The Actuality of Atonement (1988) was Colin's major work on the particular doctrine. The book in summary is an exploration of the usefulness of metaphor and especially the traditional atonement metaphors - victory, justice, sacrifice. He writes, '... are they, in effect, dead metaphors, dead not only because they have been domesticated but because they no longer speak, no longer create space for human living?'(50). Gunton then looks at 'three ways in which the story of Jesus can - or must - be understood to create ways of both speaking of God and of realising his action in each world. In each case, we shall ask whether they are viable ways of speaking about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as redemption, atonement' (52).
Murray Rae, in an essay where he argues that the metaphor travail might be another useful way of speaking about the atonement, provides the following summary of Gunton's argument:
In The Actuality of Atonement ... Colin Gunton shows that in directing us to behold the death of Christ, the metaphors of atonement (here, victory, justice and sacrifice) invite us to a new understanding of what victory, justice and sacrifice mean. In light of the cross victory is shown to be won, not by annihilating one's opponents, but by suffering through the violence that they do and thus robbing it of its power. Victory here means to overcome evil with love. Or in the metaphor of justice, the cross reveals that justice is done, not when a suitable punishment has been imposed upon the offender but when the judge takes upon himself the consequences of the offence and thus reconciles the offender to himself. Justice, understood in light of the cross, while properly understand still as the means of dealing with offence, is not what we thought it was, or is not the same thing, at least, that we normally see going on in our law courts and prison cells. The judge judged in our place, throws new light on what justice truly is. Its proper conern is not punishment but setting things right, as the Greek word dikaiosune better succeds in making clear. And finally sacrifice: here the primary referent of the metaphor is a religious context, the ritual means of dealing with sin, but also in this case, the metaphor, when used of Christ's death, invites us to a new way of understanding how sacirfice accomplishes reconciliation between humanity and God. [Sacrifice] is not accomplished by heaping our sins upon a scapegoat as a symbol of our own repentance, but rather by God's giving up his own life as the outworking of his love. The redundancy of the old sacrificial system is made clear in Hebrews where it is claimed that it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins (Heb. 10:4). The old meaning of sacrifice has also to be left aside in favour of a new understanding brought about when, through the metaphor, we are invited to apprehend the cross' (Rae, Murray, 'The Travail of God', International Journal of Systematic Theology, 2003, Vol 5, pp. 50-51).
Gunton follows his three chapters on victory, justice and sacrifice, with a discussion of how this plays out as in a doctrine of atonement. He begins by arguing that all three metaphors are relational, that is, they 'taking their meaning, when understood in depth, from relationships' (143). His next point is that these metaphors are not isolated from creation and eschatology, rather they 'express something of the work of the triune God through, in and with his creation' (154). That is, 'the metaphors enable us to conceive the career of Jesus as the victory, sacrifice and justice of God, and so to write that particular story into a determinative place in the narrative of the ways of God with the world' (154-155). The chapter continues with a discussion of the objective/subjective dimensions of the doctrine and whether we should understood Jesus as our representative or our substitute. He rejects a merely subjective or exemplarist theology because it fails to recognise that Jesus is the incarnate Son, whose 'particular humanity is what it is because it is his who is sent by the Father who is sent to save lost mankind' (158); it fails to recognise that 'the death and resurrection of Jesus [are] the pivot of the events in which the reconciling action takes place' (158), that is, 'the death of Jesus is first of all to be understood as the divine purpose of redemption' (159), not as a mere example to follow; and thirdly, it fails to take evil seriously enough - sin is 'not abolished by appeals to follow a good example. What is required is a setting free, an act of recreation, of redemption' (160). What does Gunton say with regard to the representative/substitute debate? He says that 'substitution and representation are correlative, not opposed concepts' (166), that they 'are two sides of the one relationship, with Jesus taking our place before God so that we ourselves may come, reconciled, before God' (167). By substitute, Gunton argues that it should not be controlled 'by the necessity of punishment so much as by the gracious initiative of God' (164-165). He says 'we have to say that Jesus is our substitute because he does for us what we cannot do for ourselves' (165). Elsewhere Gunton writes:
'The heart of the doctrine of substitution is not God as God simpliciter standing in his own dock ... but God the Son bearing as man the weight of the Father's holy wrath against sin. One inch from that path, and we are the objectionable realms of either penal subsitution or a mere exemplarism. But the dangerous path must be trodden, for unless we tread it, as Calvin did, we shall fail to articulate either the depth of the human plight or the divine and human cost of our redemption' ('Aspects of Salvation: Some Unscholastic Themes from Calvin's Institutes' in Intellect and Action, 2000, 137-138).
Gunton here recognises the difficulty and problems of a doctrine of penal subsitution, but seems to suggest a doctrine of atonement must come near to saying it, if we are 'to do justice to the implications of the decisive events with which we are concerned' (AA, 166).
Gunton's account of the doctrine of atonement is thought-provoking and challenging. Re-reading it again as I have over the last two weeks, I have on many occasions been helped in its description of victory, justice and sacrifice. I remain unsure of whether justice is still a helpful metaphor and a right reading of Paul - here I am in more agreement with Douglas Campbell and Tom Wright.
Further Reading:
'Atonement and the Project of Creation: An Interpretation of Colossians 1:15-23' in The Promise of Trinitarian Theology (1997, 2nd ed.)
'The Atonement: R. W. Dale on the Centrality of the Cross' in Theology Through the Theologians (1996)
'Aspects of Salvation: Some Unscholastic Themes from Calvin's Institutes' in Intellect and Action (2000)
The Christian Faith, chapter 4 (2002)
'Atonement: The Sacrifice and and the Sacrifices. From Metaphor to Transcendental' in Father, Son and Holy Spirit (2003)
Sorry to comment on something other than your post, but I read just now something in your achives the "Soul Survivor and DisneyLand Posts" they said you would be writing balancing posts, I was looking for them but couldnt find them, did you write them, just because I would like to read both sides of your comments
Thanks, Peace
Liam
Posted by: Liam | May 24, 2005 at 10:01 PM