Christus Victor
Gustaf Aulen
Wipf and Stock Publishers 2003
(Originally published 1931)
I suspect Christus Victor is one of those Christian classics that more people have talked about than actually read. It is often referred to as the classic book on the theory of the atonement that bears the name Christus Victor, which is essentially that the on the cross Christ defeated and triumphed over all principalities and powers including sin, death, hell and Satan.
Aulen was a Swedish historical theologian in the Lutheran tradition. His thesis in this book is that the dominant "Latin" theory of the atonement that finds its key exponents in Anselm and Aquinas has got it wrong. The Latin theory is similar in many respects to the evangelical Protestant view of the atonement known as penal substitution - that Christ was punished in our place on the cross which enables God to forgive us and accept us into this people.
Aulen goes back to an earlier tradition found in the Church Fathers, and which he also believed was taught by Luther, though not by subsequent Lutherans, which he calls the dramatic or classical view of the atonement. This is the view now known as Christus Victor - that Christ is conqueror, fighting and defeating his enemies through his death and resurrection.
It must be said that the Church Fathers did not all have the same view, nor were their views exactly the same as Aulen's. In the early writers, the dominant theory was probably that Christ defeated evil by paying a ransom to the devil. Aulen moves away from this idea. Rightly so. He sees in Luther the best advocate of this point of view. However it remains controversial whether Aulen actually reads Luther correctly or fairly (or at least completely).
The book is not easy reading, but I found it rewarding. There are few evangelicals who would dispute that Christus Victor is a biblical idea and certainly part of what the cross achieved. Some of us would question if this is all the Bible teaches about the cross however. Aulen fails to explain exactly how the cross works to defeat evil and liberate mankind. The strength of penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) is precisely that it focuses on the how question. Perhaps when the two theories are held together - one focusing on the how, the other focusing on the why - we may get a more rounded picture of the New Testament's teaching. For raising the issue at all, and in such a short and relatively accessible book, we are all in Aulen's debt, even though his claims are in the end unproven. I tend to agree with Henri Blocher whose article "Agnus Victor" seems to me to demolish a lot of Aulen's arguement. Blocher argues that though both Christus Victor and PSA ideas are present in Scripture, the primary idea is PSA and only through PSA can Christ's victory be explained.
Thoughtful post. I read Christus Victor awhile back and really found it to be a transformative book in how I viewed the Atonement.
ReplyDeleteThe only two points I would make in response to what you've posted are these:
1. Aulen argues that Christus Victor's strength is the fact that it's not "explanatory" or a set theological structure. J.I. Packer in his rebuttal to Aulen "The Logic of Penal Substitution" also argues that Agnus Dei is a "motif", backing away from the more systematic treatments of PSA. Do you disagree with Packer's retreat from a set theological structure that "explains" the Cross?
2. I agree with you that Agnus Dei in scripture and Christus Victor are compatible and even mutually beneficial. However, a key difference (one that Aulen zeros in on quite well) makes a full reconciliation require a few modifications of one or another:
PSA is very forceful in claiming that the wrath of the Father and the claims of the Father on humanity are at the heart of the Cross. "God saves me from God" is the concept in a nutshell. So ultimately the one demanding the sacrifice directly is the Perfect One, the Judge himself.
Christus Victor throughout much of the Early Church writers states something very different. They sight the Devil as the one demanding "ransom" or payment. Surely this is a dramatic reversal!
So either the one directly demanding a sacrifice is the most evil being in the universe or the most holy being in the universe. This is where Aulen's "legal discontinuity" slips in because if the latter view is true, "legal continuity" is the saving mechanism.
If Christus Victor is more correct, however, "legal discontinuity" is the saving mechanism.
So either the White Witch holds the knife or God does.
Thanks for your comments Benjamin.
ReplyDeleteHello Benjamin,
ReplyDeleteI came across your blog while reading articles on Rene Girard's writings. He seems to deal with Christ's victory on the cross more from an anthropological standpoint, but from what I have read of his views on the atonement, it seems he believes that Jesus won the victory over sin and the devil by exposing the iniquity of "scapegoating" or making one person pay for the sins of all, and also by giving us an ideal person to direct our "mimetic" nature towards. Payment for past sins I suppose is chalked up to God freely forgiving them. At least I have not come across anything in his writings that addresses this subject. I am still in the process of re-examining what I believe the bible says about the atonement. There are some verses that seem to suggest that God can forgive sin apart from payment. Jesus suffered wrong and did not hold it against those who wronged Him, and He told us to do the same thing. In fact He said to return good to those who wrong us. The bible also says that Jesus is the express image of the Father. So how is it that the Father has to have payment for being wronged, but the Son and we humans don't? How can the Son be "the express image" of God in this case? 1 Cor. 13 also says that "LOVE keeps no account of wrong suffered" and John tells us plainly that "GOD is LOVE". If Jesus had to pay a debt for us that we owed to God, then obviously God does keep account of wrongs suffered. The fact that according to penal substitution theory, Jesus (Who is also God) also pays to settle the account for us does not erase the fact that there is an account kept.
Could it be that we are the ones who keep account of our sins and failures and need to be assured that they are forgiven? Could it be that God was demonstrating to the utmost way possible the forgiving nature He has always had towards man by sending Jesus to earth, knowing full well what we would do to Him, and then having Him raised up from that and coming back from the dead speaking words of forgiveness to the very ones who had denied Him and also those who crucified Him?
It is interesting that the first goal of the nachash in the garden was to introduce the idea that God was against mankind. He purposely overstates the prohibition in order to leave the possibility for doubt to remain even after Eve tones down his claim. So instead of God withholding fruit from all of the trees, instead He is giving them access to all of these trees as a distraction from the one tree that was really important. Either way, God is portrayed as being antagonistic towards man. That idea is hard for us to shake. There are so many views of the atonement, it makes my head spin trying to figure out what to believe. A big part of how people look at this topic seems to revolve around how you want to interpret "Mercy 'truimphs over' or 'rejoices against' judgement". If mercy always triumphs over or rejoices against judgement, then penal substitution is dead in the water, because God's justice was supposedly fully satisfied with the sacrifice of Jesus. Or was the judgement inflicted on Jesus for our sake's tempered with a degree of mercy also? I hope this hasn't been a waste of my time to write this and for you to read it. I am not a theologian and also not very good at systematic logical constructions.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI think its wonderful that you are searching the Scriptures on these topics. I agree with a great many of your observations. I'm a big believer in "mind-heart" (something Romanticism pioneered) which in a nutshell is the belief that sometimes what we feel instinctively is just as relevant as what we can "convince" ourselves of intellectually. Whether or not you are ever able to express what you believe systematically, what you sense to be deeply true about God is probably an awareness of a deeper truth, beyond words. This isn't to be relativistic (Truth exists and his name is Jesus), but it's important to move beyond Rationalistic categories when speaking of the Divine.
Theology is a difficult topic, period. I try as much as I can to find what, in my own reading of Scripture, is essential to faith in God and his Son. I feel very strongly that the question of "payment" to God is one of those essentials. I wrote an article on it that you might find interesting:
http://benjaminwolaver.blogspot.com/2010/07/proud-god.html
God bless you in your studies! :)