I'm just learning about this doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement and it just seems off to me. Is it an
Appeasement of a Monster God as some say?
The doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement has come under particularly intense scrutiny in recent years. Critics claim that it is a fairly recent innovation with little support prior to the Reformation, and that it depicts Yahweh as comparable with the pagan deities of the OT. This article makes the case that, on the contrary, the substance of penal substitutionary atonement has been taught from the church’s earliest days, arguing that the doctrine stems directly from a careful, thoughtful engagement with Scripture, which from beginning to end points toward the sacrificial death of Israel’s Messiah.
The doctrine of the atonement has generated no shortage of controversy throughout Christian history. Perhaps as much is to be expected; what Christ accomplished on the cross cuts to the very heart of how believers are to understand the gospel. However, the penal substitutionary model has incurred particularly intense scrutiny. This view, alternatively labeled representative substitution, is defined by British theologian J. I. Packer as the conviction that the atonement involves “the innocent taking the place of the guilty, in the name and for the sake of the guilty, under the axe of God’s judicial retribution.”
Likewise, philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig, a staunch defender of penal substitution, has defined it as “the doctrine that God inflicted upon Christ the suffering which we deserved as the punishment for our sins, as a result of which we no longer deserve punishment.”
Though its proponents argue the view to be thoroughly biblical and demonstrably historical, this understanding of Christ’s work has been attacked on both accounts, often quite vehemently, by its detractors. Some who reject the penal substitutionary model assert that it is a Reformation, or at best medieval, invention that finds no support throughout the first millennium of the church. For example, the former Anglican Archbishop of Perth, Peter Carnley, derides the it as “inadequate” and charges that it “has been criticized in the course of history of Christian theology right from the moment it was first articulated by St. Anselm in the Middle Ages.”
Moreover, the doctrine has also been criticized as a distortion of Scripture, nowhere clearly taught in the Old or New Testaments. It has been blasted as a barbaric distortion of God’s character that places him in the category of pagan gods such as Molech, depicting him as a “monster God” who is appeased only “through the barbarism of child sacrifice.” Detractors have also claimed that it is irreconcilable with the teaching of Christ that his disciples must love their enemies. If Christ did indeed pay the price for the sins of humanity, they charge, God has never truly forgiven any sinner as he expects believers to do when wronged. In the Gospels, they argue, Jesus depicts the Father as simply forgiving individuals with no mention of a sacrifice. How, therefore, can one argue that he requires the substitutionary sacrifice of his son in sense order to accomplish redemption? Even to the casual observer these are clearly serious charges.
The question is whether such charges are accurate. Is penal substitution a relatively recent invention? Does it truly depict God as some sort of violent, pagan deity? Is it incompatible with the loving God of the Bible as revealed through Jesus Christ? While such charges certainly merit consideration, ultimately this article will make the case that they are mistaken. It will argue that the penal substitutionary understanding of the atonement has, in substance, been believed and taught since the infancy of the church, demonstrating that it has held considerable influence throughout Christian history, and represents a thoroughly biblical depiction of Christ’s work on the cross.
Geoffrey Butler, “Appeasement of a Monster God? A Historical and Biblical Analysis of Penal Substitutionary Atonement,”
