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Jesus Our Redeemer: A Christian Approach to Salvation
An examination of what Christians mean when they call Jesus their `Redeemer' or `Savior.' Gerald O'Collins draws upon the scriptures, Christian hymns and texts for worship, literature, the visual arts, and other sources to explore his theme.
294 pages, Paperback
First published January 11, 2007
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About the author
Gerald O'Collins
90 books19 followersBorn in Australia, Gerald O’Collins received his PhD at Cambridge University in 1968. From 1973 to 2006 he taught at the Gregorian University (Rome), where he was also dean of the theology faculty (1985–91). He is now a research professor in theology at St Mary’s University College in Twickenham.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 16, 2023
The doctrine of Salvation (or redemption, or atonement) is one of the central issues within Christianity. It is also surprisingly free from heresies and dogmas. By and large, Christians over the centuries have agreed to live and let live, with their differing views of salvation.
This means that there is a lot of history and diversity of perspective to cover when presenting the topic of salvation. There is also a serious modern problem which revolves around the morality of some of the medieval views, especially those which depict God the father as willing the torturing and murdering of Jesus (ie Penal Substitution).
The author makes it clear that he rejects those kinds of ‘morally repulsive’ and ‘horrendous’ views (p.166), especially as they may have contributed to oppression and abuse towards women, telling them to put up with their suffering as Christ also suffered.
The idea of God needing to punish his son also struggles in the face of the themes of forgiveness in the New Testament. If God cannot (or will not) forgive humanity without making Jesus suffer, then why are humans told to forgive each other, turning cheeks and not demanding eyes?
St Thomas Aquinas noted that there cannot be any necessity forcing God to require Jesus’ suffering, and the author accepts that. However, he also falls back at times to the language of what God ‘cannot’ do (p.173), perhaps thereby illustrating the tension at the heart of Redemption. For on the one hand if Christians are to explain Redemption they need to explain why Jesus’ death (and life) ‘had to’ happen as it did. Yet on the other hand Christians need to not insist upon any necessity forcing God to act in specific ways.
St Anselm’s theory fails, ultimately because it imposes necessities upon God, necessities which are feudal customs. The author recognises that. He also recognises the problems in the subjective accounts (often attributed to Abelard) as Jesus’ death can only inspire those who know about it, and as not everyone knows about it, that means his death ends up being of limited benefit to humanity.
By the end of the book, it was looking as if no previous theory was entirely adequate. Even Thomas Aquinas is criticised for introducing the ideas of ‘placating’ God… which were to be taken up by others and turned into Penal Substitution models (p.137). The book was good at explaining what didn’t work. Where it was less helpful was in presenting its own theory of what does work.
Nevertheless, this was a book full of detail. It discussed the large range of relevant biblical texts. It even gave some interesting insights into the ways that different bible translations impose doctrine in how they choose to translate texts about redemption (p.157, 175). However, some of the detail was not always clearly relevant (such as footnote 12 on p.54 discussing the musical settings of the Miserere).
Overall, this was an interesting book, but it felt unfinished. There was an Epilogue, but there was no traditional ‘conclusion’ pulling everything together. Maybe that’s because the author does not think that it is possible to present a traditional ‘theory of redemption,’ like Anselm or Aquinas tried to do. Maybe he thinks that matters are too complicated to reach a conclusion beyond merely describing what the Scriptures say? If so, then that needed to be clearly stated and argued for, because plenty of previous theologians have tried (and failed?) to present their own theories of redemption.
This means that there is a lot of history and diversity of perspective to cover when presenting the topic of salvation. There is also a serious modern problem which revolves around the morality of some of the medieval views, especially those which depict God the father as willing the torturing and murdering of Jesus (ie Penal Substitution).
The author makes it clear that he rejects those kinds of ‘morally repulsive’ and ‘horrendous’ views (p.166), especially as they may have contributed to oppression and abuse towards women, telling them to put up with their suffering as Christ also suffered.
The idea of God needing to punish his son also struggles in the face of the themes of forgiveness in the New Testament. If God cannot (or will not) forgive humanity without making Jesus suffer, then why are humans told to forgive each other, turning cheeks and not demanding eyes?
St Thomas Aquinas noted that there cannot be any necessity forcing God to require Jesus’ suffering, and the author accepts that. However, he also falls back at times to the language of what God ‘cannot’ do (p.173), perhaps thereby illustrating the tension at the heart of Redemption. For on the one hand if Christians are to explain Redemption they need to explain why Jesus’ death (and life) ‘had to’ happen as it did. Yet on the other hand Christians need to not insist upon any necessity forcing God to act in specific ways.
St Anselm’s theory fails, ultimately because it imposes necessities upon God, necessities which are feudal customs. The author recognises that. He also recognises the problems in the subjective accounts (often attributed to Abelard) as Jesus’ death can only inspire those who know about it, and as not everyone knows about it, that means his death ends up being of limited benefit to humanity.
By the end of the book, it was looking as if no previous theory was entirely adequate. Even Thomas Aquinas is criticised for introducing the ideas of ‘placating’ God… which were to be taken up by others and turned into Penal Substitution models (p.137). The book was good at explaining what didn’t work. Where it was less helpful was in presenting its own theory of what does work.
Nevertheless, this was a book full of detail. It discussed the large range of relevant biblical texts. It even gave some interesting insights into the ways that different bible translations impose doctrine in how they choose to translate texts about redemption (p.157, 175). However, some of the detail was not always clearly relevant (such as footnote 12 on p.54 discussing the musical settings of the Miserere).
Overall, this was an interesting book, but it felt unfinished. There was an Epilogue, but there was no traditional ‘conclusion’ pulling everything together. Maybe that’s because the author does not think that it is possible to present a traditional ‘theory of redemption,’ like Anselm or Aquinas tried to do. Maybe he thinks that matters are too complicated to reach a conclusion beyond merely describing what the Scriptures say? If so, then that needed to be clearly stated and argued for, because plenty of previous theologians have tried (and failed?) to present their own theories of redemption.
September 17, 2014
not my idea of an accessible global christology. if you want a reflection of older, white, euro-centric catholicism, this is for you. read for course.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews