A.S. Radcliff: The Claim of Humanity in Christ (in the Torrance tradition), Post 6

Reference

Radcliff, A.S. 2016. The Claim of Humanity in Christ: Salvation and Sanctification in the Theology of T.F. and J.B. Torrance. (Princeton Theological Monograph Series 222), Eugene, OR: Pickwick. 208 pp.

CHAPTER 2: The Vicarious Humanity of the Son

Ontological over External

Radcliff begins this chapter as follows: “God’s unconditional covenantal claiming of humanity in Christ is an ontological event for the Torrances. Salvation is worked out in the very depths of Jesus’s own vicarious humanity and this transforms the very depths of our own being.” This is a profound statement! Let’s unpack it.

According to the Torrance tradition, the incarnation itself is transformative for all humanity. Hence, the incarnation is an ontological (having to do with ‘being’ or ‘nature’) event; that is, redemption is worked out within the hypostatic union of God and humanity in the one person of Jesus Christ. We will contrast that to “external” views of atonement in a moment.

The incarnation is also “ontological” in the sense that it reaches to the depths of our “being,” as the Eternal Word of God is united to our fallen humanity. As I understand it, humanity is now changed and set on a new footing via the incarnation of Jesus Christ. In other words, we are justified, or “made right” in the incarnation and this good news applies not only to believers but to everyone!

Comment: It would be nice, at least for me, if the Torrances were a little clearer in regard to how the union of divine and human natures in Jesus reaches down to, and transforms, the depths of my being, that is, the being of your humble blogger. Somewhere, along the line, we have to bring in the work of the Spirit. We will do that in the next chapter. For now, suffice to say that the incarnation itself is redemptive, not only for me, but for all humanity. In short, we can say that Jesus is redemption. Note, I am not referring to what Jesus does, I am referring to “Who he is,” giving priority to the “Who” over the “how.”

In the Torrance tradition, we can say that Jesus is justification, Jesus is sanctification, and everyone is included, both believers and not-yet-believers. This is an extraordinary contrast to the ordo salutis (“order of salvation”) of Protestant and evangelical theology, where believers (only) are “declared” right or “justified” by the atonement and then “sanctified” (made right) by a subsequent work of the Holy Spirit.

For this reason, the Torrances refer to typical theories of atonement as “external,” because they do not allow for the transformation of humanity in the life and death of Jesus Christ. In Protestant theology, we are declared right, not made right by the atonement. In other words, righteousness is only “imputed” to believers through the atonement (Roman Catholic critics have referred to this as a “legal fiction”). We are “made right” (sanctified) by a subsequent work of the Spirit (accompanied by a lot of moral effort on our parts). “For the Torrances,” as Radcliff notes, “a judicial and eternal scheme disregards the prospective aspect of the atonement whereby we are not only forgiven [i.e., “justified”] but reborn to new life as sons and daughters of God [i.e., “sanctified,” “adopted”] to share by the Spirit in Christ’s intimate relationship with the Father” (p. 49).

TFT describes the western-Latin tendency to conceptualize salvation in external terms as the “Latin Heresy.” (Radcliff rightly notes that “heresy” is a rather strong word to use). Two classic western-Latin versions of external theories of atonement are Abelard’s “ethical” or “exemplary” theory and Anselm’s “satisfaction” theory (which later gave rise to the “penal substitution” theory, and is not to be confused with the song of the same name by the Rolling Stones. Just when you thought I was getting too serious!).

In Abelard’s “ethical” scheme, Jesus sets us an example of sacrificial love for us to follow. In Anselm’s “”satisfaction” scheme, Jesus’ death “satisfies” God’s honor that is offended by human sin. Notice that in either case, our humanity is not transformed; that is, atonement is an “external” act that does not affect us at the core of our beings. In addition, both forms throw us back upon ourselves, either to follow Jesus’ example or to produce fruits of repentance via a subsequent work of the Spirit.

Comment: We will get to the work of the Spirit in the next Chapter, where we will see that the Torrances conceptualize the work of the Spirit in a much different and encouraging way than do Protestants and evangelicals.

Forensic

The Torrances are highly critical of the “forensic” (legal, law, judicial) model of atonement that is exemplified today by the “penal substitution” theory of atonement, prevalent among Protestants and evangelicals. Radcliff quotes a conservative Calvinist source to describe this theory: “The doctrine of penal substitution states that God gave himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty of sin.” In this theory, as Baxter Kruger puts it, the Son takes a whippin’ from the Father! The Torrances assert, however, that the New Testament never refers to the judgement Christ bore for us as “punishment.” They note, rather, that Paul uses metaphors from the law court, the Temple sacrifices, the slave market and adoption.

James Torrance often asserts that the penal substitution theory suggests that God must be “changed” in order to forgive. Here is a prime example from Theopedia:

Penal substitutionary atonement refers to the doctrine that Christ died on the cross as a substitute for sinners. God imputed the guilt of our sins to Christ, and he, in our place, bore the punishment that we deserve. This was a full payment for sins, which satisfied both the wrath and the righteousness of God, so that He could forgive sinners without compromising His own holy standard.

A close reading of this definition reveals that God must be “conditioned” (“changed”) in order to forgive. God forgives, perhaps reluctantly, because Jesus bears our “punishment” on the cross. In this scheme, atonement is prior to forgiveness (which is exactly backwards). As the Torrances often assert, penal substitution makes God’s relationship with us primarily legal, not filial (having to do with ‘sonship’). Penal substitution makes us objects of law, rather than sons and daughters, who are the subjects of the Father’s love.

Comment: N.T. Wright’s book, The Day the Revolution Began, is a recent critique of the penal substitution theory. I liked the book very much. I especially appreciated Wright’s advocacy of a return to something like the Christus Victor view of the atonement, prevalent in the early Church, where Jesus comes to defeat the power of sin, death and the devil. I think the Torrances ontological, filial view of incarnation-atonement could easily be harmonized with that view.

Ethical

Abelard’s “ethical” or “exemplary theory is typically embraced by liberal theologians. I think you will find a lot of this in The Episcopal Church. It’s definitely a feel good theory. “Sweet Jesus” sets us an example of love and summons us to follow it. Obviously, this theory throws us back upon ourselves, as we strive to follow Jesus’ example of self-giving love and bring in the brave new world.

Jesus did not come, however, notes Radcliff, to restructure human systems of social, political, and economic power. He came to transform humanity at the core of our beings, by [in my words] assuming our fallen flesh in the incarnation, bringing his holiness to bear upon it in healing, sanctifying union, and to bend the rebellious human will back to God. Jesus did not come merely to set us an example; he came to make us new creations in union with God. For the Torrances, as Radcliff puts it, “[S]alvation comes not through our identification with Jesus but rather his identification with us.” That is a great line! Makes the propeller on my beanie spin!

In summary, the “Latin Heresy” is TF’s term for external views of atonement that do not account for the transformation of humanity in the incarnation itself. In “”external” views of the atonement, whether “exemplary” or “penal,” Christ’s humanity is merely “instrumental” (a means to and end). Jesus assumes a human body to set us an example or to offer it in sacrifice to God. In these models, our humanity is not transformed at the depths of our being; hence, the atonement is merely “external” to us. These “instrumental’ views of the atonement focus on Christ’s work at the expense of his person. (They focus on the “how,” not the “Who.”) As Radcliff notes, “T.F. calls for the atonement to be understood not according to human reasoning but according to God’s self-giving in Christ, whereby we see Christ’s work inextricably bound up with his person.”

***

For more on ontological vs traditional views of atonement, see my post here.

For more on the “Latin Heresy,” see my post here.

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The Latin Heresy Revisited

Readers not familiar with Torrance’s doctrine of the atonement should read the previous post before reading this post. The following is an expanded version of a previous post with new material included. 

The Latin Heresy 

In asserting the assumption of sinful human flesh, Torrance (1986b:477, 478, 480; cf. 1990:232, 233; 1992:40, 41; 1993:237-239; 1994a:58, 59) rejects what he terms the “Latin heresy,” that is, a “dualist” understanding of the person and work of Christ, traceable to Leo’s Tome sent to the Council of Chalcedon. Leo provided the Western Church with its paradigm for a formulation of atoning reconciliation in terms of “external” relations, whether exemplary, as in Abelard, or juridical [legal], as in Anselm. As Scandrett (2006:86) notes, beginning in the fourth century, the idea that the eternal Word of God would assume sinful human flesh was increasingly seen as unworthy of the “holiness and perfection” of God’s being. Because the idea of the incarnate assumption of sinful flesh was “odious” to Christians, notes Scandrett, it was largely rejected in the West by the end of the fifth century. 

In asserting the assumption of a neutral humanity, argues Torrance (1986b:476), Latin theology rejected the “cardinal soteriological principle,” associated with Nicene theology, that “the unassumed is the unhealed.” In arguing that Jesus assumed a neutral human flesh, Latin theologians split apart the intrinsic relation between the person and work of Christ by construing the atonement in an “instrumentalist” way, wherein the incarnation was regarded simply as a means of supplying a sinless human being who could live in perfect obedience to the law of God and take our place on the cross. Subsequently, atonement was regarded either as an external moral transaction or as an external penal transaction, wherein the penalty for sin is transferred from sinners to the sinless Saviour. As Gill (2007:48) succinctly states, for Torrance, this transactional view reduces the atonement to an “external action” between the sinless Christ and God, wherein the Son pays the price of human sin to the Father. Either view, however, Torrance (1986b:476) contends, creates a separation (i.e., dualism) between the incarnation and the atonement by construing Christ’s saving act in external terms, whether exemplary or juridical, rather than in terms of the internal Father-Son relation, wherein the atoning work of Christ is a function of his incarnate constitution as the eternal Son who is homoousios to Patri. Protestant theology, particularly Evangelicalism, has generally followed the Latin Church in this regard, specifically in its development of various theories of the atonement, all of which, in varying ways, dualistically divide the incarnation and the atonement by separating the person and work of Christ (Torrance, 1986b:476).  

As Scandrett (2006:86, 87) argues, in the Latin view, the humanity of Jesus Christ must be perfect if the eternal Word is to assume it in the incarnation. The problem with this view, argues Scandrett, is the de facto distinction it makes between Jesus’ perfect, sinless humanity and our own sinful humanity. For Torrance, notes Scandrett, this distinction results in the “radical diminution” of the atonement from an ontologically transformative, healing, and, therefore, saving event to a detached externalised transaction understood in purely forensic terms and limited to the cross. For Torrance, as Scandrett rightly argues, such a viewpoint is woefully inadequate, for in its concern to safeguard the holiness of the eternal Word against the taint of original sin, it ironically denies fallen human nature the promise of healing inherent in the incarnation-atonement. Similarly but more simply, as Gill (2007:56) notes, for Torrance, the denial of the incarnate assumption of fallen Adamic humanity is to deny the reality of the incarnation and to throw doubt on the atonement as anything other than an “arbitrary exchange.” Against those who argue that Christ assumed a “neutral” human nature in the incarnation, we ask with Gunton (1992:52; cf. Gill, 2007:56), “[I]f Christ bore the flesh of unfallen Adam … what is his saving relation to us in our lostness?”  

According to Cass (2008:159), Torrance has a “rare understanding” of the hypostatic union among Western theologians in arguing that the hypostatic union is itself an atoning union, wherein atonement and reconciliation between God and sinful humanity are “perfectly effected vicariously for all” in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. By grounding salvation in the hypostatic union, argues Cass, Torrance breaks with the Western Augustinian tradition, which grounds salvation in Christ’s [external] relationship to humanity and requires a “contribution” from sinners to complete the work of salvation. As Torrance (1992:40) argues:

If the incarnation is not held to mean that the Son of God penetrated into and appropriated our alienated, fallen, sinful human nature, then atoning and sanctifying reconciliation can be understood only in terms of external relations between Jesus Christ and sinners. That is why in Western Christianity the atonement tends to be interpreted almost exclusively in terms of external forensic relations as a judicial transaction in the transference of the penalty of sin from the sinner to the sin-bearer. 

The Latin view of the atonement as a “forensic transaction,” wherein the sinless Saviour offers his body in an “external,” “instrumental” way, stands in marked contrast to Torrance’s discussion of the atonement in terms of the eternal Word’s “internal penetration” of fallen Adamic flesh and its consequent “ontological healing.” 

In contradistinction to the “gospel” of “external relations” that characterizes the Latin heresy, Torrance (1992:41) follows patristic theology in arguing that the incarnation and the atonement are “internally linked,” for “atoning expiation and propitiation are worked out in the ontological depths of human being and existence into which the Son of God penetrated as the Son of Mary.” As Torrance (1994a:59) argues, if the incarnation itself is essentially redemptive rather than instrumental, that is, merely a means to an end, then “atonement must be regarded as taking place in the ontological depths of Christ’s incarnate life, in which he penetrated into the very bottom of our fallen human being and took our disobedient humanity, even our alienated human mind, upon himself in order to heal it and convert it back in himself into union with God.” Jesus penetrated to the depths of our original sin “in order to redeem us from it by bringing his atoning sacrifice and holiness to bear upon it in the very roots of our human existence and being.” Noting that in his genealogy recorded in Matthew, “Jesus was incorporated into a long line of sinners,” Torrance (1992:41) eloquently argues:

[H]e made the generations of humanity his very own, summing up in himself our sinful stock, precisely in order to forgive, heal and sanctify it in himself. Thus atoning reconciliation began to be actualised with the conception and birth of Jesus of the Virgin Mary when he identified himself with our fallen and estranged humanity, but that was a movement which Jesus fulfilled throughout the whole course of his sinless life as the obedient Servant of the Lord, in which he subjected what he took from us to the ultimate judgment of God’s holy love and brought the healing and redeeming power of God to bear directly upon it in himself. From his birth to his death and resurrection on our behalf he sanctified what he assumed through his own self-consecration as incarnate Son to the Father, and in sanctifying it brought the divine judgment to bear directly upon our human nature both in the holy life he lived and in the holy death he died in atoning and reconciling sacrifice before God. 

In contradistinction to the Latin tradition, Torrance (1992:41, 42) argues that we must “recover the awesome truth that through his Incarnation the Son of God appropriated our fallen humanity under the judgment of God.” Throughout the whole course of his life, the incarnate Saviour brought his healing and redeeming power to bear upon sinful Adamic flesh, even in the deep recesses of original sin, in order to heal, cleanse, and sanctify it in atoning reconciliation.  

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T.F. Torrance: The Atonement, pt. 4

Unity of Christ’s Person and Work

A greater appreciation of Torrance’s rejection of the Latin heresy, with its dualism between incarnation and atonement, requires an examination of his holistic view of the unity of Christ’s “person” and “work.” In Torrance’s doctrine of incarnational redemption, the incarnation and the atonement are intimately connected: incarnation is inherently redemptive and redemption is inherently incarnational (Torrance, 1988a:159; cf. 1992:66).

Following Barth (1957b:1ff; 1957d:1ff), Torrance fully integrates christology and soteriology into a unitary whole, refusing to separate the person and work of Jesus Christ as if they were two distinct doctrines. In Torrance’s doctrine of incarnational reconciliation, the doctrines of the hypostatic union and atonement are “inextricably interwoven.” The hypostatic union is “the ontological aspect of atoning reconciliation and atoning reconciliation is the dynamic aspect of hypostatic union.” For Torrance, the hypostatic union and atoning reconciliation “inhere inseparably in one another” and are the “obverse and reverse” of one another (Torrance, 1990:201; cf. 177-179).

In keeping with his unitary, holistic approach to theology, Torrance resists any dualism that separates the “person” and “work” of Jesus Christ. In the one person of the incarnate Son, who is of “one nature with the Father” (homoousios to Patri) and of one nature with humanity, divinity and humanity are united together, so that atoning reconciliation takes place “within,” not “external” to, the one personal being of the Mediator. As Torrance (1992:63) notes:

In Jesus Christ . . . his Person and his Work are one. What he does is not something separate from his personal Being and what he is in his own incarnate Person is the mighty Act of God’s love for our salvation. Christ and his Gospel belong ontologically and inseparably together, for that is what he is, he who brings, actualises and embodies the Gospel of reconciliation between God and man and man and God in his own Person. In him the Incarnation and Atonement are one and inseparable, for atoning reconciliation falls within the incarnate constitution of his Person as Mediator, and it is on that ground and from that source that atoning reconciliation embraces all mankind and is freely available to every person.

Note that for Torrance, “Christ” (i.e., person) and his “Gospel” (i.e., work) are ontologically united, for atoning reconciliation falls “within” the incarnate constitution of the Mediator. Jesus Christ actually embodies the mediation of reconciliation in the unity of divinity and humanity in his one incarnate person.

In his emphasis on the ontological union of the person and work of Christ, Torrance (1986b:473) argues that our understanding of atonement must be framed in the context of the consubstantial Father-Son relation. Noting that the Nicene homoousios to Patri was applied to the ‘incarnate’ Son, who came down from heaven for us and for our salvation, Torrance argues that the oneness in being between the Father and Son must be regarded from a soteriological perspective. Reconciliation is not merely a propositional truth that God has made known to us by sending his only-begotten Son to be our Saviour; rather, God’s self-revelation in the incarnate Son ‘is’ reconciliation, “as certainly as it is God himself: God with us, God beside us, and chiefly and decisively, God for us.” As Torrance asks, “How could God actually reveal and give himself to us across the chasm, not only of our creaturely distance but of our sinful alienation from him, except through a movement of atoning reconciliation?”

In bringing together the doctrine of atoning reconciliation and the Nicene assertion of the consubstantial Father-Son relation, Torrance (1986b:473, 474) clearly disavows an Arian view of Christ. If we operate with a view of the Son as created out of nothing and, therefore, only externally related to the Father, argues Torrance, “we are unable to give any saving significance to the human life and activity of Christ in the form of a servant, for it rules out of account any direct personal intervention by God himself in our lost and damned human condition.” If Christ is only externally related to God, his reconciling activity can only be construed in “moral” or “juridical” terms, rather than in the ontological terms of the consubstantial Father-Son relation. As Torrance argues, this is precisely what has occurred in Western theology, for it has allowed “an epistemological and ontological dualism, to cut between the Person of Christ as God incarnate and his saving work, with the result that it has constantly offered an interpretation of the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross in external moral or juridical terms.” With its dualism between the incarnation and atonement, Western theology has failed to appreciate the implications for atoning reconciliation of the unity of being between the incarnate Son and the Father.

In contradistinction to the dualism of the Latin tradition, Torrance (1988a:155) argues that “the work of atoning salvation does not take place outside of Christ, as something external to him, but takes place within him, within the incarnate constitution of his Person as Mediator.” As Torrance (1988a:158) argues:

[A]toning reconciliation must be understood as having taken place within the personal being of Jesus Christ as the one Mediator between God and man, and thus within the ontological roots and actual condition of the human and creaturely existence which he assumed in order to save. In this event atonement is not an act of God done ab extra upon man, but an act of God become man, done ab intra, in his stead and on his behalf; it is an act of God as man, translated into human actuality and made to issue out of the depths of man’s being and life toward God.

For Torrance (1992:65), incarnation and atonement are “internally and essentially intertwined” in reconciling union in all Jesus Christ became for us and our salvation. As Torrance argues:

[The hypostatic union] is projected . . . into the actual conditions of our estranged humanity where we are in conflict with God, so that the hypostatic union operates as a reconciling union in which estrangement is bridged, conflict is eradicated, and human nature taken from us is brought into perfect sanctifying union with divine nature in Jesus Christ. Embodied within the deep tensions and contradictions of our rebellious humanity, the hypostatic union took on the form of a dynamic atoning union which steadily worked itself out within the structures of human existence all through the course of our Lord’s vicarious earthly life from his birth to his crucifixion and resurrection.

It is essential to note that the hypostatic union is not merely a static union of divine and human natures; rather, it is a “dynamic atoning union,” wherein the actual condition of human estrangement and conflict is brought into “perfect sanctifying” union with God. As Torrance (1992:66) eloquently argues:

The hypostatic union could not have been actualised within the conditions of our fallen humanity without the removal of sin and guilt through atonement and the sanctification of human nature assumed into union with the divine. On the other hand, atoning union could not have been actualised within the ontological depths of human existence where human beings are alienated from God without the profound penetration into those depths that took place through the Incarnation and the hypostatic union between divine and human nature that it involved. That is what came about in Jesus Christ, the Mediator, in whom atoning union and hypostatic union served each other.

Torrance’s insistence on an ontological, rather than external, view of atonement can better be understood in light of his understanding of “sin.” For Torrance, the human dilemma is, at root, that of alienation from God as a result of sin, coupled with human enslavement to a nature determined by its fallen condition. Sin is, thus, far more than a merely forensic or moral problem; sin is an ontological problem; it is the state in which we exist, a state of existential estrangement from our Maker. As an ontological problem, sin must be dealt with at the depths of our fallen, diseased humanity (Hart, 2008:81; cf. Torrance, 1992:70). In the hypostatic union of divinity and Adamic flesh in Jesus Christ, God penetrates to the ontological depths of our diseased, broken, and fallen humanity, healing our corrupt flesh, making whole our brokenness, and removing our sin and guilt by sanctifying it in atoning union in the incarnation. Atonement, therefore, is not to be understood in terms of “external relations” between human sin and Jesus Christ, but in terms of his “incarnational penetration” into the ontological depths of human existence under the judgement of God. In Jesus Christ, God the Judge has made himself one with us in such a way as “to get at the very roots of our original sin and guilt and through his expiatory and propitiatory activity, not only to do away with our sin and guilt, but to sanctify us and creatively to set our life on an altogether new basis in union with himself” (Torrance, 1990:178, 179).

In regard to incarnational redemption, the hypostatic union is “the immediate ground for all Christ’s mediatorial and reconciling activity in our human existence” (Torrance, 1992:64, 65). The hypostatic union is in itself an atoning union between the “Holy One of God” and sinful humanity, which Jesus Christ heals and sanctifies by making it his own. Atoning reconciliation, therefore, must be understood as “accomplished within the incarnate constitution of the Mediator and not in some external transactional way between himself and mankind” (Torrance, 1986b:475, 476). Torrance continues:

Jesus Christ does not mediate a reconciliation (any more than a revelation) other than what he is in himself, as though he were merely the intermediary or instrument of divine reconciliation. He embodies in himself what he mediates, for what he mediates and what he is are one and the same. He himself in the wholeness of his Person, Word and Act is the content and reality of divine Reconciliation. He is the Propitiation for our sins; he is our Redemption; he is our Justification. It is in this identity between Mediator and Mediation that the living heart of the Gospel is to be found. If we let go of the intrinsic oneness between Jesus Christ and God, or between the Person and the Work of Christ, then our grasp of the Gospel of salvation is bound to disintegrate and we will invariably lose its substance.

As Hart (2008:85) notes, atonement is not an abstract quality that arises from something Jesus Christ “does”; rather, atonement is who he “is” in his incarnate constitution as God and humanity joined in reconciling union. Thus, there can be no separation of the person and work of Christ. As Pratz (1998:6) simply but accurately states, “What he is is what he does.”

Just as Jesus Christ is the content of the revelation he brings, so that Revealer and Revelation are one, so also Jesus Christ is the content of reconciliation, so that Mediator and mediation are one. In contrast to the gospel of “external relations” of the Latin heresy, atonement is a function of the “internal relations” of the incarnate constitution of Jesus Christ, in whom God and fallen, sinful humanity are eternally united in atoning, reconciling union. Atonement takes place “within” the one person of Jesus Christ, as the eternal Word of God takes our diseased, fallen humanity to himself in reconciling union, penetrating to the ontological depths of human sin and alienation in order to heal, cleanse, and reconcile fallen humanity to God. In the hypostatic union of divinity and sinful human flesh in his one person, Jesus Christ “embodies” the mediation he brings by healing and sanctifying our fallen humanity in atoning reconciliation. Thus, atoning reconciliation does not occur “outside” the person of Jesus Christ, as though his person and work could be separated; rather, atoning reconciliation falls “within” the incarnate constitution of the God-man, who, as fully God and fully human in one person, ‘is’ atoning reconciliation between God and humanity. Jesus Christ is “the centre of it all,” mediating reconciliation in such a way that, in him, we are with God. “In the deepest sense,” notes Torrance (1990:204), “Jesus Christ is himself the atonement.”

References

Barth, K. 1957b. Church Dogmatics (vol II.1) (translated by G.T. Thomson). Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 699 pp.

Barth, K. 1957d. Church Dogmatics (vol IV.1) (translated by G.T. Thomson). Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 802 pp.

Hart, T. 2008. Atonement, the Incarnation, and Deification: Transformation and Convergence in the Soteriology of T.F. Torrance. Princeton Theological Review, vol XIV, no 2, pp. 79-90. Available at http://www.princetontheologicalreview.org/issues_pdf/39.pdf

Pratz, G. 1998. The Relationship between Incarnation and Atonement in the Theology of Thomas F. Torrance. Journal for Christian Theological Research, vol 3, no 2. Available at http://www2.luthersem.edu/ctrf/JCTR/Vol03/Pratz.htm.

Torrance, T.F. 1986b. Karl Barth and the Latin Heresy. Scottish Journal of Theology, vol 39, pp. 461-482.

Torrance, T.F. 1988a. The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church. London: T & T Clark. 345 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1990. Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 256 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1992. The Mediation of Christ (rev. ed.). Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard. 126 pp.

T.F. Torrance: The Atonement, pt. 3

The Latin Heresy

The "Latin heresy" refers to western-Latin christology, wherein a dualism is created between the person and work of Christ. This view is characteristic of both Roman Catholicism and Evangelicalism. In the Latin view of the atonement, the "work" of Christ is "external" to the "person" or "being" of Christ; that is, Jesus simply offers his body as an instrument in the payment of a forensic debt. In this view, the atonement is merely the fulfillment of a "transaction" between the Father and the Son, wherein the Son pays humanity's debt of sin. Hence, in the Latin view, the atonement produces no ontological change in fallen humanity; that is, the atonement discharges a debt but it does not change us in the depths of our fallen being. Words used to describe this view include "external," "instrumental," and "transactional."

Torrance argues that we must “relearn” the fundamental soteriological principle that Christ assumed fallen, sinful human flesh, since it has been “suppressed” in the Western church, where doctrines of the atonement have departed from the soteriological emphasis of the incarnation found in the early centuries of Christianity. Consequently, the atonement has been regarded in the Latin West primarily as an “external transference of penalty” between sinners and God, rather than as “the culmination of God’s incarnational penetration into the alienated roots of humanity in order to cancel sin and guilt and undo the past, and to effect within it once for all atoning reconciliation between the world and himself” (Torrance, 1986b:476; 1992:39).

In asserting the assumption of sinful human flesh, Torrance (1986b:477, 478, 480; cf. 1990:232, 233; 1992:40, 41; 1993:237-239; 1994:58, 59) rejects what he terms the “Latin heresy,” that is, a “dualist” understanding of the person and work of Christ, traceable to Leo’s Tome sent to the Council of Chalcedon, that provided the Western church its paradigm for a formulation of atoning reconciliation in terms of “external” relations, whether exemplary, as in Abelard, or juridical, as in Anselm. In asserting the Son of God assumed a “neutral” human nature, that is, human nature in its perfect original state as it existed before the Fall, unaffected by sin and guilt and not under divine judgement, the Latin position insists that Jesus Christ did not assume our “original sin,” lodged within the roots of personal and social human being, but only our “actual sin.” This led to the Roman doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary, which continues to divide the Latin and Greek branches of the church. Consequent to this view, argues Torrance, Protestantism was forced to deal with original sin by an appeal to a separate and subsequent work of sanctification by the Holy Spirit, while Roman Catholic theology dealt with original sin through the “healing medicine” of grace merited by Christ and dispensed by the church in the holy sacraments.

In asserting the assumption of a neutral humanity, Latin theology rejected the cardinal soteriological principle, associated with Nicene theology, that “the unassumed is the unhealed.” In arguing that Jesus assumed a neutral human flesh, Latin theologians split apart the intrinsic relation between the person and work of Christ by construing the atonement in an “instrumentalist” way, wherein the incarnation was regarded simply as a means of supplying a sinless human being who could live in perfect obedience to the law of God and take our place on the cross. Subsequently, atonement was regarded either as an external moral transaction or as an external penal transaction, wherein the penalty for sin is transferred from sinners to the sinless Saviour. Either view, however, created a separation (i.e., dualism) between the incarnation and atonement by construing Christ’s saving act in external terms, whether exemplary or juridical, rather than in terms of the internal Father-Son relation, wherein the atoning work of Christ is a function of his incarnate constitution as the eternal Son who is homoousios to Patri. Protestant theology, particularly Evangelicalism, has generally followed the Latin church in this regard, specifically in its development of various theories of the atonement, all of which, in varying ways, dualistically divide the incarnation and the atonement by separating the person and work of Christ (Torrance, 1986b:476). As Torrance (1992:40) argues:

If the incarnation is not held to mean that the Son of God penetrated into and appropriated our alienated, fallen, sinful human nature, then atoning and sanctifying reconciliation can be understood only in terms of external relations between Jesus Christ and sinners. That is why in Western Christianity the atonement tends to be interpreted almost exclusively in terms of external forensic relations as a judicial transaction in the transference of the penalty of sin from the sinner to the sin-bearer.

In regard to this external, “transactional” view of atonement, Torrance notes that Federal theology, arising from post-Reformation Protestant Scholasticism, works on the premise of an “contract” or “bargain” made between the Father and the Son in eternity past, and interpreted in causal, necessary, and forensic terms (Habets, 2008:344). Torrance sees this “transactional notion” of atoning reconciliation in post–Reformation Calvinism, particularly in the Westminster Confession of Faith (VIII:v), where the incarnate Son is said to have “purchased” reconciliation for us. Implied here is an external, transactional view of atonement, wherein Jesus’ suffering on the cross is regarded as the fulfilment of a “divine requirement, on the ground of which the Father was induced to reconcile us, and was as it were ‘bought off.’” This transactional view of the cross departs from the teaching of the New Testament, in which, according to Torrance, there is no suggestion that reconciliation is “bought” from God. He argues further that the notion of reconciliation as purchased from God departs from Calvin (2008:II.16.4; 326, 327), who cited Augustine in arguing that the Father’s love for humanity is prior to the atoning reconciliation of the cross (cf. Rom 5:8); that is, God does not love us because of what Christ has done; rather, it is because God first loved us that he came in Christ to reconcile us to himself (cf. Jn 3:16). As Torrance notes, “the truth of the prevenient love and grace of God in Christ was one of the primary principles of the Reformation” (Torrance, 1996c:19, 139; 2009:146).

In contradistinction to the gospel of external relations that characterizes the Latin heresy, Torrance (1992:41) follows Patristic theology in arguing that the incarnation and the atonement are “internally linked,” for “atoning expiation and propitiation are worked out in the ontological depths of human being and existence into which the Son of God penetrated as the Son of Mary.” As Torrance (1994:59) argues, if the incarnation itself is essentially redemptive rather than instrumental, that is, merely a means to an end, then “atonement must be regarded as taking place in the ontological depths of Christ’s incarnate life, in which he penetrated into the very bottom of our fallen human being and took our disobedient humanity, even our alienated human mind, upon himself in order to heal it and convert it back in himself into union with God.” Jesus penetrated to the depths of our original sin “in order to redeem us from it by bringing his atoning sacrifice and holiness to bear upon it in the very roots of our human existence and being.” Noting that in his genealogy recorded in Matthew, “Jesus was incorporated into long line of sinners,” Torrance (1992:41) eloquently argues:

[H]e made the generations of humanity his very own, summing up in himself our sinful stock, precisely in order to forgive, heal and sanctify it in himself. Thus atoning reconciliation began to be actualised with the conception and birth of Jesus of the Virgin Mary when he identified himself with our fallen and estranged humanity, but that was a movement which Jesus fulfilled throughout the whole course of his sinless life as the obedient Servant of the Lord, in which he subjected what he took from us to the ultimate judgment of God’s holy love and brought the healing and redeeming power of God to bear directly upon it in himself. From his birth to his death and resurrection on our behalf he sanctified what he assumed through his own self-consecration as incarnate Son to the Father, and in sanctifying it brought the divine judgment to bear directly upon our human nature both in the holy life he lived and in the holy death he died in atoning and reconciling sacrifice before God.

In contradistinction to the Latin tradition, Torrance (1992:41, 42) argues that we must “recover the awesome truth that through his Incarnation the Son of God appropriated our fallen humanity under the judgment of God.” Throughout the whole course of his life, the incarnate Saviour brought his healing and redeeming power to bear upon sinful Adamic flesh, even in the deep recesses of original sin, in order to heal, cleanse, and sanctify it in atoning reconciliation.

References

Calvin, J. 2008. Institutes of the Christian Religion (translated by H. Beveridge). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson. 1,059 pp.

Habets, M. 2008. The Doctrine of Election in Evangelical Calvinism: T. F. Torrance as a Case Study. Irish Theological Quarterly, vol 73. pp. 334-354.

Torrance, T.F. 1986b. Karl Barth and the Latin Heresy. Scottish Journal of Theology, vol 39, pp. 461-482.

Torrance, T.F. 1992. The Mediation of Christ (rev. ed.). Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard. 126 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1990. Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 256 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1993. The Atonement. The Singularity of Christ and the Finality of the Cross: The Atonement and the Moral Order. In N. Cameron, ed. Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker House. Chapter 8.

Torrance, T.F. 1994. Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 71 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 1996c. Scottish Theology from John Knox to John McLeod Campbell. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 330 pp.

Torrance, T.F. 2009. Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ (edited by R. Walker). Downers Grove: IVP. 489 pp.