A Hybrid Theory of the Atonement

Here’s a hybrid theory of the atonement that both upholds the intuitive idea that an innocent cannot be justly punished for another’s wrongdoing and enables one to hold to something like Penal Substitutionary Theory (PST).  First, we need to see that justice may be satisfied in two possible ways.  

Justice may be satisfied by punishment.  If a guilty party commits a wrong, justice towards that guilty party can be satisfied when the party undergoes harsh censorious treatment, i.e., punishment.  The problem with PST is that it permits an innocent to undergo punishment on behalf of the guilty, a judgment many have found repugnant.  I can’t go down to the local execution board and offer myself in the place of a murderer, and thereby justly permit the murderer to be set free, can I?

But we also tend to think that justice can be satisfied by compensation.  If a guilty party commits a wrong, he (or another on his behalf) can make-up for it by going above and beyond, providing extra merit to the wronged party.  While we tend to judge that an innocent cannot be punished on behalf of another, we do not tend to see anything wrong with an innocent providing compensation on behalf of the guilty, e.g., paying a fine.  A more difficult case–it doesn’t seem too odd to suggest that a murderer can be pardoned with the pardon having as a precondition someone else’s providing compensation on the murderer’s behalf; building hospitals, paying the wronged family, doing good-deeds, whathaveyou.  

It’s this second view that enables us to say that the life, suffering and death of Jesus do not satisfy justice in a penal way.  Instead, his life, suffering and death satisfy justice as a meritorious compensation for our wrongdoing.  When Jesus was put to death, it was unjust.  And on the basis of this injustice, he's owed something in return.  This could be part of his meritorious treasure from which he compensates divine justice to satisfy it's demands on us.   

So what makes this a hybrid theory?  A subjunctive conditional move.  We can say that the harsh treatment suffered by Jesus would-have been our punishment if we had instead received that treatment, though it isn’t literal punishment in the case of Jesus. This move enables us to see that  we deserve the suffering that Jesus underwent and that his suffering exhibits the extreme demand of justice.  

But the literal mechanism by which we are rendered justified in the eyes of the law remains compensation, not punishment.   

  

Grades of Sin

Jesus speaks of a “greater sin” (John 19:11).

Jesus says that judgment day will be more tolerable for some of the damned than for others (Matt 11:22).

Jesus also lists different punishments for the sins of anger, calling a brother “fool,” and murder. (Matt. 5:21-22)

Jesus says that some sins deserve "less blows" than others (Luke 12:47-48).

Deuteronomy 25:2: "According to the measure of the sin shall the measure also of the stripes be."

Jesus seems committed to the intuitive view that some sins are worse than others.  

Some sins take a greater commitment of will and personality, involve more damage, and more disregard.  It is intuitive to think that murder is a worse sin than stealing a paperclip.  Jesus supports this intuitive judgment.  Sins can vary in severity according to context, intention, effect, and multitude.  This list isn’t meant to be exhaustive. There may be more ways for sinful actions to vary from one another.

Context:  A person undergoing a greater temptation can be less guilty, deserve “less blows”, due to his temptation-context than he who had little temptation and yet committed the sin anyway.

Intention:  Intention comes as a matter of degree.  Sometimes we fully intend an action, and sometimes we only weakly intend an action.  “With great foresight and in full view of the consequences, I fully intended the sin then and now” vs. “I knew it was wrong, but lapsed in my judgment and values the moment the sin occurred.”  

Effects:  Some sins have more damaging consequences than others.  Anger can be wrong, and affects our personalities.  But the sin of murder steals a life and destroys families.  Murder has worse effects than mere anger.

Aggregate:  Some actions include additional sins.  Some actions take a long time to accomplish, and as the action occurs a sin can be reduplicated many times.  This makes a reduplicated sin worse than one that is singular and short in duration.  

Despite the greater and less intensity of sins, all sins separate us from God and deserve infinite punishment. Yet Jesus spoke of some of the damned getting “less blows” from others.  Perhaps it’s helpful to think of Cantor’s insight:  There are greater and lesser infinities in mathematics, and perhaps that’s the case here too.  All sins are infinitely wrong, but some infinities are bigger than others.

From the Westminster Shorter Catechism: 

Q. 83. Are all transgressions of the law equally heinous? 

A. Some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.

On Divorce

Three options for understanding the Matthean Exception;

1. The Easy Route:  Divorce+Remarriage is allowed in cases of sexual immorality.  The end.  Carson and R.T. France.  Jesus is just a Shammai proponent.
2. The Illicit Marriage Route:  Jesus is making a clarificatory remark to maintain the permissibility of “dissolving” illicit “marriages,” such as ones involving incest.  Popular with Roman Catholic commentators.
3. The Moderate Route:  Divorce but not remarriage in the case of sexual immorality.  “Divorce” is just shorthand for separation.  Donald Hagner and Fee are proponents of this move.  

Each has problems. 

(1.) violates the thrust of the passage, its unqualified statement in Mark and Luke, the shock of the disciples, and makes Jesus out to be teaching something in line with pharisees when Jesus explicitly claims “that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees . . .  you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus’s statement would also not be truly answering the question of the pharisees as the question was precisely to explain what is meant by “sexual immorality.”  Watching porn becomes grounds for an easy divorce.

(2.)  This just seems like an ad hoc interpretative maneuver.  Do we really think that Matthew thought it necessary to include this explanatory aside?  

(3.)  is my favorite.  Its biggest problem is that “divorce” seems to include the right to remarry, especially in the first century Jewish conception of divorce. So it must be argued that Jesus is introducing an innovation by proposing the possibility of divorce without the permissibility of remarriage.  Can this be maintained?  I think so.  “But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.“  It seems that it is precisely this innovation that is being given by Jesus.  

Once we swallow that relatively large pill, the passage works with ease and coheres well with the response of the disciples and the spirit of Jesus tightening Mosaic law.

The Pauline Privilege

1. Mixed-Marriage Route:  Marriages between two unbelievers constitutes only a “natural” marriage and can be dissolved + allow for remarriage.  Only Christian Sacramental marriages are truly indissoluble.  Catholics take this option.  
2. Desertion Route:  The divorce+remarriage is allowed, not because the marriage is mixed, but because the partner deserted.  It is the desertion that gives grounds for the divorce+remarraige.  Blomberg takes this route.
3. The divorce permitted between unbelievers and believers does not allow for remarriage.  Divorce is, once again, code for “separation.” Supported by: “But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.”

Important quote: But does the referential denotation mean: not... in slavery to remain with the former spouse, or not in bondage to the marriage tie which would prevent freedom to remarry? The latter way of understanding Paul has come to be known as “the Pauline privilege.” Fee argues forcefully against this latter “Pauline privilege” interpretation. He argues (i) that since the general thrust of the chapter is against remarriage, it would be strange if Paul sought to make room for it in what was virtually a throwaway line; (ii) the use of the Greek word meaning “to enslave,” is not a usual way of describing marriage, even in Paul; (iii) in 7:39 it appears that only death can break the marriage bond; (iv) remarriage is disallowed in v. 11, which has parallels; and (v) the general argument in ch. 7 is to remain as one is without actively seeking a change in status. Witherington expresses this view cautiously: “It is doubtful that there is a ‘Pauline privilege.’”

Penultimate Conversion

Some Suggestions: 

Moment of Clarity:  A moment in which a person is given the ability and situation in which they must make the ultimate decision, for God or against.

Restraint: Some individuals will not be saved.

Penultimate Conversion:  In the moment of death, the Moment of Clarity occurs.

Post-Mortem conversion seems clearly unbiblical, but perhaps Penultimate Conversion can be made to work.   

Does this not undermine the need for missionary work? Not in light of Alternate and the Goodness Thesis:

Goodness Thesis:  The Missionary enterprise is just a better life, both for the missionaries themselves and for those who get to become Christians even earlier - even if not strictly necessary for the salvation of all.

Alternate:  Some individuals that would have rejected the Moment of Clarity must be saved through missionary work instead. 

Plus Penultimate Conversion is merely a speculative proposal, so missionary work should still spur us on.  

I also think that the Holy Spirit can overcome any obstacles that would seem to prevent the Moment of Clarity occurring even in this life, so that a potential convert can make an informed and free decision for God.  As WLC says: "I’ve suggested that God has so providentially ordered the world that anyone who rejects the Gospel in his present circumstances would not have believed it even if he had been born in more conducive circumstances."

So even granting Penultimate Conversion, we have three reasons to perform missionary work:

1. It’s just good and a better life. 

2. Penultimate conversion is speculative.  We’re not sure of it.

3. In light of Alternate, it may be that some individuals *require* missionary presentations in order to be saved.  That is, they wouldn’t be saved in the Moment of Clarity if not for missionary work or would have been saved already earlier through missionary work. 

In 1522, Martin Luther wrote a letter to Hans von Reichenberg about the possibility that people could turn to God after death: “It would be a completely different question to ask whether God could grant faith to a few at the moment of their death or after death and thereby save them through faith. Who would doubt that he could do this? But no one can prove that he does do this.”

This is all merely suggestive and I decline to endorse it.  To balance it out, here's a quote from Germain Grisez in an opposite spirit: 

Confidently expecting heaven and no longer fearing hell, one reasonably assumes that nothing one does or fails to do is likely to make any difference to what will happen to oneself, one’s loved ones, or anyone else after death. Without a kingdom that must be sought, there no longer is any reason for non-Christians to repent and believe, and Jesus’ exhortation to seek first the Father’s “kingdom and his righteousness” (Mt 6:33; cf. Lk 12:31) no longer evokes the theological hope unsullied by presumption that alone can motivate Christians to live their faith in love, to try to form their children in its practice, and to promote others’ salvation.

These considerations listed by Grisez strongly weigh against the suggestions, I think. 

Two more thoughts.  1 Peter 3:19 may help in supporting post-mortem conversion.  Second; those who go through life without hearing the gospel or without having a clear presentation of it are not condemned on  their basis of unbelief in the gospel.  Rather, they're condemned for their already having disbelieved God's testimony in nature and on account of their wrongdoing.

All of this seems to be largely based on a Arminian way of considering salvation.  Perhaps the Calvinist has a simpler option in just saying that those individuals who are elect will just come to have faith in this life, end of discussion.