The Atonement

Elements in the Philosophy of Religion

by William Lane Craig

How did Christ's death overcome the estrangement and condemnation of sinners before a holy God, so as to reconcile them to Him? A great variety of theories of the atonement have been offered over the centuries to make sense of the fact that Christ by his death has provided the means of reconciliation with ransom theories, satisfaction theories, moral influence theories, penal substitution theories, and so on. Competing theories need to be assessed by (i) their accord with biblical data and (ii) their philosophical coherence.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Faith, Christianity, Religion

106 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 21, 2018

About the author

William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He and his wife Jan have two grown children.

At the age of sixteen as a junior in high school, he first heard the message of the Christian gospel and yielded his life to Christ. Dr. Craig pursued his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College (B.A. 1971) and graduate studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.A. 1974; M.A. 1975), the University of Birmingham (England) (Ph.D. 1977), and the University of Munich (Germany) (D.Theol. 1984). From 1980-86 he taught Philosophy of Religion at Trinity, during which time he and Jan started their family. In 1987 they moved to Brussels, Belgium, where Dr. Craig pursued research at the University of Louvain until assuming his position at Talbot in 1994.

He has authored or edited over thirty books, including The Kalam Cosmological Argument; Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus; Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom; Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology; and God, Time and Eternity, as well as over a hundred articles in professional journals of philosophy and theology, including The Journal of Philosophy, New Testament Studies, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy, and British Journal for Philosophy of Science.

Reviews

[Jacob O'connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm grateful for William Lane Craig. No other modern thinker has so influenced me. No one reasons better, and his work on the atonement keeps the streak going. "Atonement" is solid, grounded in Scripture, and built on the Reformational foundation. Don't overlook this gem.

Notes:

(1) Recommended by Reasonable Faith

(2) Nook

(3) Atonement means purgation or cleansing (6)

(4) “Those who claim, for example, that we know nothing of the imputation of someone’s responsibility or guilt for wrongdoing to another innocent party are just ignorant of the law” (7)

(5) Atonement means “at onement”, designating a state of harmony (7)

(6) Passover as type. Animal sacrifice as type (11)

(7) Meaning of laying a hand on the sacrificial lamb is identification with the animal. “Death is the penalty for sin, and the animal dies in place of the worshipper.” (14)

(8) “Life of the flesh is in the blood... Lev 17.11 (14)

(9) The idea of substitutionary punishment is clearly expressed in Moses’s offer to the Lord to be killed in place of the ppl , who had apostatized... (18). Also command to offer Isaac

(10) Legal pardon (23)

(11) Anselm: No one but God could pay a debt of such magnitude, but no one but man is obliged to pay it. It follows that our salvation required that God become man (30)

(12) Indispensable to a biblical account of atonement (1) Penal substitution. (2) theory of punishment (3) Satisfaction of God’s wrath

(13) Penal substitution incoherent? Alec Walden (49). (1) Christ is ...

(14) If righteousness can be imputed, guilt can be imputed. Examples of vicarious liability (1) ships in maritime law (2) employers in corp law (3) business owners in criminal law (57).

(15) Objection to penal substitution (1) God is perfectly just (2) if God is perfectly just, He cannot punish an innocent person (3) therefore God cannot punish an innocent person (4) Christ was an innocent person (5) therefore God cannot punish Christ (6) If God cannot punish Christ, penal substitution is false (58)

(16) Objection to propitiation (1) Unless the person who committed a wrong is punished for that wrong, Divine justice is not satisfied (2) If God practices penal substitution, then the person who committed a wrong is not punished for that wrong (3) therefore, if God practices penal substitution, divine justice is not satisfied (66)

[Tanner Bond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read! Prolly only 4.5 because I’m not smart enough to understand everything. But from what I did understand I LOVED! The usage of legal terminology to describe the atonement that draws from precedent and Gods character is awesome. Goes to show the logical background behind the atonement theory of penal substitution. If you like anything legal/philosophical and want to relate it to the Christian faith here is a great short book for that! But don’t let short make you believe it’s not in depth and hard to read lll

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

It wasn't a page-turner...

Since I really do have to get some study reading done, and this interferes with reading books I actually like, for which I have a target, I may as well at least record the reading on here!

As theological tomes go, it was relatively light and accessible. I didn't agree with all of it, but it was a good introduction to a subject I need to read much, much more about.

(My rating is as a theology textbook. Not in comparison with the books I read for enjoyment! A different scale, I think.)

[Joseph Yue · Rating 4 out of 5]

A succinct piece of academic work on different models of atonement through out the church history. It doesn't only introduce the mainstream theories, from Christus Victor of St. Irenaeus to Divine Satisfaction of St. Anselm, but also present (and, of course, criticise) the somewhat controversial ones like Moral Influence. Although biasedly in favour of the Penal Substitution model, the excellency of its biblical reflection and philosophical analysis are truly praiseworthy.

[Taylor Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

'The Atonement' is small, accessible, logical, and informative.

None of those descriptors is necessarily bad or good.

Bad things can be logically written (Hitler followed the rules of logic, y'know); good things come in small packages sometimes; bad things are sometimes on the bottom shelf (the whole point of propaganda is to make misinformation accessible); and some information can be poorly packaged (think 'boring textbooks').

These words are just the facts (at least, from my impression of the book). I'll elaborate on whether or not these things were good or bad:

Small
It's important to note that this entry in the 'Cambridge Elements in the Philosophy of Religion' series is not a comprehensive report on all of Dr. Craig's research, knowledge, or personal insights on the subject of the atonement. Page-number constraints in the series only allowed for the most concise and pertinent information in the space provided. While I was left wanting more information and explanation about some topics, this book can hardly be faulted for such a thing. It's packed with content, but not in such a way where it feels overly dense. Which leads into the next descriptor...

Accessible
Dr. Craig has a process with all of his subjects of study wherein he researches a topic for years (sometimes more than a decade) and then begins methodically compiling and distilling all that information into forms that other people can consume. He usually writes multiple books on each subject: some for the purely academic crowd, and, fortunately, others at the popular level. 'The Atonement', in spite of 'Cambridge' being on the cover, is thankfully one of the popular-level books (with more academic works on the subject forthcoming). Anyone with passing knowledge of basic Christian doctrines can comprehend the information in this book. Dr. Craig is lenient with his technical vocabulary (that is, he tones it down in these popular-level books), and takes the time to clearly define things in simple terms and provide examples. If you are the kind of person that knows what the atonement is in Christianity, or that such a thing is even a... thing, then you already have the necessary baseline of understanding to read this book.

Logical
In terms of structure, I don't think it will ever be possible to fault Dr. Craig in any of his writings. His approach to laying out his subjects of research is probably one of the most methodical and common-sense of any professional philosopher - which is strange to me; some philosophers, whose literal job it is to make sense of the metaphysical world around us, simply cannot write logically in the least where a layperson could follow their thoughts. Not to stray too far off-topic, we can be thankful Dr. Craig is not one of those philosophers. In almost everything he does (books, debates, articles, podcasts, etc.) he lays out terms, gives their definitions, combs through the relative historical thoughts on the subject, and then synthesizes all of these things into either his own personal conclusions, or the possible conclusions that would be rational to infer from the information. In this case, being exclusively a Christian-based subject, Dr. Craig defines 'atonement', examines the biblical data concerning it, takes us on a time-journey through the different approaches to the atonement through history, and then assesses the information and defends what he sees as the correct view (or the most logical view that presents itself). If anyone gets lost in this book, you can't blame the structure or layout of the arguments, at least.

Informative
Finally, 'The Atonement', in spite of its size, packs a large punch. Dr. Craig has never been one for 'entertainment' (unless you consider watching atheists consistent being defeated in debates entertainment), and so this book will likely not hold the attention of one looking for such a thing. However, the point of the book is to inform, and it does that. I came away from these ~95 pages knowing more about what I don't know about the atonement than what I did know before I started reading it - in case I lost you there: this is a good thing. Dr. Craig does indeed provide a tremendous defense of the Penal Substitutionary Theory of the atonement, but, more importantly, he challenges the lay-reader to go deeper with their thoughts about this doctrine and Christian doctrine in general: there is always more to learn, always another perspective to consider, always another counter-argument to defend against, and always another aspect to the Faith to dig deeper into. You won't find many jokes or anecdotes in this book(let), but you will find challenging philosophical and theological ideas to make you reconsider (or consider for the first time) what you thought you knew about the atonement - and, be honest, what else were you expecting from a book like this?

Conclusion
This book is receiving five stars because:
1. It accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish without any missteps.
2. It packs a lot of solid information in while still keeping its primary, non-academic audience in the game.
3. It is an indispensable resource for those seriously interested in the essentials of Christian doctrine but are maybe only beginning - I took notes on it and will be referring to it and them numerous times in the future, guaranteed.
4. Dr. Craig has provided what virtually no other Christian philosopher has done in... I guess ever: a solid, biblically-evidenced defense of the doctrine of Penal Substitution - and it's fantastic.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this for church book club. It was challenging and definitely a big undertaking as my first foray into philosophical reflections on theology. Chapter 2 was useful to gain a basic understanding of different atonement theories posited over time and some misconceptions about them. The book was only 95 pages, which was too brief to really expound on Craig's ideas/propositions. Bottom line: Jesus is like a ship (as an example of how a legal fiction can serve as a means of understanding the atonement).

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good overview

I think it was a pretty good overview. I know with about 100 pages, you can't go too in-depth. I would have liked to see the idea of the limited atonement be addressed as well, but overall a good overview.

[Jordan Lange · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most comprehensive works on the atonement that I have read. It addresses the historical, philosophical, and legal ramifications of atonement according to the Bible.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnificent and coherent defense of Penal substitution atonement.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A philosophical defense of penal substitution. Not an exegetical work.

[Andy Febrico Bintoro · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting studies on atonement. Usually this kind of book fits to soteriology theme, but this book explained atonement in logically possible. This is an apologetic on soteriology concept

[Brooks Robinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too brief. Read this to get a sense of WLC's argument, but spend the time and energy with *Atonement and the Death of Christ*.

[Chad Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short read but was not easy for me. Philosophical thinking does not come easy for me.

[Derek Smart]

Good

[David Strong · Rating 4 out of 5]

My rating: 4 stars.