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The foundational efficiency of love: reconciling with Aquinas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2015

Sharon L. Putt
Sharon L. Putt*
Affiliation:
Messiah College, 1 College Avenue, Box 3053, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055, USAslputt@messiah.edu
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Abstract

Anabaptist theologians who vie for the most convincing theory of divine non-violence in the contemporary ‘atonement debate’ quite often fail to appreciate the contributions of medieval scholars such as St Thomas Aquinas. Of course, that failure does have a rationale. Aquinas does, indeed, support various systematic expressions of a satisfaction theory of atonement. In doing so, he insists upon God's violent solution to the problem of sin and also employs language fraught with quid pro quo, mercantile and penal images. Aquinas does attempt to ‘correct’ Anselm and rearticulate the satisfaction theory of atonement; however, his expression of that motif still hinges upon the divine demand for remuneration, balanced accounts or an economic transaction in order to repair the damage done by sin. God's desire for this redemptive reparation results in the necessity of the violent death of an innocent man. Consequently, although Aquinas expresses the notion of necessity differently than Anselm, his theory also necessitates, at best, divine complicity with violence and, at worst, divine insistence on violence. Anabaptist theologians who remain true to the tradition's pacifist roots rightfully cry ‘foul’ in response to Aquinas’ theory. If Jesus of Nazareth fully reveals the character of God as indicated in John 14:7 with the words, ‘if you have seen me, you have seen the Father’, theories of atonement which depict God as condoning or requiring violence do not harmonise with the life and teachings of the man Christians call the Prince of Peace, especially if that violence pertains to the redemption of a loving God's good creation. As a result, those who oppose the implicit divine violence embedded in Aquinas’ satisfaction theory of atonement may opt to disengage with him, to expel him completely from the conversation. Yet I suggest that non-violent atonement theologians pause and rethink their indictment of the angelic doctor. Satisfaction remains the prevalent theme surrounding Aquinas’ atonement motif, but it is not by any means the only image he brings to bear on the topic. In fact, throughout his ruminations on the passion of Christ, St Thomas focuses explicitly on the unfathomable, extravagant and immeasurable divine love as the primary motivation for God's desire and subsequent actions to redeem and restore a sinful humanity. I suggest that, given Aquinas’ emphasis on divine love, Anabaptist theologians may well discover a satisfying interlocutor for further theological conversation which carries significant implications for the life of the church. Indeed, scholastic savants such as Thomas Aquinas still do warrant a place at the communal table.

Keywords

Aquinasatonementcrosslovenon-violenceredemptionsoteriology

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Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , May 2015 , pp. 143 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2015 

For the first 1,000 or so years of its history, the church did not advocate any one atonement motif over the many metaphors expressed in the biblical texts. Most of the early theologians described the work of Jesus by mixing their scriptural metaphors in ways which were analogous to the historical or political context, including images from the temple, the battlefield, the courts of law, the slave market, feudalism, courtly love, account-keeping and family life. In more recent centuries, however, many of the traditional theories have been those which reduce the passion to an equation, ‘formulated by a divine mathematician’, so that a special death is necessary in order to balance the cosmic accounts.Footnote 1 Satisfaction and penal substitution theories of atonement in particular function on the basis of divinely mandated violence against an innocent Jesus in order to balance the heavenly account books. These theories describe and embrace a God who resorts to violence in order to overcome the violence of sin.

Anabaptist theologians, among others, protest the image of a violent God who must cut off his pound of flesh to satisfy a debt. Contemporary theologians, like their predecessors, wrestle with the issues surrounding the passion of Christ. They raise questions and provide answers to the problem of God's complicity in the violent death of Christ, depending upon which side of the great divide between divine violence and non-violence they stand. As a result, the discussions between theologians on the redeeming work of Christ kindle anger and engender division. In order to begin the process of reconciling our differences, we may need to search for some common ground, a fundamental (used to be a good word) foundation upon which to build so that we can agree to disagree on every other aspect of the atonement yet remain united and reconciled regarding one foundational point of departure – the efficacy of the atonement hinges not on violent death, based on an economic transaction, but on the forgiving love of God revealed through Jesus.

With the attention given to contemporary atonement theory and the tension stretching the arguments thin, St Thomas Aquinas, a voice from the medieval past, still speaks to us in relevant ways, placing the focus and foundation of Christ's passion where it belongs – on the love of God in Christ. Interestingly, his take on the atonement provides common ground upon which pacifists and non-pacifists may come to terms.

St Thomas speaks to theologians across the centuries, providing plausible solutions to the troubling issue of divine violence (as seen in economic theories of atonement) seeming to conspire with the divine desire to redeem and reconcile. As we wend our way through the fabric of his thought, we will be rewarded with a rich tapestry portraying the God of love and the love of God in both the subjective and objective genitive senses – a God who wills human salvation through the forgiveness of sin passionately enough to endure a violent death at the hands of those very same humans he is dying to forgive.Footnote 2

Thomas Aquinas gives expression to various motifs for understanding the passion of the Christ. For instance, one of the motifs commonly stressed in Aquinas’ thoughts on the passion affirms Christ as the revelation of God. By knowing Christ we know God and through knowing God we enter into friendship with God.Footnote 3 He also speaks of the atonement in terms of Christ as a moral example who reveals the love of God which induces us to love in turn,Footnote 4 and as the victor who conquers sin, death and evil with his life, death and resurrection.Footnote 5

The one model most often connected to Aquinas, however, is his reinterpretation of Anselm's satisfaction theory.Footnote 6 Aquinas’ development of this theory of atonement hinges upon the medieval, Anselmian, satisfaction motif, which suggests a God who must either punish or receive satisfaction in order to forgive humanity its sin. Anselm claims the necessity of the passion of Christ for the satisfaction of sin by describing sin as an offence against the divine honour, which incurred a debt against humanity. Only Christ can redeem human beings by satisfying the debt owed to God. According to Anselm, Jesus Christ satisfies the debt to God for sin by obediently enduring death on the cross. His death provides the necessary remuneration and averts the punishment sin incurs for all humanity.

Taking his cue from Anselm, Aquinas further develops the idea of satisfaction for sin. He begins by reinterpreting Anselm's theory which asserts the necessity of Christ's satisfaction for the salvation of humanity.Footnote 7 Although Aquinas believes that Christ's passion and the satisfaction for sin which resulted were necessary, he nuances the term ‘necessary’ so that God is not painted into a corner, unable to do anything other than demand satisfaction. Instead, the necessity, for Aquinas, lies in the fact that God willed to deliver humanity from its sin through Christ's passion.Footnote 8 God's will dictates the necessity, not any compulsory factor outside of God.Footnote 9 In other words, God could have willed otherwise.Footnote 10

Aquinas clearly discusses God's right to free humanity from its sin in ways other than through the passion of Jesus Christ. Since no one is above God and no courts of law arbitrate God's decisions, Aquinas believes that, if God chooses, God can gratuitously forgive sin, without remuneration or satisfaction of any sort. He contends that ‘if God had wanted to free man from sin without any satisfaction at all, he would not have been acting against justice’.Footnote 11 God violates no one's rights, but instead, God acts justly and mercifully.Footnote 12 In view of this, Aquinas’ phantom antagonist poses a valid argument against God's choice to demand satisfaction by arguing that

[s]ince God could have freed man by merely willing that freedom, it does not seem right for man's liberation that there should have been added also the passion. Moreover, the course of nature is preferable to the introduction of violence. Violence is a kind of destruction or ruin of what is natural. But Christ's passion led to his violent death. It would therefore have been preferable if Christ had freed man by dying a natural death, rather than by suffering.Footnote 13

Aquinas’ objector continues to indict God for cruelty and wickedness if God truly did unnecessarily hand an innocent man over to such a violent death. Of course, Aquinas skilfully counters these serious objections with arguments of his own, justifying God's requirement of satisfaction and its ensuing violence. Aquinas asserts that God chose to redeem humanity in the best way possible, that is, through the passion of Christ making satisfaction for sin.Footnote 14

In keeping with the medieval church tradition through Anselm, Aquinas asserts that the entire human race is infected by sin and in need of redemption through satisfaction. That is, the divine accounting system of right and wrong, which had been unbalanced since the first act of disobedience, was balanced again by Christ who made satisfaction for sin. Aquinas’ own words aptly explain the notion of satisfaction:

To satisfy for the sin of the whole human race was beyond the power of any pure man, because any pure man is something less than the whole human race in its entirety. Therefore, in order to free the human race from its common sin, someone had to satisfy who was both man and so proportioned to the satisfaction, and something above man that the merit might be enough to satisfy for the sin of the whole human race. But there is no greater than man in the order of beatitude, except God . . . Therefore, it was necessary for man's achievement of beatitude that God should become man to take away the sin of the human race.Footnote 15

And:

A man effectively makes satisfaction for an offence when he offers to the one who has been offended something which he accepts as matching or outweighing the former offence. Christ, suffering in a loving and obedient spirit, offered more to God than was demanded in recompense for all the sins of mankind. . . . The love of the suffering Christ more than balanced the wickedness of those who crucified him; the satisfaction he offered by his passion, therefore, more than offset the offence committed by his executioners in killing him.Footnote 16

In these two quotes we also see St Thomas’ rationale for the need of a transactional theory of atonement.

The word ‘satisfaction’ comes from the word satisfacere, literally, ‘to make enough’. In ancient Roman culture, satisfaction could be proposed as an alternative to the payment of a debt. The creditor has the privilege of deciding when the compensation offered is sufficient to settle the debt. The willingness of the creditor to be satisfied is the factor which makes this arrangement possible. If the creditor refuses to be satisfied with the proffered payment, the debtor can be sent to prison or worse as punishment.

By the time of Anselm, the word ‘satisfaction’ was used more and more in the sense of expiation and chastisement.Footnote 17 Although satisfaction was an expensive endeavour for the debtor, the central idea was that a creditor accepts satisfaction instead of exact repayment for the settlement of a debt. When applied to Christ's sacrifice on the cross, we see that God, willing to be satisfied, accepts Christ's death as sufficient satisfaction for the restoration of a relationship between God and humanity. In accepting the sacrifice as sufficient, God does not demand punishment for sinners.Footnote 18

Even though Aquinas does not make the payment of a debt the central theme in his theory of atonement, it does play a significant role in Christ's effecting salvation for humanity. Payment for sin warrants the transfer of merit and the forgiveness of sin. Aquinas employs compensatory or transactional language, indicating that in order to forgive sin and to restore the damaged relationship between God and human beings, payment in the form of satisfaction had to be made. Aquinas suggests that Christ's act of satisfaction provided an agreeable (satisfying) payment for forgiveness of sin.Footnote 19 He also says that the price of satisfaction more than balanced the grave offence of human sin, stating that ‘Christ, suffering in a loving and obedient spirit, offered more to God than was demanded in recompense for all the sins of mankind. . . . Christ's passion, then, was not only sufficient but superabundant atonement for the sins of mankind’.Footnote 20 In another passage Aquinas writes that ‘Christ's passion was sufficient, and more than sufficient, to satisfy for the sins even of those who crucified him.’Footnote 21

Additionally, Aquinas also uses the imagery of a ransom being paid to God for human sin, stating that ‘Christ it was who, as man, paid the price of our ransom immediately’ and ‘the price of our ransom was the blood of Christ or his bodily life . . . and Christ paid this himself. Thus the payment and the price both pertain immediately to Christ’.Footnote 22 The language here indicates that (1) God demanded recompense; (2) Christ offered and gave more than was necessary to God in order to recompense God for the offences committed against God; and (3) the compensation made by Christ was sufficient to atone for the sins of all humanity. Consequently, we see that, in St Thomas’ thought, Christ gives his life as payment to God in atonement for humanity's sins. In return, God gives both forgiveness of sin and freedom from death's sting.

St Thomas also employs penal language to express his belief that Christ took upon himself the offering of satisfaction required for the forgiveness of sin. He indicates that, since God was unwilling to remit sin without punishment, he gave his only Son to suffer the punishment for us, thus satisfying the requirement of punishment for sin.Footnote 23 For instance, he says that our sin was taken away ‘when he who was without sin willed to suffer the penalty due to sin that he might take on the penalty due to others, and make satisfaction for others’ and ‘that by the penalty which he sustained in the flesh for our sin He might take sin away from us’.Footnote 24 Through the death of Christ the debt incurred by sin is paid in full and ‘we are freed by it from the guilt of punishment’.Footnote 25 In later writings, Aquinas states that satisfaction is both punitive, in that it is an act of vindictive justice, and medicinal, because it is something sacramental.Footnote 26

There is an inherent economy in divine forgiveness, therefore, in which God prosecutes justice through punishment and, consequently, is willing to extend grace through forgiveness. In summary, St Thomas’ theory of satisfaction encompasses a transactional view of the atonement and this transactional view leads to the necessity of a divinely required violent death of an innocent man – Jesus. The reader of Aquinas must remember, however, that he does not hold to the theory that God directly punishes Christ, but rather that Christ incurs punishment voluntarily and, as a result of being human, he suffers the consequences of or the punishment for sin.

With regard to the penal aspects of Christ's passion, Aquinas can at times be interpreted as holding to an Anselmian version of satisfaction which chooses between punishment or satisfaction such that Christ provides satisfaction for sin so that human beings do not suffer punishment. Under these circumstances, Christ's passion, that makes satisfaction, is a price which takes the place of our punishment for sin.Footnote 27 Yet again, in other passages, Aquinas argues that Christ bears our punishment, which is the penalty we owed to God.Footnote 28 When considering the atonement as a transaction between God and Christ (which is from the orthodox viewpoint between God as Father and God as Son), Aquinas employs various metaphors which indicate a righting of the scales.Footnote 29 One metaphor is that Christ's passion outweighs our offence.Footnote 30 In another metaphor, Aquinas indicates that the wickedness of sin is balanced with love, or disobedience with obedience, so that we have an image of balanced scales.Footnote 31 Aquinas also speaks of Christ as one who gains enough merit to earn human salvation,Footnote 32 and as the one who satisfies the demands of justice, again pointing to the balanced scales of justice.Footnote 33 In summary, Aquinas argues that God receives some form of remuneration to atone for or to compensate for the offence of humanity's sins and the penalty owed to God for those sins.Footnote 34

Another significant aspect of Aquinas’ theory of satisfaction is that Christ's passion pleases God the Father, prompting forgiveness and achieving our release from punishment. He says that, by Christ's passion, ‘God was pleased in regard to all the offences of the human race’ and that ‘Christ's death itself was a sacrifice most acceptable to God’.Footnote 35 That is, Christ served as propitiation to God through his passion. Propitiation, used in this context, emphasises the notion that God has been pleased by Christ's sacrifice.Footnote 36 Because Christ pleased God with the offering of his life, God granted human beings pardon or forgiveness of their sin. Aquinas articulates God's forgiveness, stating that Christ not only ‘sought pardon for his persecutors’ but that ‘Christ delivered us from our sins causally, that is, he established the cause of our deliverance, whereby sins of any age, past, present, or future, might be forgiven’.Footnote 37 Synthesising the components of Aquinas’ atonement motifs: Christ's satisfaction pleased God, righted the scales, paid the price and merited enough grace to the point that God forgave humanity its sin. Such a transactional view of the atonement not only compromises the nature of forgiveness, but requires divinely ordained violence inflicted on an innocent man.

Aquinas also describes Christ's passion as a sacrifice, meaning that Christ offered something sacred to God, something special in order to please God. Following Augustine, Aquinas asserts that a sacrifice is any work performed for the purpose of uniting God and human beings in fellowship. Christ, therefore, gave himself to God as the perfect sacrificial offering which united God and humanity.Footnote 38 In addition, the sacrifice bought our redemption, releasing us from slavery to sin and punishment. Aquinas understands a redeemer to be someone who pays the price of redemption. By paying the ransom and making satisfaction, Christ has redeemed us. Again, the work of Christ takes on transactional properties in the form of a triangular economy between God, Christ and humanity wherein Christ sacrifices his life and puts forth the payment which both pleases God and gains God's forgiveness for the sins of humanity.Footnote 39 While taking all these atonement metaphors into consideration, describing and appreciating their differences, there is one significant thread of thought woven consistently into the fabric of Aquinas’ thought. This thread is the efficient cause and forms the foundation for redemption in the first place – willing, sacrificial love. This foundational love provides the context for a meeting of minds between theologians advocating a non-violent atonement and traditional theologians.

Although St Thomas’ fundamental notions of atonement centre on satisfaction theory, he does not portray God as the efficient cause of exacting punishment on Christ for humanity's sins. The fact remains, however, that in the transaction or the economy of one life given so many may be spared, God still required the violence of Jesus’ death. But Aquinas also makes it clear that the violence of the death did not please or satisfy God. The violent death itself did not win humanity their deliverance from sin, forgiveness or redemption.

What component of Jesus's passion so satisfied God, therefore, that it led to the forgiveness of sin? What exactly causes satisfaction and forgiveness? I argue that this component of the life and death of Jesus Christ which effected our salvation is what brings traditional and non-violent atonement theologians to the table on common ground. St Thomas states that Christ makes satisfaction by fundamentally willing to make satisfaction out of love for human beings. Love and not payment is the basis of satisfaction. In this context, satisfaction involves reparation for sin which is like a material reparation, or quasi materiam. The sufferings Christ experiences have a material role. Christ takes on our penalty for sin by becoming a human being, by possessing a material body. Because his body is human he suffers the ultimate consequence of sin: death. Yet, as quasi materiam, the physical suffering is only ‘like’ that which effects salvation. The material suffering expresses the ‘form’ or ‘substance’ of suffering, which is love. As a result, what makes for satisfaction is not the consequences (pain and death) unleashed on the material body, but willing love, which takes on the body and then suffers the consequences of having done so. The saving effect of the passion, therefore, takes place in the will in the form or substance of willing love.Footnote 40 Rather than a transaction in which one thing (obedience and righteousness) is traded for another (disobedience and unrighteousness), love takes on humanity in all its ugliness and consequent pain, and forgives its sins. Love which forgives pleases God, for God is love.

According to Thomas, one of the most significant accomplishments of the passion is that through the passion of the cross Jesus reveals to us the extent of God's love because of which we obtain forgiveness for sin. He also suggests that what made the passion an acceptable and pleasing sacrifice to God was not the suffering of death itself but the loving willingness to go freely to his death.Footnote 41 Aquinas states that, ‘his passion stimulates love’ and that ‘it is by love that we obtain pardon for our sins’, and ‘Christ endured the passion out of love and obedience and, thus, freed us from our sins’.Footnote 42 ‘It is his infinite love that has rendered his passion acceptable to God, so that it is by [love] that we are reconciled’.Footnote 43 The obedience which drove Christ to the cross played a role in effecting salvation, but it was the love of Christ that motivated his obedience and sacrifice on the cross. The love of Christ made satisfaction for sin because such extravagant love pleased God.Footnote 44

St Thomas mentions that the material fire of the Old Testament sacrifices was replaced by the fire of love (charitatis), so that love, and not the violent form of death, effects salvation.Footnote 45 He effectively connects satisfaction with divine forgiveness by saying that the love expressed by Christ's sacrificial passion so pleased God that sins were forgiven. In expressing the concept of Christ pleasing God with his passion, Aquinas writes that, ‘it was acceptable to God because of the love of him who offered his own flesh’.Footnote 46 Whereas love made the passion a sacrifice acceptable to God for the forgiveness of sins, the malice of those who put Christ to death made it a crime.Footnote 47

Aquinas believes that Christ's suffering was more intense than any person's suffering. He also believes that more love is involved when a great person suffers for others. Aquinas reasons, therefore, that Christ's love, revealed in his suffering, merits the grace leading to eternal life.Footnote 48 Such love pleases God and reconciles humanity to God. Aquinas expresses this belief by saying, ‘the fact that Christ suffered voluntarily was so great a good that, on account of seeing this good accomplished in human nature, God was pleased in regard to all the offences of the human race’.Footnote 49 Christ's willing love, revealed by dying for his friends, provided the satisfaction for redeeming the entire world.Footnote 50 In other words, the passion of Christ illustrates for us the compass of divine love, the extent to which God goes to forgive sin and the power of God to sustain us in that love.

Aquinas’ satisfaction theory, then, is quite different from Anselm's satisfaction theory. Aquinas reasons that satisfaction comes through a sacrifice of love which takes on the suffering of the beloved in order to restore harmony with God, rather than merely a legal switch.Footnote 51 For Aquinas, the efficacy of Christ's sacrifice depended upon Christ's willing love and, because of this love, Christ's passion ultimately satisfies for sin, pleases (or appeases) God in that it pleased God and merits salvation. In other words, love satisfies God. Love, which covers a multitude of sins, merits salvation.

Aquinas equates Christ's obedience with love, so that love is the efficacious force in atoning for sin. He writes that Christ offered more than was needed to recompense for all sin, first, because of the love which led him to the cross. The intentionality of love was the action which pleased God, not the act of violence that caused Christ's death. Aquinas believes that ‘the love of the suffering Christ outweighed the wickedness of those who slew him’Footnote 52 and that ‘the death of Christ had its satisfying power from his charity in which he bore death voluntarily, and not from the iniquity of his killers who sinned in killing him’.Footnote 53 Aquinas states that, since Christ's love exceeded the malice of his slayers, his suffering was a sufficient and even superabundantly sufficient satisfaction for their crime and ‘by suffering out of love and obedience, Christ gave more to God than was required to compensate for the whole human race’.Footnote 54 He holds firmly to the efficacy of love in the passion of Christ, advancing the notion that the act of love on Christ's part, rather than the act of violence delivered by human agents and endured by Christ, effected salvation for the human race. Through love Christ hoped not only to reveal the depth of divine love but, through that love, atonement for sin. Christ's suffering at the hands of his persecutors proved such love.Footnote 55 By holding violence and death in contempt through the manifestation of great loveFootnote 56 he revealed the greatest love ‘laying down his life for his friends’Footnote 57 and provided the passion's ‘satisfying power from his charity in which he bore death voluntarily’.Footnote 58 Consequently, it was out of an abundance of love that Christ obeyed the Father's will to die, that Christ allowed human agents violently to take his life, and provided the sacrifice which atoned for the sin of all humanity, making Christ's death a sacrifice of love which effected salvation for all people.Footnote 59

Torrell also believes that the most salient fact of the passion is the love manifested by Christ even though he admits that such a view departs from the typical models of atonement. He points out that, since Aquinas thought and wrote long before the appearance of the penal mentality, he was not encumbered by it. Torrell's interpretation of Aquinas’ theories on the passion of Christ conclude that, in the passion, ‘the true desire of God was to reconcile the world to himself in his son, but this could have been realized by his simple proclamation and his witness of love’. This love, refused by evil persons, drove Jesus to pursue his witness to the point of death. His violent death was a consequence of his love.Footnote 60 Aquinas himself comments upon the efficacy of Christ's love witnessed in his passion, asserting that ‘[o]ne should, of course, know that the death of Christ had its satisfying power from his love in which he bore death voluntarily’. Thus, love and not the violence of the passion or only the magnitude of Christ's sufferings effected salvation for humanity.Footnote 61 Christ's sufferings, therefore, were a product of human sin, sufferings which were not divinely induced and not even in the antecedent plan of God. Christ suffered; that much is clear. But how much suffering did Christ have to endure in order to reveal and witness to the depth of divine love? Does Christ's violent death admit of any advantage?

Aquinas states that ‘the least of Christ's sufferings would have sufficed to redeem mankind from all its sins’.Footnote 62 He counts the least of these sufferings as those of Christ suffering fear, the betrayal of friends, disrepute, sadness and weariness. He also argues that ‘from the moment of his conception Christ merited eternal salvation for us’, leading his readers to believe that had Christ only suffered the normal frailties of human life and death, salvation still would have its effect. If such is the case, Christ's birth, life and natural death would have sufficed to redeem humanity.Footnote 63 Aquinas claims that the manner of Christ's death was the most suitable way for God to effect salvation. Even though the least of Christ's sufferings, such as being hungry or thirsty, were enough to satisfy for sin, Aquinas argues that Christ endured all kinds of suffering in order to exalt his pain above all others and to reveal the extent of divine love. Consequently, Aquinas believes that a violent death best revealed God's redemptive love even though the violence of the death was not willed by God. The reasons he gives for a violent death, however, are not necessarily pertinent to salvation.Footnote 64 One may argue that, if the least of Christ's sufferings were salvific, what kind of a divinity would demand more suffering than is necessary?

One of the reasons Aquinas gives for the passion of Christ is that ‘man could thus see how much God loved him, and so would be aroused to love him’ and ‘it was necessary for men to know the beneficence of the Incarnation so as to be thereby inflamed in the divine love. But to manifest the truth of the Incarnation He had to assume flesh . . . capable of suffering’.Footnote 65 Consequently, God acted in a manner which would reveal the extent of his love and forgiveness.

Aside from the problems that surface when considering the passion as an appeasing, meritorious, satisfaction for sin, for Aquinas, the benefits of the violence of the crucifixion remain significant for reasons other than the salvific. Even though God could have delivered humanity without satisfaction, Christ's dying on the cross (1) reveals God's love for humanity; (2) gives humanity an example in suffering to imitate; (3) merits glory for Christ; (4) motivates us to refrain from sin; (5) endows humanity with greater dignity because, through a man, Satan and death were conquered; (6) frees humanity from Satan's power; (7) reconciles us to God; (8) inflames us with divine love; and (9) strengthens us in hope for immortality. Aquinas argues that a violent death inflicted upon Christ by men, and endured in the sight of many would lead many to see and believe.Footnote 66 Although Aquinas believed the passion of Christ served multiple purposes, love remains the active ingredient.

When considering the benefits of the cross, the passion event provides evidence for the truth of the Pauline proclamation in Romans 8:28 that ‘God works all things together for good to those who love God and to those who have been called according to [God’s] purpose’. Aquinas’ concept of a divine providence which leads all creation to the final, divine telos allows us a unique interpretation of this passage. Were he to paraphrase Romans 8:28, Aquinas might say: God works everything together so that all creation moves continually towards the final, good telos of God, when all creatures will love God just as God intends. Edward Schillebeeckx expresses this notion, saying that, ‘for though God himself did not invent suffering and death, and although it is to be reckoned to the account of sin's sentence of doom, still God from the very beginning has caught up suffering and death in his providence. He converts the very consequences of evil itself into the certain means of salvation.’ In addition, Stump uses an analogy to explain Aquinas’ theory of God working with evil to generate good. She claims that suffering is not pleasing to God, evils are not desired by God, and evil and suffering are negative, bad things. Yet evil and suffering in the hands of a redemptive God acquire positive value when they are used to contribute to the good.Footnote 67

While I disagree with Aquinas on his notions of original sin and the divine desire for satisfaction in order to forgive sin, I can agree that the divine ingredients in the passion event were the divine unconditional love shown to sinful human beings. God interrupted the systemic manifest injustice and gratuitous evil with forgiveness born from such great love.Footnote 68 Torrell expresses this conception of the passion of Christ and the efficacy of love, saying that:

If the death of Christ revealed a unique value to the eyes of faith, it is not in its materiality or by reason of the penal character of [Christ’s] death nor of [his] suffering, as it has so very often been said, but on his part the supreme proof of love in terms of a life wholly consecrated to the defense of justice and to the announcing of the truth.Footnote 69

Interpreted in this manner, then, the passion of Christ is, indeed, human violence against God, an act which violates God in the greatest degree even in the face of the greatest love.

Even though St Thomas includes penal, sacrificial and economic ingredients into his theories of atonement, the more significant component of the passion of Christ is willing, sacrificial love. Love procured divine forgiveness of sin. The passion of Christ pleased God because of the love of Christ in giving his life for his friends. The violence of the cross for our medieval theologian neither satisfied God nor effected atonement. Effective love did that.

There are lessons to be learned here for contemporary atonement theologians contending with each other about the effective content of Christ's life, death and resurrection. True, Aquinas holds firmly to an economic form of redemption which includes injustice and violence enacted against an innocent man. His reasons for opting for the economic system of atonement harmonised with the cultural, social and theological perspective most familiar to him. An offence, especially one as impossibly extensive as human sin, must be met and balanced with an equal (or more than equal for St Thomas) act of reparation before pardon could possibly be extended. In addition, the transaction takes place on a material level. Human flesh sinned, therefore human flesh must suffer the punishment for sin.Footnote 70 By suffering in human flesh, which connected him with the entire human race, Jesus pleased God and caused human deliverance and cleansing from sin and acquired our forgiveness.Footnote 71

Aside from the fact that St Thomas, like scores of theologians in his day and time, endorsed an economic structure of atonement and forgiveness, he still speaks significantly and relevantly to contemporary theologians who attempt to construct non-violent theories of atonement.Footnote 72 If Aquinas is read through the lens of divine love, contemporary theologians from both sides of the violence/non-violence argument can find common ground for discussion and theological construction, implementing the metaphors expressing the work of Christ in ways which remain relevant to our communities of faith.

We must keep in mind that the language used to explain the redemption of the human race through Jesus Christ is metaphorical language. Paul and the other writers of the New Testament books interpret the saving life, death and resurrection of Christ in ways that their own communities could understand and apprehend through the use of figurative or metaphorical language, borrowing well-known images from the social structure.Footnote 73 The contemporary Christian community has the responsibility to continue the tradition by reinterpreting these divine truths, to make them relevant for the world in which we all live.

Due to the awareness and continuing occurrence of religious violence in our world, my goal is to reinterpret atonement theory in light of a just, non-violent God who reconciles humanity to God and to each other without the use of violence so inherent in traditional theories of atonement. Unlike some contemporary theologians, I do not want to discard the tradition handed down to us by theologians like Anselm, Aquinas and Abelard. Our Christian tradition richly expresses the community's efforts to understand the divine mind and passes to us valuable insights which we can continue to treasure and remember. At the same time, we need to re-evaluate, continually putting tradition to the test of time, preserving what enriches and serves the community and reinterpreting those portions of the tradition which no longer speak relevantly to the contemporary situation – all in the spirit of reconciling, willing, love.

References

1 Fiddes, Paul S., Past Event and Present Salvation (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), pp. 4–5, 83Google Scholar.

2 Michael Hoonhut agrees that, in order to address the passion of Christ, one must first place the ‘paschal mystery of Christ’ in the context of God's providence as it relates to ‘the problem of moral evil and suffering’. See Hoonhut, Michael, ‘Grounding Providence in the Theology of the Creator: The Exemplarity of Thomas Aquinas’, Heythrop Journal 43 (Jan. 2002), p. 19Google Scholar.

3 See Summa Contra Gentiles, trans. Charles J. O’Neil (Notre Dame, IN, and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 4.54.6; 4.55.14 (hereafter cited as SCG). Here Aquinas argues that we know the invisible God through the visible Christ so that through our familiarity with God in Christ, we can develop a friendship with God. It is interesting to note here that Aquinas is concerned more, not with satisfaction, but with the union and friendship with God through Christ. In SCG 4.54.4–5, Aquinas credits Jesus with demonstrating (revealing) God's love to humanity. See also Summa Theologiae, Blackfriars edn (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1964–66), ST III, q. 46, a. 10, ad 3 (hereafter cited as ST).

4 ST III, q. 46, a. 3, r: ‘[Q]uia per hoc dedit nobis exemplum obedientiae, humilitatis, constantiae, justitiae et caeterarum virtutum . . .’; SCG 4.54.7 to mark just a few. See also Quinn, Philip L., ‘Abelard on Atonement’, in Stump, Eleonore (ed.), Reasoned Faith (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 282Google Scholar. Eleonore Stump asserts that, in making satisfaction, Christ became the ‘template representing the desired character or action, in accordance with which the sinner can align his own will’ and, consequently restore his or her relationship with God. As a template, then, Christ acts as the example. Stump, , Aquinas (New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 437Google Scholar.

5 ST III, a. 46, a. 3, r and ad 3; a. 1, ad 1; a. 11, ad 1. See also Quinn, ‘Abelard on Atonement’, pp. 163–4.

6 Although the satisfaction theory of atonement remains the most well-known of Aquinas’ motifs explaining the passion of Christ, some scholars admit that it is the one least emphasised by Aquinas.

7 Anselm of Canterbury, Why God Became Man and the Virgin Conception and Original Sin, trans. Joseph M. Colleran (Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1969), 1.25; 2.18–19. Anselm believed that satisfaction was a necessity as God could not redeem humanity in any other way. Aquinas does not want to place the divine will under any sort of absolute necessity.

8 ST III, q. 46, a. 2, r and ad 1–2; a. 2, r. Cf. Anselm, Why God Became Man, 1.9; 1.10. Aquinas believes that ‘there was no necessity of compulsion on God's or Christ's part for the passion’, and that ‘there were other ways open [for the salvation of humanity to occur]’.

9 ST III, q. 46, a. 2, r. I have concluded that the passion and its violence is part of God's antecedent will for Christ which allows for human freedom to act, placing the blame for Christ's death on responsible, human agents. See ST Ia, q. 22, a. 4, ad 1, where the movement of God's will does not impose upon the free actions of creatures.

10 ST III, q. 4, a. 1; III, q. 46, a.2; Torrell, , Le Christ en ses mystères: La vie et l’œuvre de Jesus selon Saint Thomas d’Aquinas, vol. 2 (Paris: Desclée, 1999), pp. 312–14Google Scholar. Torrell suggests that, for Aquinas, the necessity of the passion is of the type which utilises means which work towards a better end. In other words, God allowed the passion events not only out of respect for human freedom, but also because God ‘saw’ that the passion would better witness to the significance and depth of divine love.

11 ST III, q. 46, a. 2, ad 3: ‘Nam si voluisset absque omni satisfactione hominem a peccato liberare, contra justitiam non fecisset’.

12 Ibid. Torrell's interpretation of Aquinas’ theory of satisfaction leads him to claim that satisfaction was not the master model of atonement. Although Aquinas appeals to the satisfaction motif, it is only one of the efficacious modes by which God saves humanity from its sin. Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères, pp. 297–8, 399–400. See SCG 4.55.22.

13 ST III, q. 46, a. 3, obj. 1–2: ‘Cum ergo Deus potuerit hominem liberare sola propria voluntate, non videtur conveniens fuisse quod ad liberationem humani generis Christi passio adderetur. Praeterea, ea quae fiunt per naturam convenientius fiunt quam ea quae fiunt per violentiam: quia violentia est quaedam excisio, seu casus ab eo quod est secundum naturam, ut dicitur in libro de Caelo. Sed passio Christi mortem violentam induxit. Ergo convenientius fuisset ut Christus naturali morte moriendo hominem liberaret, quam quod pateretur.’ See also q. 47, a. 3, obj. 1.

14 ST III, q. 46, a. 3, sc and r. See also Sent. 4, d. 19, a. 5, q. 1: ‘Per satisfactionem Deo reconciliamur. Sed Christus per passionem suam pro nobis satisfecit. Ergo nos Deo reconciliavit’. Eleonore Stump argues that Aquinas’ satisfaction theory does not include a notion of placating a wrathful God, but instead satisfaction functions to restore sinners to harmony with God: ‘Atonement According to Aquinas’, in Morris, Thomas V. (ed.), Philosophy and the Christian Faith (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), p. 665Google Scholar.

15 SCG 4.54.9: ‘Satisfacere autem pro peccato totius humani generis nullus homo purus poterat: quia quilibet homo purus aliquid minus est tota generis humani universitate. Oportuit igitur, ad hoc quod humanum genus a peccato communi liberaretur, quod aliquis satisfaceret qui et homo esset, cui satisfactio competeret; et aliquid supra hominem, ut eius meritum sufficiens esset ad satisfaciendum pro peccato totius humani generis. Maius autem homine, quantum ad ordinem beatitudinis, nihil est nisi solus Deus . . . Necessarium igitur fuit homini ad beatitudinem consequendam, quod Deus homo fieret ad peccatum humani generis tollendum.’

16 ST III, q. 48, a. 2, r and ad 2: ‘Dicendum quod ille proprie satisfacit pro offensa qui exhibit affenso id quod aeque vel magis diligit quam oderit offensam. Christus autem ex charitate et obedientia patiendo majus aliquid Deo exhibuit quam exigeret recompensatio totius offensae humani generis . . . [Q]uod major fuit charitas Christi patientis quam malitia crucifigentium: et ideo plus potuit Christus satisfacere sua passione quam crucifixores offendere occidendo; in tantum quod passio Christi sufficiens fuit et superabundans ad satisfaciendum pro peccatis crucifigentium ipsum.’ Although Aquinas speaks here of Christ's satisfaction more than balancing the wickedness of his killers, he also contends that Christ's satisfaction more than compensates for the wickedness and sin of the entire human race. See ST III, q. 46, a. 5, r and ad 1, 3.

17 Anselm, Why God Became Man, 1.12–13. Anselm explains that the root of sin (the committing of which brings condemnation to humanity) is to deprive God of the honour due him. Our obedience renders to God the honour due to him. By not obeying God, by not subjecting ourselves to God's will, we neglect to pay God his due (honour) and, thus, we dishonour God by taking from him what rightly belongs to him – an act which puts us at odds with God, which incurs a debt that we must pay. In order for humanity to be right with God, then, humans must give back to God even more than they took away from God, so that God is recompensed not only for the debt owed to him, but also for the pain caused by human disobedience. Anselm calls this payment satisfaction. We must make satisfaction for our sin, for the honour we stole from God.

18 Torrell, Christ en ses mystères, pp. 400–2.

19 ST III, q. 48, a. 2, sc. ‘Non autem exsolvit qui perfecte non satisfacit’; q. 49, a. 4, ad 2: ‘sublata est odii causa, tum per ablationem peccati, tum per recompensationem acceptabilioris boni’. In SCG 4.54.8, an earlier work by Aquinas, he uses language reminiscent of Anselm, speaking of sin as inducing disorder and of sin as an offence against God. Satisfaction here is a remedy for that offence and disorder caused by sin. See also SCG 4.54.9, where Aquinas states that the order of divine justice requires that God should not remit sin without satisfaction. He seems to have softened his views concerning a divine requirement in later works such as the ST. This may have been in order to preserve images of the sovereignty and providence of God. Cf. SCG 4.55.14; 4.55.22, 26, 30.

20 ST III, q. 48, a. 2, r. ‘Christus autem ex charitate et obedientia patiendo majus aliquid Deo exhibuit quam exigeret recompensation totius offensae humani generis . . . Et ideo passio Christi non solum sufficiens, sed etiam superabundans satisfactio fuit pro peccatis humani generis.’ Aquinas also speaks of the blood of Christ as the ‘price’ paid to remove the guilt of the entire human race. ST III, q. 49, a. 5, ad 1: ‘quod quidem remotum est pretio sanguinis Christi’ (emphasis mine). See also ST III, q. 48, a. 2, note a, which says: ‘Satisfaction: the paying of a sum equal at least to the debt that has to be paid. Christ's passion supplied what was sufficient to pay for the debt man had incurred by sin. The note of payment is uppermost.’

21 ST III, q. 48, a. 2, ad 2. ‘[i]n tantum quod passio Christi sufficiens fuit et superabundans ad satisfaciendum pro peccatis crucifigentium ipsum’. Aquinas also asserts that Christ's passion satisfied the demands of justice. See ST III, q. 46, a. 6, ad 6: ‘quod Christus voluit genus humanum a peccatis liberare non sola potestate, sed etiam justitia’.

22 ST III, q. 48, a. 5, ad 2: ‘[Q]uod pretium redemptionis nostrae homo Christus solvit immediate’; q. 48, a. 5, r: ‘Pretium autem redemptionis nostrae est sanguis Christi, vel vita ejus corporalis . . . quam ipse Christus exsolvit. Unde utrumque istorum ad Christum pertinet immediate’. Cf. q. 49, a. 1, r; q. 48, a. 4, r and ad 3: here the translator makes a note that ‘Christ's offering made up for the offense against God. There is then a question of justice, of righting the scales’ (emphasis mine).

23 ST III, q. 47, a. 3, ad 1: ‘In quo ostenditur et Dei severitas, qui peccatum sine poena dimittere noluit: quod signat Apostolus dicens, Proprio Filio suo non pepercit’. See Stump, Aquinas, p. 431. Here Stump speaks of Christ bearing the penalty we owed for sin. As a result of Christ undertaking our penalty, we are freed from the penalty.

24 SCG 4.55.22 and 4.55.14. ‘[Q]ui absque peccato erat, mortem peccato debitam pati voluit, ut in se poenam aliis debitam, pro aliis satisfaciendo, susciperet’ and ‘[U]t per poenam quam in carne pro peccato nostro sustinuit, peccatum a nobis auferret’. Granted, concepts of punishment do not dominate Aquinas’ theory of atonement; I am merely making the point that such language does come into play.

25 ST III, q. 48, a. 6, ad 3: ‘[A]git per modum satisfactionis, in quantum per eam liberamur a reatu poenae’. Aquinas also states that ‘once sufficient satisfaction has been made, the debt of punishment ceases’ and, therefore, ‘Christ's passion is the cause of the forgiveness of sin, and sin is the basis for the debt of punishment’. ST III, q. 49, a. 3, r: ‘exhibita autem satisfactione sufficienti, tollitur reatus poenae . . . inquantum scilicet passio Christi est causa remissionis peccati, in quo fundatur reatus poenae’.

26 Quodl. 2, q. 8, a. 2, ad 3: ‘[Q]uod satisfactio et est punitiv in quantum est actus vindicativae justitiae, et est etiam medicativa, in quantum est quoddam sacramentale’.

27 E.g. ST III, q. 48, a. 4, r; q. 49, a. 3, r; q. 49, a. 3, c; q. 49, a. 5, r and ad 1; q. 22, a. 2–3. In these instances, Christ's satisfaction removes punishment. Whether Christ removes the punishment by suffering the punishment himself is not clear in Aquinas. He does make the argument, however, that if one voluntarily submits to the penalty for sin by punishing oneself, one offers satisfaction. If one does not submit voluntarily to the penalty and is coerced or forced into punishment, that person has not offered satisfaction and has been punished only. See SCG 3/2.158.4–5; SCG 4.55. Stump argues that ‘this is because when a penalty for a sin is inflicted, the iniquity of the person who is punished is weighed; but, in the case of satisfaction, when someone voluntarily assumes a penalty in order to please someone who was wronged, the charity and benevolence of the person making satisfaction is considered’. See Stump, Aquinas, pp. 433–4. Cf. Stump, , ‘Atonement According to Aquinas’, in Feenstra, Ronald J. and , Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. (eds), Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), p. 65Google Scholar.

28 E.g. ST III, q. 46, a. 1; q. 46, a. 6, ad 4. Aquinas states that the penalty to be paid (or the punishment) for sin is death (Rom 3:23). Since Christ did suffer death, Christ paid the penalty, or it could be said that Christ suffered the punishment. Stump, ‘Atonement According to Aquinas’, pp. 72–3, indicates that the problem between God and humanity, for Aquinas, is not God's wrath which must inflict punishment for sin on someone. Rather, the problem lies in the broken relationship between God and humanity. Through satisfaction for sin Christ restores the relationship which was damaged by human withdrawal, not by the wrath of God. See ST III, q. 48, a. 2, r; SCG 4.55.14, 22, 26. Cf. Stump, Aquinas, pp. 432, 440.

29 E.g. ST III, q. 48, a. 4, r.

30 E.g. ST III, q. 48, a. 2, r.

31 E.g. ST III, q. 48, a. 2, ad 2; q. 47, a. 2, r.

32 E.g. ST III, q. 48, a. 1, sc and r, note b; q. 49, a. 2, n. e and a. Cf., Stump, ‘Atonement According to Aquinas’, p. 74.

33 E.g. ST III, q. 46, a. 6, ad 6.

34 Cf. ST III, q. 49, a. 4, ad 2, where Aquinas asserts that ‘sin has been wiped away and because compensation has been made in the form of a more agreeable offering’ (‘tum per recompensationem acceptabilioris boni’ emphasis mine).

35 ST III, q. 49, a. 4, r: ‘Deus placatus est super omni offense generis humani’; q. 47, a. 2, r: ‘mors Christi fuit quoddam sacrificium acceptissimum Deo’. Cf. ST III, q. 48, a. 3, r, where Aquinas contends that, ‘[t]his gesture, this voluntary enduring of the passion, motivated as it was by the greatest of love, pleased God’. See also Quinn, ‘Abelard on Atonement’, p. 161.

36 ST III, q. 48, a. 2, r and note a.

37 ST III, q. 47, a. 4, ad 1–2: ‘Christus . . . in cruce positus veniam pro persecutoribus postulavit’; q. 49, a. 1, ad 3: ‘Christus sua passione nos a peccatis liberavit causaliter, idest instituens causam nostrae liberationis, ex qua possent quaecumque peccata quandoque remitti, vel praeterita vel praesentia vel futura’. Cf. ST III, 49, a. 1, ad 4, where Aquinas maintains that Christ's passion is the universal cause of the forgiveness of sins. See also Stump, Aquinas, p. 431; Stump, ‘Atonement According to Aquinas’, p. 74. Stump argues that Christ's satisfaction solves the problem of past sin, up until the point of baptism. Christ's merit gained from his passion provides the solution for future sin.

38 ST III, q. 48, a. 3, r and ad 1. Christ's sacrifice was perfect in that it was sinless human flesh offered in perfect love and, therefore, acceptable and pleasing to God. It also removed the cause for hatred, causing the forgiveness of sin by wiping sin away. Cf. q. 49, a. 4, r; q. 49, a. 5, ad 2. See also Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères, p. 437.

39 ST III, q. 48, a. 5, p. 2; q. 48, a. 4, sc and r; q. 48, a. 5, ad 1. Stump argues that Aquinas takes a different view than Anselm of the transaction between God and Christ in demanding satisfaction. Anselm couches the transaction in terms of God as accountant whereas Aquinas conceives of God as a parent. She employs the image of a mother and son relationship harmed because the son ruined her flower bed by kicking his soccer ball into it. For Anselm, someone would have to fix the garden, whether the son, the brother or the mother herself, to restore order. On Aquinas’ view, order is restored, not to balance the books, but to restore the relationship between the mother and the son. As long as the son aligns himself in heart and will with the one fixing the garden, the rupture in the relationship is healed. Important, however, is the fact that someone still has to make reparation. Stump, ‘Atonement According to Aquinas’, pp. 67–8; Stump, Aquinas, p. 437. Although, in the Sent., Aquinas believes that fault must be remitted by satisfaction so that the universe is restored or kept in balance, Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères, pp. 402, 405, expresses the notion of the restoration of a ruptured relationship. Citing ST III, q. 48, a. 2, c, Torrell states that ‘Thomas has not retained here the idea of a payment of a debt. He is more in line with the idea of a “rupture of friendship” . . . What is found here is not the sole reestablishment of the equalizing of justice as in vindictive justice, but rather a reconciliation of friendship.’ Cf. ST III, q. 46, a. 3. Still, Aquinas specifically employs the language of debt and payment in ST III, q. 49, a. 3, r; q. 49, a. 5, r.

40 ST III, q. 14, a. 1, ad 1; q. 47, a. 2, ad 1; q. 47, a. 5, ad 1–2; q. 48, a. 2, r. For Aquinas, form or substance actualises matter (materiam), it gives definition to matter. In the case of the incarnation and passion of Christ, the form – willing love – actualises the matter – Christ's incarnation and actions. The body of Christ acts as an instrument of the divine power of love which provides satisfaction. Cf. ST Ia, q. 75, a. 5, r.; ST III, q. 49, a. 1, ad 2.

41 ST III. q. 47, a. 4, ad 2.

42 ST III, q. 49, a. 1, r. ‘Primo quidem per modum provocantis ad charitatem’; ‘Per charitatem autem consequimur veniam peccatorum’; ‘[P]er passionem suam, quam ex charitate et obedientia sustinuit, liberavit nos tanquam membra sua a peccatis’.

43 Sent. III, d. 19, a. 5, sol. 1, ad 3: ‘fuit immensa caritas quae fecit passionem ex parte patientiae Deo acceptam; et sic per ipsam sumus reconciliati’.

44 ST III, q. 47, a. 2, r.; 1 Sam. 15:22.

45 ST III, q. 46, a. 4, ad 1.

46 ST III, q. 48, a. 3, ad 1. Some may argue that love itself serves as the coin of the realm in a transactional sense. I see it differently. Love moves God to forgive sin. Jesus did not ‘pay’ for sin with love; he saved humanity from sin and reconciled humanity to God with love and because of love.

47 ST III, q. 48, a. 3, ad 3.

48 ST III, q. 46, a. 6; SCG 4.55.27. See also Stump, ‘Atonement According to Aquinas’, p. 74.

49 ST III, q. 49, a. 4, r. Cf. ST III, q. 46, a. 5, r; q. 48, a. 2; SCG 4.55.17–18. Christ suffered all that human beings can suffer in a lifetime: betrayal, desertion, shame, blasphemies, beatings, pain, hunger, thirst, fatigue, mockery, etc. Cf. Stump, Aquinas, p. 452; Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères, p. 327.

50 ‘No greater love has any person than this, that he lay down his life for his friends’ (John 15:13).

51 ST III, q. 14, a. 1, ad 1; q. 22, a. 2. I will discuss the human appropriation of Christ's satisfaction below.

52 ST III, q. 49, a. 4, ad 3: ‘Major autem fuit charitas Christi patientis quam iniquitas occisorum’. See ST III, q. 46, a. 2, r.

53 SCG 4.55.25. Aquinas admits that the love inherent in Christ's enduring injustice at the hands of human agents was ‘more than sufficient’ to satisfy for the sins of even those who crucified him. He can make such claims based on his previous statements that Christ warranted salvation for the human race ‘from the moment of his conception’, showing not only that the violent passion event was necessary, but that Christ had effected salvation even before his birth (ST III, q. 48, a. 1, ad 2). Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères, pp. 405, 412, 437.

54 ST III, q. 48, a. 2, ad 2; q. 48, a. 2, r; q. 46, a. 5, r and ad 1, 3. ‘Christus autem ex charitate et obedientia patiendo majus aliquid Deo exhibuit quam exigeret recompensatio totius offensae humani generis’.

55 ST III, q. 47, a. 4, ad 1–2.

56 SCG 4.55.22.

57 SCG 4.55.17: ‘quod animam suam ponat quis pro amicis suis’. Although Aquinas argues that love effected satisfaction for forgiveness of sin to occur, I will argue against Aquinas below that God did not require satisfaction for sin in order to forgive.

58 SCG 4.55.24: ‘quod mors Christi virtutem satisfaciendi habuit ex caritate ipsius, qua voluntarie mortem sustinuit’.

59 ST III, q. 47, a. 4, ad 1–2; q. 48, a. 2, r.

60 Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères, p. 367. ‘[L]a nécessité de la passion ne résulte pas d’un vouloir divin préalable et causateur elle n’a d’autre nécessité que ceel d’un fait historique qui ne s’est produit que par un enchaînement de causes contingents qui aurait pu être autrement. Le vrai vouloir de Dieu était de se réconcilier le monde en son Fils, mais cela aurait pu se réaliser par sa simple prédication et son témoignage d’amour.’

61 SCG 4.55.24: ‘Sciendum autem est quod mors Christi virtutem satisfaciendi habuit ex caritate ipsius, qua voluntarie mortem sustinuit’. See also ST III, q. 48, a. 2, c.

62 ST III, q. 46, a. 5, r and ad 3.

63 Aquinas considers Christ's suffering as part of the normal course of living a human life, which Christ did because he loved humanity, not because the suffering itself satisfied God.

64 ST III, q. 46, a. 5, ad 1–3; see also a. 6, ad 1–6.

65 ST III, q. 46, a. 3, r. See Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères, p. 405.

66 ST III, q. 46, a. 3, r; q. 49, a. 2, r; SCG 4.55.14. See also Torrell, Christ en ses mystères, pp. 323, 425–48. Cf. ST III, q. 1, a. 2, c; Dodds, Michael J., ‘Thomas Aquinas, Human Suffering, and the Unchanging Love of God’, Theological Studies 52 (June 1991), p. 429CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Schillebeeckx, Edward, ‘The Death of a Christian’, in The Layman in the Church and Other Essays (Staten Island, NY: Alba House, 1963), p. 82Google Scholar. See also Stump, Aquinas, p. 470. Because I do not believe that God is complicit with evil in any manner, I disagree with Stump's assertion that God reworks evil into good. Instead, I would rather say that God overcomes evil with good by interrupting the cycles of violence and evil with goodness and love.

68 When speaking of divine forgiveness, I do not in any form advocate the view that God was satisfied with Christ's sacrificial death and, therefore, forgave humanity its sin.

69 Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères, p. 413. ‘Si la mort du Christ revêt aux yeux de la foi une valeur unique, ce n’est pas en sa matérialité ni en raison du caractère pénal de cette mort ou de sa souffrance, comme on l’a trop souvent dit, mait bien parce qu’elle était de sa part la suprême prévue d’amour au terme d’une vie tout entière consacrée à la défense de la justice et à l’annonce de la vérité’.

70 ST II.I, q. 87, a. 1, ad 1. St Thomas writes: ‘Consequently, the debt of punishment is considered to be directly the debt of sin’ (‘Unde reatus poenae directe ponitur effectus peccati’). Cf. ST II.I, q. 87, a. 1, r.

71 See ST III, q. 49, a. 3, r; q. 49, a. 4, ad 1; q. 50, a. 1, ad 3. In explaining the exchange between God and Jesus which appropriated reconciliation, Aquinas states: ‘Thanks to Christ's passion the cause for hatred has been removed, both because sin has been wiped away and because compensation has been made in the form of a more agreeable offering.’ ST III, q. 49, a. 4, ad 2: ‘[s]ed quia per passionem Christi sublata est odii causa, tum per ablationem peccati, tum per recompensationem acceptablilioris boni’. In ST III, q. 49, a. 5, ad 1, St Thomas further explains the economy and the reason for it: ‘Yet neither the faith nor the righteousness of any of the patriarchs sufficed to remove the obstacle of guilt for the whole human race; that impediment was removed at the price of Christ's blood’ (‘Non tamen alicujus fides, vel justitia sufficiebat ad removendum impedimentum quod erat per reatum totius humanae creatura; quod quidem remotum est pretio sanguinis Christi’).

72 Non-violent atonement theologians, as I call them, have good reasons for desiring to reinterpret the atonement for contemporary society. In the face of extreme religious violence inflicted by those who profess to follow God, they hope to change the theological focus from the violence of God to the peace-making image of God, even in the doctrine of atonement.

73 For a good treatment of metaphor and story telling in scripture see Seibert, , Disturbing Divine Behavior (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009)Google Scholar.