapter, Thomas’s account of atonement has provided both correctives and elaborations to what we found in Anselm. While it is not true that Anselm’s approach to satisfaction via an argument to necessity prevents him (or those who would follow his approach) from appreciating the diverse concepts and effects attributed to Christ’s work in the Christian tradition, it is true that Thomas displays this diversity in a more visible way than Anselm did in CDH. Even if we take Anselm’s broader concept of satisfaction, we might do well to apply it precisely by gathering together these various concepts and meditating on how each one contributes to the work of restoring creation to God’s intended end, and in such a way that God’s act reveals His nature in a maximally fitting way. And since it does not have a problem with including a diverse array of concepts, the broader view is preferable on the whole, since it provides a unifying rationale for them.
On the question of necessity, we have tried to take both Anselm and Thomas seriously and perhaps found a middle course: accept a Thomistic sort of critique of Anselm’s confidence regarding what we can know about the range of options potentially open to divine power and wisdom, and how accurately we can assess their relative
fittingness, while, nonetheless, maintaining with Anselm if that of such options, God only does what is maximally fitting, and that He is nonetheless free and gracious in doing so.
But one other thing this dispute helps reveal is that one can accept an Anselmian
satisfaction account of atonement even if one does not finally accept Anselm’s argument for the necessity that God work in this way; one might hold instead that God opted to do
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so when He could have done otherwise, and only given this contingent divine ordination of creation to a particular end, of Christ’s satisfying self-offering as the means to bring it to that end, is satisfaction truly necessary, and that this is knowable only in light of revelation.
Thomas’s inclusion (in a more obviously positive way) of aesthetic and literary connections within his reflection on the Passion helps to show how elements of
atonement only mentioned briefly by Anselm can be developed further without any conflict. From a broad interpretation of satisfaction, we can say that such connections deepen our understanding of the full fittingness and beauty of Christ’s work, drawing out in us more and more the praise and love we have always owed to God. Likewise, the theme of friendship within Thomas’s work provided further conceptual depth to aspects only suggested briefly in CDH, especially the relationship between satisfaction and holiness. By situating satisfaction as aimed at establishing or restoring friendship, Thomas provided a rich and organic connection between satisfaction and holiness.
Our revised satisfaction account is thus somewhat broader than what we found in Anselm: it is compatible with a wider range of theological positions on other issues, and it is more obviously susceptible to addition and elaboration. Relatedly, it is easier to see that it does not have the weaknesses which are often attributed to Anselm’s view read in isolation—for example, that he cannot include other aspects of traditional Christian teaching on atonement, or that he reduces atonement to an impersonal exchange satisfying justice with no real connection to the Church or to a life of holiness.
Nonetheless, satisfaction remains as the underlying rationale for everything Christ accomplishes in the atonement: by all of the effects and aspects of the atonement, God in
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Christ has worked to bring about within humanity that relation to God for which we were created, satisfying that debt which above all others ought to be fulfilled, and bringing us thereby into friendship with God. In the next chapter, we will take up some contemporary lines of critique against satisfaction accounts, considering whether they hold against the account we have developed.
185 CHAPTER 5
SATISFACTION AND INJUSTICE: A RESPONSE TO CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUES OF SATISFACTION ACCOUNTS
If the divine Wisdom did not impose these forms of recompense in cases where
wrongdoing is endeavoring to upset the right order of things, . . . God would appear to be failing in his governance.
Anselm of Canterbury, Cur Deus Homo
With a revised Anselmian satisfaction account of atonement now in view, we can consider an important kind of contemporary critique that is generally taken to apply to satisfaction accounts. In particular, we will consider a form of critique offered mainly (though not exclusively) from feminist, womanist, and liberationist perspectives. This critique has to do with the apparent implications of a satisfaction account for how we should think about cases of injustice and oppression in human relationships, and alleges that accounts of atonement in which (like the one developed in this project) Christ makes satisfaction, pays the debt, or bears the punishment for the sin of humanity by passively undergoing unjust suffering and death support the ongoing suffering of the oppressed and abused. According to this critique, such accounts suggest that such undeserved suffering is like Christ’s, and therefore meritorious, or even sacred. It would follow, then, that accounts of atonement like the one developed here may appear to provide such sufferers with a reason not to resist or pursue justice against their abusers and oppressors. This critique merits serious attention, since, clearly, this would be a morally troubling result.
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Here, I will argue that our account actually does not support ongoing abuse, but rather suggests that such instances will themselves call for justice in the form of satisfaction or punishment.
In this chapter, we will first try to spell out the general shape of the critique, and then offer an argument that our revised satisfaction account does not have the
implications alleged by this critique; we will then develop this argument by applying it to two particular cases. Specifically, we will consider the case of spousal abuse, and the case of calls for reparations for the oppression of black people in the United for the injustice constituted by slavery and its legacy, since these cases (spousal abuse and slavery) are often given as examples in which some traditional accounts of atonement support the ongoing passive suffering of abuse as opposed to the pursuit of an end to or recompense for the unjust suffering.
A brief terminological note: here, by “passive suffering,” I mean only suffering without active resistance—no attempt to end the suffering. By forgiveness (or “mere”
forgiveness), I mean continuing relating to a wrongdoer without enacting or seeking to enact any punishment or withholding of goods, either as a preventative or punitive measure. In the case of spousal abuse, forgoing such actions as physically resisting, calling the police, or moving out, would count as passively suffering and forgiving; in the case of American slavery and its legacy, it would mean simply bearing this evil and its ill effects without resistance, and forgoing the pursuit of reparations once they are ended. By the term “forgive,” then, I do not mean to include any particular emotional state, but just a state of affairs in which no consequences are imposed on the wrongdoer and the relationship between wrongdoer and victim remains as is.
187 I. The Critique
Now, how exactly are satisfaction accounts of atonement supposed to support passive suffering of abuse or oppression? Theologians often take the connection to be well-established, so that one can find statements like James Poling’s: “. . . certain interpretations of the cross clearly create the occasion for sexual and physical abuse of women and children . . .” According to research Poling cites, “[s]urvivors of abuse are saying that an abusive God and an abusive clergyman do not contradict the church’s theology.”207 Many survivors of abuse learn from their churches that “[y]ou must sacrifice your own needs and wants, you mustn’t resist, mustn’t stand up for yourself . . .”208 But why does this practical inference follow from certain accounts of the atonement?
Perhaps because, as Kathryn Tanner says, “In many [such models of atonement], one suspects God derives pleasure or satisfaction from death and suffering.”209 Marit Trelstad summarizes the critique I am describing this way:
Feminist critiques of the cross image and atonement theories coordinate in four major issues. First, glorifying the cross potentially treats suffering as though it is God-given and inevitable. . . . Second, it valorizes passive suffering as redemptive. Third, the weight of ‘redemptive’ suffering is borne primarily by the oppressed and disadvantaged, and it is promoted and preached most often by those who stand to benefit from the suffering of others. Finally, it may lead to a human neglect of our individual and collective responsibility to end suffering and hold perpetrators of violence accountable. . . . Jesus’ vicarious suffering becomes critiqued as an
207 James N. Poling, “The Cross and Male Violence,” in Cross Examinations: Readings on the Meaning of the Cross Today, ed. Marit Trelstad (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2006), 54.
208 Annie Imbens and Ineke Jonker, Christianity and Incest, trans. Patricia McVay (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 271, cited in Poling, “The Cross and Male Violence,” 54.
209 Kathryn Tanner, “Incarnation, Cross, and Sacrifice: A Feminist-Inspired Reappraisal,” Anglican Theological Review 86, no. 1 (Winter2004 2004): 37.