FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109  
110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   >>   >|  
ht closes and another begins; but, broadly speaking, we can for convenience classify them into the period of the Fathers, the mediaeval period, the Reformation and afterwards up to the eighteenth century, and the period of modern thought. The Fathers may be divided into two groups, the ante-Nicene and the post-Nicene writers, and also into the Greek and Latin Fathers. But as I am not writing for theological students, I will not attempt any further analysis of the various patristic schools. Those who wrote previous to 325 A.D. belong to the ante-Nicene group; those who wrote after that date, to the post-Nicene group. The ante-Nicene writers, generally speaking, avoid giving any theory of the atonement at all; but two of their greatest thinkers, Origen and Irenaeus, held that mankind had fallen under the dominion of Satan, and that Jesus by His sufferings paid a ransom to Satan in order that we might be freed from his power. Post-Nicene Fathers for the most part adopted this view without attempting to justify it. Amongst their statements we find the ideas that the Atonement was a ransom to Satan and also a sacrifice to God, but they offer no explanation of the necessity of either. Later on Augustine anticipated subsequent Christian thought by maintaining that the atoning work of Jesus was part of an eternal purpose. +Anselm and after.+--The scholasticism of the Middle Ages finds its first important expression in the illustrious Anselm, an acute thinker and a beautiful soul. Anselm rejected the idea of a ransom to Satan, declaring that Satan had no rights over humanity; in place of this notion he put forward the theory that Jesus made to God an infinite satisfaction for an infinite debt. According to this theory the majesty of God had suffered indignity because of human sin, and yet man was unable by himself to offer an adequate satisfaction for the offence. Hence the eternal Son of God became man in order that He might offer the only satisfaction that could be considered adequate. This theory did not go unchallenged. Abelard, for example, asked the very reasonable question how the guilt of mankind could be atoned for by the greater guilt of those who put Jesus to death. Abelard's famous opponent, Bernard of Clairvaux, also repudiated Anselm's main contention and fell back upon the theory of a satisfaction to Satan. +Reformation theories.+--At the time of the Reformation the question of the Atonement formed t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109  
110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Nicene
 

theory

 

Fathers

 
satisfaction
 
Anselm
 
period
 

Reformation

 

ransom

 

adequate

 

Atonement


mankind
 
infinite
 

eternal

 

writers

 

question

 

thought

 

speaking

 

Abelard

 

purpose

 

rights


contention
 

declaring

 

rejected

 
formed
 

notion

 
humanity
 
beautiful
 

Middle

 

theories

 

scholasticism


illustrious

 

thinker

 
repudiated
 
expression
 

important

 
offence
 

atoning

 

unable

 

reasonable

 

considered


unchallenged

 

greater

 
forward
 

famous

 
Bernard
 
opponent
 

According

 

atoned

 
indignity
 

majesty