Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-22T13:49:30.579Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The authority of God and the meaning of the atonement

Co-winner of the 2014 Religious Studies Postgraduate Essay Prize

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2014

RYAN W. DAVIS
RYAN W. DAVIS*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Emerson Hall 209a, Harvard University, 25 Quincy Street, Cambridge MA 02138, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Substitution and satisfaction theories of the atonement connect suffering or punishment to the possibility of forgiveness. I argue that even the most sophisticated versions of these theories cannot explain why the atonement was necessary. Instead, I suggest that the meaning of the atonement is in establishing the authority of God. God's authority, on this view, is analogous to the authority of a parent or friend. Christ's experience changed God to make him more like his children, and thereby to share a relationship of authority with them. On this proposal, the atonement is an act of divine humility.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 405 - 423
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R. (1987) The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Allais, L. (2008) ‘Wiping the slate clean: the heart of forgiveness’, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 36, 33–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anselm, (1998) ‘Why man became God’, in Davies, B. & Evans, G. R. (eds) Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 260–356.Google Scholar
Beilby, J. K. & Eddy, P. R. (2006) The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press).Google Scholar
Blumenfeld, L. (2000) Revenge: A Story of Hope (New York: Simons & Shuster).Google Scholar
Brink, D. (1999) ‘Eudaimonism, love and friendship, and political community’, Social Philosophy & Policy, 16, 252–289.Google Scholar
Chesterton, G. K. (1908/2007) Orthodoxy (New York: Barnes & Noble).Google Scholar
Darwall, S. (2006) The Second Person Standpoint (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Darwall, S. (2009) ‘Authority and second-personal reasons for acting’, in Sobel, D. & Wall, S. (eds) Reasons for Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 134–154.Google Scholar
Dodsworth, C. (2011) ‘Understanding divine authority’, Faith and Philosophy, 28, 190–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ebels-Duggan, K. (2008) ‘Against beneficence: a normative account of love’, Ethics, 119, 142–170.Google Scholar
Ebels-Duggan, K. (2009) ‘Moral community: escaping the ethical state of nature’, Philosopher's Imprint, 9, 1–19.Google Scholar
Ehrlman, B. (2005) Misquoting Jesus (New York: Harper Collins).Google Scholar
Frankfurt, H. (2004) The Reasons of Love (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Givens, T. & Givens, F. (2012) The God Who Weeps (Crawfordsville IN: R. R. Donnelley).Google Scholar
Hill, C. E. & James, F. A. III (2004) The Glory of the Atonement (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press).Google Scholar
Hill, T. (1991) ‘Servility and self-respect’, in Autonomy and Self-Respect (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 4–18.Google Scholar
Hinchman, E. (2005) ‘Telling as inviting to trust’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 70, 562–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobbes, T. (1651/1994) Leviathan, in Curley, E. (ed.) Leviathan, with selected variants from the Latin edition of 1668 (Indianapolis: Hackett).Google Scholar
Jeffery, S., Overy, M., & Sach, A. (2007) Pierced for Our Transgressions (Nottingham: InterVarsity).Google Scholar
Jersk, B. & Hardin, M. (2007) Stricken by God: Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ (Abbotsford BC: Eerdmans).Google Scholar
Keller, S. (2006) ‘Four theories of filial duty’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 56, 254–274.Google Scholar
Keren, A. (2007) ‘Epistemic authority, testimony, and the transmission of knowledge’, Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology, 4, 368–381.Google Scholar
Knobe, J. (2005) ‘Ordinary ethical reasoning and the ideal of “being yourself”’, Philosophical Psychology, 18, 327–340.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1997) ‘Do we believe in penal substitution?’, Philosophical Papers, 26, 203–209.Google Scholar
Murphy, M. (2002) An Essay on Divine Authority (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).Google Scholar
Murphy, M. (2009) ‘Not penal substitution but vicarious punishment’, Faith and Philosophy, 26, 253–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porter, S. L. (2004) ‘Swinburnian atonement and the doctrine of penal substitution’, Faith and Philosophy, 21, 228–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portmore, D. W. (2007) ‘Welfare, achievement, and self-sacrifice’, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 2, 1–28.Google Scholar
Raz, J. (1986) The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Scheffler, S. (2010) ‘Valuing’, in Equality and Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Smith, M. (2006) ‘Is that all there is?’, Journal of Ethics, 10, 75–106.Google Scholar
Soskice, J. M. (2007) The Kindness of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Sussman, D. (2005) ‘Kantian forgiveness’, Kant-Studien, 96, 85–107.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (1989) Responsibility and Atonement (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Tidball, D., Hilborn, D., & Thacker, J. (2008) The Atonement Debate (Grand Rapids: Zondervan).Google Scholar
Velleman, D. (1999) ‘Love as a moral emotion’, Ethics, 109, 338–374.Google Scholar
Velleman, D. (2000) ‘Well-being and time’, in The Possibility of Practical Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 56–84.Google Scholar
Velleman, D. (2004) ‘From self psychology to moral philosophy’, in Self to Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 224–252.Google Scholar
Wallace, R. J. (1994) Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Wallace, R. J. (2004) ‘The rightness of acts and the goodness of lives’, in Wallace, R. J., Pettit, P., Scheffler, S., & Smith, M. (eds) Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 385–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westlund, A. (2003) ‘Selflessness and responsibility for the self: is deference compatible with autonomy?’, Philosophical Review, 112, 483–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, D. T. (2008) ‘Towards a unified theory of the atonement’, in The Atonement Debate (Grand Rapids MI: Zodeveran), 228–248.Google Scholar
Wolff, S. (1982) ‘Moral saints’, Journal of Philosophy, 79, 419–439.Google Scholar
Wright, N. T. (1996) Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press).Google Scholar
Žižek, S. (2009) The Monstrosity of Christ (Cambridge MA: MIT Press).Google Scholar