The views expressed in this article are of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
Atonement
Eleonore Stump
Oxford University Press (2019). 560 pp.
Eleonore Stump’s recent book Atonement spans 538 pages. It is at once rigorously analytic, full of illustrative color, and conversant with the greatest thinkers on its subject matter. It will take the theological world a long time to digest this book, and for years to come it will remain an important dialogue partner for subsequent work on the atonement. In light of the size, scope, and substance of this book, this review can only hope to provide the most cursory orientation to the interested reader, as well as a brief, but fundamental, critical remark.
The doctrine of the atonement is fundamentally about at onement, or reconciliation, Stump says, and so the problem the doctrine solves should be thought of as the separation of God and human beings. Stump takes for granted that the unity sought between God and human beings is fundamentally a unity of willing, a reparation of the sinful human will such that it desires union with God. Thus, the atonement must solve for the following issue from a human will that has turned away from God: (1) The current bent of the human will away from loving God and what pleases God, (2) the double effect of guilt: (a) the wrongdoer’s fear that others rightly want his harm rather than his good, given what wrong he has done, and (b) the fact that the wrongdoer has caused harm beyond that which he was able to repair, and finally, (3) the experience of shame, wherein one feels oneself to be inherently unworthy of love.
If the doctrine of atonement is to provide a renewed will, the removal of guilt, and the undoing of shame, then there are only two families of live options, Stump assumes: the Anselmian model of the atonement and the Thomistic model of the atonement. Stump sees Anselmian atonement as debt repayment for a penalty incurred, while the Thomistic account consists in God producing “a will for a will that wills the good.” The former model, she says, suffers in that, even if one accepts its account of how guilt might be done away with, it does not provide an account of how the human will is thereby changed. The Thomistic model, by contrast, provides an account of the transformation of the will, but without showing any necessary connection to the passion and death of Christ. Given these perceived problems, Stump seeks a fresh understanding of the atonement.
Stump’s model of the atonement begins with a Thomistic moral psychology founded in love—love for the good of the beloved, and love for union with the beloved. Since, Stump assumes, the Anselmian model of the atonement introduces a condition that must be met prior to God’s love (the payment of sin), then this implies that God is not unchangingly loving toward the sinful human creature. Since God is unchangingly love this account must therefore be rejected. In its place, Stump proceeds to construct an account of atonement that sees atonement as a fundamental change in the human psyche, so that it wills to will union with God. God’s desire for such union is unceasing and unchanging, and so atonement must take place as a change in human beings. What Stump needs to provide beyond the Thomistic account is how Christ’s life, death, and passion are the best, if not essential, way for God to achieve this change in the human psyche.
The union with God that atonement must achieve is, Stump says, a type of “mutual in-ness.” This mutual in-ness is initiated by God being within a human psyche in the person of Christ. In fact, Stump argues fascinatingly that Christ experienced the separation of God of every human psyche on the cross. What is required to complete atonement is that human beings correspond by having the mind of Christ, willing to will what he wills and thus living a “life in grace.” Stump argues that this change in the human will cannot be compelled externally by God, since that would be a violation of the will. Instead, God works on the will through the manifestation of his great love in the person of Christ, winning human persons over such that they desire to surrender to grace. Both suffering and the Eucharist serve to aid perseverance—the continuation of a person in the “life of grace.” What will be of great interest to many is the final section of the book in which Stump argues that this account of the atonement can deal with the problems of guilt and shame in ways that the typical Anselmian and Thomistic accounts cannot.
Those who know the history of Christian doctrine of the atonement will recognize in the foregoing summary echoes of the account of the atonement advanced by Abelard in the twelfth century. Abelard’s rejection of an Anselmian account of the atonement was rooted in the conviction that seeing the death of Christ as somehow a debt paid to God’s honor would require a change in God’s mind toward the sinner, thus violating the impassibility of God. This is a fundamental assumption in Stump’s book, too. However, I would contend that Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo should not be read in this all-too-juridical way. What humanity owes God, Anselm says, is the positive worship a creature owes by its very nature to the Creator—a union of wills, if you will. Human sin itself presents what appears to be an insoluble dilemma for an impassible God—he can either allow sin to persist, giving up on his unchanging will for the goal of his creation, or he can simply undo humanity in wrath, also giving up on his unchanging will for the goal of his creation. What Anselm envisions, however, is God going through with his original will for union with humanity through the incarnation. Christ as the God-human provides the life of complete honor that no other human has provided, and Christ as the God-human absorbs and overcomes the natural consequences of death and hell. What is required, it seems, is for human beings to participate in Christ through the Spirit by being baptized into him and sustained by the eucharistic body of the church.
Stump’s book is an impressive feat, and it is worth serious attention by those who are studying the doctrine of the atonement. It will indeed be the topic of much debate. Nevertheless, in my opinion it is a pity that she clears the way for her Abelardian account of the atonement by dismissing Anselm so early on, and without really articulating his position accurately. An interesting line of inquiry going forward would be to see whether and how a better reading of Anselm might prove complementary, and perhaps even fundamental, to the Thomistic account of the atonement.
Matthew Wilcoxen (PhD, Charles Sturt University) is the Rector of St. John’s Anglican Church in Darlinghurst, Sydney, Australia. He is a member of the St. Peter Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
