CHRISTIAN SALVATION OR SOTERIOLOGY

CHRISTIAN SALVATION OR SOTERIOLOGY by David Jackson

St. Anselm’s view of the work of Jesus, that he came to pay for sin (expiation, the
satisfaction theory), has been a powerful force in the formation of Catholic understanding.
Recently some theologians have challenged this.

Elizabeth Johnson gave the keynote for the 2008 Assembly of the LCWR. In her presentation she called this “one of the worst theological ideas ever to take hold of this event” (Christ’s death). Johnson argues for seeing the cross not “as a death required by God in repayment for sin,” but rather “as an event of divine love” and as the price paid by Jesus for his ministry. “Jesus did not come to die but to live and to help others live in the joy of divine love.”

Just recently, watching the videos on the New Testament by Bart D. Ehrman, gave me an aha moment. Ehrman says “he (Paul) had some kind of visionary experience of Jesus that changed his life....This experience completely transformed his understanding of Jesus. Paul’s thought process seems to have worked backward from his conviction that Jesus really was raised from the dead.” He goes on to say, “...Jesus’ death was a sacrifice for the sins of others. A person’s sins can, therefore, be removed if he or she will accept that sacrifice by faith, or trust in Christ’s death for salvation.” So Paul preceded Anselm’s interpretation.

Accepting Christ as one’s personal Savior seems to me to be quite parallel to Anselm’s thoughts. Christ offered his life on the cross so that we could be saved. The emphasis is more on his death than the life that he lived. Faith is more important than actions.

Johnson further states: “Today, criticisms of this idea that God required the death of Jesus in order to forgive sin are many. Among them: it makes it seem that the main purpose of Jesus’ coming was to die, thus diminishing the importance of his ministry and ignoring the resurrection.” (She then shares criticisms from spirituality, liberation theology, feminist theology and the picture of God that results. She also lists New Testament metaphors besides satisfaction to interpret the death of Jesus. )

Along this same line, Diarmuid O’Murchu in Catching Up With Jesus, p. 26 says: “If we diminish the significance of Jesus’ death, are we not undermining the very meaning of resurrection? This is another assumption we need to revisit. If we honor, as Jesus did, the primary role of the Kingdom of God, which is about life radically lived to the full, then resurrection is not so much about the vindication of his death as about the affirmation of a life lived in utter fullness. Resurrection belongs to the life rather than the death of Jesus. In a similar vein, resurrection is an affirmation and celebration of the fullness of life as exemplified by Jesus and offered as a new horizon of creative engagement for all who follow the pathway of Jesus.”

In Gandhi and Jesus: The Saving Power of Nonviolence, Terrence Rynne points out that historical satisfaction theories of soteriology are being surpassed by contemporary views in terms of peace and nonviolence. Two reviews of this book speak of Rynne’s soteriology. Peter c. Phan, “This insight leads Rynne to offer an extensive critique of Anselm’s satisfaction theory of redemption, which in his eyes is predicated on a faulty understanding of God, lacks a biblical basis, ignores Jesus’ unique mode of ministry and glorifies human suffering.”
John C. Meyer of Bradley University, writes:”Rynne has done a major service for religious people of all denominations by presenting this in-depth study of Gandhi’s life and teaching that offers a model and a new way of understanding Christian salvation and our purpose on earth.” “He (Rynne) points out, however, that historical satisfaction theories of soteriology are being surpassed by contemporary views in terms of peace and nonviolence. Whereas great theologians such as Anselm in the past taught salvation as coming about through the obedient sacrifice of Jesus on the cross which appeased an angry God who needed to be satisfied by the blood of his son, more contemporary soteriologies try to show that it was Jesus’ whole life of suffering by practicing what he was preaching that brought about atonement. Rynne points out that: “Christ died because of the way he lived not because God the Father had him killed.”