The language of pistis is ubiquitous in Christianity’s earliest writings; the power of trust has risen to the fore in moral philosophy and the social sciences. Nevertheless, existing models of atonement neglect the centrality of trust. It is this lacuna that Teresa Morgan intends to fill. ‘God acts with grace by placing therapeutic trust in humanity, an act that changes humanity’s understanding of what is possible for it and thereby what is possible for it in relationship with God’ (p. 15).
The earliest Christians identified the relationship between God and humanity as trust, whose heart has suffered disease. In scripture, wrongdoing and suffering are inextricable: the former may cause the latter and vice versa. ‘People can trust wrongly because it is their nature; because they choose to do so willfully or through forgetfulness, foolishness, or negligence; because they allow themselves to be led astray; because they fail to see the potential consequences of their actions with the best of intentions; or because they do wrong in reaction to an experience of suffering or betrayal’ (p. 81). Wrongdoing is endemic; trusting relationships have been toxically damaged. That is what God, through Christ, must repair.
Morgan turns to relationships shattered by contemporary war, trauma or crime. In all cases, ‘suffering and wrongdoing are entwined in the experience of both perpetrators and victims’ (p. 99). Trust entails risk, since the motives of some actions are uncertain. ‘When early Christian preachers and writers called people to trust in God and Christ for the righting of their relationship with God and ultimate salvation, they also articulated the life-or-death power of trust to engender existential hope in a way that resonates as powerfully today as it did in the first century’ (p. 105).
The author argues that ‘the trust between God and Christ and between Christ and humanity makes possible the restoration of trust between God and humanity’ (p. 118) and a changed relationship among humans characterised by repentance, forgiveness and renewed hope. God initiates trust, both in Christ and in humanity. ‘God takes the worst of human wrongdoing and suffering’ – Christ’s crucifixion – ‘and ‘composts’ it, turning it back into soil in which new life can grow’ (p. 153): both Christ’s (at Easter) and our own, now until the parousia. The unbreakable relationship of trust between God and Christ ‘creates a space for trust, … inviting humanity to take a step of trust toward God’ (p. 155), who regards his creatures as inalterably precious.
Assisted by recent zoological and botanical research, Morgan envisages ‘not only human beings but also nonhuman creation as potentially estranged from God by wrongdoing, suffering, and the loss of trust, and as reconcilable with God, directly or indirectly, through the trust and trustworthiness of Jesus Christ and trust in God and Christ’ (pp. 193–94). The book’s boldest chapter rhymes with (though does not cite) Gregory of Nazianzus’s twenty-eighth Oration and Saint Francis’s Canticle of Brother Sun. Morgan takes seriously God’s care for all creation and its hope for eschatological redemption. The gulf between humans and nonhumans is narrower than that between creation and its Creator. May the birds and lilies, fed and clothed by God, reciprocate their nurturance by an implicit pistis we must stretch to imagine?
Finally, Morgan examines aspects of humans’ at-one-ment with one another. Repentance and forgiveness are never merely bilateral; they are always mediated by Christ, entailing the (re)creation of trust. Moreover, ‘as a community, [Christians] are committed to doing everything we can to foster environments in which as many people, and other beings, as possible have the chance to encounter trust and grow in trust and trustworthiness toward God and other created beings’ (pp. 212–13). Such trust, albeit fragile and imperfect, offers hope for a new creation, impervious to evil, which breaks cycles of wrongdoing and suffering.
Morgan travels companionably with Barth: in Christ, God recreates the structure of reality, realigning creaturely acts of reconciliation toward creation’s true end. By free grace and mighty direction, God converts estranged humans to Godself, claiming them and equipping their will for divine service (cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4/2 [T & T Clark, 1958], p. 503). Especially reminiscent of Morgan’s position may be that of H. Richard Niebuhr in Faith on Earth (Yale University Press, 1989). Emphasising the social nature of trust, covenantal rupture and restoration, trust as responsive to God’s fidelity, and Christ the embodiment of superhuman fidelity, Niebuhr harmonises with Morgan. Whilst Niebuhr does not expressly address atonement, he avers ‘[a] great metanoia, a revolution of the personal life’ (p. 99) when, in fellowship with Christ, our distrust, hostility, and parochialism begin to be undermined.
Morgan builds her case on sound exegesis. At points one may demur. She seems leery of the cosmic horizon of Pauline eschatology, notwithstanding references to contests between God and Christ and the powers of evil. If ‘to another pistis [is given] by the same Spirit’ (1 Corinthians 12:9), and if pistis is reckoned among the Sprit’s fruit (Galatians 5:22), I am unconvinced by her claim that Paul denies that trust is a spiritual gift.
On balance, Trust in Atonement is a top-tier contribution to constructive theology, extending with brilliance and delicacy the author’s groundbreaking explorations of Roman Faith and Christian Faith (OUP, 2015) and The New Testament and the Theology of Trust (OUP, 2022). Professor Morgan’s progress as one of our foremost theologians is proceeding so rapidly that we who read her must occasionally pause to catch our breath.
