Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The claim
- 2 On having lived too long and seen too much
- 3 The work of Christ (On trying to conceive how ‘things are not as they were’)
- 4 Two recent contributions
- 5 Creating an atonement model
- 6 The person of Christ (On trying to conceive how the Word became Flesh)
- 7 A moral demand: conditions for real reconciliation
- 8 Anthropocentricity, imperialism, and evangelism: an ethical postscript
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Two recent contributions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The claim
- 2 On having lived too long and seen too much
- 3 The work of Christ (On trying to conceive how ‘things are not as they were’)
- 4 Two recent contributions
- 5 Creating an atonement model
- 6 The person of Christ (On trying to conceive how the Word became Flesh)
- 7 A moral demand: conditions for real reconciliation
- 8 Anthropocentricity, imperialism, and evangelism: an ethical postscript
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In addition to Brian Hebblethwaite's comments, two more extensive and systematic treatments of atonement theory also lend support to reverse the trend I have noted.
The first, already referred to, is Colin Gunton's The Actuality of Atonement (1988). As we have seen, a main contention of the book is that various forms of rationalism bequeathed by the Enlightenment have eroded our confidence in metaphors as ‘means for the advance of knowledge and understanding’, and that atonement metaphors have suffered acutely in this process:
All the main ways of spelling out the saving significance of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus contain a considerable metaphorical and imaginative content… The result is that the doctrine of the atonement, dependent as it is upon a particular historical story and the way it has been transmitted, has been a favourite candidate for rational criticism. The main images have been argued or refined away, leaving conceptions of the atonement which place the emphasis not on the significance of what happened with Jesus, but on the response of the believer.
Gunton's concern is therefore to rehabilitate key atonement metaphors, to show that they still carry significant meaning about God's saving action in Christ – as a victory, a demonstration of justice, and a sacrifice. However, in each case a transformation of meaning is required for the metaphors to do their job: i.e. to convey knowledge of a ‘real’ action of God in Christ in these various ways.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Atonement and IncarnationAn Essay in Universalism and Particularity, pp. 42 - 50Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991