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Reparation and Atonement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

David Mcnaughton
David Mcnaughton
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Keele, Keele, StaffsST5 5BG
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Extract

The Christian doctrine of the Atonement has been interpreted in several ways. In Responsibility and Atonement, Richard Swinburne offers us a version of the sacrificial account of Christ's redemptive work. This version claims that in the life and death of Jesus we have a gift of great and fitting value, which God himself has made available to us, and which we can in turn offer to God as reparation and penance for our sins. My paper has two main parts. In the first I shall argue that his account is conceptually incoherent; in the second that it is morally flawed. I then briefly suggest that the exemplary theory can capture, better than can the reparation theory, those features which Swinburne believes to be desirable in any account of the Atonement. I take Swinburne's account as my target because it is the best modern exposition of the theory, but my argument is intended to have wider significance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 1992 , pp. 129 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 Swinburne, R. G., Responsibility and Atonement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). All page references in this article are to this book.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 A wrongdoer often displays a hostile attitude to his victim, but he need not do so. There can be negligent wrongdoing in which I display indifference or lack of concern, rather than hostility, to the victim. I owe this point to Brian Smart.

3 If we take the view that a third party can provide reparation to the victim we can express this in terms of our definition by substituting ‘T’ for ‘W’ in all its occurrences in clause 3 and in its first occurrence in clause 4.

4 I am most grateful to him both for the points that follow and for kind permission to reproduce them here. I have tried to put the case in my own words as far as possible but, inevitably, my wording is often very close to his.

5 I have altered his example slightly in order, I hope, to make the connection with the Atonement even closer.

6 I stress this in the context of Swinburne's theory because he does seem committed to the view I have rejected. In his book he says we can offer Christ's life to God ‘as the life we ought to have led (our substitute reparation and penance)’ (p. 154; see also the top of p. 155). More clearly, perhaps, in his letter to me he suggests that ‘God is benefited by the living of a good human life substituted for a bad one’. These ways of putting the matter may well rest on confusing the two kinds of offering - the offering of a token to claim a right and the offering of a benefit - which I am trying to keep separate in this paragraph.

7 As Swinburne notes on pp. 82f.

8 I am talking only of those who have heard the Gospel, believe it, and repent. Those who repent without having heard it are, of course, in no position either to follow Christ's example or to offer Christ as reparation in addition to repentance and apology. I suggest, at the end of the paper, that full repentance may only be possible for those who accept Christ.

9 I am grateful to members of the Philosophy Departments at Georgia, Keele and Nottingham Universities and, above all, to Richard Swinburne, for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.