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In her new book award winning theologian Elizabeth Johnson offers a major critique of atonement theology proposed by St. Anslem: “The mercy of God does not need the death of Jesus,” she states. “Satisfaction is not due before sin can be forgiven. The death of Jesus is not necessary for salvation.” Dr. Johnson offers an open, creative theology of accompaniment that proposes a new, cosmic ecological understanding of salvation. Today our inclusive Catholic communities are creating liturgies with Eucharistic Prayers that reflect the Holy One within us and within creation. Jesus is not a rescue, mop up agent sent by an angry male God to clean up our messes. The Catholic Church is need of a theological transplant from medieval theology in the 21st century. Elizabeth Johnson and Richard Rohr are two prominent Catholic authors who are blazing a new trail into a more wholistic, mystical, and prophetic vision that relates to our evolving understanding of Divine Mystery at the heart of our cosmos. Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP
In her review of Johnson's book in America, Colleen Mary Carpenter, Associate Professor and Chair of the Theology Department at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minn, affirms Creation and the Cross, "as a an ambitious book—and one that triumphantly succeeds in its ambition to reconceive our understanding of salvation, redemption, and the wideness of God’s mercy. Anselm’s satisfaction theory is thoroughly dissected and found wanting; in the end it is not only wrong about too many things but simply too small for the task it was attempting. In its stead, Johnson’s vision of salvation as divine solidarity with all flesh is impressive in both its simplicity and its reach. Her theology of accompaniment, in which “the living God, gracious and merciful, always was, is, and will be accompanying the world with saving grace,” does not sidestep the cross, but instead presents it as “an historical sacrament of encounter with the mercy of God,” one that makes “the compassionate love of God’s heart blazingly clear.”
In her review of Johnson's book in America, Colleen Mary Carpenter, Associate Professor and Chair of the Theology Department at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minn, affirms Creation and the Cross, "as a an ambitious book—and one that triumphantly succeeds in its ambition to reconceive our understanding of salvation, redemption, and the wideness of God’s mercy. Anselm’s satisfaction theory is thoroughly dissected and found wanting; in the end it is not only wrong about too many things but simply too small for the task it was attempting. In its stead, Johnson’s vision of salvation as divine solidarity with all flesh is impressive in both its simplicity and its reach. Her theology of accompaniment, in which “the living God, gracious and merciful, always was, is, and will be accompanying the world with saving grace,” does not sidestep the cross, but instead presents it as “an historical sacrament of encounter with the mercy of God,” one that makes “the compassionate love of God’s heart blazingly clear.”
Richard Rohr OFM on Atonement Theology
“For the
sake of simplicity and brevity here, let me say that the common Christian
reading of the Bible is that Jesus “died for our sins”— either to pay a debt to
the devil (common in the first millennium) or to pay a debt to God the Father
(proposed by Anselm of Canterbury [1033– 1109] and has often been called “the
most unfortunately successful piece of theology ever written”). Scotus agreed
with neither of these readings. He was not guided by the Temple language of
debt, atonement, blood sacrifice, or necessary satisfaction, but by the cosmic
hymns of Colossians and Ephesians. If Scotus’s understanding of the “how” and
meaning of redemption (his “atonement theory”) had been taught, we would have
had a much more positive understanding of Jesus, and even more of God the
Father. Christian people have paid a huge price for what theologians after
Anselm called “substitutionary atonement theory”: the idea that, before God
could love his creation, God needed and demanded Jesus to be a blood sacrifice
to atone for a sin-drenched humanity. Please think about the impossible,
shackled, and even petty God that such a theory implies and presents.
Christ is not the first idea in the mind of God, as Scotus taught, but a
mere problem solver after the sad fact of our radical unworthiness….
We have
had enough trouble helping people to love, trust, and like God to begin with,
without creating even further obstacles. Except for striking fear in the hearts
of those we sought to convert, substitutionary atonement theories did not help
our evangelization of the world. It made Christianity seem mercantile and
mythological to many sincere people. The Eternal God was presented as driving a
very hard bargain, as though he were just like many people we don’t like. As if
God could need payment, and even a very violent transaction, to be able to love
and forgive his own children— a message that those with an angry, distant,
absent, or abusive father were already far too programmed to believe….
Scotus,
however, insisted on the absolute and perfect freedom of God to love and
forgive as God chooses, which is the core meaning of grace. Such a God could
not be bound by some supposedly offended justice. For Scotus, the incarnation
of God and the redemption of the world could not be a mere reaction to human
sinfulness, but in fact the exact, free, and proactive work of God from the
very beginning. We were “chosen in Christ before the world was made,” as Paul
says in Ephesians (1: 4). Sin or problems could not be the motive for divine
incarnation, but only perfect love! The Christ Mystery was the very blueprint
of reality from the very start (John 1: 1)….
It is no
wonder that Christianity did not produce more mystics and saints over the
centuries. Unconsciously, and often consciously, many people did not trust or
even like this Father God, much less want to be in union with him. He had to be
paid in blood to love us and to care for his own creation, which seems rather
petty and punitive, and we ended up with both an incoherent message and universe.
Paul told us that “love takes no offense” (1 Corinthians 13: 5), but apparently
God was the big exception to this rule. Jesus tells us to love unconditionally,
but God apparently does not. This just will not work for the soul or mature
spirituality. Basically when you lose the understanding of God’s perfect and
absolute freedom and eagerness to love, which Scotus insisted on, humanity is
relegated to the world of counting! Everything has to be measured, accounted
for, doled out, earned, and paid back. That is the effect on the psyche of any
notion of heroic sacrifice or necessary atonement. 9 It is also why Jesus said
Temple religion had to go, including all of its attempts at the “buying and
selling” of divine favor (John 2: 13– 22). In that scenario, God has to be
placated and defused; and reparation has to be paid to a moody, angry, and very
distant deity. This is no longer the message Jesus came to bring.
This
wrongheaded worldview has tragically influenced much of our entire spirituality
for the last millennium, and is still implied in most of the Catholic
Eucharistic prayers. It gave lay Catholics and most clergy an impossible and
utterly false notion of grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness— which are, in
fact, at the heart of our message. The best short summary I can give of how
Scotus tried to change the equation is this: Jesus did not come to change the
mind of God about humanity (it did not need changing)! Jesus came to change the
mind of humanity about God. Christ was Plan A for Scotus, the hologram of the
whole, the Alpha— and therefore also the Omega— Point of cosmic history.”
Rohr,
Richard (2014-07-27). Eager to Love:
The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (pp. 183-187). Franciscan
Media. Kindle Edition.
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