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Vision and Imagination in Atonement Doctrine
By Leanne Van Dyk

"The dark mystery, the holy secret of the atonement must always serve as a caution and reminder to the theologian. The atoning death of Jesus Christ will not be reduced to a formula of scholars or a possession of the church. The tragic elements of the story, the inescapable judgment on human self-deception, and the mysterious salvific impact of the atonement must never be muted or dimmed in the legitimate interest of theological clarity and precision."

"Why must holy places be dark places?"
C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

In Alan Paton's tragic and poignant novel, Too Late the Phalarope, the story is told of the downfall of a good and decent man, Pieter van Vlaanderen. Surely, Pieter was a flawed human being as well; indeed, his flaws were the source of his downfall, the origin of his undoing. For although Pieter held high personal standards for professional and familial responsibility, he suffered from bouts of depression and endured a cold and loveless marriage. In a moment of reckless despair, he had an illegal sexual liaison with a young black woman, a liaison that was exposed by witnesses bent on his destruction.

The unraveling of Pieter's relationships, career, and sense of control over his life are depicted in the novel with great understanding and sensitivity. The full range and complexity of human motives, emotions, and hopes are given voice. The intricate connections between people and events are explored. Pieter bargains with God as he sees his world begin to disintegrate. He reaches out to his distant wife for consolation, to his friends for understanding, to his cold and judgmental father for acceptance. Usually, these attempts to find redemption are futile. On rare occasions, small graces of human love and forgiveness occur and Pieter grasps onto them as shreds of hope for his restoration. But these graces are fleeting and, in the end, Pieter is arrested and imprisoned.

With this ultimate and devastating humiliation, Pieter evokes in his family and friends some genuine insight and growth. His mother, who had been forbidden by her husband to visit or communicate with him in any way, sent word to Pieter through a friend. His mother said, "Say

Leanne Van Dyk is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, California.

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to my son that though he may suffer under the law, there is no law that can cut him off from our love, nor from the love of his friends. His life is God's, and mine and yours, and his wife's and children's, and all his friends' and he will therefore cherish it and not despair."¹

It is, unexpectedly, through the police captain, Pieter's superior and friend, that Paton gives voice to the most heating and redemptive word. He says to the friend of Pieter's mother, "An offender must be punished, mejuffrou, I don't argue about that. But to punish and not to restore, that is the greatest of all offenses." He repeats this in a reprimand to Pieter's father-in-law, who has rejected and scorned Pieter in anger, saying, "Meneer, if a man takes unto himself God's right to punish, then he must also take upon himself God's promise to restore."²

Set in a South Africa dominated by the cruel contradictions of apartheid, this novel explores the theological themes of sin, guilt, retribution, judgment, and redemption. The redemption, however, is only partial, only fleeting, and shot through with incongruity and irony. Paton does not go for the easy answers or the clean categories. His main agent of forgiveness and reconciliation is the police captain, a representative of the rigid social order of the government of South Africa. His main exemplar of unyielding and unforgiving rejection is Pieter's father, a staunch Calvinist steeped and rooted in The Book, the Scriptures.

In the end, the small glimmers of reconciliation go unfulfilled. Judgment, condemnation, and rejection win out. Pieter, in his despair and isolation, searches for redemption but finds only silence and darkness.

I

Paton's novel was published in 1955. Since then, a whole world has come and gone. Yet this book bears the marks of an enduring classic; it is, I believe, as excruciatingly relevant now as it was almost forty years ago. For the themes it explores-guilt, despair, and the longing for salvation-are signs of the last gasps of this tragic century.

The skillful portrayal in Too Late the Phalarope of the intricate web of human betrayal and the widespread human hunger for full reconciliation and wholeness suggest and illustrate the thesis of this essay, that theology must address itself with renewed care and commitment to the central themes of the Christian gospel, the themes of sin, estrangement and brokenness, and the promise and fulfillment of salvation and healing.

Perhaps such a call for a return to Christian theology's historic and traditional themes strikes some as quaint or oddly parochial. After all, there are new and vividly interesting things for theologians to do. There are emerging theologies from voices long repressed. There are

¹ Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope (London: Jonathan Cape, 1955), p. 239.
² Ibid., p. 247.

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emerging disciplines with information for theology to absorb. There are fresh insights for theology to harvest. True enough. Yet, in addition, the pervasive human longing for redemption, for salvation, for healing must arouse the Christian theologian, once again, to articulate and interpret the central claims of the Christian faith.

The waning years of this century and the uncertain forecast for the beginning of the new millennium make this a propitious time for such a renewed commitment. Some observers see for the theological task the first streaks of a new dawn. Citing the rise of postmodernism, a term admittedly still in search of a consensus definition, these people welcome the new century as a challenge and historic opportunity for Christian theology. Others are more sober. Their dire assessments include the observations that churches and seminaries are not poised to take advantage of the postmodern opportunity and that theology is so fractured and diverse that little can be done to rehabilitate its place in the academy or in the church.³ Some thinkers go farther in their critique of theology and conclude that such reflection on the future shape of theology is redundant. These theologians, mostly representing marginalized groups, claim in utter seriousness that the whole enterprise of theology is futile and inherently oppressive and should thus be entirely abandoned.

So, prophetic assessments of theology's place in the postmodern, twenty-first century world are mixed. But this speculative uncertainty need not undermine the theologian's courage and determination to articulate the Christian faith for the perenially yearning and the hopelessly lost. Quite simply, people today are searching for authentic meaning and ultimate purpose. Novels, like Too Late the Phalarope, are not the only genre of literature and experience that illustrate this. The burgeoning of dysfunctionality and co-dependency literature, the proliferation of twelve-step support groups, the stubborn phenomenon of alcohol and drug addiction, the alarming rate of depression and suicide among teenagers, these are all symptoms or evidence of the longing for salvation.

The thesis of this essay, that theologians have a unique opportunity to address themselves with renewed care and commitment to the central themes of the Christian gospel can now be specified more clearly: One Christian doctrine particularly poised for addressing the hopes and fears of modern people is the doctrine of the atonement. New, vividly relevant, pastorally sensitive, biblically funded, and theologically intelligent work needs to be done on atonement theology. Such work on atonement theology should be approached with two central goals.

First, the work must extend its reflection to the predicament of modern humanity as a whole. This goal is not unprecedented.

³ The variety of discussion on postmodernism can be seen in Frederic Burnham's volume, Postmodern Theology: Christian Faith in a Pluralist World (New York: HarperCollins, 1989).

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Reinhold Niebuhr, in The Nature and Destiny of Man, memorably described the human predicament as the existential dilemma of being poised between finitude and greatness. Today, that description of the human predicament seems too grand, too sweeping. A revision is in order. The predicament of humanity in these declining years of this sad century seems not to be the dilemma of a panoramic vista from which to view human possibilities but the dilemma of a narrow, pinched, myopic vision. Such a vision produces a reluctance, or even an inability, to took much farther than one's own skin, to be so boundaried by one's own context and individuality as to lose any connection with other people and other ideas, or to lose any connection with God. Thus, inevitably, one loses any real connection with one's own self.

Fresh theological articulation of the atonement must, then, take into account the perennial, if implicit, questions of the modern secular age. Questions like this may include: Why do I and the people I care about suffer? Why does nothing really satisfy me? Is there something else out there? Is death the end of everything?

Second, new work on atonement theology must also address the more specific questions of Christian believers. In conversations with seminary students or church members, I frequently notice a searching for basic, foundational Christian answers. What is salvation, anyway? Why is it necessary? How is salvation related definitively to Jesus Christ? How do I get in on it?

I am convinced that new theological reflection on the atonement has a unique opportunity to address some of the most pressing concerns of Christian believers as well as the opportunity to extend itself past the confessional claims of the faith to the enduring longings of humanity.

II

The doctrine of the atonement has met with a variety of contradictory responses in recent years. A quick survey of some of the new publications in atonement theology illustrates this. There is new work on the atonement that has consciously claimed continuity with biblical and traditional themes.⁴ Several other books have appeared in a fresh attempt to deal with some of the most difficult areas of atonement theology.⁵ In addition, some theologians have radically re-interpreted the atonement, deliberately distancing themselves from the traditional motifs, which they judge to be morally reprehensible, authoritarian, and punitive.⁶ The variety of new work on atonement in the last three

⁴ For example, Colin Gunton, The Actuality of Atonement: A Study of Metaphor, Rationality and the Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989) and Paul Fiddes, Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989).
⁵ S. W. Sykes, editor, Sacrifice and Redemption: Durham Essays in Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) and Richard Swinburne, Responsibility and Atonement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) are two such volumes.
⁶ For instance, Rita Nakashima Brock, Journeys By Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1988).

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or four years leads one to conclude that it is an important area for current theological conversation.

Yet, another response to atonement theology is indifference or mild embarrassment. Some theological students and teachers of theology, for example, are startled or surprised at the suggestion that the atonement is one of the central confessional claims, perhaps the central confessional claim, of the Christian faith. Others do not initially see much homiletic wealth or pastoral potential in the doctrine of the atonement. Oddly, this doctrine with such extensive implications for a distinctively Christian theology is perceived, at best, to be self-evident or, at worst, even expendable.

I suggested above that the doctrine of the atonement is a particularly apt area of theological reflection in the context of the perennial longings of human persons. But it was recognized that atonement doctrine receives a wide and baffling array of approaches as well as dramatically opposing assessments of its theological potential. Thus, I propose and defend a particular approach to atonement theology. My own view, which this essay suggests, is that fresh and imaginative theological articulation of atonement doctrine is an important task for confessional theology, a task that must always reciprocally relate to ethical, communal, personal, pastoral, and global concerns confronting the Church.

In pursuit of the goal of rearticulating atonement theology, I first will submit several initial, by no means complete, guidelines for a distinctively Christian and thoroughly modern atonement theology. I will then suggest a number of resources that may be consulted, several potential treasures in supporting disciplines that may be mined to enrich and inform this task.

The guidelines that are suggested here do not pretend to serve as a sophisticated methodological system. They have a much more modest function: to operate as a reminder of what is essential in Christian atonement reflection, what is, as one of my teachers used to say, "un-give-upable," thus, central and constitutive.

An atonement theology for the twenty-first century must, first, be fully aware of the depth and extent of sin. Any theology that attempts to mute or play down the seriousness of human sin risks the dangers of naive reductionism and sheer irrelevance. Post-Holocaust theology must, at least in respect for the dead, if not in recognition of the truth, be utterly realistic about the soul-sinking variety and tenacity of human destructiveness, hatred, and violence. Atonement theology is uniquely equipped to acknowledge the depth and extent of sin because it proclaims the grace and mercy of God in dramatic and impressive response to sin. It is the contrast between the depths of sin and the heights of God's love that makes atonement doctrine a thing of high drama, great power, and awful beauty. Thus, theological reflection must not be blind or dismissive of the perversity and pervasiveness of sin.

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M. Scott Peck, in his 1983 book People of the Lie, deals unapologetically with this subject, one seemingly unlikely to produce a best-selling book in America. Yet People of the Lie has been just that, a book that surveys, in case-history form, the subject of sin and radical evil. Peck memorably portrays individual sin as well as structural sin, intractable sin, blatant sin, and sin subtle and complex in its connection with power and domination. It is an important book about an important subject.

Ten years after Peck's book, American popular culture-and much of the academic religious establishment-still resist categories of sin and personal responsibility for sin. It is considered somehow bad form, or at least bad manners, to mention sin in the company of some theologians. New York Times editorialist Charles Sykes, in his November 2, 1992 column, noted this pervasive feature of the American character. Commenting on the rise of "communities of grievance" and our "victim culture," Sykes concludes that we have let ourselves off the hook; we have abolished sin; we have redefined immoral decisions as addictions or diseases or dysfunctionalities. Sykes cites a leader of the co-dependency movement who estimates that the total national number of adult children of dysfunctional parents is more than 230 million.

Sykes then wryly notes that this number is, in fact, more than the total national adult population. Neither Charles Sykes nor I dispute the genuine insights in the literature of co-dependency and dysfunctionalities. There is much to learn about difficult addictions and the legacy of a painful past. The doctrine of the atonement sets these issues in the realistic, though complex, framework of personal and structural responsibility as well as personal and structural brokenness. Atonement theology can speak authentically of salvation, wholeness, and healing only if it takes sin and evil seriously.

Another initial guideline for a rearticulation of atonement theology is a clear emphasis on God's gracious initiative. It is God who sent the Savior; it is not we who invent the Savior. Atonement theories that locate the source of salvation in any given community rob the doctrine of the atonement of its divine framework of mercy and compassion. Communitarian implications of atonement are critical; here is a place where new expositions of the atonement can envision connections and applications that were passed over or only implicit in traditional formulations.

Yet another item in this modest list of guidelines for a fresh articulation of atonement is an effort to relate more closely the objective and subjective elements of the atonement. In other words, the connection between the past event and the present experience of salvation needs to be explored in creative new ways. Traditional accounts of the atonement have often artificially separated these two elements, thus obscuring the intricate relations between the saving acts

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of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of redeemed persons in acts of forgiveness and reconciliation.

1. U. Dalferth suggests an approach to this issue in a recent essay.⁷ He rightly says that Christians do not "impose their subjective theological interpretation on an objective historical event."⁸ That is, the efficacy of Christ's death certainly does not depend on our interpretation. The saving death of Christ does not need the theologian's interpretive nod in order to acquire soteriological significance. Rather, the soteriological significance of Christ's death, according to Dalferth, is produced by Christ's atoning death, the discernment of which gives rise to the theological task of articulation and interpretation.

Simply put, a compelling atonement theology must commit itself to the challenge of exploring, relating, and connecting the believer's experience of having been dealt with graciously by God with the fact of Christ's saving death. Such exploration might include new images of how we are connected to Christ, how the community can, in some way, re-enact Christ's work of reconciliation, and how perhaps one's own memory and personal history can serve as a sort of entrance point to a vivid realization of Christ's saving work.⁹

A final guideline also serves as counsel for zealous systematic theologians, persons with great appetite for interpretation, delineation, and articulation. The dark mystery, the holy secret of the atonement must always serve as a caution and reminder to the theologian. The atoning death of Jesus Christ will not be reduced to a formula of scholars or a possession of the church. The tragic elements of the story, the inescapable judgment on human self-deception, and the mysterious salvific impact of the atonement must never be muted or dimmed in the legitimate interest of theological clarity and precision. The passion narrative in the Gospel of John gives proper guidance and boundaries for theological formulation. There, the death of Jesus Christ is presented as a profound mixture of judgment and love, ordeal and obedience, divine self-giving and suffering. Interpretations of the atonement must not fail to discern its acute paradox: The confession that salvation, redemption, and wholeness are somehow connected or related to the death of Jesus Christ. "Why must holy places be dark places?" a memorable line from C. S. Lewis, captures the believer's searching appeal. W. H. Auden as well, himself no confessional Christian, nonetheless sees this inescapable mystery in

⁷ 1. U. Dalferth, "Christ Died For Us," Sacrifice and Redemption: Durham Essays in Theology (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1991), pp. 299-325.
⁸ Ibid., p. 316.
⁹ The intriguing atonement theology of nineteenth century Scottish theologian John McLeod Campbell contains some suggestive lines of inquiry on this last idea. Cf. especially his Reminiscences and Remembrances. The traditions of Asian cultures is another potential resource for Christian theology on this rich concept of memory and connectedness.

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"For the Time Being":

We who must die demand a miracle.
How could the Eternal do a temporal act,
The Infinite become a finite fact?
Nothing can save us that is possible:
We who must die demand a miracle.

The second task of this section of the essay is to suggest resources for future creative and integrative work in atonement theology. Again, this list is initial, suggestive, modest. I intend in my own future work on atonement theology to employ and investigate these resources, to see what they can disclose or recommend for the atonement theologian.

A search for new metaphors of salvation that may catch the attention of distracted modern people is one potential resource for new work on the atonement. It is a project that is already under way in a variety of forms. Theologian Paul Fiddes, in his book Past Event and Present Salvation,¹⁰ offers a history of atonement reflection. He organizes his historical survey by identifying a primary salvation metaphor for each period in the church's history. Thus, for example, the time of the New Testament writers is identified by the metaphor of cleansing or purifying. The time of the Middle Ages reveals the primary atonement metaphors of courtly love as well as satisfaction. For the modern age, Fiddes identifies the image of healing as the atonement metaphor most likely to be heard and understood.

I think Fiddes is right. The image of healing does not rule out or cancel other atonement metaphors; atonement theology must always employ a wide range of biblical, traditional, and innovative metaphors in order to express the wide range of contexts and experiences of salvation. But the concept of healing does seem promising for a modern entrance into an understanding of Jesus Christ's atoning death. It is certainly an image that has rich biblical and traditional roots; but perhaps it can be developed in ways that expand, specify, and apply the picture of Christ as healer. It is an image that is fitting for the spiritual wounds and diseases of lonely modern individualists, but also appropriate for the large-scale epidemics of inherently unjust structures in the global community. In addition, it is an image that can extend as promise to the whole groaning creation.

A final, and vast, resource for further exploration in atonement theology is the wide scope of near and far neighbor disciplines, disciplines as diverse as literature, developmental theories, anthropology, psychology, and sociology. I will limit my observations to one example of the potential contributions of a neighbor discipline.

In the last twenty years or so, anthropologist and literary historian Rene' Girard has sparked lively debate among scholars in a number of fields, including theology. Girard's theory of mimetic desire as a

¹⁰ Cited above, n. 4.

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fundamental impulse in human relationships and as a key component of ritualized violence and scapegoating is complex and controversial,¹¹ It is interesting for theologians because it offers a perspective on atonement that challenges many traditional categories. Girard rejects traditional Christian concepts of sacrifice and substitution or representation. But he does attribute central importance to the cross, sees in the cross of Christ a repudiation of entrenched patterns of violence and concludes that the event of Christ's death has salvific importance. For this reason, it is important to listen to Girard, to make an honest attempt to think through atonement in Girardian terms and then to assess the outcome. Perhaps Girard can advance, nuance, or inform Christian theology. Or, perhaps his theory is better suited for an interpretation of cultures and mythic literatures than an interpretation of the Christian gospel. In any case, Girard's provocative work serves here as one example of the rich resources, and disturbing challenges, of other disciplines.

Girard's impact and influence also serve to illustrate yet again what Paton's novel Too Late the Phalarope portrayed at the beginning of this essay. Although very different in literary form and intent, the works of both Girard and Paton illuminate the deepest human longings and needs. The doctrine of the atonement seeks to address these longings and needs by articulating for each new age the confession that in Christ, God is reconciling the world to God's self.

¹¹ Girard's theory is explored in several books, the most important one being Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1977). The book was published in the original French in 1972.