## 1. The Concept of Atonement and Conceptual Connections


### 1.1 The Origin of the Word "Atonement" and its Uses



The words "atone" and "atonement" are derived
from the expressions "make at one", and "at
onement". Usage of the latter phrase can be traced to as early
as the 1300s in the writings of John Wycliffe (Hayes 1998). The word
thus carries at its heart the notion of putting parties at
one--unifying, or reconciling. The Oxford English Dictionary
offers several definitions of atonement:


* "the condition of being *at one* with others"
(def. 1),
* "the action of setting at one, or condition of being set at
one, after discord or strife" (def. 2),
* "reconciliation or restoration of friendly relations between
God and sinners" (def. 3), and
* "propitiation of an offended or injured person, by
reparation of wrong or injury; amends, satisfaction, expiation"
(def. 4).



The word applies both to relationships between non-divine people, and
to relationships between God and non-divine people. Both kinds of
relationships can be damaged and require atonement for repair.



The definition of atonement in terms of making amends clarifies both
notions through the vivid imagery of a torn garment. As a whole
garment might become torn and require mending to repair, so a whole
relationship might become ruptured and require amends to repair. When
a garment is mended, the torn parts are brought back together into a
whole. Likewise, when proper amends are offered, the parties of the
relationship are brought back together into a whole--they are
made at one, or reconciled. Making amends is thus an act of
atonement--something done with the aim of reconciling the
estranged parties.



The image of the torn garment suggests another feature of atonement:
it typically involves a community. Society is often metaphorically
described as a garment, e.g., "the fabric of society".
When a garment is torn, some threads within the garment are broken,
some parts of the fabric are disconnected. But the entire garment is
also said to be torn. So atonement can be given not just to reconcile
two individual parties, but to reconcile an individual or a collective
with a collective.



Although the word derives from English in the 1300s, the concept it
denotes is plainly much older. Early Greek literature contains the
concept of an atoning sacrifice (Hengel 1986; Versnel 2005). The book
of Leviticus in the Tanakh describes various sacrifices the Hebrew
people were to offer, some--most notably the sacrifices on the
Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur--in order to atone for sin
against God (Hayes 1998; Klawans 2006; Milgrom 1991). Various passages
in the New Testament describe Christ as atoning for human sin (e.g.,
Romans 3:23-25; 1John
 2:2).[1]
 These passages state the famous Christian doctrine of
atonement--the doctrine that through some of his deeds, including
especially his crucifixion,



> 
> 
> Jesus acts in such a way as to remove the rift or division between
> humans and God that is due to human sin in order to achieve
> reconciliation between humans and God. (Thurow 2021a: 239)
> 
> 
> 


### 1.2 Some Definitions



The word "atonement" is defined around a paradigm series
of events. First, there has been some offense or wrong that has been
committed. Second, that offense is evident to the victim, who has as a
result become estranged from the offender. Third, something is
done--paradigmatically by the offender--to make amends for
the offense with the aim of propitiating the victim and achieving
reconciliation. These amends are sometimes described as a reparation,
satisfaction, expiation, or sacrifice. Fourth, provided the amends are
successful, the victim forgives the offender and reconciliation
results. Different senses of "atonement" pick out
different aspects of this series. Understanding atonement also
requires us to understand the other events in the series, such as
forgiveness, reconciliation, and reparation, and how they relate to
atonement (see
 section 1.3).



There are non-paradigm cases of atonement as well--for example,
cases wherein (i) the victim is unaware they have been wronged, or
(ii) the victim is aware of, but unconcerned about, having been
wronged, or (iii) a third party makes or assists in making atonement,
or (iv) amends seem not to require reparation, satisfaction, or
sacrifice. Nevertheless, the following components seem essential to
atonement even in the non-paradigm cases: an offense or wrong has been
committed and something is done with the aim of bringing about
reconciliation. (For ease of expression, I will from now on usually
just talk about wrongs being atoned for, however it should be
understood that "offense" can be substituted for
"wrong" in the following definitions. Although offenses
have a somewhat different moral profile from wrongs, they may also be
atoned
 for.[2])



We can now set out some plausible definitions.



> 
> 
> *S* atones for wrong *R* by doing *A*
> =defn *S* does *A* in order to reconcile the
> author and victim of *R* by removing or reducing the rift
> between them due to *R*, and *A* is successful in doing
> so.
> 
> 
> 



(See similar definitions in Eddy & Beilby 2006: 9; Daly 2009: 35;
Forsyth 1910 [1938: 54-8]; Hodges 1955: 9-10;
O'Collins 2007: 11; Paul 1960: 17-27; Riviere 1905
[1909: 2-4].)



"Atones" is defined so that the atoning act *A* is
successful in achieving the goal of bringing about reconciliation
regarding the wrong. This seems consistent with common usage. However,
we also need a term for atoning that is neutral about whether success
is achieved.



> 
> 
> *S* makes/offers atonement for wrong *R* by doing
> *A* =defn *S* does *A* in order to
> reconcile the author and victim of *R* by removing or reducing
> the rift between them due to *R*.
> 
> 
> 



One could offer atonement and yet fail to atone for one's
wrongdoing. These definitions also allow that there are levels of
atonement: you fully atone if you erase the rift, and you partially
atone if you reduce the rift to various degrees. And one could atone
for one wrong, while not atoning for another wrong against the same
victim. Here the offender and victim would have reconciled regarding
the first wrong, but not the second. Finally, these definitions leave
open the possibility that a third party could atone on behalf of the
offender.



There are two other closely related notions used by scholars that draw
from the semantic range of the term. Linda Radzik, in perhaps the most
extensive work on atonement in analytic philosophy, defines a notion
of making amends:



> 
> 
> *S* makes amends for wrong *R* by doing *A*
> =defn by doing *A* *S* does whatever is
> morally required to respond to having done *R*. (Radzik 2009:
> 7)
> 
> 
> 



Making amends is fundamentally a moral notion, whereas the above
notions of atonement are fundamentally relational. Radzik argues,
however, that they are connected: making amends, if done properly,
should aim at a certain sort of reconciliation. Thus, one properly
makes amends, on her view, if and only if one offers atonement.
Further evidence for this view comes from the idea that atonement aims
at undoing a wrong (Blocher 2004: 645; Swinburne 1989: 81-83).
Making amends arguably has the same
 end.[3]
 But even if this view of Radzik's is incorrect, making amends
may be well suited to, and often result in, making atonement.



A third connected notion is atonement as expiation, or purification or
cleansing (Craig 2020). We'll use the term
"expiation" to designate this notion:



> 
> 
> *S* expiates wrong *R* by doing *A*
> =defn *A* purifies or cleanses *S* of guilt
> for having done *R*.
> 
> 
> 



Expiation is a prominent term in the ancient Jewish sacrificial system
in which human sins (offenses against God) pollute the Temple, and the
blood from ritually sacrificed animals is used to purify the Temple of
the pollution, thus also cleansing the sinner of guilt for their sin.
"Guilt" here does not refer to the mental state of feeling
guilty. It also does not mean "having performed a wrong
action". It is supposed to be an objective status of some
sort--a kind of mark or blot (thus the language of cleansing is
particularly apt) one has in virtue of having committed a wrong, which
remains until removed (Swinburne 1989: 74). Craig (2020: 232) analyzes
it in retributive terms as a liability to punishment. It could also be
analyzed as a certain sort of moral debt--perhaps a debt to the
victim to make up for the wrong act (Radzik 2009: 29ff).



Expiation would be equivalent to making amends if the language of
purification and cleansing is a metaphor aimed to pick out what one is
morally required to do in response to one's wrongdoing. At the
very least, expiation is sufficient for making amends, for if you have
not done what is morally required in response to having performed a
given wrong action, then you still bear guilt for that action; you
would still bear a liability to punishment or an unfulfilled moral
debt. But expiation may not be necessary for making amends. For
instance, if the language of purification and cleansing also
essentially picks out certain ways of resolving guilt (say, the use of
a sacrifice of some sort), then expiation would not be necessary for
making amends so long as there are other ways of doing what is morally
required in response to having performed a wrong action.


### 1.3 Conceptual Connections


#### 1.3.1 Reconciliation



Reconciliation has a tight conceptual connection to atonement: as
defined above, atonement aims at reconciliation. This connection faces
some questions.



First, does this connection really hold and, if so, how should
reconciliation be understood? After all, there seem to be clear cases
in which a person makes atonement and does not aim to reconcile the
relationship that was shattered by the offense.


* One or both parties may not desire or find possible
reconciliation. Suppose Jack and Jill are married and Jill has an
affair. She decides to leave the marriage, but feels guilt and
remorse, apologizes to Jack, and aims to be generous and fair to him
in their divorce proceedings. Jill makes atonement, but she does not
aim at reconciling as a married couple. And Jack may be fine with
that. He may find that he is unable to love her again and relate to
her in that way, but he may welcome and accept her atonement.
* There was no relationship to begin with that can be
reconciled. Richards (1988) describes a case in which a stranger
drives by and drenches you in mud. The stranger pulls over, gets out,
apologizes, and offers to cover your dry cleaning expenses. It seems
like the stranger is atoning for what he did, but you and the stranger
have no relationship to reconcile.
* Reconciliation is impossible. Suppose you wronged a
person who subsequently died. You may make atonement by apologizing to
the deceased's loved ones, by aiming to be a better person, and
by making reparation. Reconciliation appears to be a personal
relationship of some sort, but one cannot have such a relationship
with a dead person (Strabbing 2020).
* There is no rift in the relationship to reconcile
because the wrong never had an effect on the relationship. Radzik
presents the following case: I maliciously intend to break your
favorite vase and indeed attempt to do so when you are not around, so
as not to be caught in the act. I throw it to the ground, but it
unexpectedly bounces--it turns out to be made of rubber (Radzik
2009: 86). I may atone for this action by being remorseful, replacing
the vase carefully, and firmly intending to deal with my anger issues.
And yet, since you never found out about my offense, our relationship
was unaffected.



Second, supposing this connection holds fast, what sort of
reconciliation must one aim toward in atoning? There appear to be at
least as many sorts of reconciliation as there are sorts of
relationships.



We can begin to answer these questions by saying more about the nature
of reconciliation. First, "reconciliation" is ambiguous.
There is a sense of the word on which to reconcile is to restore a
past relationship (Barth 1953 [1956: 22]). But there is another sense
on which reconciliation merely removes a rift or tension that has
arisen between two people; this sense does not assume that there was a
substantive past relationship between the parties (O'Collins
2007: 12). Since atonement may be offered in the latter situation,
atonement may aim at reconciliation in the latter sense.



Even so, both senses presume that in removing the rift between the
parties due to the wrongdoing, there is some sort of relationship that
is restored (or created) after atonement has been given and received.
What could that relationship be given the other cases mentioned
above?



Radzik argues that making amends, in her sense, also aims at
reconciliation. But since one makes amends when one does what one is
morally required to do in response to having wronged someone, the
reconciliation that is aimed at must be something that we are morally
required to have with people. Radzik calls this "moral
reconciliation", a relationship "wherein the parties
regard one another and themselves as equally valuable moral
persons" (2009: 81). For this relationship to exist, "the
victim will have good reason to give up her resentment, fear, and
distrust of the wrongdoer", (where that good reason is not
misleading, I think we should add) and "the wrongdoer will have
reestablished his reputation with the victim as a member of good
standing in the moral community" (2009: 82).



Moral reconciliation helps make sense of the above cases. Regarding
the first case, people may not desire a restoration of a substantive
past relationship, e.g., a marriage, but people do want to be regarded
as an equally valuable moral person. Jill's atoning acts are
aimed at moral reconciliation (at the least). In the second case the
driver aims at moral reconciliation even though there was no
substantive prior relationship to restore. The third case is a little
trickier. Full moral reconciliation with the deceased seems impossible
since the dead can have no reasons and have no sense of the
wrongdoer's reputation. (Assuming there is no afterlife; if
there is an afterlife, then full moral reconciliation could be
achieved there.) The wrongdoer can, however, still aim at
reconciliation by aiming at the closest approximation he can obtain to
moral reconciliation--for instance he can (i) produce what would
be good reason for the victim to give up her resentment, etc. were the
victim alive, and (ii) do what would reestablish his reputation with
the victim if the victim were alive. Regarding the fourth case, the
offense produces a moral rift even if the victim is not aware of the
moral rift, for the offender has in fact wronged the victim. That rift
can be repaired simply by the wrongdoer repenting of his action,
sincerely recognizing the moral worth of the victim, and engaging in
moral reformation. Moral reconciliation will thus occur, even though
the victim may never be aware that there was a rift to reconcile.



Atonement does not always aim merely at moral reconciliation (Radzik
& Murphy 2015 [2021]; Thurow 2021b). Often, a wrongdoer aims to
reconcile a more robust relationship. Unlike in the first case, Jill
may instead aim to atone in a way that brings about reconciliation of
her marriage with Jack. A person who has wronged his friend may aim to
reconcile as friends; a worker who has wronged his employer through
negligence, say, may aim to reconcile as a trusted
 worker.[4]



What is done to atone for a wrongdoing will be shaped by the sort of
reconciliation one aims at achieving. Restoring lost trust in a
marriage will require considerably more (and things of a different
nature) than restoring trust in a workplace relationship. One's
atoning acts should also be responsive to the sort of wrong that was
done and how it negatively affected the victim. Restoring trust with a
spouse after having an affair will be different than restoring trust
with a coworker after having failed to meet at an agreed time.



A wrongdoer may need to morally reconcile not only with the primary
victim of her wrongdoing, but with others in her community, such as
secondary victims or interested bystanders (Radzik 2009: 135-8).
Secondary victims are those who are indirectly harmed or wronged by
the action--such as the spouse of someone who is unjustly fired
from a job. Interested bystanders are those who learn about the wrong
action and have a legitimate interest in having a positive
relationship with the wrongdoer--such as a friend who has an
interest in being with a morally trustworthy person. Atoning to the
primary victim in a publicly visible way can help one to morally
reconcile with others in one's community. Public apologies and
acts of contrition have long been used for this end. During late
antiquity in Christian Europe, penance for sin routinely included a
public-facing component such as penitents sitting separately in Church
and engaging in a public ritual of penance. Famously, the Roman
Emperor Theodosius was required by Bishop Ambrose to perform public
penance for having ordered a massacre of citizens of Thessalonica. The
emperor "laid down all the imperial insignia, bewailed his sin
in public in the basilica and implored absolution with tears and
laments" (Meens 2014: 22).


#### 1.3.2 Forgiveness



Forgiveness is intimately tied into atonement. It would appear that
forgiveness is necessary for full atonement. Reconciliation of two
parties seems to require that the one who is wronged forgive the
wrongdoer. If the wronged does not forgive the wrongdoer, the wronged
is still holding something against the wrongdoer for the wrong that
was done, and thus the two are not reconciled with regard to the
wrong. To fully atone would be to fully remove the rift, and thus
achieve
 reconciliation.[5]



This is about the only clear point about how forgiveness relates to
atonement. There is a common view that forgiveness is (and only should
be) granted after the wrongdoer has done something to make amends. But
this common view has been contested by others who think that we may
(and sometimes have good reasons to) forgive even if the offender
hasn't atoned. Which view is correct depends upon which theory
of forgiveness is correct. (For an excellent survey of theories of
forgiveness, see the entry on
 forgiveness.)



Many defend the common view, arguing that forgiveness should (or maybe
even conceptually must only) be done in response to the
wrongdoer's performance of various acts that constitute at least
partial atonement. Charles Griswold, developing an approach that has
been inspired by Bishop Butler's seminal discussion of
forgiveness and resentment, argues that *x* forgives *y*
for *R* iff


1. *x* foreswears revenge against *y*
for *R*, and
2. *x* appropriately moderates
*x*'s resentment of *y* due to *R*,
and
3. *x* "commits to work to a frame of
mind in which even that resentment is let go" (Griswold 2007:
42).



Condition (iii)
 implies that the wrongdoer must have done something to warrant the
victim's letting go of resentment; these things will amount to
offering atonement. Why?



> 
> 
> If moderated resentment is still warranted all things considered, then
> forgiveness is impossible or premature. Forgiveness does not attempt
> to get rid of warranted resentment. Rather, it follows from the
> recognition that the resentment is no longer warranted. And what would
> provide the warrant can be nothing other than the right reasons. These
> specify the conditions the offending party should meet to qualify for
> forgiveness. (Griswold 2007: 43)
> 
> 
> 



These conditions include atoning acts such as repentance, confession,
offering a true narrative, and commitment to moral transformation.
Swinburne (1989) and Wolterstorff (2011) offer different arguments for
the same
 position.[6]



Other accounts of forgiveness imply that whether a person forgives or
ought to forgive is independent of whether the wrongdoer has made any
atonement. For example, Garrard and McNaughton say that *x*
forgives *y* for *R* iff *x* releases (or lacks)
ill will towards *y* and *x* adopts an attitude of at
least minimal good will towards *y* (2010: 90). They argue
that, on this view, we can have good reason to forgive someone even if
they haven't repented or made any sort of
 atonement.[7]
 For we have reasons of human solidarity to forgive: wrongdoers are
still part of the human family and as such we have a stake in their
being ushered back into the family in good standing. Forgiveness is a
way of inviting them in, although Garrard and McNaughton are careful
to add that forgiveness does not entail condoning, forgetting, or
excusing the wrongdoer for what they did. Indeed, having good will
towards the wrongdoer, on their view, requires having a clear view of
what was wrong about the wrongdoer's action, and for their
degree of responsibility. A forgiver may still feel indignant and may
still desire that the wrongdoer be punished. In addition, because of
our solidarity, we know that we the innocent have often made, and in
various circumstances would make, moral mistakes and we would desire
to be forgiven. Pettigrove (2012) argues in addition that forgiving
like this does not necessarily condone the wrong action, imply a lack
of proper self-respect, or have generally bad consequences for the
forgiver.



Stump (2018: 80-4) goes a step further, arguing that unilateral
and unconditional forgiveness is morally obligatory since love is
obligatory, love of *x* implies a desire for the good of
*x* and a desire for union with *x*, and withholding
forgiveness would work against the good of *x* and union with
*x*. (Although see J. Rutledge 2022, Swinburne 2019, and Thurow
& Strabbing 2020 for replies.) She adds that one can forgive
another person without reconciling with them because of obstacles
arising from the psychic condition of the wrongdoer or the effects of
his wrongdoing.



Biggar (2001), after presenting an insightful survey of literature on
forgiveness in the twentieth century, proposes a dual-component view
that aims to incorporate aspects of the above kinds of views. One
component, which he calls "forgivingness", is a
constellation of attitudes towards the wrongdoer: overcoming
resentment and vindictiveness, growth of compassion, and an intention
to restore some kind of friendship with the offender. Forgivingness
is, or ought to be, unconditional. The other component, which he calls
"forgiveness", is an act wherein the victim declares that
he will no longer view the wrongdoer in the light of his misdeed and
that their relationship may proceed as before. Forgiveness is
conditional upon at least the repentance of the wrongdoer.



On each of the above views, forgiveness is conceptually distinct from
reconciliation. However, Strabbing has recently argued for a
conceptual tie between forgiveness and reconciliation. On her
view,



> 
> 
> *X*'s forgiving *Y* for *W* is
> *X*'s being open to reconciliation with *Y* with
> respect to *W*, (2020: 533)
> 
> 
> 



where to be open to reconciliation is to have



> 
> 
> attitudes and intentions towards the offender that would reconcile
> them with respect to the offense, if the offender's attitudes
> and intentions are what they should be for reconciliation. (2020:
>  535)[8]
> 
> 
> 


#### 1.3.3 Sacrifice



The notion of sacrifice is commonly associated with atonement, no
doubt because of the Biblical history of both notions. The book of
Leviticus, for instance, describes various ancient Israelite ritual
sacrifices, some of which aimed to atone (Milgrom
 1991).[9]
 For instance, if someone (i) does not speak up to testify what he
knows in a public case, (ii) touches anything ceremonially unclean,
(iii) thoughtlessly takes an oath, or (iv) deceives or cheats his
neighbor about something, that person is "guilty and will be
held responsible" (Lev 5:17, NIV). Because of this,



> 
> 
> as a penalty he must bring to the priest, that is, to the Lord, his
> guilt offering, a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the
> proper value. (Lev. 6:6, NIV)
> 
> 
> 



The ram is then ritually slaughtered, its blood is wiped or sprinkled
on some parts of the altar, and some of its parts are burned.



> 
> 
> In this way the priest will make atonement for him before the Lord,
> and he will be forgiven for any of these things he did that made him
> guilty. (Lev. 6:7, NIV)
> 
> 
> 



These sorts of sacrifices can be offered by people as needed
throughout the year, although there was an annual ritual--the Day
of Atonement, or Yom Kippur--whose purpose was to deal with all
the sins of the Israelites committed throughout the
 year.[10]



These symbolically rich sacrificial rituals were seen to help ancient
Israelites expiate and atone for their sins (Klawans 2006). Expiation
is plainly an effect of these rituals, which are designed to respond
to and remove the guilty status of wrongdoers. But atonement is also
plainly a goal. The Tanakh says that God will dwell among the
Israelites (Exodus 29:46), but sin can drive away God's presence
and lead God to punish the nation (Lev. 26). Proper observance of the
sacrifices is intended to prevent this from happening--thus,
maintaining a relationship through the tension caused by sin (Klawans
2006).



Other features of these sacrificial rituals reveal an awareness of the
importance of various aspects of atonement--confession,
repentance, and intention to morally reform (Thurow 2021a). Some have
argued that slaughter of the offering represents what was due to the
offerer as a sinner--death, as a punishment for sin (Halbertal
2012). Some of the rituals require restitution to the human victim
(Lev. 6:5). Thus the rituals acknowledge that sin or wrongdoing often
has two victims--God, and a human--and the wrongdoer ought
to atone to both. Lastly, the rituals acknowledge corporate effects of
sin and a need for corporate or collective atonement. Interestingly,
even though in many places sin is described as a stain on the sinner,
the blood from the sacrifice is not applied as a symbolic detergent to
the sinner. Rather, it is applied to the temple. The temple is
polluted by human sins, and continued such pollution is disastrous for
the nation as a whole--not just to the individual sinners
responsible for those stains. Sin, or wrongdoing, thus has a negative
effect on the community as a whole. The Day of Atonement rituals are
explicitly presented as offerings for the sin of Israel as a whole
(Milgrom 1991; J. Rutledge 2022; Thurow 2015).



Eventually Jews and Christians abandoned these sacrificial rituals,
although both groups maintained a connection between sacrifice and
atonement. For Christians, Jesus's death by crucifixion came to
be seen as the ultimate sacrifice to atone for human sin, thus
rendering the system of animal sacrifices superfluous. (See Daly 2009
and Moffitt 2022 for recent accounts of Christian use of the notion of
sacrifice.) For Jews, Yom Kippur is still today the highest holy day
and it maintains its central focus on dealing with human sin. However,
Rabbinic Judaism--working with threads from the Tanakh--came
to regard various other human activities as sacrificial, expiatory,
and atoning, such as prayer, confession, charity, and other kinds of
voluntarily endured suffering (Halbertal
 2012).[11]



Sacrifice as described above has been seen to play a role in atoning
for human sin against God. But there is a sense in which atonement
between humans often involves sacrifice--not a sacrifice to the
victim, but a sacrifice for the victim. "Sacrifice for"
here means, approximately, a difficult or costly loss of something one
cares about for the sake of another individual, collective, or cause
of value (Halbertal 2012). Many of the ways humans atone to others for
their wrongs involve sacrifice in this sense. Repentance can sacrifice
of one's sense of dignity; apologies, one's reputation;
reparation and restitution, one's time or resources.


#### 1.3.4 Propitiation



"To propitiate" can sometimes mean simply "to
expiate" or "to atone", but often the word implies
"to appease" or "to conciliate". In this
latter sense, to propitiate someone for the wrong you have done them
is to do something to appease them, to change their attitude towards
you in a more positive direction. Propitiation isn't always
required for atonement because, as in the
 fourth example
 in
 section 1.3.1,
 you can wrong someone without them knowing it. They have no attitudes
about your wrong action to change. But of course in many cases a
victim will be aware of having been wronged and will thus be angry,
upset, and ill at ease with the wrongdoer. In these cases, if one is
to atone--to remove the rift that has arisen with a person due to
one's having wronged them, in order to achieve
reconciliation--one will have to propitiate one's victim to
at least some degree. For if the victim is in the same negative state
towards the wrongdoer in virtue of the wrong action, then the rift
remains and the two haven't been reconciled.



There is a fierce debate in Christian theology and Biblical
interpretation regarding whether Jesus's sacrifice and the
Jewish animal sacrifices should be considered propitiations of
God's wrath (Morris 1983; F. Rutledge
 2015).[12]
 However, clearly in a human relationship damaged by wrongdoing, the
victim may feel towards the wrongdoer not only anger, but other
negative emotions such as resentment, condemnation, revulsion, and
hardening of the heart. Propitiation aims to reduce or eliminate these
sorts of emotions and replace them with other positive attitudes such
as good will, compassion, love, trust, reapproval, benevolence,
affection, or
 esteem.[13]



Since propitiation is an appeal to the victim to change her attitude
in a more positive direction, the wrongdoer must acknowledge that the
success of his attempt at propitiation and the fate of the
relationship is in the hands of the victim. The victim determines when
to offer forgiveness and when to reduce her negative attitudes and
replace them with positive attitudes. (Of course, one cannot do these
things entirely at will.)



This feature of propitiation seems also to be a feature of atonement.
Whether an act of atonement is adequate depends at least in part on
the victim's will and desires. Swinburne states,



> 
> 
> One consequence of my harming you is just that it is in part up to you
> whether my guilt is remitted.... The victim has the right, within
> limits, to judge when the wrongdoer's atonement suffices. (1989:
> 87-8)
> 
> 
> 



He argues that this is true because if instead one could remit
one's guilt simply by meeting some objective standard of
atonement, then one could wrong another and remove one's guilt
at will.



> 
> 
> That would not take seriously the fact that the act is an act by which
> you are wronged, and in the wiping out of which you ought therefore to
> have a say. (1989: 87)
> 
> 
> 



Radzik agrees and adds that given in atonement we aim to show and
restore proper respect to the victim,



> 
> 
> an important way for the atoning wrongdoer to reestablish respect for
> the victim ... is to give the victim a say in what comes next.
> (2009: 123)
> 
> 
> 



Both agree, however, that there are moral limits to what a victim can
demand for
 atonement.[14]


#### 1.3.5 Satisfaction



To offer satisfaction, in the sense that has been connected to
atonement since at least the time of the writing of the later books in
the Hebrew scriptures, is to pay a debt (Anderson 2009: 44ff).
Economic metaphors for atoning and making amends have flourished ever
since; evidence of them is seen in various second Temple Jewish texts
and early Christian texts, up through the medieval discussions of
satisfaction (Anderson 2009; Burns 1975). Forgiveness is also
sometimes understood in terms of canceling a debt (Pettigrove 2012:
21ff). How seriously to take the economic metaphor is debated, but
broad notions of satisfaction and moral debt can be outlined that stay
neutral about the aptness of economic metaphors.



When a person wrongs another person, the wrongdoer incurs a moral debt
that is owed to the victim. So long as the moral debt remains
unfulfilled, the wrongdoer remains in a state of guilt. This moral
debt is distinct from others, such as a debt of gratitude.
There's nothing intrinsically bad about having the latter debt,
but there is with the former, which are sometimes said to carry with
them a sort of moral mark or stain (Swinburne 1989).



What sort of debt is accrued through wrongdoing? There are various
ways of describing this debt, which may produce different concrete
views about what one can or should do to pay the debt. Here are two:
an obligation to make up for the wrong act (Radzik 2009: 29ff) by
erasing as far as possible the wrong and its effects; an obligation to
counter the disrespect shown to the victim. However the debt is
characterized, it has been thought to entail at least the following:
withdrawing the insult to the victim and repairing the injury done to
the victim and the community (Burns 1975; J. Murphy 2012a).



One way of defining "satisfaction" is as follows: to offer
satisfaction for wrong *W* is to fulfill one's moral debt
of wrongdoing for *W*. On this definition, satisfaction is
equivalent to making amends since by fulfilling one's moral debt
for *W*, one does whatever is morally required to respond to
having done *W*. Although this definition certainly falls
within the lexical range of the term, the term is often used to
indicate a narrower range of things one might due to make amends or
atone for wrongdoing, such as reparation, restitution, compensation,
or penance. The primary aim of satisfaction, on this narrower
definition, is to repair the injury and its harmful effects, although
of course by doing so one may also contribute towards withdrawing the
insult of the wrong.


## 2. How to Atone



We have some fairly strong intuitions about what kinds of actions can
atone and many of our stories about atonement illustrate the means
which will be described in this section (McEwan 2001; Stevenson 2015).
But with the definitions above we can go a step further than mere
intuition, for we can explain why these various activities atone: they
contribute to reconciliation and help fulfill our moral debts by
making amends--including the debts to withdraw insult to the
victim, and to repair insofar as possible the harms of the wrong to
the victim and to society.



Stump (1988) notes that when we atone we aim to deal with two
problems: the problem of past sin and the problem of future sin. The
former just is the moral wrong that was done, its harmful effects and
the relational rifts due to these. The latter is the problem of the
future wrong that the wrongdoer remains likely to do. The latter is
key to atoning because reconciliation is difficult if the victim fears
that the wrongdoer will wrong her again in the same sort of way as
before. Furthermore, if part of a wrongdoer's moral duty is to
repair the harms due to the wrong, then the wrongdoer may be required
to assuage fear and trepidation about potential future violations.


### 2.1 Apology



Although there is some dispute concerning how best to define the
notion of apology (N. Smith 2008), many apologies plainly help atone
for wrongdoing. Smith presents the notion of a categorical apology,
which he takes to be a regulative ideal (N. Smith 2008; 2014).
Categorical apologies involve some thirteen features such as accepting
blame, recognizing the victim as a moral interlocutor, and reforming
one's
 behavior.[15]
 All thirteen features of categorical apology plainly can atone, as
they each can help bridge the rift preventing reconciliation, as well
as help fulfill moral debts of wrongdoing. Indeed, categorical apology
is defined to include almost everything that could go into atoning for
a wrong--for Smith, repentance, reparation, accepting punishment,
and moral reformation all count as part of apology. But Smith
acknowledges that most of our apologies do not include all thirteen
features.



How we define apology ultimately is of little significance to the
issue of how we can atone. Actions can be carved and catalogued as one
pleases, so long as the actions of atoning significance are included
somewhere in the catalogue. In this section I will work with the
narrower notion of a genuine apology: one genuinely apologizes for an
action when one accepts blame for the action, has the standing to
accept blame for it, feels sorrow and guilt, regards the victim as a
moral interlocutor, communicates the apology to the victim, and
intends to reform and offer redress. This narrower notion is fairly
well expressed, surprisingly enough, on a sign often found in Jimmy
John's sandwich shops: "proper apologies have three parts:
1. What I did was wrong. 2. I feel badly that I hurt you. 3. How can I
make this better?"



By apologizing, the wrongdoer withdraws the insult made to the victim.
Their intention to refrain from the wrong action in the future gives
the victim at least some reason to trust them. Both aspects of apology
can thus reduce the rift that divides the wrongdoer from the victim
and bring about reconciliation--at least, moral reconciliation.
In addition, the wrongdoer's feeling of guilt and fear of
rejection can be a source of relational rift with the victim. The
wrongdoer can't bring themselves to face the victim. By
apologizing the wrongdoer breaks down this barrier to reconciliation
as well (Griffiths 2021: 103).



Although apologies may sometimes in themselves suffice to atone and
bring about reconciliation--when the offense is small, or when
the victim already has good reason to think that the wrongdoer is
repentant and that the wrongdoer wants what is best for the
victim--often more is required to atone. Apologies can be easy to
fake, and there are a variety of locutions that sound like apologies
but in fact are not--e.g., expressions of sympathy, and ambiguous
apologies (N. Smith 2008: 145-8). Victims will thus reasonably
be expected to accept an apology only where there are clear signs that
the apology is genuine, such as if the apology is costly (Ohtsubo
& Watanabe 2009). This is especially so if the wrongdoer aims to
reconcile a thicker relationship with the victim, such as a close
friendship or a
 marriage.[16]



Apology isn't always necessary for atonement, such as in
Radzik's rubber vase case and Bovens's case of a doctor
who secretly gives his patient a treatment intending to kill the
patient, but by chance the treatment instead cures the patient's
disease (Bovens 2008). If the victim is unaware of the wrongdoing and
apologizing would only bring grief to the victim and a rupture in the
relationship between the offender and victim, and no other benefits,
then even if there is a *pro tanto* moral reason to apologize,
that reason is overridden by a moral reason not to inflict harm when
there are no benefits to doing so. One can atone in other ways in
these circumstances.


### 2.2 Repentance



One repents of a wrong action when one


1. admits that one performed the action in question,
2. admits that the action was wrong,
3. admits that one bears at least some blame for having performed the
action, and
4. resolves to amend one's ways (Swinburne 1989: 82).



The resolution to amend one's ways includes a resolution to make
amends to the victim, and a resolution to not perform similar actions
in the future. The latter resolution may require one to repudiate and
seek to change aspects of one's character (J. Murphy 2003). The
Greek word that translates as "repentance" is
"metanoia", which means to make a fundamental change of
one's mind or outlook. A repentant person changes her outlook
about her past actions for the right reason; you're not
repentant if you decide to amend your ways not because you care at all
about being blameworthy for having done something wrong, but because
you don't want to be caught, or you don't want to be
thought of poorly. One repents when one resolves to amend one's
ways because of how one has blameworthily wronged another person.



There is also an emotional component to repentance. Someone who is
repentant has remorse and guilt about her wrong action (J. Murphy
2012b). She also experiences sympathy towards her victim (Bovens
2008), sadness at having acted wrongly, and
 contrition.[17]



Repentance contributes to atonement in various ways. It is a necessary
ingredient of a genuine apology. Repentance is a prerequisite for
moral and thicker sorts of reconciliation. Moral reconciliation
involves entering into a relationship of mutual moral respect and it
seems that a wrongdoer does not respect a victim by refraining from
repenting. The wrongdoer has an obligation to fix what can be fixed
about the wrong action and its effects; one thing that can be fixed is
the insult to the victim. By repenting, the wrongdoer begins to
withdraw the insult.



Many theological approaches to repentance share the above features,
but regard repentance as a more general rejection of sin and embrace
of God's goodness. For example, repentance in both Roman
Catholic Christianity and Sufi Islam requires
 (i)--(iv)
 above together with emotions of contrition, regret, and sadness
towards sin. Both, however, also regard repentance as interior
conversion: rejecting living in sin and embracing a new way of life
following God (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1431 [2.2.2.4.IV,
 Other Internet Resources];
 Khalil 2018).


### 2.3 Giving a True Account



To give a true account of a wrong is to accurately describe what
happened and to explain the motivations, intents, desires, passions,
and thinking behind the wrong action. Ideally, the wrongdoer would
come to understand a true and relatively complete account of their
wrongdoing and communicate that understanding to the victim, who would
then incorporate it into their own understanding of the event. In this
ideal situation, the understanding and exchange of a true account of
the wrongdoing helps bring about reconciliation. First, for the
offender to repent and genuinely apologize, he needs to be aware of
the extent of his culpability for the wrong action and this awareness
requires something approaching a true account of his
 action.[18]
 For similar reasons, an offender's awareness of a true account
of their wrongdoing assists in personal moral reformation and
transformation, which can also atone.



Second, victims can experience a variety of negative consequences that
result due in part to a lack of awareness of a true account of the
wrongdoing (Volf 2006). Victims are often confused about why someone
would wrong them in the way they did. This confusion can be
intrinsically painful. Worse, victims often feel that they are in some
way to blame for the event, or feel shame at having been victimized.
Lacking a true account of what happened, victims can also feel greater
fear of being victimized again without any good idea of how to prevent
it from happening. Receiving a true account of the wrong action from
the offender can help heal these negative consequences. "It
takes knowing the truth to be set free from the psychic injury caused
by wrongdoing" (Volf 2006: 75).



Third, it is difficult enough to know why we ourselves do what we do,
but even more difficult to know why someone else does what they do.
And when we have been victimized, it can be immensely tempting to
reconstruct an account of what happened that demonizes the offender.
We can hold offenders more culpable than they deserve. We can fail to
sympathize with their personal weaknesses and circumstances which have
led them to form poor adaptational strategies (M. Adams 1991), and
with common human frailties we share (Garrard & McNaughton 2010).
Victims can thus, understandably and often nonculpably, form views of
the offender that erect a barrier to reconciliation. By giving a true
account, wrongdoers can help break down this barrier to
reconciliation, thus atoning for their wrongdoing.


### 2.4 Moral Reformation and Transformation



As noted above, repentance entails a resolution to amend one's
ways regarding the wrong action in view. This implies more than just
resolving to never again do that kind of wrong action to that person
in those kinds of circumstances. One must resolve against performing
wrong actions of a more general sort. My resolving not to lie to you
about using our money to make spontaneous personal purchases is not
enough. I must resolve not to lie about how I use money more
generally, and I must resolve not to lie to anyone (or maybe anyone
who has a significant interest in knowing about my money usage). To
carry out this resolution, I must also examine why I am inclined to
lie about how I use money and then begin to transform my motivations
and how I respond to them. And I must do all of this not just because
I do not want to be caught, or to get you off my case, but because I
see how lying about how I use money wrongs you and others. In short,
repentance requires that I resolve to be morally reformed or
transformed.



Since a resolution to reform (as I shall here abbreviate it) is a part
of repentance and repentance atones, resolutions to reform contribute
to atonement. But both the resolution to reform and the reform itself
also atone separate from being a necessary ingredient of repentance.
Reform regarding the wrong action in view constitutes moral respect
for the victim. It demonstrates that the wrongdoer has taken seriously
his wronging of the victim and repudiates that wronging by
transforming his life so that he will not (or he is less likely to)
wrong the victim or others in this sort of way again. Reform also, for
similar reasons, can serve to withdraw the insult of the victim.
Reform also enables reconciliation. Part of what blocks reconciliation
is the victim's fear of being wronged again. Since reform atones
in these ways, and resolving to reform puts one on the path to reform
(and can itself partially withdraw insult and reduce fear of future
wrong), resolving to reform also atones.



Experience shows that moral reformation and transformation often
requires struggle and time, and we often fall short of the change we
desire. Perhaps in part for this reason, in many cases we seem not to
require moral transformation in order to reconcile with someone who
has wronged us. When the harm isn't very great, when the threat
of future harm from the wrongdoer isn't very great (or when we
can easily be more vigilant to prevent or avoid the harm), and when we
know that ordinary human limitations and temptations explain the
wrong, in practice we seem content to reconcile even if the wrongdoer
hasn't morally reformed and even may be unlikely to reform.
Genuine repentance displayed to us is often sufficient. Coming to
repent can itself be a difficult journey for many people; sometimes it
may be the best we can hope for from a wrongdoer, and sufficient to
reconcile some sort of relationship.


### 2.5 Reparation/Restitution/Recompense/Satisfaction



As noted in
 section 1.3.5,
 wrongdoers accrue a moral debt to their victim to, at the least,
withdraw the insult conveyed by, and repair the harmful effects of,
their wrong. Sometimes the harm is so minor--such as the harm
resulting from forgetting to keep one's promise to one's
spouse to pick up milk at the store--that no reparation is
required beyond repentance and an apology. But, often and tragically,
wrong actions result in substantial harms. In those cases, it seems
that atonement and making amends require that wrongdoers fulfill their
moral debts to repair the harm.



The terms "reparation", "restitution",
"recompense", and "satisfaction" all have
slightly different shades of meaning (Spelman 2002). Satisfaction, as
defined above, is the most general term; "reparation" in
everyday speech is quite close in meaning. Recompense and restitution
are more specific ways of repairing through monetary compensation or
an exchange of equivalent value to the
 harm.[19]



Although there are different shades of meaning to the four notions,
they are unified by sharing a goal that each aims to achieve: undoing
the harmful effects of the wrong (Zolkos
 2020).[20]
 Harms cannot literally be completely undone, even in cases of minor
wrongs and harms. I may replace your window I have carelessly broken
with a new window, but there still was a time when your window was
broken during which you were angry and resentful. Those latter events
cannot be undone. Reparation, restitution, etc. aim at approximating
an undoing of the harmful effects.


### 2.6 Penance



The word "penance" is most familiar today from the Roman
Catholic sacrament of penance. Used to refer to the sacrament in its
entirety, it refers to a process involving contrition for sin,
confession, satisfaction, and absolution. The word is often used more
narrowly to describe the third step of that process, satisfaction
(Barton 1961). However, although penance in this narrower sense may
sometimes include the sorts of things that are described in
 section 2.5,
 those things are done with a different purpose *qua*
penance.



In Roman Catholicism, penance--the sacrament--is a sort of
medicine for the soul (John Paul II 1984: 31). Each part of the
sacrament is medicinal, including satisfaction--or penance,
narrowly construed (Aquinas *ST* supp 12.3). Penance, in the
narrow sense, in part can involve reparation since making reparation
is part of how we make amends and atone, and thus remove guilt for our
sin. But penance is also medicinal in another way: it is supposed to
express a desire for and help bring about moral and spiritual
transformation. Consequently, many penances -such as saying
certain prayers, or reading certain spiritual texts, or giving
alms--do not offer reparation to the human victim of one's
sin (they may amount to reparation to God). Penance, in the narrower
sense, thus denotes a certain class of acts that express a desire for
and aid in bringing about what was discussed in
 section 2.4--moral
 transformation--as well as spiritual transformation.



Penance, in the narrower sense, can thus also have a secular meaning
if the notion is narrowed even further: *x* does penance for
wrong *R* if and only if *x* does something to express a
desire for and to help produce moral transformation in response to
having done *R*. Criminals may in this sense do penance for
their crimes by, say, doing community service or by committing
themselves to helping other people to avoid committing similar sorts
of crimes.



Richard Swinburne proposes a different secular notion of penance:
penance is something a wrongdoer provides to his victim that (i) is
offered in addition to reparation or compensation, and (ii) is offered
as a way of disowning the wrong action by indicating his appreciation
for the victim, his awareness of the seriousness of the wrong, and his
sorrow at having wronged the victim (Swinburne 1989: 83-84).
Penance, in this sense, is significant as a performative act of
disowning. Apologies can be insincere or routine, and reparation can
be done without a spirit of contrition and sorrow. Penance, in
Swinburne's sense, helps the wrongdoer to adequately communicate
to his victim contrition, sorrow, and appreciation.


### 2.7 Punishment



The relationship between punishment and atonement has been highly
disputed. Part of the dispute results from divergent understandings of
punishment. For instance, Anselm says that justice requires that
humans who sin against God must either repay the honor they have taken
from God (i.e., offer satisfaction), or suffer punishment (Anselm
*Cur Deus Homo*, *CDH* hereafter, 13). But punishment,
in this case, would result in eternal damnation and God doesn't
want that end for his creatures. Satisfaction thus provides a way for
atonement, but punishment does not. Aquinas, however, seems to think
that sin must be atoned through penal compensation and acts of penance
and reparation count as penal because they are imposed for sin and are
involuntary in themselves, although people voluntarily accept them in
the circumstances when they desire to atone (see *ST*
I-II.87.6). Satisfactions are thus punishments, on this view, and thus
at least some punishments atone.



According to contemporary western views of punishment, for an act to
count as punishment it must


1. impose some cost or hardship (which could amount to the loss of an
opportunity or privilege),
2. be done intentionally by the punisher,
3. be imposed in response to what is believed to be a wrong act,
4. be imposed as a way of expressing condemnation or censure of the
act, and
5. be performed by a recognized authority (see the entry on
 punishment).



In this sense, most acts of penance and reparation--unless
imposed by a recognized authority--will not amount to punishment.
Typical punishments, on this notion, include: fines, prison sentences,
the death penalty, court ordered community service, and time-outs
declared by parents.



Can punishments, understood in this sense, atone? Once again,
punishments that are impositions of reparation, penance, and apology
can atone, for all the same reasons that they can atone when done on
their own, independently of being imposed as punishment. However,
these actions appear to have less value as acts of atonement when
undertaken merely as punishment than when undertaken voluntarily from
the
 heart.[21]
 When an action is undertaken merely as punishment, it does not (or
does not clearly convey) any repentance, contrition, or
remorse--unlike (typically) when it is undertaken voluntarily
independent of an imposition of punishment. Thus, an essential
ingredient of atonement for moral reconciliation is absent in the
former case. Even worse, acts undertaken merely as punishment can
hinder atonement by producing resentment, anger, and other attitudes
that hinder
 reconciliation.[22]



What about punishments such as jail time, the death penalty, and other
forms of enforced suffering such as lashings--can these
punishments atone? Rashdall (1907; 1920) and others have argued that
these practices, typically justified on retributive grounds, do not
atone as they do no good to the wrongdoer or the victim (aside from
protection from future harm), and do nothing to bring about any sort
of reconciliation between the wrongdoer and victim. Indeed, for the
reasons mentioned above, punishment can hinder reconciliation.



Defenders of certain retributivist theories of punishment, such as
what Craig (2020: 178) calls positive retributivism, can resist
Rashdall's argument as follows: wrongdoers morally should be
punished, and so to make amends they must be punished, and since
atoning requires making amends, being punished atones. This view faces
a challenge: how can punishment be a way of atoning if punishment
doesn't even aim at reconciliation? How does the wrongdoer being
imprisoned (for example) aim for any sort of reconciliation between
the wrongdoer and the victim?



Garvey (1999), drawing on expressivist theories of punishment, offers
one answer to this question. A wrong action both harms and wrongs the
victim.



> 
> 
> The harm of a crime is the material loss it causes...the wrong of
> a crime is the message of disrespect or dishonor it conveys. (Garvey
> 1999: 1821)
> 
> 
> 



Punishment is our conventional means to, as a society, counter this
message. The counter-message of punishment can thus bring about moral
reconciliation by removing or repudiating the insult delivered by the
wrong action. Moral reconciliation between the victim and wrongdoer
requires more than that *society* send a counter-message; it
requires that *the wrongdoer* send the counter-message. By
voluntarily submitting to just punishment, the wrongdoer makes the
public message sent by punishment his
 own.[23]



This defense of the atoning value of punishment, however, seems to
imply that punishment is not absolutely necessary for making atonement
since there are many other ways a wrongdoer could clearly communicate
a repudiation of the insult delivered by their wrong action. Indeed,
apology, reparation, and acts of moral improvement can--perhaps
even more clearly--communicate a repudiation of the insult
(Radzik 2009: 44). However, in some cases it may be conditionally
necessary to be punished in order to atone--for instance, if
there is a clearly established set of punishments that are taken to be
the way people should express repudiation of their wrong actions. In
these cases, refraining from accepting a just punishment due to you
would communicate a lack of repudiation.


### 2.8 Third Party Assistance



The wrongdoer will have to do at least some of the atoning work.
Atonement aims at moral reconciliation at the very least, which
requires a renewed respect for the victim from the wrongdoer. This
renewed respect requires at least repentance and perhaps make some
efforts at moral transformation. However, it seems that people other
than the wrongdoer can assist with atonement. Indeed, according to
Christianity, Christ has made atonement for all human sin even though
Christ himself is completely innocent of sin.



There is a difference between helping another person to atone, and
atoning for another person. The former is plainly possible. A
wrongdoer's friend could help them to atone by, for example,
encouraging them to repent, helping them construct a true account of
the wrong action, discussing with them ways to apologize, driving them
to a meeting with the victim so that the wrongdoer can apologize. The
latter also seems possible. Indeed, an entire religious
tradition--Christianity--is predicated on its possibility.
Aquinas, following similar statements by Anselm, writes,



> 
> 
> since those who differ as to the debt of punishment may be one in will
> by the union of love, it happens that one who has not sinned bears
> willingly the punishment for another, just as even in human affairs we
> see men take the debts of another upon themselves. (*ST*
> I-II.87.7)
> 
> 
> 



The sort of punishment that others can bear for us is what he calls
"satisfactory punishment", which amounts to what we above
called reparation imposed as punishment. Thus, a wrongdoer's
friend could pay a fine, or replace a damaged or lost item, or perform
some other act of service that is owed to the victim.



Can third parties atone for a wrongdoer by acting as a substitute for
punishment in the narrower sense described in
 section 2.7?
 D. Lewis (1997) argues that we are of two minds about penal
substitution. He observes, following a long line of thinkers
stretching back at least to Socinus in the sixteenth century CE, that
we do not allow penal substitution amongst humans for punishments such
as imprisonment, the death penalty, and lashings. If someone were to
offer themselves in place of their brother, say, on the electric
chair, "the offer would strike the authorities as senseless, and
they would decline it out of hand" (D. Lewis 1997: 129).
However, Lewis also observes that we are of two minds because we also
seem to have no problem with third parties paying penal fines on
behalf of wrongdoers.



M. Murphy (2009) and Quinn (2004) observe that we are sometimes
uncomfortable with penal fines being paid by a third party. Murphy
argues, further--assuming an expressivist view of
punishment--that penal substitution is incoherent because the
putative punishment undergone by the third party does not express any
condemnation of the third party. However, he thinks that vicarious
punishment is possible and can be justly performed. Vicarious
punishment occurs when



> 
> 
> A deserves to be punished; B undergoes hard treatment, which hard
> treatment constitutes A's being punished; and so A no longer
> deserves to be punished. (M. Murphy 2009: 260)
> 
> 
> 



Hill and Jedwab (2015) object that Murphy begs the question by
assuming that the recipient of punishment must be the object of
condemnation. They suggest there are cases where this seems false,
such as when a teacher punishes everyone in a class for the actions of
a few students, or when a sergeant imposes suffering on all the
soldiers in a squad because of the actions of just a few members.
Thurow (2015) agrees that these can be cases of penal substitution,
but he explains how penal substitution is conceptually and morally
possible by understanding the third party as acting for a collective
entity of which they are a member, where the collective is guilty of
wrongdoing.



Craig (2020) rejects Murphy's argument on the grounds that there
are cases of punishment that do not express condemnation, e.g.,
punishment for crimes of strict liability such as marijuana
possession. (See
 section 4.3
 for further discussion of penal substitution.)


## 3. Human-Divine Atonement



Atonement is deeply important for religions such as Judaism and,
especially, Christianity. (See Cornille 2021 for a comparison of these
with other religious approaches to atonement.) In this and the
following sections we will focus on the Christian notion of God and
what atonement might look like in a Christian context.



Just as humans can wrong each other, so can they wrong
 God.[24]
 Atoning to God can differ from atoning to a fellow human because the
victim, the nature of the wrongdoing, and the kind of relationship
that one aims to or should aim to reconcile all differ. First,
God's nature may affect the seriousness of wrongs against him.
Anselm and many others in the medieval Christian theological
tradition, for instance, hold that sinning against God is infinitely
worse than wronging a fellow human being because God is perfectly,
infinitely good whereas fellow humans are not (*CDH* II.14; see
also Aquinas *ST* I-II.87.3-4).



Second, how God is wronged differs in some ways from how humans are
wronged. Wronging God disrespects and insults him and wronging someone
is always "in itself objectively harmful" (Cross 2001:
401). However, God is harmed by sin differently than humans are harmed
by wrongdoing. God's safety or existence is never threatened.
God cannot be physically or emotionally injured in his divine
 nature.[25]
 But God can be harmed in other ways: his desire that humans love and
obey him can be frustrated, his plans for humanity can be frustrated
(Anselm *CDH* I.23), and he is indirectly harmed by the harm
done to other things he loves (Hick 1993 [2005:
 123]).[26]
 The latter harm implies that atoning to God will require atoning to
the human victims of one's wrongdoing (Thurow
 2017a).[27]



Third, the shape of atonement to God for human sin depends on the kind
of reconciled relationship humans want or should want to have with
God, or that God wants to have with them--especially important
if, as Christians believe, God plays a crucial role in helping humans
atone (Thurow
 2021b).[28]
 This relationship has been depicted many different ways: as a certain
sort of union of love (John 17:20ff; Stump 2018), a familial
relationship--being brothers and sisters of Christ, with God as
father (Hebrews 2:10ff), friendship with God (John 15:12ff; Aquinas
*ST* II-II.23.1), fellowship with God (1Cor. 1:9; Taylor 1941),
covenantal love (Deut. 7:9-10; Levenson 2016), all followers of
God being unified in one body, with Christ as the head (Ephesians
4:1ff; De Lubac 1947 [1988]), and deification/theosis/renewing the
image of God in humanity (2Cor. 3:18; Athanasius *On the
Incarnation*). These are each more robust relationships than
merely moral reconciliation.



Unsurprisingly, there are several different accounts of how humans can
and should atone to God for human sin. In the next two sections we
will survey several different theories of the Christian doctrine of
atonement. Each theory tends to emphasize one or more of the ways of
atonement described in
 section 2
 in their accounts of how Christ atones for human sin. Thus the
theories implicitly grant that atoning to God resembles to some degree
atoning to humans--although the nature of God, the severity of
human sin, the weakness of humans, and other contextual factors are
taken to imply that atoning to God will in practice and detail look
different than atoning to humans (Thurow 2021a).



For a summary of work on the issue of how the Christian doctrine of
atonement might help make sense of moral phenomena, see the appendix,
Atonement, God, and Morality (LINK).


## 4. Classical Theories of the Doctrine of Atonement



Although the doctrine of the atonement is central to Christianity,
there has been no widely accepted account of how Christ atones for
human sin. The Nicene Creed--an ecumenical creed declared at the
Council of Nicea in 325 CE--asserts that



> 
> 
> Jesus Christ...for our salvation came down and became flesh, and
> was made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day. (Denzinger
> 2012: 51)
> 
> 
> 



This brief statement asserts that Christ atones for human sin, but
neither Nicea nor any other ecumenical creed has given an account of
how Christ atones for human
 sin.[29]



Every Christian wants their view of atonement to do justice to the
Christian scriptures, but doing so is challenging. The New Testament
uses a diverse array of language to describe Christ's atonement;
weaving this language into a coherent account presents one challenge
(Letham 1993; Grensted 1920; O'Collins 2007). Another challenge
comes from the Jewish background. The New Testament says that Christ
both fulfills God's law in the Old Testament and is a sacrifice
that deals once and for all with the problem of human sin. But there
is dispute over how to understand both these Old Testament notions and
how the New Testament is using them (Finlan 2020
 [Other Internet Resources]).



Philosophical assumptions present another challenge to developing an
account of the doctrine of atonement. The notions of God's love,
justice, and forgiveness play a key role in understanding atonement.
Although scriptural interpretation helps to interpret those notions,
theologians also bring their own philosophical assumptions about these
notions to their accounts. Intuitions about love and justice, for
example, have both motivated some theories, and provided material for
challenging other theories.



In this section we briefly survey some of the most prominent
historical accounts of the doctrine of the atonement. Various schemes
have been used to categorize accounts. Aulen (1930 [1931])
famously divides them into three categories: Christus Victor,
forensic, and subjective or exemplarist. Others distinguish between
objective and subjective theories, or God-ward and man-ward theories
(MacKinnon 1966; Grensted 1920; Fiddes 1989; Thurow 2021a). Another
way to categorize accounts would be according to which of the ways of
atoning (see
 section 2
 above) are emphasized in the explanation of what Christ does to atone
for human sin.



These theories share some common assumptions. First, without
Christ's atoning work, humans could not be saved from their
state of sin (1Cor. 15: 3-4, 17). Second, there is an
anti-Pelagian assumption: humans can do nothing of their own power to
merit salvation, and thus they can do nothing of their own power to
atone for sin (O'Collins 2007: 64ff). Third, although Christ
atones for human sin, to take advantage of Christ's atoning
work, humans must themselves repent of their sins (1John
1:7-2:2). Thus, humans contribute something to atonement for
their sins, although even here God's grace is needed for humans
to fully repent. Fourth, atonement for human sin must either involve
or entail, in normal circumstances, that humans who have accepted the
atoning work of Christ will be morally transformed. As Turner puts
it,



> 
> 
> even the most rigidly objective doctrine of the Cross must leave room
> for the *Imitatio Christi* [i.e., that humans should imitate
> Christ] at least as a corollary or a consequent. (1952 [2004:
> 117])
> 
> 
> 



Fifth, although aspects of many different parts of Christ's life
may atone, his death on the cross plays an important and distinctive
role in atonement (Pelikan 1978: 131ff; Thurow 2021a). Some of these
assumptions function more like norms or desiderata; indeed, some
accounts are criticized on the ground that they do not adequately
respect these norms.



For other useful recent surveys of accounts of the Christian doctrine
of atonement, see Beilby & Eddy 2006; Crisp 2020a; J. Johnson
2016; Pugh 2014; Schmiechen 2005. Grensted 1920 is a classic history
of the doctrine--readable and still useful. F. Rutledge 2015
contains a deep, but accessible discussion of many of the elements of
accounts of atonement. These surveys touch on classic theories we are
unable to discuss here such as Grotius's governmental theory and
Campbell's vicarious penitence
 theory.[30]


### 4.1 The Ransom Theory



The ransom theory was widespread in the first few centuries of
 Christianity.[31]
 Versions of it can be found in the Latin (Augustine, *On the
Trinity*, books IV and XIII), Greek (Gregory of Nyssa, *An
Address on Religious Instruction*), and Syriac (Narsai,
"Homily for the Great Sunday of the Resurrection") Church
fathers. It is an instance of a broader family of views: Christus
Victor. Gregory Boyd, a defender of a Christus Victor account, says
that the "essence" of the view is that God breaks



> 
> 
> into human history to destroy the power of sin and rescu[e] us from
> the cosmic powers that keep us in bondage to sin. (2006: 29)
> 
> 
> 



Views differ over how to depict the cosmic powers, the nature of human
bondage to them, and the mechanism by which God frees humans from
bondage through the work of Christ. The ransom account fills in these
details in a distinctive and memorable way, although today it is
rarely defended (for a notable exception, see Lombardo 2013).



The ransom view is built on a drama between God, Satan and humans.
Humans sin, and as a result fall under the power of Satan, who in his
role as accuser rightly subjects humans to death. God, in his love,
does not desire humans to endure eternal death, but it would be unjust
for God to simply remove us from Satan's power as he rightly
condemns us to death. To solve this problem, God sends
Christ--the son of God, the second person of the
Trinity--who has both a human and divine nature. Christ is not
guilty of sin, but Satan brings about his death anyway, which then
functions as a ransom: Satan owes God for this injustice and God, in
return, frees humans from Satan's
 power.[32]



Stated as baldly as this, the ransom theory faces several objections.
First, Anselm objects that God has the right and power to simply
remove humans from Satan's power; it would be better to do that
than to send God the Son to die unjustly (*CDH* I.6). Second,
Anselm argues that Satan has no right to treat humans as he does. All
are subject to God's authority and Satan would not be wronged if
God removed humans from his influence (*CDH* I.7). However, it
should be noted that there are ransom accounts that do not assume that
Satan has rights over humans--for instance, Irenaeus holds that
God submits to what Satan desires not because Satan has a right to a
ransom, but because it is more fitting for God to act through
persuasion than force (*AH* V.1.1).



Third, the ransom theory treats humans like mostly innocent and
hapless beings who have been tricked and enslaved by a foreign power
(Ray 1998). Although this idea is present in the New Testament, it
isn't clearly connected to atonement, which concerns a torn
relationship due to
 sin.[33]



The ransom theory isn't typically stated so baldly, however.
Other motifs are used in concert with the notion of ransom, and some
of these motifs can help address some of the above objections
(although the motifs each raise their own problems as well). In the
next section we survey some of these motifs, as they are in principle
separable from the ransom theory, and have been used as elements of
other accounts of atonement.


### 4.2 Three Motifs


#### 4.2.1 The Recapitulation Motif



Irenaeus, an early Church father, is famous for saying that
Christ's entire life and death recapitulate what Adam has done
to spread sin in humanity. Adam is not just an individual, but a
representative for humanity who has set humanity on the course of sin.
Christ is viewed as the new Adam, who reverses what Adam did for
humanity. Recapitulation aims at restoring humanity to how it was
meant to be. It does this by summing up in Christ's life the
sort of obstacles humans have faced, but reversing what humanity,
following Adam, has done in the face of those obstacles (Turner 1952).
Where humanity sinned and was disobedient, Christ was sinless and
obedient. Irenaeus uses this theme to explain in granular detail some
of the specific events of Christ's life. For instance, because
Adam committed the first sin in regard to a tree, Christ needs to
finally defeat sin in obedience in regard to a tree--i.e., by
hanging on the cross (*AH* V.16.2).



Recapitulation, if seen as a requirement for how sin must be defeated,
provides an additional tool to use to explain why Christ's life
took the particular shape it did. Of course, the main question it
faces is this: why should recapitulation provide strictures as to how
sin is defeated? (Rashdall 1920: 233ff) One answer is that there is a
certain sort of beauty to the structure (McNall 2019: 34). Another is
that if Christ is to operate as a representative for humanity in
combatting evil, he should in his actions sum up the full range of
humanity's experience with evil and counteract it (McNall 2019:
40).


#### 4.2.2 The Divinization/Healing Motif



Many of the early Greek Church fathers--including Gregory of
Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Athanasius--emphasize this motif
(although it is also found in the Latin tradition). Athanasius states
it simply: "He [i.e., Christ, the word of God]...assumed
humanity that we might become God" (*On the Incarnation*
[1993: 93]). God the Son assumes a human nature to divinize
it--to restore the image of God in humanity that has been
tarnished by sin and to heal our nature that had become sick and
subject to corruption. Humans cannot cure themselves of the problem
with their nature, and so the cure must come from a divine source that
unites with their human nature, "for a sick man cannot be healed
unless the ailing part of him in particular receives the cure"
(Gregory of Nyssa *An Address* [1954: 305]). The cure includes
saving humans from death, which Christ accomplishes through his own
death (Myers 2015).



This motif is used to explain why God became incarnate, and it implies
that all of Christ's life plays some role in healing human
nature. And since healing human nature is needed for reconciliation
with God, and thus for atonement, mere repentance is not sufficient
(Athanasius *On the Incarnation* [1993: 33]) for atonement.



The main question for this motif is: how does the incarnation of the
Son of God bring about divinization/healing of humans? The usual
answer appeals to the solidarity of humankind together with the Son of
God's ability, like Adam, to affect all of humanity through his
actions (De Lubac 1947 [1988]; Mersch 1933/1938 [2011]). All of
humanity exists in a union of sorts, constituting "a single
living organism" (Gregory of Nyssa *An Address* [1954:
310]). By uniting himself with this organism, God the Son--who
becomes the Head of humanity--can convey his renewed human nature
to other humans in the organism, thus healing
 them.[34]


#### 4.2.3 Vicarious Substitute/Representative Motif



This motif, rooted in the Christian scriptures, is common throughout
the history of Christian thought (Gathercole 2015; Bynum 2004). This
motif is often combined with seeing Christ's atoning
work--especially his death--as a sacrifice. Sometimes
Christ's atoning work is understood as substitutionary: he does
it instead of those who ought to have done it (or something
equivalent), releasing them of any obligation to do it. Athanasius,
for example, says that humans have a debt that needs to be paid due to
sin--a debt of death--and Christ becomes "in dying a
sufficient exchange for all" (*On the Incarnation* [1993:
35]). Christ's atoning work is also sometimes regarded as
representative: he represents humans, and so what he does to atone
counts as what we humans need to do to atone. The divinization/healing
motif is often coupled with seeing Christ as a representative.



The main challenge for this motif is to explain how Christ is a
substitute or a representative and, as such, how his atoning work can
remove the need or duty for non-divine humans to atone for their sin.
Each theory that incorporates this motif--and most theories do,
one way or another--replies to this challenge differently.


### 4.3 Anselm's Satisfaction Theory



Anselm's satisfaction theory in *Curs Deus Homo* (abbr.
*CDH* as noted above) is the most influential account of the
Christian doctrine of atonement. Nearly everything written since
defines itself as a defense, development, or rejection of (and
alternative to) Anselm's theory.



Anselm's argument in *CDH* moves through four steps
(Thurow 2017b: 433).



Step 1:
In order to be saved, humans must offer satisfaction to God for
what they have taken from God in sinning against him.
Step 2:
Only God incarnated as a human descendant of Adam will be able to
offer adequate satisfaction for human sin.
Step 3:
At least some humans will be saved.
Step 4:
By dying in service of God, God incarnate provides an adequate and
most fitting satisfaction for human sin.


Steps 1, 2, and 4 give us the heart of Anselm's theory of
 atonement.[35]



Step 1
 is supported as follows (see *CDH* I.10-14,19,22,24).
Humans have sinned and sin dishonors God. A just God cannot tolerate
the injustice of dishonor, and so sinners must either offer
satisfaction that adequately compensates for the dishonor done to God,
or suffer punishment. But the punishment due for sin against God is
eternal death. Thus, if humans are to be saved from eternal death,
they must instead offer adequate satisfaction.



In support of
 step 2,
 Anselm argues (in short) that humans are so mired in sin, and the
disvalue of sin is so great because of God's nature, that no
non-divine human can offer adequate
 satisfaction.[36]
 However, it is "necessary that the person paying recompense
should be identical with the sinner, or a member of the same
race" (*CDH* II.8 [1998: 321]). God--being divine,
morally perfect, and having no debt of sin--could offer adequate
satisfaction. Thus, adequate satisfaction can only be offered by a
human descendant of Adam who is also God--i.e., God
incarnate.



For
 step 4,
 Anselm argues that whatever God incarnate does to satisfy for human
sin must be supererogatory. Living a perfect life is required of all,
including Christ. But dying in service of God is supererogatory and,
because of the value of God himself, has far greater value than does
the debt of human sin (*CDH* II.10-11, 14-15).
Furthermore, this satisfaction is fitting in other ways: it involves
pain (*CDH* II.11), which counters the pleasure of sin, it
decisively conquers Satan (*CDH* I.22-23), and it is a
better example of service to God than one that does not involve his
death (*CDH* II.18). Anselm here weaves in elements of
recapitulation, ransom, and moral influence views. Since God incarnate
performed a great act of supererogation for God the Father, he is owed
compensation. God incarnate desires the merit of his supererogatory
act be used as satisfaction for human sin.



Anselm's satisfaction theory has been criticized on several
grounds. Some criticisms conflate the satisfaction theory with penal
substitution and reject both for problems leveled chiefly at penal
substitution (Gorringe 1996, for example). However, Anselm's
theory is notable for saying that God precisely does not punish humans
for their sin. Rather, punishment is avoided by Christ's
satisfaction for human sin.



Many object that Anselm's notion of honor is at heart a feudal
notion, both foreign to the Biblical context and not one that we
should attribute to God (see Whidden 2011 for
 examples).[37]
 Others have contested this charge, arguing that Anselm's notion
of satisfaction has far older roots not connected with feudalism
(Anderson 2009; Crisp 2020a: 71; Mansini 1987; Whidden 2011) and that
it fits into his broader metaphysical notion of rectitude--things
being as they should, as rightly ordered, or as morally ordered by God
(R. Campbell 1998; McGrath 1981).



The theologian Faustus Socinus is famous for leveling a series of
objections against objective theories of the atonement (Grensted
1920). Two of those objections target satisfaction views specifically.
First, if satisfaction is made for sin, then God does not pardon or
forgive. But scripture plainly asserts that God forgives humans for
sin, thus the satisfaction view must be false. This objection,
however, depends upon the debt-canceling view of forgiveness, which
has been contested (Pettigrove 2012) and conflicts with other views of
forgiveness described in
 section 1.3.2.
 Second, Socinus argues that Anselm's allowance of someone of
the same race to make satisfaction for human sin is unmotivated and
contrary to our moral standards--the sinner and the sinner alone
should pay the price. However, given that for Anselm the
"price" seems to be reparative, people other than the
sinner can help atone by helping repair its harmful effects (Purtill
1990).



Scotus objects to Anselm's calculation of the infinite debt
resulting from sin against God. He argues that sin produces a finite
debt arising from loving or pursuing a finite thing improperly. Humans
can perform supererogatory acts, which they can use as satisfaction to
pay this finite debt (see Burns 1975).



Cross (2001) argues that sin against God, when it does not have other
harmful consequences, is a deprivation of service and one only need
genuinely apologize and repent to atone in such cases. One must repair
harmful consequences to humans, but beyond that no further reparation
is owed to
 God.[38]



Stump (2018) objects that Anselm (and many other views) regards
God's forgiveness as conditional upon and responsive to
Christ's satisfaction for human sin. This, she claims, is
contrary to God's love, which entails unconditional and
unilateral forgiveness. Some have objected to Stump's view of
God's love and forgiveness (Craig 2019; J. Rutledge 2022;
Swinburne 2019; Thurow & Strabbing 2020; Warmke 2019). Thurow and
Strabbing (2020) argue that Anselm's notion of forgiveness is
different from Stump's and, in any case, Anselm is more
concerned to argue that reconciliation is conditional upon
satisfaction.



Lombardo (2013) objects that Anselm is committed to saying that God
wills Christ's death and the moral evil that causes his death,
neither of which a good God would do. Anselm tries to dodge this
concern in *CDH*, however Lombardo argues that his attempts all
fail; they either render his view unable to explain why God became
human or result in a tension within the Trinity.



Lastly, many have criticized Anselm's view for not accounting
for how humans are to respond to and adopt Christ's atoning work
for themselves (e.g., Grensted 1920; Crisp 2020a). However, this
lacuna may be due to the narrow goal of the *CDH*; Anselm
elsewhere shows deep sensitivity to the importance of human repentance
and faith in becoming reconciled to God (Thurow & Strabbing
 2020).[39]



Contemporary defenses of Anselm's view, or modified
satisfactions views, can be found in Anderson 2009; Aspenson 1990;
Farris & Hamilton 2018; Rogers 2001; Shannon 2009; Sonderegger
2017 and perhaps most prominently in the work of Richard Swinburne,
which will be discussed in
 section 5.2.


### 4.4 Penal Substitution



Penal substitution has been defended by many in the Reformed and more
broadly evangelical tradition. It has strong roots in Luther and
Calvin; there has been considerable debate about whether there are
earlier
 precursors.[40]
 On this view Christ, instead of paying satisfaction for human sin,
suffers punishment on behalf of humans for human sin. God's
justice is thus satisfied, enabling God and humans to be reconciled
(Schreiner 2006a).



William Lane Craig, however, defines the view more broadly



> 
> 
> as the doctrine that God inflicted upon Christ the suffering that we
> deserved as the punishment for our sins, as a result of which we no
> longer deserve punishment. (2020: 147)
> 
> 
> 



On this definition one could hold that Christ was not punished; he
merely experienced sufferings that would have constituted punishment
if we mere humans had endured them. Somehow, though, in virtue of his
enduring these sufferings, "we no longer deserve
punishment". How could that be? One option is to say that we
mere humans are punished through Christ enduring these sufferings. M.
Murphy (2009) calls this a "vicarious punishment" view,
which he distinguishes from penal substitution. A second option is to
say that the debt of punishment is a collective debt humanity owes to
God and that Christ, through his death, pays it on behalf of the human
community. Humanity is punished, but Christ is not, on this view
(Thurow 2015). A third option is to say that nobody is punished. Hard
treatment can be endured by an innocent third party--and this
isn't regarded as punishment of the third party or anyone
else--in virtue of which the guilty party's debt of
punishment is canceled (Quinn 1994: 298). We can call this the
"penal cancellation" view.



Advocates of penal substitution tend to defend it on three grounds.
First, they argue that a proper interpretation of scripture demands a
penal substitutionary view (see, e.g., Craig 2020; S. Jeffrey et al.
(2007); Schreiner 2006a; Stott 1986). This claim has been widely
contested (see, e.g., Belousek-Snyder 2011; Eberhart 2011). Second,
they accept something like what Purtill (1990) calls "strict
retributionism"--the demands of justice require that proper
punishment be delivered--alongside the idea that if mere humans
received this justice they would be separated from God forever in
eternal damnation. Strict retributionism has also been widely
contested (see, e.g., Purtill 1990). Third, some (Porter 2002; 2004)
reject strict retributionism in favor of what we might call
"penal goodness"--it is good for sinners to be
punished, even if they have repented, apologized, and made reparation,
as it sends a message about the seriousness of sin. Although
God's justice does not require that he punish sinners, because
of this good aspect of punishment, he does
 punish.[41]



Penal substitution faces a host of objections. Some of the objections
to satisfaction theory also target penal
 substitution.[42]
 Others specifically target penal substitution; three have been
particularly influential.



One objection is that penal substitution is incoherent because
punishment necessarily expresses condemnation of the person punished,
but Christ surely is not condemned when he suffers and dies on the
cross.
 Section 2.8
 above discusses this objection and some replies. Here one further
reply should be mentioned. Some defenders of penal substitution, such
as the Reformed theologian Turretin, believe that human sins are
imputed to Christ--that is, Christ is treated legally as if he
had sinned, or human guilt for sin is transferred or replicated in
Christ. If sins are imputed to Christ, then Christ may well be
condemned for sin since he then would at least bear guilt for human
sin (Craig 2020: 161). Imputation has been objected to on the grounds
that there is no area of morality where imputation seems possible (M.
Murphy 2009; Crisp 2020a. Craig replies that God, as the ultimate
lawgiver, has sole authority to impute sins and so it isn't
surprising we don't accept it in other areas of morality or law.
He also finds analogies to imputation in our law from legal fictions
(e.g., treating a ship as a person) and vicarious liability (e.g.,
holding employers liable for acts done by employees in their role as
employees).



A second objection is that, on the penal substitution view, justice
isn't done because the full punishment isn't paid by the
substitute. The full punishment due for sin, according to penal
substitution, is eternal separation from God. However, Christ plainly
does not suffer eternal separation from God.



One reply is that during and while dead, Christ endures enough
suffering to match the suffering of those eternally separated from God
(Craig 2020: 209). However, the punishment for sin isn't just
the suffering--it's the eternal separation. No amount of
suffering matches eternal separation (Stump 2018: 78). A second reply
is that God, in his divine authority, may accept a lesser punishment
in place of full punishment (Turretin
 1978).[43]



The third objection is perhaps the most influential: penal
substitution of the sort supposedly involved in the atonement is
immoral. Perhaps an innocent person paying a guilty person's
penal fine is morally acceptable, but punishment that involves hard
treatment such as the death penalty, imprisonment, and lashings cannot
be justly leveled upon an innocent, even willing, third party. We do
not have the hint of an intuition that it would be just, say, for an
innocent mother to willingly take on the death penalty due her son for
murder.



One reply is that God in his authority--in virtue of divine
command theory--can accept what he will to fulfill justice. If he
chooses to accept a substitute, then that is just (Craig 2020:
 177).[44]
 The second reply is that, although penal substitution is rarely
justified, there are plausible conditions in which it would be
justified and in the case of human sin and Christ being God incarnate,
those conditions are met (Strabbing 2016).


### 4.5 Moral Influence



Moral influence views say that Christ atones for human sin by
influencing humans to live a morally good life. In effect, these views
emphasize the moral transformation aspect of atonement. This view is
often attributed to the twelfth century theologian
 Abelard.[45]
 Contemporary scholarship has tended to see Abelard's view as
more sophisticated (Quinn 1993; Weingart 1970), although some still
argue that Abelard is best understood as embracing a moral influence
theory (Pugh 2014). Many theologians of the German
*Aufklarung* endorsed moral influence views (McGrath
1985), as did Socinus (1668), Kant (1793 [1998]), Rashdall (1920) and,
more recently, Hick (1993 [2005]).



Moral influence views differ regarding the mechanism by which humans
are influenced to live morally. The moral exemplar view says that
Christ is an example of a morally excellent life. The mechanism of
influence is inspiration--Christ's example inspires us to
greater moral heights. This view has been repeatedly criticized for
(i) downplaying the fact that humans have sinned and thus need to be
reconciled to God, not just inspired to live better (McGrath 1985),
and (ii) offering too thin a mechanism (Crisp 2020b). To be a model
for inspiration does not make us righteous and does not overcome the
forces preventing us from being righteous. To put it another way, on
the moral exemplar view Christ does not atone for humans, but at most
he motivates humans to atone.



More sophisticated moral influence views work around the above
objections. They can say that Christ's death shows the depth of
human depravity, inspiring humans not just to want to be better
people, but also to see more clearly their own sins and to repent for
those sins. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit--the third person of the
Trinity--works to bring about transformation within a person who
is open to receiving it (Moberly 1924). The Holy Spirit can transform
people and undo obstacles to transformation that would be difficult or
impossible to manage without God's help.



However, even these more sophisticated views face a host of
objections:


1. they do not adequately account for the Biblical ideas that
Christ's atoning work is substitutionary, representative, and
expiatory (Crisp 2020b),
2. they cannot explain why Christ's death is crucial for
atonement (Pugh 2014: 132), and
3. they cannot account for the Biblical language of sacrifice.


## 5. Recent Theories


### 5.1 Christus Victor Theories



Aulen's (1930 [1931]) study of patristic views of
atonement led to a flourishing of that approach in theological
literature into the twenty-first century. Christus Victor views
highlight the ransom motif from scripture: humans are in some way
enslaved to the power of sin and their only escape from its power can
come from a rescuer, Jesus Christ, who will free humans from its
power. However, contemporary views rarely espouse the ransom theory
described above.



Some, such as Gregory Boyd (2006), take seriously Satan's
existence and the reality of demonic activity, and argue that
Christ's atoning work is aimed at undermining their influence
over humans. Christ does this through his teaching, healing, and
exorcism ministry. But his death and resurrection constitute his
ultimate defeat of Satan, as he allows Satan to influence humans to
kill him, only to show that Satan cannot win. Christ's
resurrection is central to atonement, on this view, as it is a
demonstration of defeat over Satan's worst.



Others, such as Darby Kathleen Ray (1998), J. Denny Weaver (2001), and
Walter Wink (1992), demythologize the Christus Victor view. What
humans need to be freed from is not literal demons, but a sort of
depersonalized power of evil that humans have allowed to infect their
institutions, organizations, and cultures. Christ combats the power of
evil nonviolently. In doing so, particularly through his death, he
unmasks evil by showing it at its worst. When humans see evil
unmasked, and then see that Christ defeats its worst by being
resurrected, humans are drawn instead to God's way of life and
his response to evil.



Christus Victor theories have been criticized on various grounds (some
are only relevant to certain specific theories). First, they do not
account for the importance of Christ's crucifixion for atonement
(Thurow 2021a). The victory over the powers could have been obtained
in so many ways (and indeed is obtained in ways other than his death)
not involving the death of the innocent son of God. Second, they
downplay individual responsibility for sin (Schreiner 2006b). This can
make it seem like the Christus Victor accounts don't offer a
theory of atonement since they do not explain how the wrong done to
God by human sin is resolved (Crisp 2020a: 55). Lastly, if the primary
mechanism of atonement is to free humans from the power of sin,
empirical evidence indicates that this hasn't been achieved
(Reichenbach 2006). And yet, Christ is said to have already atoned for
human sin.


### 5.2 Another Satisfaction Theory



Swinburne's theory of atonement is Anselmian, although it
dispenses with Anselm's calculus about how valuable the
satisfaction must be in order to atone. According to Swinburne (1989),
atonement has four components: repentance, apology, reparation, and
penance (see
 section 2.6
 for a description of Swinburne's notion of penance). For less
severe wrongs, repentance and apology may suffice to atone, but for
more serious wrongs--especially those that cause harm aside from
the offense itself--reparation and penance are required. Since
human sin is immense and immensely harmful, humans must make
reparation and penance for sin--and not only for their own
personal sin, but also for the sins of their forebears, to whom they
owe a debt of helping to repair their moral debts. However, the victim
may determine what counts as adequate satisfaction for wrongdoing.
Christ's entire life lived in obedience and service to God,
which caused his death at the hands of his enemies, was offered by
Christ as a reparation and penance for human sin. Humans can adopt it
as their own reparation and penance by adding to it their personal
repentance and apology.



Swinburne's theory evades many of the objections to
Anselm's satisfaction theory presented in
 section 4.3
 (although Hick 1994 argues that some of the classic objections
apply). He has responded to Stump's objection that his view
makes forgiveness contingent by arguing that Stump's view of
forgiveness is not well reflected in Christ's view of
forgiveness, whereas his is (Swinburne 2019). Cross's and
Lombardo's objections have yet to be rebutted.



Porter (2004), among others (Quinn 1994; Stump 2018; Thurow 2021a),
objects that Swinburne's theory does not explain why
Christ's death is distinctly important for atonement. His
perfect life is what appears to do the reparative work; his death
appears to be simply a causal consequence of that work, but not
something in virtue of which reparation is made. Hick (1994) adds that
since Swinburne thinks God could have accepted a supererogatory act
from a mere human or angel as satisfaction, it is hard to see why God
would instead use the horrific death of the Son of God as
satisfaction. McNaughton (1992) and Aspenson (1996) present other
critiques.


### 5.3 Marian/Thomistic Theory



Building upon her earlier interpretations and developments of
Aquinas's views on atonement (Stump 1988; 2003), Eleonore Stump
(2018) defends what she calls a Marian theory of atonement (named
after the many Marys in the New Testament). According to this theory,
Christ's atonement is aimed at bringing humans into union with
God in love. To be united in love, both parties must share attention
with each other and desire the other wholeheartedly. Guilt and shame
due to human sin, and its resultant stain on the soul, prevent humans
from embracing union with God. God is fully ready to reconcile; the
only thing preventing reconciliation is human resistance to God.
Christ's atoning work enables, in several ways, a bond of love
between humans and God. First, Christ experiences on the cross what it
is like to commit every single human sin in history, and thus God is
attentive in a second-person way to humans. Second, Christ's
death on the cross is the best way for God to melt the hearts of
humans, who resist accepting God's love. Those who thus
surrender to God receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, which gives them
a second-person awareness of God, and gives them a desire to desire
God, which in time sanctifies humans to bring their first-order
desires in line with this second-order desire. Through this process
all of the obstacles to reconciliation from guilt, shame, and stain on
the soul, are dealt with.



Stump justifies her view in part by repudiating Anselmian views and
insisting that God's forgiveness and readiness for
reconciliation is universal and unconditional. As noted in
 section 4.3,
 several have questioned her views about love and forgiveness. Thurow
and Strabbing (2020) argue that the core of Anselm's
view--that human sin is so bad that repentant sinners ought to
and will want to offer satisfaction to God--is plausible and can
be incorporated into Stump's account of atonement. They also
question her account of surrendering to God. Others have questioned
how Stump's view would account for restoring damage to nature
from human sin (Pawl 2021) and for atoning for social sin (Pogin
2021). Dougherty (2019), A. Jeffrey (2021), and Rea (2019) critique
other details. Stump (2019; 2021) responds to some of these
concerns.


### 5.4 Participation Theories



Participation theories take as their starting point various statements
of the apostle Paul:


* "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but
Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:19-20),
* "we were therefore buried with him through baptism into
death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through
the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life" (Romans
6:4),
* "we were baptized by one Spirit into one body" (1Cor.
12:13) and
* Christ is the head of the body (Colossians 1:18).



Participation theories take these statements to indicate that
atonement works by humans being in some way united with Christ, so
that what he does is done also for them, which also effects healing in
human hearts and minds. These theories thus emphasize the
 divinization/healing motif,
 where this healing is brought about through participation in a union
with Christ.



Bayne and Restall (2009) argue that participation theories do a better
job than other theories of explaining why the incarnation is important
for atonement, and that they rightly view sin as a pollution that
produces a relational problem (rather than as a deontic matter of
failing in a duty). Crisp (2016; 2020a) advocates for a theory that
employs a robust notion of union. All fallen humans are part of a
four-dimensional entity, fallen humanity. Christ becomes human and
creates a new four-dimensional entity, redeemed humanity, of those who
join themselves to him in faith and love. The Holy Spirit brings about
transformation in the merely human members of redeemed
humanity--using Christ's atoning work to bring about
transformation. Gorman's (2014) new-covenant model understands
union to result from a covenant, and what Christ's atonement
does is form a new covenant through which various benefits flow to its
members.


### 5.5 Mashup Theories



Many people want to combine elements of different theories into one
larger theory. Sometimes this is done by centering one theory while
building elements of other theories around it (e.g., Packer 1974, who
centers penal substitution). But one could also attempt to bring
several theories together without centering any one. Crisp (2020a)
calls these "mashup theories". Examples include Boersma
(2004; 2006), who uses Irenaeus's notion of recapitulation to
tie together Christus Victor, penal substitution, and moral influence,
and McNall (2019), who tries to integrate the same theories together
using the metaphor of a mosaic in which each theory depicts part of a
mosaic of Christ. Some have objected to mashup theories on the grounds
that each theory has a different internal logic--a different
"target" of atonement--and purports to present a
central mechanism for how Christ atones (Weaver 2006). Baker and Green
endorse a kaleidoscope approach to theories of atonement which,
although superficially similar to mashup theories, regards all
theories as culturally conditioned and limited, although valuable,
ways to understand Christ's atonement (Baker & Green 2011;
Green 2006). Others have defended the mashup approach. Gunton (1989)
construes the classic atonement theories as built around different
guiding metaphors that can and should be combined to provide a fuller
understanding of Christ's atonement. Thurow (2021b) argues that
since atonement aims at reconciliation, and there are various
dimensions to reconciling, a theory of atonement could view different
classic theories as articulating different dimensions of atonement
corresponding to unique dimensions of reconciliation.


## 6. Collective Atonement



In everyday speech we sometimes talk of collectives (or groups)
offering atonement or being the recipients of atonement. For example,
people discuss whether Germany has sufficiently atoned for its Nazi
past (M. Smith 2019
 [Other Internet Resources])
 and how the Canadian government has atoned for its mistreatment of
indigenous populations (Skylstad 2021
 [Other Internet Resources]),
 and Roman Catholic popes have apologized for the role of the Church
in the sexual abuse scandal and in harm to native people during the
conquest of the Americas (Cunningham
 2022).[46]
 There is considerable dispute about how to understand these
attributions of responsibility to collectives and the moral action of
the collectives (see the entry on
 collective responsibility
 for details). Some take them at face value and accept a realm of
collective responsibility that is distinct from the individual
responsibility born by members of the collective (e.g., Isaacs 2011).
Others object that only individuals can be responsible for actions and
that groups can be regarded as responsible in only a metaphorical
sense (e.g., H. D. Lewis 1948; Narveson 2002).



Both approaches have a range of important moral phenomena to explain.
These include: apology for a collective and how in some cases victims
feel that an apology from a group is more needed than an apology from
individual members of the group; collective responsibility for
historical injustices when no currently existing member of the group
committed or aided anyone in committing any of the injustices; the
sense of guilt or shame at being a member of a collective that has
wronged people; morally acceptable collective punishment; that
individuals in a guilty group can have varying degrees of
responsibility connected to the action for which the group is guilty.
(See French & Wettstein 2006, 2014; Isaacs & Vernon 2011; and
May & Hoffman 1991 for important collections of essays on these
and other related issues.)



Collective atonement is one of these phenomena. Insofar as groups can
be responsible for actions or states of affairs in the world, they can
also be responsible for atoning for the same. Since atonement aims at
reconciliation, collective atonement would aim at reconciling one
group with another individual or group. Roy Brooks, for example,
argues that "racial reconciliation should be the primary purpose
of racial redress" (2004: 141). He thus presents what he calls
an atonement model for black reparations, according to which
reconciliation is the goal, which is to be achieved through government
apology and reparation. Reparations are needed not only because of the
extent of the harm done but because they are "essential to
atonement", as they "make apologies believable"
(2004: 142). Even if there are no agents literally collectively
responsible for anything, there are bad social facts and relations
that can cause and result from wrongdoing--these are sometimes
called social evils or social sins (John Paul II 1984). Sometimes
adequate atonement will require making reparations for social
evils.



Some reflections on the Christian doctrine of atonement make use of
notions of collectivity. The version of the
 divinization/healing motif
 that highlights Christ's role as a second Adam and as the Head
of humanity (or the Church) posits that Christ's acting as a
representative for a collective entity is part of how he atones for
human sin. The Hebrew scriptures contain a clear notion of collective
responsibility, illustrated most clearly in the Day of Atonement
rituals (Milgrom 1991) and this notion may influence the New Testament
conception of Christ as a priest offering the sacrifice of himself.
Some argue that Anselm regards, or is committed to regarding, Christ
as atoning for collective sin (D. Brown 2004; Thurow 2017b; for a
different reading see Rogers 2012). Drawing on these sources, Thurow
2015 develops a theory of atonement on which Christ atones primarily
for the collective sins of humanity and secondarily for the sins of
individual humans who join themselves to Christ in faith and
repentance.


## 7. Feminist and Womanist Approaches to Atonement



Feminist and womanist scholars have argued that our understanding of
atonement needs to be transformed by an awareness that (i) women
throughout history in many cultures have suffered many wrongs while
their culture ignored or belittled their need for atonement/amends,
while at the same time (ii) in many cultures women have born the
burden of repairing moral fragmentation that happens in households
(Spelman 2002: 26ff). As a result, women have faced a sort of
oppression in relation to atonement: they are held responsible for
helping make amends for other peoples' (often men's)
wrongs, while their own need for atonement is sidelined. Many feminist
and womanist theologians and philosophers have argued that these
facts, and others grounded in women's experiences, are grounds
for critique of traditional theories of the Christian doctrine of
atonement.



Tanner (2010: 249f) observes that several feminist criticisms are in
line with other standard criticisms in the history of theological
argument. Some question the character of God as depicted in the
classic atonement theories. J. Brown and Parker (1989) argue the
classic theories endorse divine child abuse, as Christ, the son of
God, suffers terribly at the Father's will for the sake of
others and their actions. Others question the mechanism of
atonement--for instance, D. Williams (1991) argues that black
women in America have historically had terrible experiences of coerced
and voluntary surrogacy, acting as surrogate parents and household
managers for white folks, performing field work, and providing sexual
pleasure to male slaveholders. Many traditional theories treat Christ
as a substitute, or surrogate, who atones for human sin. The
experience of black women shows that even voluntary surrogacy is not
necessarily a great good.



However, feminist and womanist critiques extend beyond the classic
critiques. One of their core claims is that



> 
> 
> theologies of the cross are seen to be complicit in the oppression,
> victimization and disempowerment of women. (Keshgegian 2000: 476; see
> also Buck 2020)
> 
> 
> 



D. Williams suggests that



> 
> 
> the image of the surrogate-God...supports and reinforces the
> exploitation that has accompanied [black women's] experience
> with surrogacy. (1991: 9)
> 
> 
> 



Brock and Parker (2001) present many stories of women who have
suffered from abuse and neglect at the hands of a partner and were
told by church members to endure the suffering--even rejoice in
it--as it brings them closer to Christ who suffered on the
cross.



> 
> 
> If one extols the silent and freely-chosen suffering of Christ, who
> was "obedient unto death" (Philippians 2:8), as an example
> to be imitated by all those victimized by patriarchal
> oppression...one not only legitimates but also enables acts of
> violence against women and children. (Fiorenza 1994: 106)
> 
> 
> 



This can in turn lead to a sort of hermeneutical injustice wherein
women and other oppressed people are hindered from seeing that
resisting injustice and standing up for one's own well-being are
permissible and noble (Pogin 2020).



In response to these critiques, some endorse forms of the Christus
Victor theory that treat Christ's death as a tragedy, not as an
intrinsically redemptive act (Ray 1998; Weaver 2001), while others
endorse a version of participation theory (Tanner 2010) on which
Christ's divine life-giving power deeply manifest on the cross
and humans can receive a share of that power through union with
Christ. Some have defended Anselm's theory against the critiques
(Keshgegian 2000). Some argue that a full appreciation of the doctrine
of the Trinity can help evade some of the critiques (Crisp 2020).



Gudmundsdottir (2010; 2017) argues that some of the
critiques do not adequately distinguish between theology being abused
and theology being essentially abusive. She thinks when a theology of
the cross glorifies suffering per se, theology is being abused.
However, a theology of the cross--and an account of
atonement--need not be essentially abusive if it embraces the
idea that suffering and death can be transformed into joy and life and
offers hope of a better life to those who suffer unjustly.



One thing the feminist and womanist critiques show is that there is
need for further reflection on how the Christian doctrine of the
atonement ought to integrate with and impact human practices of
atonement. (See McKnight 2007 and Swamy 2018 for recent excurses in
this issue.)