Atonement in Liberation Theology

8/13/2019 Atonement in Liberation Theology

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THE ATONEMENT IN THE CONTEXTOF LIBERATION THEOLOGY

SIMONS. MAIMELA*

The word atonement literally means "at-one-ment" by which is signified theprocess of making God and humankind one after they had been separated orestranged by sin (Is. 59:2) and had become enemies (Col. 1:21). It is thereforeone of the most fundamental concepts in Christian teaching without whichChristianity itself cannot survive. For in Christianity everything hangs on theclaim that the vicarious suffering and death of Jesus Christ on the cross has

effected the restoration of a broken relationship between God and humankind.Any Christian theology to be worth the name must be based christologically,that is, on what has happened to and with Jesus Christ, through whom God'sredemptive activity has been revealed to the world.

Liberation theology is one of those Christian theologies that is self-consciouslychristocentric because of the central role that is given to Jesus Christ, who isportrayed as the liberator of the oppressed and the poor. In the light of thischristological anchorage, one is led to believe that liberation theology would bea keen exponent of a doctrine of atonement.

There seems, however, to be a general feeling among liberation theologiansthat, without rejecting the realities to which the concept of atonement refers,the notion of atonement and the role it has played in the history of the church isno longer serviceable for theology today. l That is, the concept of atonement astraditionally understood cannot adequately express the significance of the lifeand death of Christ on the cross with particular reference to the oppressed andthe poor. Therefore liberation theology had found it necessary to coin a newvocabulary with which to express adequately the significance of the life anddeath of Christ for the oppressed, something that the classical term "atonement"

was unable to do. Before we proceed to examine the particular contribution thatliberation theology has made toward a broader understanding of the significance of the life and death of Jesus for the oppressed peoples, we must spell outthe understandings of atonement that tradition has transmitted to us.

According to Gustav Aulen, 2 three main types of atonement theory have beendeveloped in the history of the Christian Church and thought. The first type isthe ransom theory, which presents Christ's death in dramatic terms as signifying a victory over the powers of the devil. According to this view, humankindis regarded as justly belonging to Satan because of sin. Christ died on the cross

* SIMON S. MAIIMELA holds the chair in the Department of Systematic Theology at the Universityof South Africa This article was first published in the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa


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INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MISSION

as a ransom or price that had to be paid in order for the devil to releasehumankind from bondage. Once the deal between God and the devil wasmade, Satan accepted Jesus' death in the place of humankind, but inpermitting himself to become a victim or ransom, Jesus destroyed the powerof the devil; not only did he pay the price that was demanded but Jesus alsoproved his supremacy over Satan because the latter failed to hold him inbondage. Aulen suggests that attention should not be given to the mythological account of the theory but to Christ's conflict with and victory over theevil powers of this world that hold humankind in bondage. What is more,this cosmic drama of victory over hostile powers constitutes atonementbecause it brings about a totally new relation of reconciliation between Godand humankind. In other words, after the death and resurrection of Jesus, a

new situation of complete change obtains; a change in the relationshipbetween God and humankind and a change in the attitude of God because ofChrist's work that reconciled God to the world. Ireneaus, who representsthis view, holds that atonement is a victory over such objective powers assin, death and the devil, and that Christ's victory over these enslavingpowers creates a new situation in which humankind is free. Put differently,salvation is understood as a bestowal of the life of fellowship with Godbecause God delivers humankind from sin, death and the devil. Because inthis view sin is regarded as organic rather than moralistic, individual acts,atonement is understood as an overcoming of the state of alienation fromGod by reconciling the world, that is, the whole situation of humankind toGod.The second type is the satisfaction theory of atonement, which was developedby Anselm of Canterbury in his Cur Deus Homo? This theory of atonement,unlike the first, is rather legalistic. It posits a divine retributive law that must beobeyed and whose justice must be satisfied by humankind in their relationshipswith God. In other words, human relationship with God is understood to bebased on some divine law. But now since human beings in their disobediencehave transgressed this law they stand guilty before God, and as a result therecan be no atonement unless humankind fulfill the demands of God's law. Sincethey cannot fulfil the demands of this law, Christ, who is God-Man, died on thecross to pay the penalty that God's justice requires for human transgression ofthe divine law, and also Christ, by his obedient suffering, fulfilled God's law tothe uttermost. In short, the satisfaction theory understands atonement as areparation or satisfaction made to the divine justice because of the injury thatsin has caused.The third type is the moralistic (subjective) theory of atonement, represented byAbelard and the liberal theology of the nineteenth century. It holds that the

death of Christ on the cross reveals God's sacrificial love for the world, and asbelievers contemplate on this sacrificial love on the cross they are moved torepentance and amendments of their lives that is they undergo a moral self-


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THE ATONEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF LIBERATION THEOLOGY

God. Salvation or atonement affects primarily a change in the spiritual life ofpersons rather than a change in the conditions in which people live.

These three types of atonement theory are found unattractive and inadequate byliberation theology. For example, liberation theology seriously objects to thefact that the moralistic theory of atonement makes the works of Christ on thecross a private affair, a subjective matter, which de-emphasizes the objectivereality of divine reconciliation. It seems incapable of grasping the radicalquality of concrete evil and oppression. From the viewpoint of liberationtheology it is a theology that serves oppressors well because it reflects thebourgeois social conditions that never expose the oppressors to the actualtyrannical and demonic power of exploitation and oppression that subjects theoppressed to the life of slavery. Because the bourgeois life does not experienceconcrete suffering it posits suffering in abstract terms; it imagines whatsuffering could be like. Hence Jesus enters the human arena merely as astimulator of this imaginative, contemplative suffering. It is obvious that atheory of salvation or atonement that fails to focus attention on what isobjectively and concretely wrong with this world cannot be relevant to thevictims of evil structures who do not need a private, individualistic mysticalcommunion with God but rather a change in their earthly oppressive conditionsof life. Liberation theology believes that to be real, atonement must lead to thetransformation of objective realities of human life and not be restricted merely

to private moral uplifting of individuals. For persons cannot shut themselvesaway to pray and make everything right with God, and then in their daily lifehate, exploit and tear apart their fellow human beings. 3

Similarly, liberation theology takes issue with the Anselmian theory of atonement. Beside the fact that this theory can be criticized for its arbitraryoveremphasis on the death of Christ on the cross at the expense of thesoteriological significance of the whole life and person of Jesus Christ,liberation theology finds the understanding of the death of Christ as a payment,reparation or satisfaction of some kind of divine justice rather unpersuasive. It

argues that this theory, by posting an eternal law that must be satisfied, fails todeal adequately with the complexity of human suffering as well as what thedivine involvement in these sufferings entails for human oppression in thesituation of injustice. By posting some law that does not lead to life for thehuman community here and now, the satisfaction theory of atonement fails tocomprehend the extent of divine involvement in human suffering on behalf ofthe oppressed; it fails to grasp the reality of God's active struggle againsthuman suffering and oppression on behalf of and for the down-trodden and theweak; it fails to recognize that God is not the enemy of humankind but thecreator who is totally for humankind in the suffering, agony and pain that Godtook upon God's self on the cross in order to vanquish these enemies thatoppress the weak and the defenceless. The satisfaction theory of atonement that


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forgiveness of sins and guilt is to overlook the liberating and transformingpower of Christ's work in socio-political conditions, a power that is at work tofree men and women from the tyranny of racism, class, sex, poverty andignorance. 6 Stated simply, liberation theology contends that the work ofatonement does far more than the satisfaction theory suggests: it aims both toovercome sin and to recreate the totality of human inter-relationships and ourworld in order to make persons more human and the world more just andliveable. An atonement that exhausts itself only in forgiveness of sins withouttransformation of human situations might suggest that God has failed toconquer the concrete and objective power of evil that holds humankind inbondage, and that Christ's death on the cross is a mere theory that is incapableof healing and renewing the perverted human condition. Cone puts this aptly

when he writes:There can be no reconciliation with God unless the hungry are fed, the sick arehealed, and justice is given to the poor. The justified sinner is at once thesanctified person, one who knows that his freedom is inseparable from theliberation of the weak and the helpless. 7

Finally, liberation theology takes issue with the satisfaction theory of atonement largely because of its abstraction of God's redemptive work with theresult that God's liberating activity in Christ from sin and oppression is de-historicized. In its rationalistic concern for calculating merits that have to be

earned by Christ in order to buy God's favour, it fails to see that God'sliberating activity is the drama that is not acted out somewhere in the skies buton earth, where God is actively involved on the side of humankind in order todestroy evil powers that deny freedom and dignity. Liberation theology ispersuaded that atonement, to be real and effective, must be grounded in historyand be related to God's struggle against the powers of enslavement. For it wasin history and on this earth that God became a human being, lived amonghumankind, thereby entering history and affirming the conditions of theoppressed people as God's own so as to make it clear that poverty and sicknesscontradict the divine intentions. 8

Liberation theology is much more attracted to the ransom theory (also knownas classical or dramatic view of atonement) because of its emphasis on evil asan objective power that holds people in bondage. Cone notes that theprincipalities and powers of evil that are mythically expressed in the figure ofSatan represent not merely metaphysical realities, but also earthly powers orrealities, powers that cause slavery, poverty, ignorance, disease, injustice andoppression. These powers are embodied in social structures that oppress andhumiliate the weak. 9 The only qualms liberation theology has with thisransom theory of atonement are that it fails to focus attention on the concrete

6 WJ M Janson "The Guidance of the Spirit" in The Spirit in Biblical Perspective WS Vorster


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political structures that can create human suffering and fails to say anythingabout God's empowerment of the oppressed who must continue God's fightagainst injustice. In other words, while this theory rightly understands Christ'swork as primarily one of victory over powers of sin, death and Satan, it fails tohistoricize this divine struggle against earthly oppression and injustice. It failsto acknowledge that the war against evil was just begun by Christ's resurrectionand must continue until all evil forces are vanquished and until freedom andself-realization have become the common property of humankind.

From the above remarks it is obvious that liberation theology experiences greatdifficulties with the traditional concepts of atonement. In no way should thisimply that liberation theology is interested merely in liberation struggles andtherefore has no place for a central teaching of the church, such as theatonement. Rather, as I have indicated in my opening remarks, liberationtheology finds these concepts of atonement grossly inadequate to express thefull and comprehensive dimension of what the life and death of Christ on thecross entail. Therefore, instead of using these inadequate concepts of atonement, liberation theology has opted for other ways of expressing the significance of Christ's work, the work that should not be understood in a narrowindividualistic fashion but as a comprehensive divine activity whose goal is tofree men and women from all socio-political, cultural, and spiritual (psychological) powers that enslave them. 10

It is important to note that the disagreement over the construal of atonement thatliberation theology voices against traditional theology is not merely a semanticone, but goes to the heart of what separates liberation theology from othertheologies. The disagreement is on what is the right understanding of what iswrong with human beings and their earthly situation (traditionally expressed bythe word sin) and how this human situation or problem can be solved. For theunderstanding of atonement, and therefore of salvation, is ultimately determined by what theologians conceive to be problematic (sinful) about the humansituation. Naturally, because theologians differ in their portrayal of the human

problem, they are bound to differ also in spelling out the necessary remedy thatcan correct the human situation. In short, the battle here is not merely on whatcorrect terms to use but also about what the correct Christian understanding ofsin is and what the correction of that sin is understood to be.

As we have seen, with the exception of the ransom theory of atonement, whichregards sin as the fundamental state of alienation from God, the other twotheories of atonement tend to portray sin largely as a personal or individualproblem between the individual concerned and his or her God. Salvation,which is procured as a consequence of Christ's atoning work, is understood as

an unburdening of individual sins, or as a moral uplifting of the

individual whonow has found peace with God. Sin is construed as a hindrance to one'sattainment of the life hereafter Atonement according to these two theories


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becomes a means of removing this hindrance and of setting one right with God.Here the possibility of the individual's salvation apart from this world and apartfrom social conditions is contemplated. For salvation is construed, as it were,as a release from this world of tears and struggles: to be saved is to flee fromthis world. Over against this view of salvation, liberation theology argues thatsin is neither a personal problem only (although this is not excluded), nor issalvation merely an abstract idea that must be discussed theoretically withreference to an obedience to some divine laws, laws that are alien to the life ofthe people in the community. Rather, sin, from liberation theology's perspective, is understood to be a collective, community concept that manifests itselfthrough a refusal to love one's neighbour, a refusal to have fellowship withothers, and therefore a refusal to have fellowship with God. To sin is to deny

that which makes for life of the community here and now. This fundamentalbreach of fellowship with our neighbours, which is therefore a breach offellowship with God, is the cause of concrete sins that we meet in actualinterhuman relations: sins such as poverty, injustice, oppression, hatred,racism, denial of freedom, and other forms of socio-political structures that putpeople at odds with their neighbours. These oppressive and destructive objective forces in which human beings find themselves are regarded by liberationtheology as consequence of sin. In other words, sin is not merely an idea in anindividual's mind, nor is sin merely a private, interior reality that can beeliminated by a verbal declaration by a priest in order to quieten a troubledconscience (although this is not totally excluded); but in reality sin is anobjective, social, historical fact, a state of absence of brotherhood/sisterhoodand love in interpersonal relations. Only because sin is real in this concretesocial and historical sense is it possible for it to become secondarily an interior,personal or subjective fracture in one's life. Put differently, sin is a fundamental state of alienation that is the root cause of the situation of injustice andoppression, as well as the root cause of self-centredness, isolation and denial offellowship. 11

By defining sin in this all-embracing sense, liberation theology is able to offer adynamic and comprehensive notion of salvation, for it sees more clearly thebroader horizons of the desired transformations that have to be brought about ifthe broken human realtionships are to be healed. Consequently, liberationtheology does not understand the atoning work of Christ merely as a "spiritual"affair or merely as the salvation of individual souls in the life hereafter, butrather as a transformation of the entire human situation in all its aspects, situation in which both sin (as a state of fundamental alienation) and itsconsequences (such as injustice, oppression, poverty and misery) are overcome. In other words, the atoning work of Christ ushers in a totally new state of

existence in which all forms of human deprivation, degradation and misery areabolished. According to liberation theology, God became man in Christ inorder that:


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He might come to liberate all men from all slavery to which sin has subjectedthem: hunger, misery, oppression, and ignorance. 12

At stake in this all-embracing and radical view of salvation that liberationtheology advocates, a view shared by the prophet Isaiah (Is. 11:1-9) and theApostle John (Rev. 7:9-17), is the claim that the work and person of JesusChrist have procured a remedy for sin and its destructive consequences not onlybeyond this life but also in this life. Put differently, the fundamental message ofliberation theology is that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is forthe total liberation (salvation) of humanity from all kinds of spiritual andphysical limitations, and that this liberation is a dynamic historical process inwhich humankind is given the promise, the possibility and the power toovercome all the perverted human conditions. It is a triumphant message thatsprings from liberation theology's conviction that the Christian God is notmerely capable of defeating "spiritual" sin and death but is also powerfulenough to conquer all evil forces that hold human beings in physical bondage.

The greatest contribution of liberation theology to our understanding of abroader significance of the atonement for human life in all its physical andspiritual aspects lies in its insistence that God's reconciliation in Christ, to bereal and genuine, must be able to affect human conditions of brokenness.Liberation theology argues that Christian theology must of necessity correlateGod's reconciling (atoning) work in Christ with the Creator's concrete involve

ment in the socio-political affairs of this world. Liberation theology points tothe life of Christ in the flesh to make this point: He was born a poor man inorder to confront poverty; he lived and ate with sinners in order to forge a linkbetween broken and wretched human existence and the divine involvement andidentification with that oppressed existence, to destroy oppression and to givethe down-trodden dignity and worth. In short, liberation theology sees theincarnation as the historical event in which God experienced the depth ofhuman suffering and degradation thus committing the divine self to the givingof abundant life to the sinful, oppressed and poor people. By correlating theatoning work of Christ so closely with God's liberating involvement in humanstruggles to be free, liberation theology is able to speak about atonement inconcrete, historical terms. Consequently, God's atoning work in the life, deathand resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a timeless, theoretical and apolitical idea,an idea to be thought about and believed in, but rather that what has happenedto and with Christ constitutes a fundamental breakthrough for human life in thehistory of the world. For it now means that God has succeeded in breaking thepower of sin and its consequences for human life both in this world and the lifehereafter. It means that the face of the world has been turned upsidedownbecause a possibility of fellowship among human beings is created, and

because human beings can create life-nourishing and humanizing structures.Because God has succeeded in winning victory over evil, Christians can start toembody and institutionalize this victory here and now in anticipation of the


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In conclusion, one cannot help being impressed by the liberation theology'sinsistence that a true understanding of God's atoning and therefore reconciling

work in Christ, if this work is believed to be authentic and efficacious, must besuch that it not only affects our private, pious attitudes but also our sociopolitical environment in its totality. For an atonement (reconciliation) to beanything less than this comprehensive salvation would suggest that God has notquite succeeded in rooting out sin and defeating evil and their consequences forhuman life. A God who is incapable of overcoming both spiritual and bodilyconsequences of sin can hardly be taken seriously when God promises to bringabout the miracle of the resurrection of the dead. The consequence of this claimis this: a true believer in God's ability to bring about the miracle of theresurrection of the dead cannot afford the luxury of doubting that this same Godis equally capable of overcoming sin and its consequences on this side of thegrave. For a true God, to be true to God's own divinity, must be capable andwilling to achieve both victories.


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Atonement in Liberation Theology