For God so loved the world that he gave his only son…For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17). From a Scriptural perspective, this passage — and which captures the entire Gospel in two verses — pretty much quells the debate about penal substitution theory. The operative phrase here is “For God so loved the world..” Therefore, one may wonder why the Scholastics spent so much time and effort on to what degree, or in what exact manner, did Christ’s sacrifice placate God.
The short, teetering on oversimplified, answer may be that because Aquinas particularly focused on the Synoptic Gospels to collate the mysteries surrounding Jesus’ life and sacrifice (O’Collins 209), John’s Gospel was maybe less of a factor or more an afterthought. However, without going too heavy into speculation or falling into fringe ideas, the observation here is that perhaps Anselm and Aquinas unwittingly paved the way Protestant Reformers, and some Catholic theologians, to conflate ‘satisfaction’ and ‘sacrifice’ with penal substitution.
Although Aquinas nicely rounds out Anselm’s perspective on satisfaction, mostly by redirecting God’s purpose for salvation as being rooted in love (O’Collins 209, 210), the idea of placating God apparently opened the door to questioning God’s ulterior motive. As Aquinas viewed Christ’s sacrifice as an act of justice, this suggested that Christ himself performed a penance to win God’s favor, His total satisfaction. And even though Aquinas still emphasized God’s love as not requiring a ransom to be paid to earn said love, aligning with Anselm’s theory of satisfaction clearly created future challenges (O’Collins 211).
Yet Aquinas’ contributions to Eucharistic celebration at Mass helped reinforce the feast as not only to re-present Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, but also so “the infinite merits of that death, made available pre-eminently through the Eucharist, could supply the penance which living and dead sinners have failed to perform” (O’Collins 212).
Three-hundred years later, The Council of Trent continued bolstering the Scholastic view of Christ’s meritorious and satisfactory sacrifice by also upholding justification: that Christ’s role as redeemer, “out of the great love with which he loved us” (Eph. 2:4), justified humankind’s salvation from sin. In turn, the Church continued on with its teaching on the Eucharist as an unbloody (in the crucifixion sense), visible sign of God’s grace that celebrates Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection as the eternal means to be forgiven from sin (O’Collins 214, 215).
However, while the Council of Trent suggested that Christ’s sacrifice to appease God was not due to God’s anger with humankind, Protestant reformers objected to the Council’s view on the Eucharistic celebration at Mass. Further, as Luther and Calvin suggested that God the Father and God the Son were once at odds with one another, they also believed that Christ took upon human sin as if he himself had committed the same sins. Therefore, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross penally substituted human sin, which then placated God’s anger. O’Collins points out that the misguided view on penal substitution comes from misinterpreting Paul’s letters and other Scripture (216). Moreover, even some Catholic preachers perpetuated the same misunderstanding of God as being a vengeful deity who needed his Son to appease his anger (O’Collins 216).
Although John 3:16-17 is an ample enough argument for why God’s motive for humankind’s salvation was purely out of love, O’Collins points to the Parable of the Lost Son as an ongoing reminder that God is rooted in love and mercy — not in anger (O’Collins 216, 217).
And It makes me want to pose another thought-experiment type question: If the Scholastics’ works had no ambiguity about Jesus saving humankind purely based on the Father’s love and grace — that there was no confusion about ‘satisfaction’ — would Protestant reformers such as Luther and Calvin, as well some post-Tridentine Catholic theologians, still have injected the idea of the Son’s sacrifice placating the Father’s supposed anger issues? (Or maybe the question already answers itself).
In the meantime, while scholars acknowledge that the Reformers largely perpetuated the penal substitution theory, not all are on-board with O’Collin’s claim that Thomas Aquinas helped set the stage. In fact, one such scholar, Rik Van Nieuwenhoven, believes that O’Collins works (including our own textbook, Christology) flat-out misunderstands Aquinas’ perspective (Peterson 265, 266).
Peterson essentially sides with O’Collins, though he points out that the problem is clearly a linguistic one, thus inadvertently creating the tidal wave of theological debates to unfold during the Reformation and beyond. Here are two, somewhat short points regarding Peterson’s analysis of O’Collin’s perspective:
1.) Given that Aquinas uses the Latin terms placo / placare (to placate) in the Summa Theologiae and Summa Contra Gentiles when discussing ‘sacrifice’, O’Collins makes a separate connection to the text by relating the Greek word hilasterion (which can also mean ‘placation’) to the Latin ‘propitiatorium’ used in the Vulgate. Still, the definitions between the two words somewhat vary, with the Greek word meaning to appease the gods’ (plural) anger. In this case, humans are the ‘subject’ and the gods are the ‘object’ (Peterson 267).
On the contrary, in the Septuagint, the Hebrew word kipper, translated into Greek, refers to God cleansing human sins and allowing amends to be made. Therefore, in the biblical sense, the term hilasterion refers to God as the ‘subject’ and humans as the ‘object’ — meaning that is God who drives actions upon humankind, and not the other way around (Peterson 267, 268.) In other words, the pagan understanding of appeasing the gods was unfortunately conflated with the Christian understanding of hilasterion (Peterson 268).
2.) O’Collins has serious challenges with how Aquinas relates punishment to satisfaction. Namely, while Anslem has more of an either/or approach to punishment and satisfaction, Aquinas appears to merge “‘penal elements’ within the concept of satisfaction itself.” Yet O’Collins also recognizes Thomas’ focus on love as the means to save humankind from sin. However, going back to the root problem as linguistic, Aquinas’ use of placation language and blurred lines between ‘satisfaction’ and penal elements inevitably pioneered two markedly different schools of theological thought (Peterson 268).
Meanwhile, Nieuwenhove still opposes both O’Collins and Peterson: Neiuwenhove believers that Aquinas actually does, in fact, distinguish satisfaction from punishment — that Aquinas himself even states that he adopted Anselm’s position; therefore, the ambiguity is not as blown out of proportion as O’Collins seems to suggest. In short, the dichotomy between satisfaction and penal elements is just that: a dichotomy (Peterson 269).
I still lean toward O’Collins perspective: Not so much because Aquinas inadvertently helped create the problem — but the fact that problem did exist anyway, hence the Reformers’ push to make penal substitution theologically true.
This was to place Christ’s sacrifice in the context of those of the Old Testament (‘the law’) and those offered by other religions (‘nature’). Here the Council relied on a classic passage from the prophet Malachi: ‘from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name and a pure offering’ (Mal. 1:11). This generously open view of Christ’s sacrifice was followed by statements which offered a penal description (not definition). As ‘truly propitiatory’, the eucharistic sacrifice serves ‘to appease’ God who ‘grants grace’ the ‘gift of repentance’ and ‘pardon’. Hence, the sacrifice of the Mass is rightly offered for the sins, punishments, satisfaction, and other necessities of the faithful, both living and dead (O’Collins 215).
By aligning ‘satisfaction’ with ‘punishments’, and speaking of God being ‘appeased’, the Council of Trent signalled penal elements which Aquinas and others had introduced into Anselm’s theory of satisfaction. Quite against Anselm’s explicit intention, satisfaction was not depicted as involved punishment. The Council of Trent went that far, but did not press on to speak of the divine anger being discharged against Christ as the one who literally carried the guilt of the world’s sins. Others talked that way. In place Anselm’s commutative version, God’s justice was being interpreted as vindictive –with the divine anger venting itself on Christ, the penal substitute for sinners, whose sufferings on the cross was the rightful punishment imposed on human sin (O’Collins 215, 216).
Protestant reformers did not accept Trent’s teaching of the sacrificial character of the Mass, but they had no difficulty in using (and expanding) the language of punishment and propitiation for Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross. Luther and Calving wrote of a war between God (the Father) and God (the Son). They understood Christ literally to have taken upon himself the guilt of human sin, just as if he had personally committed all these sins himself. He suffered as our substitute on the cross, and his atrociously painful death placated the anger of God and so made justification available for us. The view of redemption as penal substitution was ‘supported’ by misusing and misinterpreting various texts from Paul (e.g., Gal. 3:13 and 2 Cor 5:21) and elsewhere in the Bible (e.g., Ps. 22; Isa. 53; Lev. 16). (O’Collins 216).
The changes made in Anselm’s theory did not remain a Protestant monopoly. Catholic preachers like J.B. Bossuet (1627 – 1704) and L. Bourdaloue (1632-1704) spoke of God’s vengeance and anger being appeased at the expense of his Son. As victim of the divine justice, Christ even suffered the pains of the damned. French religious eloquence, both in the seventeenth century, later, turned God into a murderer who carried out a cruel vendetta before being appeased and exercising the divine mercy. Paul’s sense of the loving initiative of God as the key to human redemption (e.g., Rom. 5:6; 8:31-32) had slipped right out of the picture. (O’Collins 216).
One must insist that the New Testament never speaks of redemption altering God’s attitude towards human beings and reconciling God to the world. The sending or coming of God’s Son and the Spirit presupposes God’s loving forgiveness. Through Christ and the Spirit, God brings about redemptive reconciliation of human beings and their world. Years before Paul and John wrote, Jesus himself summed up his vision of God in the parable of the prodigal son, better called the parable of the merciful father (Luke:11-32). Any talk of placating anger of God through suffering of a penal substitute seems incompatible with the central message of that parable (O’Collins 216, 217).\
Without offering any definition of ‘merit’ and ‘satisfaction’ and without introducing the term ‘sacrifice’, Trent here interpreted the saving impact of Christ’s passion (but not of his resurrection) with language that reached back, as we have seen, to Aquinas and Anselm. The Reformation disputes about the nature of the Eucharist also required taking stand on the salvific meaning and efficacy of Christ’s death and resurrection. The Council of Trent dedicated its twenty-second session (1562) to the sacrifice of the Mass. It repeated traditional Catholic teaching: the bloody sacrifice Christ offered once and for on ‘the altar of the cross’ is represented ‘in an unbloody manner’ — but not repeated — ‘under visible signs’ to celebrate the ‘memory’ of Christ’s passage from this world and to apply the salutory power of his sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. Trent could not recognize the Mass as sacrificial and salvific without linking it to the once-and-for-all, historical sacrifice of Christ on Calvary (O’Collins 214, 215).
This was to place Christ’s sacrifice in the context of those of the Old Testament (‘the law’) and those offered by other religions (‘nature’). Here the Council relied on a classic passage from the prophet Malachi: ‘from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name and a pure offering’ (Mal. 1:11). This generously open view of Christ’s sacrifice was followed by statements which offered a penal description (not definition). As ‘truly propitiatory’, the eucharistic sacrifice serves ‘to appease’ God who ‘grants grace’ the ‘gift of repentance’ and ‘pardon’. Hence, the sacrifice of the Mass is rightly offered for the sins, punishments, satisfaction, and other necessities of the faithful, both living and dead (O’Collins 215).
By aligning ‘satisfaction’ with ‘punishments’, and speaking of God being ‘appeased’, the Council of Trent signalled penal elements which Aquinas and others had introduced into Anselm’s theory of satisfaction. Quite against Anselm’s explicit intention, satisfaction was not depicted as involved punishment. The Council of Trent went that far, but did not press on to speak of the divine anger being discharged against Christ as the one who literally carried the guilt of the world’s sins. Others talked that way. In place Anselm’s commutative version, God’s justice was being interpreted as vindictive –with the divine anger venting itself on Christ, the penal substitute for sinners, whose sufferings on the cross was the rightful punishment imposed on human sin (O’Collins 215, 216).
Protestant reformers did not accept Trent’s teaching of the sacrificial character of the Mass, but they had no difficulty in using (and expanding) the language of punishment and propitiation for Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross. Luther and Calving wrote of a war between God (the Father) and God (the Son). They understood Christ literally to have taken upon himself the guilt of human sin, just as if he had personally committed all these sins himself. He suffered as our substitute on the cross, and his atrociously painful death placated the anger of God and so made justification available for us. The view of redemption as penal substitution was ‘supported’ by misusing and misinterpreting various texts from Paul (e.g., Gal. 3:13 and 2 Cor 5:21) and elsewhere in the Bible (e.g., Ps. 22; Isa. 53; Lev. 16). (O’Collins 216).
Works Cited
O’Collins, Gerald. Christology: A Biblical, Historical and Systematic Study of Jesus. 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.