Gustaf Aulén > Quotes

“Christ came down from heaven because no power other than that of God Himself was able to accomplish the work that was to be done. Incarnation and atoning work are thus set in the closest possible relation to one another; both belong to one scheme.”
― Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor

“This brings us back to the first of our five points, the structure of the three types of teaching. The classic type showed us the Atonement as a movement of God to man, and God as closely and personally engaged in the work of man’s deliverance. In the Latin type God seems to stand more at a distance; for the satisfaction is paid by man, in the person of Christ, to God. In the third type God stands still more at a distance; as far as He is concerned, no atonement is needed, and all the emphasis is on man’s movement to God, on that which is accomplished in the world of men. That is to say, the essential Christian idea of a way of God to man, which dominates the classic type, is weakened in the Latin type, and lost in the subjective type, in the measure that its leading idea is consistently carried out.”
― Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor

“First, we must ask in what relation the conceptions of sin and death stand to one another in Irenæus. We have already noted the assertion that he, in common with other Eastern theologians, places relatively little emphasis on sin, because he regards salvation as a bestowal of life rather than of forgiveness, and as a victory over mortality rather than over sin.”
― Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor

“Each and every interpretation of the Atonement is most closely connected with some conception of the essential meaning of Christianity, and reflects some conception of the Divine nature. Indeed, it is in some conception of the nature of God that every doctrine of the Atonement has its ultimate ground. The history of the doctrine of the Atonement is so important a part of the history of Christian thought in general that the judgment which is formed on this part of the history, on its conflicts and its changes, must largely determine the judgment which is formed as to the meanings of Christian history in general. It is evident, therefore, that the thesis that we are maintaining raises some very wide issues.”
― Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement

“if the classic idea of the Atonement ever again resumes a leading place in Christian theology, it is not likely that it will revert to precisely the same forms of expression that it has used in the past; its revival will not consist in a putting back of the clock.”
― Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor

“My aim in this book has been throughout an historical, not an apologetic aim.”
― Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor

“The Spirit' assures us that God is not distant and that he is not in reality an extra-mundane being who sits enthroned in exalted eminence, and who from this eminence possibly sends a few messages down to the world; but, on the contrary, that God is near to us and that he is immediately and effectively active in our life.”
― Gustaf Aulén, The Faith of the Christian Church

“We have also here the explanation of his constant emphasis on salvation as a bestowal of Life. Life means for him primarily fellowship with God, the partaking of the life of God, and therefore also a deliverance from sin.”
― Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor