Rethinking the Atonement: An Interview with David M. Moffitt

Evangelical Quarterly, 2012

Review of Biblical Literature, 2022

For the past two millennia, the death and resurrection of Jesus have dominated the thought of Christian theologians and exegetes, particularly when it comes to Paul’s perspectives on the matter. There have been theories and propositions to systematic theologies that have tried to make sense of what the New Testament (hereafter NT) writers were attempting to communicate regarding Jesus’ death, and what they envisioned it to have accomplished. This controversy raged on for centuries, each side having their set of texts that supposedly proved theirs to be the “correct” opinion. It is not the purpose of this essay to enter this controversy regarding atonement theories, but rather examine texts and cultural phenomena that antedate the epistemological presuppositions of the later arguments and compare these with familiar speech found in the NT. Rather than read these texts eisegetically through a systematized theological paradigm, I want to try and make sense of what those in the Second Temple period saw as having atoning or salvific qualities through the martyrdom of a righteous individual.

How cruel and wicked it seems that anyone should demand the blood of an innocent person as the price for anything, or that it should in any way please him that an innocent man should be slain--still less that God should consider the death of His Son so agreeable that by it he should be reconciled to the whole world! 2 If belief in the redemptive nature of the life and death of Christ is to be intellectually defensible, Christian philosophers must have an account of it that is not only philosophically coherent, but also morally unobjectionable. In the philosophical literature, there is a significant body of work dedicated to making theoretical sense of the atonement (e.g., whether the debt of sin owed to God may be satisfied by another), but thus far, contemporary philosophers of religion have given little treatment to the atonement by way of social epistemology or feminist philosophy, despite extensive attention to the issue within feminist theology. In order to bring these conversations together, here, I explore some of the epistemological and gendered implications of traditional approaches to the atonementnamely, the normalization of submission to violence and the idealization of suffering. In the first section of what follows, I describe three major categories of atonement theories in the philosophical tradition. The second section surveys some of the feminist criticisms of the atonement tradition that have been put forward in the theological literature, as well as the theological context which motivates those criticisms. In the third section, I examine the implications of feminist theology in this vein for particular theories of the atonement. In the fourth section, I argue that conceiving of redemption as arising out of sacrificial submission to violence-the suffering servant who willingly, though undeservedly, self-sacrifices for the sake of another-has corrupted the shared hermeneutical 1 Thanks to

I review Adam Johnson's contribution to the Bloomsbury Guides for the Perplexed series. Overall, I find it to be a helpful introductory book with a great bibliography. Its most intriguing aspect is also, unfortunately, its weakest in that he does not further develop a critical concept that may help us understand the atonement. Nonetheless, the genre of his book may constrain him too much from further exploration, so Johnson is not fully to blame. The review was first published in the Journal of Analytic Theology here: http://journalofanalytictheology.com/jat/index.php/jat/article/view/jat.2016-4.100413221406a/316

Dale Moreau and Jack W Bowers, 2025

This paper challenges the idea that forgiveness of sins is the means to enter heaven, proposing instead that in the Old Testament, forgiveness was given to those already considered righteous. Righteousness was attained through loyalty to Yahweh, as showcased by figures like Abraham and David. The rituals in Leviticus addressed the already righteous, focusing on ritual purity and access rather than achieving righteousness. The ministry of reconciliation, where God does not count people's trespasses against them, is highlighted as the gospel message, emphasizing an invitation to join God's blessed family. The evangelistic message is suggested to be reshaped around joining this preordained family, rather than repentance for sin as the means to salvation. Atonement theology was scarcely mentioned in the book of Acts, which instead focused on the risen Messiah as Lord. The role of Jesus' death is seen primarily as forming a new inclusive family, breaking down barriers between Jews and Gentiles as described in Ephesians 2. This unity theme is prevalent throughout the New Testament, with Jesus' atonement allowing Gentiles to be purified and gain access to God's presence and inheritance. Cornelius' story in Acts exemplifies the creation of a new intertribal family through Jesus' work. Jesus' death enabled both Jews and Gentiles to become one family, an unprecedented development crucial to the New Testament narrative. Ultimately, individuals receive what they desire: eternal life for believers and death for atheists. The paper distinguishes this from the concept of eternal damnation or hell, aligning with the idea that the wages of sin are death. In the Old Testament, wrath was anticipated to rest upon Gentiles, but the New Testament shifts this understanding to wrath upon unbelief, targeting spiritual forces of evil. The participation of humans in this wrath remains unclear, potentially relating to the "second death" for those not worshiping Yahweh.

European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 2019

The doctrine of the atonement of Christ is the distinctive doctrine of Christianity. Over the course of many centuries of reflection, highly diverse interpretations of the doctrine have been proposed. In the context of this history of interpretation, in my book Atonement (OUP, 2018), I considered the doctrine afresh with philosophical care. Whatever exactly the atonement is supposed to be, in Christian theology it is understood as including a solution to the problems of the human condition, especially its guilt and shame. In Atonement, I canvassed the major interpretations of the doctrine that attempt to propound and defend a particular solution, and I argued that all of them have serious shortcomings. In their place, I explained and defended an interpretation that is both novel and yet traditional and that has significant advantages over other interpretations, including Anselm's well-known account of the doctrine. In the process, I also discussed many concepts in ethics and moral psychology, including love, union, guilt, shame, and forgiveness, among others. At an author-meets-critics session at the American Philosophical Association Central Division, 2018, organized by Craig Warmke, three critics presented papers raising questions about one or another strand in the book. I am grateful to these critics, Michael Rea, Trent Dougherty, and Brandon Warmke, for their stimulating comments on this book. (I should add that I owe both Trent Dougherty and Michael Rea a special debt for their extensive help with the manuscript while it was in progress. Each of them worked through it carefully then and gave me extensive comments-Rea in writing and Dougherty in the course of a reading group and workshop that he organized. The book is undoubtedly better for having had the benefit of their comments while it was being completed.) The comments and questions of all three of these presenters at the APA session are helpful, and I am glad of the chance to clarify one or another element in the book further in consequence. I am only sorry that in the short space available to me here, I am able to comment on only some of the interesting issues they raise. II. RESPONSE TO MICHAEL REA Michael Rea's paper focuses on what, using Aquinas's terminology, I called 'the stain on the soul'. I argued that the stain could be removed by Christ's atonement and that God could forget the stain (in an analogous sense of 'forgetting') and thereby alleviate it. In his paper, Rea wants to call our attention to cases in which the stain on the soul stems not from a person's guilt, but from something else, such as a person's victimization at the hands of others or a person's suffering something, including something for which God might be blamed. Rea makes two claims about such cases, first that (a) Christ's atoning work cannot remove the stain in such cases,

Religious Studies Review, 2006