Critique of the Penal View

So what are some questions posed by the critics of the Penal Substitution view?

I have often read in books which affirm the Penal Substitution theory that it’s critics use derogatory phrases such as referring to the cross as “divine child abuse” (J.I. Packer; In My Place Condemned He Stood, ©2007, p.22). Some may have said this, but I have not read them and cannot vouch for these critics. My focus therefore is back to Gustaf Aulen and Greg Boyd and the respectable critique they pose. I will raise two objections (one from each) which I deem to be ‘serious flaws’ in the Penal view demanding (I believe) either reform or abandonment of its penal equation.

1. The primary critique which (I believe) Aulen brings to the table is the idea that the Penal view is basically a legalistic view of the atonement. God demands perfection from humans, yet all humans fall short of that mark resulting in God’s wrath being poured out them. Therefore, God became a man and lived a perfect life and died an innocent death so that God could pour out his wrath upon Christ instead of us [Christus Victor; p.82, 86 - here after as ‘CV’].

To put it another way; God demands infallible good works from us, something we cannot offer, so our salvation is based upon the good works of Christ instead. It is these good works or merits of Christ that are transferred on to us while our sins are placed squarely on him and this transference takes place at the cross where Christ, who is innocent, is punished in our stead, who are guilty. How this transfer is supposedly done is not completely clear. How exactly is it or in what way are our sins transferred to Christ and his merits to us?

It is important to remember that the basis for this view arose from the penance and merits system of Tertullian and Cyprian, in which our penance and merits can somehow ultimately be transferred to the dead in purgatory, and this naturally lead to indulgences in the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. My point here is not to directly bring the charge of guilt by association, but it is prudent that we not ignore the consequences and implications of following a certain train of thought. Protestants have long done away with indulgences and even to some extent penance and merits - but the latter two still linger in the shadow of the Penal view which is so prominent and pervasive today.

I suppose the most clear and direct charge along Aulen’s critique in this regard is when he observes (though I doubt in all fairness that any advocate of the Penal view would agree) that the “[Penal view] provides for the remission of the punishment due to sins, but not for the taking away of sin itself” [CV, p.92].

All of its attention is focused on Gods wrath and the punishment due man for ‘missing the mark’. I my opinion this is a great exercise in missing the point! The cross of Christ was not ever meant to be a get-out-of-jail-free card which many have so easily (and perhaps innocently) turned it into. No, Christ came to set men free from the bondage of sin and death and to grant him authority over all the powers of the evil one. Not to ‘cover-up’ sin - but to break its hold on man that we may walk in freedom.

There is one more point of Aulen’s worth bring to light because it will lead us directly into our second major objection to the Penal view: in the Latin or Penal view God is faced with an ultimatum; either he forgives sin which would mean that God has not taken sin seriously enough and therefore tolerates it, or God’s wrath must be satisfied [CV p.89].

Put another way: “either a love which in forgiving violates the demands of justice, or else satisfaction. No other alternative is regarded as conceivable” [CV, p.129]. So God cannot love with a forgiving love unless his wrath is first satisfied.

2. This brings us to our second critique of the Penal view, or more accurately, a series of questions pointed out by Greg Boyd towards the idea that God cannot forgive without first having his wrath satisfied (See; Nature of the Atonement, ©2006, p.104).

• How are we to understand sin and guilt literally being transferred from a guilty person to an innocent person (or animal in the O.T.)?
  
• If it’s out of a sense of justice that God must punish a guilty person, then what sort of justice is it that punishes an innocent person (or animal) in place of a guilty one?
  
• How do we reconcile the Fathers need to exact payment from or on behalf of his enemies with the teaching of Jesus to forgive our enemies without demanding payment?
  
• How are we to reconcile the idea that God cannot be reconciled with sinners without his wrath first being satisfied with the pervasive depiction in scripture of God forgiving people without needing his wrath appeased (prodigal son for example)?
  

Boyd asked these questions after having brought into light the fact that C.S. Lewis himself held to the Christus Victor view of the atonement; and furthermore, Lewis expressed this view powerfully in his classic Narnia Series, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe: After a boy had broken the law of the land, a law which both the Witch (Satan) and Aslan (Christ) acknowledged, the child now belong to the Witch who demanded the law be satisfied - the requirement being death. However, the boys’ life is spared when Aslan offers himself to the Witch in his stead - Aslan being a much greater prize, and in whose death it would appear that the Witch would finally be the uncontested ruler of Narnia - she agreed to the exchange. Aslan is then brutally abused and then killed on the Stone Tablet where the justice is always carried out - but later the Stone Tablet is broken and Aslan defeats death by coming back to life. He explains that the law (deep magic) was overcome by a deeper magic still (self-sacrificing death of an innocent person).

In this story the Christus Victor view of the Atonement is beautifully expressed: The Devil, not God, demands that justice be served; the Devil, not God, demands his wrath be satisfied.

So like the Penal Substitution, Christus Victor acknowledges the necessity of a substituting death, but without the problems created by the penal aspect of the Penal Substitution - reflected in the questions above.

These are much more questions then the ones posed here, but even if these questions can be answered to any degree of satisfaction, the Penal Substitution view (as well see in my next and concluding blog on this subject) still falls far short of answering or even address the 'big picture' of what it was Christ died for.

Till then...

Derek