atonement and the ontological coherence between the trinity and the cross

8/19/2019 Atonement and the Ontological Coherence between the Trinity and the Cross

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Norbert Hoffmann , “Atonement and the Ontological Coherence Betweenthe Cross and the Trinity,” Toward a Civilization of Love (translated byErasmo Leiva; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985) 213-66.

Introduction: Atonement as a Theme of Theology Today

I. Forms of Atonement in Salvation-History:Sin Transformed into the Passion of the SonA. Foundations: Purification from Sin in the Old Testament

1. The Formal Structure:Atonement as Correlative Event between Yahweh and the Sinner

2. The Material Content of Atonement:The Turning of Sin into its Opposite

3. The Effacing of Sin as Dramatic Interaction:Atonement and ForgivenessB. Fulfillment: The New Testament’s Message of Redemption

1. Atonement: Essential Form of the Cross2. The Cross as the Eschaton of Atonement:

The “Drama” Between Father and SonII. The Theological Problem:

Atonement as the Questioning of God’s very Godhood A. Interpretations Which Neutralize the Theme of Atonement

1. The Fathers2. Saint Anselm3. A Christology of Solidarity4. The Scapegoat Mechanism

B: The Theory of Atonement: Dialectic Between Soteriology and Theo-logy1. Making Sense Soteriologically

2. The Theo-logical Risk3. The Question Resulting for Transcendental TheologyIII. How the Trinity Makes Atonement Possible:

God as Father within the TrinityA. The Cross as Atonement, the Trin ity and the “Pro” -structure of Being

1. The Ternary Form of Purification from Sin2. Atonement and the “Pro” -Character of Existence3. The Trinity as the Ontological Prototype of this “Pro” 4. The Trinitarian “Pro” as Primal Ground for the Staurological “Pro”

B. The “Pro nobis” of the Atonement of the Cross as the Transformation,within Salvation-History, of the Intra- divine “Pro”: Trinity and Representation1. The Question2. Structural Comparison between the “Pro” of the Cross

and that of the Trinity3. The Trinity and “Vicarious Representation”

IV. Concluding Overview


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Fa t h e r N o r b e r t H o f f m a n n

ATONEMENT AND THE ONTOLOGICALCOHERENCE BETWEEN THE TRINITYAND THE CROSS

I n t r o d u c t i o n : A t o n e m e n t a s A T h e m e o f T h e o l o g y T o d a y

“A ton em en t” is by no means one o f the favorite catchw ordsor essential lexical items o f co n tem po rary religious talk. Andyet there are signs for a turning in the theological destiny of

this w ord . Fo r a long time it has m ostly led an existence w ithinthe shadow y realm o f pious un de rgro un d literature. For someyears now, however, it has experienced something like aresurrection—not, indeed, to attain an ultimate triumph, butat least to em erge in the discussion o f the specialists. T he causefor this appears to be the soteriological radicalization o f thetheme o f a tonem ent .1

The discussion has in the meantime attained an intensitythat surpasses the familiar w ay o f posing the question intheological controversies (aton em ent w ithin the pale o f the

problem o f justification, atonem ent as a possibility o f hum anand Christian existence . . .), and this intensity affects thesubstance o f a faith in the rede m ption w hich is com m on to

both Protestants and C atholics. In 1956 Pius XII could still presum e to be voicing som ething uncontested and evident

This paper was prepared for the Congress as an alternate presentation in the event of a cancellation. Although it was not presented orally, it is being

included in these published Proceedings. It has been translated from the German original by Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis.

213


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2 1 4 NORBERT HOFFMANN

among Christ ians when, in Haurietis aquas, he stated that the N ew C ovenant was “ sealed no longer now by the b lood o fgoats and oxen, b ut by the m ost sacred blood o f him w ho m

the . . . irrational animals . . . had prefigured as the ‘Lamb ofG od w ho takes away the sin o f the w o rld ’ ” .2

It then occurred to no one to object to the fact that theencyclical praised the “ m ystery o f divine red em ption ” as am ystery “ o f C hrist’s ju st love to w ard the heavenly Father, towhom the sacrifice o f the cross offers up, in superab un dan t

and infinite measure, the satisfaction owed for the sins ofm ankind . . . .” 3 T od ay , ho w ever, w e m ust take no te o f thefact that among Catholic theologians4—and far beyond theclassical differences be twe en P rote stan t and C atholic theolog y

—a pro test arises not only against a piety o f expiation but alsoagainst the very idea o f interpreting the cross itself as atonem ent.

But what is most unsettling about this objection is itsmotivation: nam ely, the conviction that the supposedly virulentidea o f God inherent in the concept o f atonem ent is incompatiblewith the God who is in fact revealed in the New Testament.O ve r and ov er we hear it stated that, in jes us, G od is the Fatherwho forgives unconditionally .5 With such a grounding for the

p ro test against the cross as atoning sacrifice, the soteriological problem before us takes on an em inently theological focus. Atheme from the realm o f the oikonomia becomes one from therealm of theologia in the strict sense. Whoever clings to asoteriology shot throu gh w ith expiation finds him self anew,and inev itably, before the task o f co nstructing a “ theo dicy ” :

he m ust justify G od the Father in the face o f the cross, and thecross itself becomes for the believer a question abou t G odloaded with ontological urgency; it becomes a question aboutthe being o f God. “ A tonem en t” now becomes a theo-logicalthem e o f the first order.

The following reflections, then, will also concentrate ourattention on the onto-theological nub o f the problem . Wewill leave aside the histo rico-c ritical aspect (“ Flow did Jesusun derstand his death?”)6 and venture a speculative and dog-


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ATONEMENT AND ONTOLOGICAL COHERENCE 2 1 5

m ade invesd gad on . We will operate in the light o f the systematically comprehensive lead-question: Is there any possibilityo f explaining transcendentally,7 as aton em en t, the “ cross o fJesus” as a categorical given, basing ourselves on the theological a priori w hich is the C hristian concept o f God? C an we,w ithin the total co ntext o f C hristian revelation, at all interp retthe cross as atonement? Can the cross be atonement if God is Father?

Needless to say, the answ er w e seek here cannot be given allat once. To begin with, it presupposes a careful analysis ofw hat the nature o f “ aton em en t” m ight be in a C hristian sense(A). Then we must investigate what theological problemsresult in fact from the form o f atonem ent as we confron tit in salvation-history (B). Finally, we will need to specifym ore exactly w hat it is we m ean w hen we speak o f G od

as Father before w e can finally decide concerning the intrinsicrelationship (o f com patibili ty or incom patibili ty) betw een“atonement” and “God the Father” (C).

I. F o r m s o f A t o n e m e n t i n S a l v a t i o n - H i s t o r y :

S i n T r a n s f o r m e d i n t o t h e P a s s i o n o f t h e S o n

The use o f the term s “ aton em en t” or “ exp iation” is full ofambiguities not only in the profane and civil realm but also inthe realm o f religion and theolog y. We cannot, therefore,speak o f “ atone m en t” as a concept w ith a stable and univocal

iden tity8 and, consequen tly, there can be no question here o festablishing a definition based on the ready-made results ofin-dep th theologies and spiritualities o f atone m ent. W hat wem ust undertake, rather, is the laborious task o f w ork ing outhere a specific significance for “ ato nem en t” . T o assure successto our u nd ertaking and to arrive at an idea o f atone m ent w hich

will be as close as possible to the sources o f revelation , w e willseek out the m eaning o f ou r subject from w ithin salvation-history: we will attempt to discover the clear contours of


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216 NORBERT HOFFMANN

atonem ent by reflecting on w hat G od h im self has done anddoes in order to save man in his sinfulness.

T he re is no question that such a proc edu re m ust co ncentrateon the cross as apex o f salva tion-h istory. B ut it is well toremember that, precisely as apex, the cross is the culminationo f something, nam ely, o f a certain continuum within salvation-history. An exclusive fixation on the cross as such would, infact, igno re the genuine stauro logy o f the N ew Testament!

K. Rahner ’s repeated and insistent warning against a Mono- physitic m is in terpretatio n o f the C hrist-event9 does no t w hollyeliminate w hat could be a real occasion for this, p recisely in itssoteriological aspect: the fam ous climactic tex t o f 2 Corin thians5:19 (“ in C hr ist G od has reconciled the w orld to h im se lf” ) no tinfreque ntly is dra w n into the vortex o f a divine action w hich

is thro ugh and thro ug h m on istic.10 Th e short-circuited theo-centrism o f such a view, ho w ev er, w ould from the outsetmean the failure o f an attem pt to determ ine the essence o fatonemen t. U nco m pro m ising theocentrism can be avoided bynever losing sight o f the O ld T estam ent perspectives exhibited

by the cross.

a . f o u n d a t i o n : p u r i f i c a t i o nFROM SIN IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

If w e look at the O ld T estam ent w e will see em erge w ith

total clarity and certitude w ha t precisely could have been easilyoverlooked in the event o f the cross on accou nt o f the dazzling

brightness o f the div ine intervention: nam ely , the reciprocityand bilaterality w hich characterize the O ld T estam en t processo f purification from sin as a firm and con stant structuralelement.


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ATONEMENT AND ONTOLOGICAL COHERENCE 217

I. The Formal Structure: Atonement as Correlative Event between Yahweh and the Sinner

a. “Covenant” as Horizon Overarching the Events

W ith the ha rd clarity o f its legal req uirem en ts, the O ldTestam en t m akes us existentially aw are o f the possible spacefor the event o f rede m ption th at is opened up fun dam entallyand absolutely: it is the space o f personal interrelation betw eenYahweh and the sinner. The Old Testament once and for allshows liberation from sin to be a dramatic event that occursw ithin the interplay o f divine and hum an freedom . Th e idea o fcovenant, central to the O ld Tes tam en t, structures radically theredemption as an interpersonal occurrence between partners.

In this event there are three components which are peculiarlyintertwined and which especially claim our attention.

b. The T hree Structural Elem ents

Yahweh as sovereign subject of the action

The pertinen t literature never tires o f emp hasizing the O ldTestament’s testimony that Yahweh is the sovereign subjecto f the action w hereby sins are forgiven: he cann ot first be

persuaded to reconciliation from the outside, and he can never becom e the object o f hum an efforts at a tonem ent (penance,cultic sacrifices); rather, Yahweh has from the outset, andfrom his innermost being, assumed an attitude disposed to

being reconciled. A nd w ho could seriously contest this? B uthaving said as m uch , w e have on ly affirmed the first half o fw hat is obv ious from the totality o f O ld Te stam ent evidence.

The sinner: Not an “object o f redemption”

The w hole picture o f reconciliat ion in the O ld Testam entequally contains, as its most peculiar element and with the


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same unquestioned intransigence, this other truth: that Yahw ehis sovereign subject in such a w ay th at he has no need to makethe sinner into a mere “ ob ject” o f his saving deeds; rather , inthe accom plishment o f forgiveness, Yahw eh always addresses,engages, and liberates the sinner as subject. With royal sovereignty Yah w eh chooses to be the “ G od o f the C ov en an t” soemphatically that his own readiness to be reconciled and hisow n po w er to forgive can never, in and o f them selves alone,

becom e actual forgiveness. T he covenant w hich G od establishes with man “respects intrinsically man’s dignity as freecreature ” , 11 in such a w ay that, as a pa rtne r in the coven ant,m an “ m ust speak his ow n w ord in a m ysterious m anner whichnever pu ts the divine initiative in do ub t. . . .” 12 The fact o fa “covenant” has for God the result that “a reconciliationderiving on ly fro m him is intrinsically im po ssib le” :13 thesinner’s ow n acts fo r the forgiven ess o f his sin are to beregarded as an analytical requirement of covenantal justice.Divine and human action, consequently, constitutes the twoelements (by no m eans o f equal standing!) fro m w hich springs

purif ic ation from sin as a unif ied act that is com plex and full o ftension. T he peculiar explosiveness o f this concerted action,moreover, derives from a third element: Yahweh’s passionateengagem ent and wholly personal involvem ent with the sinner’sdestiny.

Yahweh’s involvement

Y ah w eh ’s “ w ra th” over sin as a breach o f the covenant andhis “jealo usy ” o r “ zeal” for the restoration o f the covenant arenames for a reality that again “informs” the total event ofreconciliation and, so to speak, “loads” it theologically. Wehere doubtless touch the very “ soul” o f the dialectic we havementioned: it is Yahweh’s zeal which forbids remission ofsins in the form o f sim ple forgiveness “ from ab ov e” andwhich engages God’s sovereignty to insist inexorably thatm an activate his creaturely freed om — “ in a w ay w ho lly differ-


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ATONEMENT AND ONTOLOGICAL COHERENCE 2 1 9

ent fro m anything the Aristotelian categories . . . w ould allow ”(Fridolin S tier) .14 W ho cou ld deny that all o f this introducesalarming p roblem s into the concept o f God? B ut precisely

this should not (mis)lead us to deactivate theologically theexplosiveness o f the intensely vib ran t image ry o f G o d ’s selfrepresen tation in Sc ripture, by m aking the enlightened declaration that in the m atter o f G od ’s “ w ra th ” and “jealo us y” weare dealing only with anthropomorphisms. Such manipulationo f the evidence w ou ld rob revelation o f its o verw helm ing

pow er and asto undin g newness vis-a-vis the concept o f “ G od”o f pagan an tiquity, and it w ou ld m ake us d eaf to w hat is precisely the proper content o f the biblical message: the m ysteryo f the living God.

At the very center o f w hat the O ld T estam ent intends to saywe find the undisguised proclamation of G od 's pathos :15 that

Yahweh enters the scene with a passionate interest for hiscreation, and that in full earnest he respects man as his chosen partn er. A nd one w ould have to be m uch less im pressed byw ha t Go d says than by the perplexities posed to philosoph icalreason, in order not to see that the divine pathos witnessedto by the Old Testament is simply the presupposition for

Y ahw eh’s self-establishment as Go d o f the covenan t to haveconsistency and interior truth.With the insight that “atonement” has its place within the

reality o f the “ coven ant” , and tha t it is from here that it derivesits dramatic character as a formal peculiarity, we have finallyattained the presupposition that will enable us to determine

adequately w hat the concrete co ntent o f atonem ent m ight be.

2 . The Material Content o f Atonement:The Turning o f Sin into its Opposite

a. Th e Re dem ption o f Sin throu gh the “ B earing” o f Sin

A ccording to the full sense o f the basic biblical concep t sub, what Yahweh aims at is not attained by a simple con-version


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away from the sinful deed and the attitude o f sin; sin itself—inits complex totality, which embraces all sin’s consequencesand effects—m ust be “ bo rne aw ay ” ; sin m ust itse lf be effaced.

B ut sin is “b orn e aw ay ” , precisely, by first being “ bo rn e” ,which is to say by being suffered.16 In time, moreover, asthe religious consciousness o f Israel und ergo es con tinualclarification, and as the concep t o f G od and the cult is m ore andm ore purified, the precise object o f this “ bea ring” becom esincreasingly clear to the faith-experience o f the atoning Jew s.

Th is object is no t the traces w hich sin leaves in the w orld, northe individual and social ills caused by sin, nor the so-called“ pu nitive” consequences o f sin in themselves: distress, toil,

pain, in brie f, a shrunken exis tence. The object that m ust be borne is w hat is expressed and concretized in the things ju stenum erated: nam ely, the breach o f the coven ant, the disrupted

relationship to God, the “ w rath ” o f Y ahweh. W hat is “ bo rne ”is no t really the sy m pto m b ut the theological core o f sin, w hich isto say Yahweh’s disappearance , his absence fro m the life o f thesinner. T he “ effacing o f sin” , ho w eve r, occurs only w hen thedistance o f Y ahw eh is “ b o rn e” as a suffering.

b. The Essence o f “ B earing” :The Lover Experiences Sin as Suffering

N o t everyone is capable o f bearing evil as suffering, insofaras evil means “ sin” and hence the farness o f G od . T he specificmeaning o f “ bearing” , in the O ld T estam ent, is qualified by

love. H e w ho is capable o f “ be aring ” sin in such a w ay that it isabolished is (note the dialectic!) one w ho , form ally considered,is no longer a sinner, one who has already turned away fromhis crooked path and has “ hu m bled” him self and bow ed dow n

before Y ahw eh. O nly he is capable o f suffering sin as thefarness o f Y ahw eh w ho has first turn ed aw ay from sin, has

returned to the covenant o f Y ahw eh and has becom e a jus t andloving m a n .17


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With this it would seem our investigation has reached theheart o f w hat the O ld Testame nt calls “ atone m ent” . Th e O ldTestam ent locates the specific essence o f “ ato nem en t” no t in

the con -version aw ay f rom sin b ut in the re-versal o f sin itself:he who loves God suffers not only “punishment”, whichremains external to sin; at the deepest level he suffers sin asfarness from Yahweh, and by so doing he transforms sin intothe suffering o f love. A tonem en t does no t have its essentiallocus “ ou tside” o f sin; atone m en t is sin w hich has been trans

form ed into its oppo site by the pow er o f a suffering love. By being “ b o rn e” in th is w ay, m oreover, sin is o f itse lf “ borneaway”; it is done away with, annihilated; for the mannerin which God wants to draw near to the sinner as such is, precisely , by w ay o f a lo ve that suffers for a distant G od. Weknow that, already at the purely natural level, the absence of

the beloved, if it becom es priva tion and suffering, can beexperienced as the painful m od e o f the belov ed’s m ost intense

presence.Precisely at this po int in o u r attem pt to describe concretely

the essence o f the event o f atonem en t, it becom es clear tow hat a great ex tent the co ntent o f atonem ent exhibits the

formal struc ture o f a correlative happening. We have previouslyreferred to this; b ut let us no w again turn ou r atten tion to this

param ount characteris tic o f atonem ent, in o rder to clarify itfurther.

3 . The Effacing o f Sin as Dramatic Interaction:

Atonement and Forgiveness

a. Atonement and Grace: Yahweh’s Turning to the Sinner

From its very definition, atonement presupposes the turningo f Yahweh to the sinner. Fo r the “ first co nv ersion” (K. Rahner)

to occur, it is Yahweh w ho m ust turn the heart o f the sinnertoward himself, which means he must give back to the sinner


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the love he had lost. Fo r only one w ho loves G od is capable o fsuffering when God’s presence is removed. This means thatatonement is always a grace.

b. A tonem ent as a Deed: T he S inner’s R eturn

This grace, however, formally becomes “atonement” (theeffective effacing o f sin) on ly w hen creaturely freedo m allowsitself to be reversed by grace into love for Go d, and then , oncethis freed om has itself been conv erted , it reverses its sin by“b earing ” it and transfo rm ing it into the pain o f its love.

c. A ton em en t as Y ah w eh ’s Self-assertion in the Sinner

It is, therefore, Y ahw eh w ho converts the sinner. His turning

to the sinner calls forth the sinner’s (first) conversion to him.But, like truth itself, grace is concrete: it is oriented toward afreedo m w hich has assumed the load o f guilt; it does no t passover w ha t has occu rred in the sinful deed, no r does it m ake sindisappear magically. R ather, grace draws the m atter o f the sin(this sin and no other!) into the dyna m ism o f conversion,

all the while preserving freedom intact and requiring its participation in sofar as freedom has been deeply branded bysin. C reatu rely free dom is pu t by grace in a po sition o f suffering sin into its op posite, thus, so to speak, “ reeling it back in” . Andthis is precisely what it means to “atone for” or to “expiate”sin. In atonement, therefore, we witness a wonderful combi

nation o f G o d ’s all-merciful supp orting grace w ith the “ divinerespect” for the freed om o f the c rea ture .18 Y ahw eh makes thesinner to be an ato ner as a free self; he allows the sinner to be onewho bears his own guilt as suffering, with love and freedom,one who con-verts to him (Yahweh) in a manner exactly

befitting his sta tus as sinner.

The same state o f affairs appears in a new light w henwe bring it into relationship w ith the w ord “ forgiveness” .A tonem en t and forgiveness stand in significant and (as w e will


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later see) profound correlation to one another. Atonement isthe effacing o f sin insofar as the latte r is conside red definitiveand effective, as occurring w ithin the sinn er’s act o f conversion.Forgiveness, on the othe r hand, is this same effacing o f sin, b utnow understood in the authoritative and initiatory sense, aseffected and made possible by God’s prevenient and cooperating grace. Indeed, Yahweh “for-gives” by “giving” thegu ilty party the possibility o f h im se lf abo lishing his sin; he

besto w s foregiveness o f sin by the atonem ent o f sins, becausehe w ants, respects, and posits even the sinne r—precisely in theeffacing o f his guilt—as a free subject and as a par tner in thecovenant. In conclusion we m ay say tha t atonem en t is no thingother than the form w hich the love o f G od —con sidered at itsterm—assumes when it addresses a man who is a sinner.Atonement is the mode in which God loves man in hiscondition as sinner, not by overlooking his freedom and

bypassing his sin , but by going through the sin. Atonement isthe ex trem e fo rm o f divine love w hich, exacting the exerciseo f freedom , heals sinful freedo m from w ithin as freedom. Accordingly, a tonement is the self-asser t ion (which hasattained its full efficacy and truth) o f Y ahw eh as the G od eveno f the sinner.

H aving w orked ou t this prelim inary form o f liberationfrom sin in the Old Testament, we have acquired somethingdecisive for our problem: the presupposition for definingrede m ption in its full eschatological form . T he u nd erstand ingo f liberation fro m sin wh ich w e have analyzed up to this pointopens up the horizon o f interpretation w ithin which w e m ust

place the cross o f Jesus if our in terpretation o f it is to succeed.Being the definitive and central rede m ptive event o f the N ewT estam ent, the even t o f the cross is nonetheless equivocal inand o f itse lf in its histor ical factualness, and it calls fo r p reciseinterpretation.


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b . f u l f i l l m e n t :

THE NEW TESTAMENT’S MESSAGE OF REDEMPTION

The cross is “not an event falling down vertically fromheaven, b ut rather the climax o f the history o f G od ’s covenantwith man . . . and hence in all truth a mystere d’alliance ”(J. G a lo t).19 There fore, as an ev en t o f ultim ate reconciliation ,the cross can be understood “only within this tradition ofelection and covena nt” .20

1 . Atonement: Essential Form of the Cross

If we look at the cross from the perspective o f the O ldT es tam en t’s doctrine o f liberation fro m sin, we w ill at oncerealize that, even though in the cross God’s autonomous

pow er to redeem has attained in com parable concentration,this does n o t occur to the de trim en t o f the bilateral reciprocityfamiliar to us f rom the process o f salvat ion in the O ldTestament. Such reciprocity is not annulled, for instance, tothe benefit o f a certain redem ptive m onerg etism w hereb y allcreaturely activity w ou ld be sw allowed up into a divine actionwhich alone would effect salvation. The Crucified cannot bereduced to an instrum ent o f redem ption m anipulated by G od ’sunilateral activity. Precisely as the Crucified, Jesus is not an“instrument” but the “Son” (cf. Heb i:2f., 5; 5:5, 8), and theG od w ho makes Je sus’ path go from sin to the cross is no t asupreme monarch who acts despotically within his divinesolitude; he is the “ G od and Father o f O u r L ord Jesus C h rist”(2 C o r 1:3). T he cross itself does no t m ean a forgivenessconferred sovereignly from above by God and descendingup on sinners; the cross participates in the nature o f those actswhich, as we have shown, can only be conceived as a bipolarun ity o f action. The cross, too , is forgiveness in the form o fatonement.


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2 . The Cross as the Eschaton o f Atonement:The “Drama” between Father and Son

The “law” holding good in the Old Testament , wherebyYahweh sets m an free to be h im se lf even as he effaces his sin, isindeed surpassed in the New Testament, but in the sense ofits being not annulled but fulfilled. In the cross, the OldTestam ent form s o f atonem ent are overtoppe d in pro po rtion

as he w ho n o w “ bears” sin ov erranks the earlier bearers o f sin(the pious and the jus t, the m artyrs, the servant o f G od). Theevent o f the cross remains w ithin the structure o f a correlativeaction proper to partners in a covenant: here, too, sin isabolished by its being “ bo rne” b y on e w ho is no t a sinner. B utthe whole event is transferred to a totally new dimension;

it now unfolds within the incomparably more intimate cor-relation that exists between “Father” and “Son”.In the Old Testament sin is borne by one who no longer is a

sinner; only very obliquely does the mysterious figure ofthe ‘ebed Yahweh point to him who bears sin in the NewTestament: and in this case we are dealing with him who, as

the absolute Son, never was a sinner. In him the opposition betw een G od and the sinner intersects puzzlingly w ith theholy intim acy o f the relationship b etwee n Father and Son.

In the N ew T estam ent the bearer o f sin is the Son bey on devery possible analogy; consequently, in the New Testament,too, sin is borne in a m an ne r surpass ing all analogies. W hen the

Son, he w ho “ kn ew n othin g o f sin” , is “ m ade to be sin” (cf. 2C or 5:21), this in itself m ust already im ply the destruc tion o fall sins, of sin as such, and “once and for all” (cf. Heb 9:26;10:10). Sequestered into the H ea rt o f the Son, sin can exist the reonly as the ineffable w ou nd ing o f his love. T he love w hichhere bears sin transforms it into a pain which only one word

can describe, and the w o rd is: “ hell” . B ut because it is love o fsuch a kin d that suffers hell, hell itse lf has already been suffered to death. H en ceforth , “ hell” can exist here only as the suffering


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o f this love; hell no lon ge r is any thing b ut the c on tou r o fsuffering this love assu m es—the pain o f the Son w ho isdeprived o f the Father: “ M y G od, m y God, w hy have you

forsaken me?” (M k 15:14).21 The H ea rt o f C hrist is the spacew he re “ hell” can he ncefo rth exist on ly as a victo ry o ve r itself.At the cross, re dem ption is accom plished as the bearing o f sinitself by the Son; for this reason, here at the sum m it ofthe story o f G od and m an w hat occurs is the eschatologicaldissolution fro m w ithin, o f the guilt o f the w orld and, hence,

authentic liberation takes place, and the actual miracle oftransfiguration.

II. T h e T h e o l o g i c a l P r o b l e m : A t o n e m e n t A s t h e Q u e s t i o n i n g o f G o d ’s V e r y G o d h o o d

A. INTERPRETATIONS WHICH NEUTRALIZE THE THEME OF ATONEMENT

There is no use glossing over the fact that the NewT esta m en t’s message o f red em ption , precisely because it has

“atonement” at its very core, must appear an outlandish proposition to anyone w ho traces its authorship back to God.It is therefore not surprising that Christian theology has notalways w ithstood the tem ptation to interpret away the essenceo f the cross as a deed o f atonem ent. A few sidelights on

pertinent attem pts to clarify ou r subject could , by contrast,

place in m ore relief the specific position we are h ere developing.Such a rapid survey o f con trasting positions will sharpen ou reye for the w hole range o f theological problem s that emergesnecessarily and in fact fro m the so teriolog y w e have described.Above all, these sketches are intended to provide a sense forthe m aieutic pow er which this soteriology (in ou r opinion , the

genuine N ew T estam ent do ctrine o f salvation) brings to bearon the self-revelation o f that G od w ho so stub bo rnly effectsredemption in this w ay, that is, in the m ode o f atonem ent.


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i. The Fathers

Already patristic theology is strikingly m arked by a hesitationto follow throug h w ith its chosen central m o tif o f the “ exchangeo f co nd itions” between G od and m an in C hrist as radically “ asthis is dem anded by the N ew T es tam en t” .22 It lim its Jesu s’vicarious representation o f the sinner to the Sav ior ’s assum ingo f the consequences and pu nish m en t due to sin .23

2 . Saint Anselm

But what in the Fathers impresses us as an unconsciousdra w ing o f the line24 reappears in A nselm ’s classical “ the ory o fsatisfaction” as a “ conscious and ind ispensable elem en t” : if therepa ration Jesus accom plishes is to be effective, he m us t no t“ come into contact w ith the sin o f oth ers” . H e is not a “ bearero f sin” 25 itself. His death does n o t stand in any internal con-nection with our sin: he is not our sin as borne by him for us

before the Father, our sin as reversed into the suffering o f theSon; rather, he is something that remains external to sin,26 a“ co un terw eigh t o f sup erior value” 27 that stands o ve r againstour sin and that, because o f its objective w orth , surpasses indensity on the one side o f the scales o f divine justice the w eighto f sin on the o the r side .28 As ou r representative, Jesus pays theransom money for our sins; but he does not suffer our sinsvicariously: his sufferings “ are no t, fo r Anselm, ex pia tory ” .29

N either for K. Rahner can the pro nobis o f the cross havethe character o f vicarious ato nem en t.30 C on sistent w ith histheology of death, Rahner ascribes a redemptive significanceto Jesu s’ death n o t so m uch because it is the “ even t o f thecross” bu t rathe r because it is the intensest fo rm o f death assuch, insofar as “ in this death the apex o f hu m an impo tence isunited w ith absolute trust in the Fathe r” .31

By contrast to these interpretations, the view we are hereunfolding would have liberation from sin occur when sin is


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suffered in itself by Jesus for the sake o f G od the F ather, as the pain o f his filial love. This means that Jesus again traverses sin, but as atonement, by going back the w hole leng th o f sin inreverse direction and suffering it into nothingness, so that theFather is well-pleased at receiving such “ satisfaction” . Sin andredem ption, therefore, m ay be said to be internally ord ered toone an other in the follow ing way: it is sin in itself—even i f it isin its reversal (its form o f self-neg ation)— w hich , so to speak,supplies the essential fo rm proper to Jesus ’ red em ptive deed,so that sin thus attains in atonement to a positive version ofitself.

3 . A Christology o f Solidarity

We can especially clarify the im po rt o f ou r propo sed inter pretation i f we com pare it w ith those proposals w hich we maysubsume u nder the m odel o f a so-called “ C hristology o fsolidarity” .32 These are no t based on the idea o f substitution

but on the concept o f “ so lidarity ” un derstood in a very particular way. A ccording to th is concept, it w ould appearthat Jesus makes h im self solidary w ith sinners n o t insofar asthey are sinners, but insofar as they are social outcasts. Andthen, qu ite consistently, w e arrive at the cross no t really ou t o ftheological bu t rathe r out o f social reasons. The cross is no t thelocus w here the dram a unfolds betw een G od and a Jesus w howould be representing sinners as such; the cross is no event

betw een Father and Son bu t rather w hat develops as theconsequence o f Jesus ’praxis o f liberation: it is the “ resu lt” o fthe conflict betw een those in pow er and Jesus as one w hois solidary with the oppressed and the despised. Jesus doesindeed die “ because o f sin” , bu t no t “ for the forgiveness o fsin” .33 Fro m G o d’s standp oin t the cross does no t m ean theactual accomplishment o f forgiveness; in the cross, ra the r, G o d’seternal willingness to be reconciled simply attains to its definitive revelation. The cross, still acco rding to this view , is no tan atoning sacrifice in and through which forgiveness occurs


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for the first time and absolutely; it is not the eschatologicaldem on stration o f the law w hereb y reconciliation requiressatisfaction; nor is it a confirm ation o f the fact that G o d ’s

engagement pro nobis does no t im ply sheer unqualified actions“ for ou r ben efit” b ut includes the elem ent o f representation(avif); nor does this interpretation, finally, admit that, for

propitiatio to occur, expiatio must come forth as a constitutiveelement fro m the side o f us, the sinners.

T he christology o f solidarity does no t regard the cross as our

sin, o ve rcom e by Jesus in o u r place and for o u r sake by beingtransfigured by him into atonement (his suffering as Son).

4 . The Scapegoat Mechanism

T he same th ing basically applies to the theo ry o f the

“ scapegoat me chan ism” ,34 developed by R. Schw ager byelaborating certain ideas o f R. G irard. E ven th o u gh thistheory , b y con trast to the christology o f solidarity, doesindeed place the them e ofcommercium and “ sub stitution ” at thecenter, nevertheless it does not seem to bring this theme to

bear w hen it comes to describin g the decisive theological

dimension o f the process o f purification fro m sin. A t this junctu re Jesus does appear as the bearer o f sin itself, bu t sin has been deposited on h im no t by G od but by m an. H e dies because sinners, on w anting to be rid o f their malice, divert iton to him as their scapegoat. R epresentation really occurs, b utin a fo rm tha t is m odified in a theolog ically decisive w ay . Sins

are no t here suffered th rough by the Son before the face o f theFather; vicarious representation here functions rather withinthe fra m ew ork o f the psychoanalytical idea o f a collectiveunload ing o f accum ulated reciprocal rivalry u po n a singleindividual. T he cross o f Jesus is indeed regarded as beingunique, bu t still as a transfer o f the w o rld ’s guilt up on Jesus

that rem ains w ithin the scope o f the soc io-psychological discharge mechanism.Because the true God is no t a God o f vengeance and violence,


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because he takes no pleasure in the cross and “ forgives w ithou tdemanding reciprocal acts or satisfaction”,35 the redemptivefunction o f the cross can in no w ay be that o f an atoningsacrifice. The cross brings not atonement but disclosure; itunmasks, on the one hand, the malice and aggressiveness ofman, and on the o ther the m echanical nature o f the process o funburdening which is only apparently redemptive and is infact a ritualized, pseudo-sacral event. Fo r Jesus does no t,venge fully and v iolently, m ake the sin w hich has been loadedon him self to fall back upo n those w ho do him w rong ; he is theLam b. C on fron ted w ith the non -violence o f this Lam b, everyact o f violence accuses and convicts itse lf as such, since here itfinds itse lf so eviden tly ou t o f place. In this way, the evil o fviolence is at the same time revealed and overcome.

With respect to this solution of the staurological problem,w hich w e here have only ro ug hly sketched, o f course, thedoubt arises whether it is able to determine authentically theconnection betwe en the h um an state o f sinfulness and theevent o f redem ption, on the one hand, and, on the other,that theologically most revealing aspect which is the relation

betw een Jesus and God.In this solution, w hat w ou ld be the m eaning, for Jesus, o f

“bea ring sin ” , precisely in his relationship to the Father? Canthe effects o f christological substitution (w ith its “ abysm al”character, attested by the New Testament!) be derived solelyfrom cultural m echa nism s,36 from the “ com ing toge ther o f allto declare a single individual g u ilty” ,37 or from the violence

exercised by m an, even if this is perm itted by God? D oes n otthe theory, especially on these grounds, set God’s forgiveness(God forg ives no m atter w hat!) and Jesus ’ bea ring o f sin all toounrelatedly alongside one another?38 Does not a fundamentalim po verishm ent o f the revelation o f both the O ld and the

N ew T estam ents in their to tality occur w hen one reduces

“ red em ption ” to being the mere “ disclosing” and “u nv eiling”o f that laborious mechanism? Does n o t Jesu s’ suffering on the


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ATONEMENT AND ONTOLOGICAL COHERENCE 23 I

cross—be yon d this function o f un m ask ing— stand in a m oredirect and more intrinsic relationship to the divine act offorgiveness itself? It w ou ld appear that, in the m ode l o f the

scapegoat, a non-theological them e b orrow ed from the historyo f religion has been raised to the status o f interpretive principlefor an em inen tly theological m atter, and in this w ay the m odelitself has been greatly o ve rw ork ed . A nd this m ay be seen asthe reason w hy the specifically theological dim ension o f the

process o f purif ication from sin appears as so oddly atrophied .39

The theory o f a scapegoat mechanism, even thoug h identifyingGo d him se lf as the scapegoat, does not fully plum b the depthso f the dim ension o f sin and liberation from sin—a dimensionwh ich reaches into the very being o f God. Th e questionremains open whether such a theory can adequately defenditself against the charge that, in the end , it reduces the concrete

saving even t o f the cross (not G o d’s forgiveness itself!) toa closed socio-psychological event which, although indeedaffecting God, nonetheless remains at bottom non-theological.

B. THE THEORY OF ATONEMENT:

DIALECTIC BETWEEN SOTERIOLOGY AND THEO-LOGY

1 . Making Sense Soteriologically

In con trast to the theories w e have ju st su rveyed, it w ou ldappear that the “ ex piatory ” interpretation o f the redem ptive

message w e here develop succeeds (1) in elucidating the salvificmeaning o f the death o f Jesus and (2) in relating the historicalfact o f the cross w ith the act o f divine forgiveness in such away that the suspicion o f their being arbitrarily connectedis excluded and both things are brought into a reciprocalcorresp ondence that casts light fro m w ithin. In its significance

as “ ato nem en t” , that is, as sin tha t has been suffered in to the passion o f the Son, w e affirm that the cross o f C hrist, seen


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teleologically, is God’s forgiveness itself, this forgivenessconcretized in salvation-history and become true and real inthe world and for the world.

2 . The Theo-logical Risk

N evertheless, th is certitude that believing reason has o fhaving un de rstood the econ om y o f salvation correctly m uststill pass its test. Sooner or later, a faith that thinks reaches aninsight that troubles it. Such faith sees that, in the measurein w hich the theo ry o f atonem ent enhances the soteriological m eaning o f the cross, in that same measure its theological m eaning becomes problematic. O nce i t becomes co m prehensible as atonement, the cross seems to displace the centralobject o f theolog y— G od him self—into the region o f thewholly incomprehensible.

O u r answ er to the soteriological question has been: Goddestroys sin through atonement; he redeems from sin not bym erely fo rgiving b ut by m aking the sinner him self atone forhis sin. In the eschatological form it assumes in the NewT estam ent, how eve r, the aton em ent o f hu m an sin is realized asthe Son o f G od w ho becom es sin. H enceforth, atone m ent isou r sin transform ed into the crucifixion o f Je su s’ filial love.And it is ju st h ere that the them e o f atonem ent exhibitsits “theo-logical” aspect. What had been an answer at thesoteriological level o f the eco no m y becomes, at the properlytheological level, a question o f en orm ou s im port: can a Godw ho does such things for the salvation o f the w orld (that is,w ho sends his Son into the flesh o f sin as its a tonem en t,cf. Jn 3:16; R om 8:3; 1 Jn 4:10; 2 C o r 5:21) at all be God inhim self? W hat is the o nto log y o f G od imp licit in the cross?

We m ust realize that the question is unavo idable the m om en tone accepts the N ew T estam en t’s doctrine o f redem ption: thecross o f the N ew Testam en t sinks its roots deep into the very

being o f God. U nderstood as atonem ent, the cross is roo ted in presuppositions that m ust lie w ith in G od but w hich are o f such


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a kind tha t they seem to negate Go d necessarily. A cco rding tothe un anim ous witness o f the N ew T estam ent, definitiveatonem ent is only the person o f the Crucified. B ut accordingto the same w itness, the crucified Jesus is atone m en t as “ theSon”. In other words, the God who “sends” his Son is“ Fa ther” and sends him


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23 4 NORBERT HOFFMANN

precisely for this reason, Jesus’ life leads to the cross. M oreover,this imp lies (and this is the logical consequence o f a stauro logyo f atonem ent) that the cross as explanation m eans the inexplicableness o f G od. T he cross has as presup po sition a Go d

who is an impossibility for the “Platonic” sensibility, a God before w ho m the pio us pagans, b o th ancient and m odern,trem ble, a G od w ho loves the w orld in a do w nrigh t forbiddenmanner: which is to say, a God who wants to be loved by thew orld, and so ardently th at the refusal o f this love con stitutesthe ve ry core o f sin, and sin is the “ pa in” o f G od and its

overcom ing is the aband onm ent o f his only-beloved Son tothe forces o f darkness.

Because it proceeds from God’s loving interiority as Father,the atonem ent w ro u g h t by the Crucified does indeed call Godinto question: is a G od still “ G o d ” w hen his relationship to thew or ld reaches its hig hp oin t in crucified aton em en t by his Son?

Is he still “G od ” w he n he, thu s, is so “ involv ed ” in the w o rld ’sdestiny as “ Fa ther” tha t this invo lvem en t is in the end no thingother than his only-beloved Son, surrendered to the cross?Must not the cross as atonement negate God as God? Asatonem ent by the “ Son” and dismaying engag em ent o f the“ Father” in the w orld , is no t the cross inexorab ly im plan ted as

the self-abolition o f “ G od ” ?

3 . The Question Resulting fo r Transcendental Theology

It w ou ld be overly hasty, h ow ever, and by no means justifiedmethodologically, for us to take back the expiatory character

o f the cross sim ply on the w eigh t o f the qu estion ju st posed.For this q uestion itself m us t first be exam ined critically: does itreally call G od h im se lf as Father in to qu estion as he is inhimself, or rather ou r conception o f G od as Father? I f the crossis aton em en t, is it G od in his actual being w ho can no long er be“Father”, or merely God according to a questionable and

insufficient u nd erstanding o f God? N o th in g forbids us a priori from m oving back from the


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ex piatory form o f the cross as historical fact, as w e have heredeveloped it, to ask w he ther the cross, so und erstoo d, does no thave in the being o f G od him self any transcendental g roun dwhich makes it possible. How must God be in himself for himto be able to be fo r the world in the form o f atonem ent on thecross? In what manner must God be “Father” for the cross to

be atonement ?With these questions the thought of the believer presses

on to arrive at the interior locus where systematic theologyconfronts a truth which unfortunately still signifies for manyno thing m ore than a piece o f m ere theoretical speculation: wespeak o f the so-called “ im m an en t T rin ity ” . It is possible that,as w e seek w ithin the very being o f G od for the presup positiono f the atonem ent attested to by the N ew Testam ent, w hatoccurs is som ething like the daw ning o f the m ystery o f theT rinity w ithin the explicit horizon o f theological reflection.If w e sho uld succeed in m aking Jesus ’ atoning death com

prehensible as the ad extra event within salvation-history thatcorresponds to the being o f the T rinity ad intra, we wouldhave demonstrated in a convincing manner the soteriologicalurgency and existential prox im ity o f w hat m ight appear to be

the m ost rem ote o f all mysteries.

III. How t h e T r i n i t y M a k e s A t o n e m e n t P o s s ib le : G o d a s F a t h e r w i t h i n t h e T r i n i t y

A. THE CROSS AS ATONEMENT, THE TRINITY,

AND THE “ PRO ’-STRUCTURE41 OF BEING

I. The Ternary Form o f Purification from Sin

O u r analysis o f Y ah w eh ’s redem ptive action, w hich heals

by destroying sin , b rough t into clear focus th ree distinctelements: his lordly sovereignty, his unexpected personalinvolvement, and finally the independent activity by the


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sinner which Y ahw eh b oth d em ands and sees throu gh as parto f the eradication o f sin. T he constancy o f this threefoldstructure, evidenced throughout salvation-history and culminating in the central saving event o f the N ew C ov ena nt, makesus suspect that here we have to do, not with the fortuitousresult o f m ere salvation “ data” , com puted externally, butrather with a deliberately intended fo rm which has a ternaryarticulation and follows laws o f its ow n.

2 . Atonement and the “Pro”-character o f Existence

We may nonetheless ask the question whether this ternaryform does not have something like an entelechial principle atits base, in the ligh t o f w hich the factual givenness o f such aform could be rendered intelligible from w ithin as a meaningful

form .Q uite aw are o f its hyp othetical character, we ven ture the

follow ing answer: in the threefold form o f the process o f purification from sin w hat is expressed—w ith in the situationo f a world characterized by gu ilt and sin—is the actual realityo f w hat is very v aguely and unspecifically called, b o th ineveryday and rel igious language, vicarious representation. “ A ton em en t” , ou r hyp othesis holds, may be conceived as theexpiatory variant of a universally present law of radicallyontological import: the “pro”-structure o f Being itself. This“pro”-structure prevails—as is easily verifiable—in the thousand form s o f com m unal hum an existence, o f pro -ex istence fo r one ano ther, and o f reciprocal service. We find exampleso f this in those relationships as exist betw een parents andchildren, or betw een friends, or in the profession o f thedoctor, the politician, the soldier, the policeman and theresearcher. In all these cases the po in t is that som eone , thro ughself-sacrifice and self-engagem ent, is som ehow opening up forano ther a “ place” for an existence o f his ow n, thereby settinghim free to be himself. T he reality o f ac tion -for-an other takeson an especially sharp co nto ur , reaching the on tolog ical level,


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in the case o f creation. In a form al sense, because o f the creatio ex nihilo, God makes the other, who is not identical withhimself, to be as such (i.e., as “creature”); by engaging hiscreative p ow er, God so enters the scene on b eh alf o f this“other” that, against the vortex drawing all things into nothingness, he fashions for the creature his “place” in the realmo f Being.

3 . The Trinity as Ontological Prototype o f this “Pro”

It is most moving to see, moreover, that this so-called“p ro ”-structure, o r “ oth er-oriented ” structure, o f Being doesno t inform on ly the ord er o f creation b u t m anifests itself alsoas the law o f the Being o f G od himself. O n account o f this law,God posits him se lf as w ha t the C hristian holds to be the basicm ystery o f his faith: he sho w s h im se lf to be Trinity. With allthe sovereign divinity o f his p ow er to b eget, the “ Father”makes another, as other (i.e., as “Son” and not “Father”), to

be the same th ing that he is (“ G od ” ); he opens to th is o thera “ place” o f auton om ou s personal selfhood w ithin the oneidentical Being of God.

The unreservedness and selflessness o f this event, fu rthermore, is evidenced in the fact that the Father holds nothing back which could have existed as “ substance” and as “ absolute”stasis-in-oneself “ before” his m ov em ent o f self-surrender tothe Son. In other words, the Father is pure movem ent tow ardthe Son ( relatio subsistens), so much so that this movement

not only makes him to be Father but that he is “God” and“person” only as Father. The Father attains to his subsistenceas an “ I” only in the radicalness o f his relationship to this“Thou”, and to his self-possession as person only in hisunreserved self-abandonment to the Son.

And all o f this occurs w here Being itse lf subsists as pu re is, at

the place where it attains to its intensest self-identity! Thismovement of the pro, this self-openness toward the other,is proc laimed in the revelation o f the T rin ity (a ve ritable


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ATONEMENT AND ONTOLOGICAL COHERENCE 239as the personified and ineffable culmination and seal of theabundance proper to God’s interior Being, the Holy Spirit isat the same tim e the expo nen t o f the m ost absolute divinefreed om .45 B ut together w ith this he reveals him se lf as thetranscendental grou nd for the possibility o f extending, bey ondthe realm o f the purely divine, that intra-divine m ov em entwhereby the Father passes over to the Son.46 God must notgo beyond himself, but he can go beyond himself . “Godis free to allow something else to be: the creation”;47 hecan do it precisely by virtue o f that po w er-b ey on d-all-po w ero f the divine Being w hich w e have show n culminates superabu ndan tly in the H oly S pirit. T he w orld can “have its prop er

place only w ith in the difference betw een Father and Son whichthe Holy Spirit bo th keeps open and bridges o ve r” .48 Th eimm ane nt self-distinction o f G od, w hich is rooted in the“p ro ”-co nstitution o f the d ivine Being, posits that absolute,infinite distance “ w ithin w hich are included and encom passedall possible distances that m ay emerge within the finite w orld ” .49With this First Distinction that springs forth from Being asBeing, “relation” is already posited as at all being a possibleform o f Being.

b. The W orld as a C reation “ in C hris t” :Th e M aking o f “ Sons in the So n”

It is only then that, in fact, revelation attests to the world as being a “ creation in C h ris t” . This tru th is o f in estim ablesignificance for understanding the divine behavior toward thew orld . It means tha t, i f an yth ing created exists, it is becauseGod is “Father” and wants to extend his fatherhood beyondthe internal realm o f the Trinity: because he wants to be“ Fa ther” to all men “ in C h rist” . Hence , creation is the worldas pre sup position for filiation by “ grace” . G od wants to assignto man a “place” not simply anywhere within Being, butw ithin the intra-trinitarian “ locus” o f his Son. This, in turn,means that from the very outset m an and the w orld rest w ithinthe space o f intra -trinitarian affection; all the love G od may


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have for the wor ld has in advance been “ em otiona lly” saturated by tha t overflow ing and w ell-sated love w ith w hich heembraces his on ly-b eg otten Son and is therefore a love w hichis radically defined by the absolute so vereign ty o f divinefreedom . C reation has the character o f an establishing o f “ sonsin the S on ” , and G od ’s affection for the w orld is at base theself-initiated, self-pow erful “ externa lization” and reflection o fGod’s condition as Father, which is what he is in his mostintim ate Being fro m all eternity and w holly ind epen den tly o fthe world. His relationship to the world is embedded withinthe relationship o f Father and Son and thus rema ins w ithin theholy realm o f intra-trinitarian affectivity.

We m ust no t lose any o f this from sight as we n o w turn ou rattention to the phenom enon o f “ s in” .

c. Sin as Revolt aga inst Sonship

W hat sin really is, in the Christian view, cannot be sufficientlygrasped as long as sin is merely th ou g h t to be a m ora l trespassand a violation o f the “ m oral o rd er” , an act o f disobedienceagainst G od as C reator and L ord and keeper of this order. Th eessence o f sin is fundam entally bey on d the reach o f ethicalreason. The internal m eaning o f sin is pen etrated o nly by himwho takes seriously the fundamental biblical doctrine on thew orld and man as being a “ creation in C h rist” . Th is creation,moreover, implies a personal participation by God in theevents o f the wo rld w hich cann ot be separated from theFa ther ’s “ sharing o f his perso n” w ithin the life o f the T rinity.Henceforth sin can emerge only as the diabolical reflection ofthe mystery that is God himself. More exactly stated, sincan emerge only as the puzzling and sinister sha dow o f thatPauline mysterion w hich, as the self-com m unication o f thePrim al M ystery , constitutes the basis and the center o f theeco no m y o f salvation. Sin, like hell, is the abyss which gapeswide the m om en t the Father, because o f his intra-div ine love,wants to have man as his son. God indeed respects man’screaturely self-determination but in such a way that God


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ATONEMENT AN D ONTOLOGICAL COHERENCE 2 4 1

claims it fo r him se lf in full earnest in the fo rm o f a free decision by m an to lo ve G od as a son. T he specifically C hristian core o fsin is grasped on ly w he n sin is conce ived as the rejection o f thecall to that sonship whose innermost nature consists in beingthe con tinu ation o f C h rist’s eternal sonship w ithin the realm o fcreation, which is the “other” that stands over against God.Sin means the refusal o f the grace o f allow ing the creaturely“ I” to beco m e the earthly abode o f the trinitarian act wh ereb yFather and Son turn toward one another.

From this it becomes evident that man is not capable of“ sinning” in this w ay all on his ow n. In the sense o f revelation,“sin” becomes a possibility—to put it quite crudely for thesake o f clarity— only on accou nt o f G od ’s paternal love forman, which opens wide to man down to i ts most int imatedepth.

But this seems to imply two dialectically interconnectedelements:

1. T he m ystery o f sin reveals G od him se lf as m ystery in anew w ay. Th e Being o f God, over against w hich the hum an

N o attains the quality o f “ sin” , can be to som e extent conceived by us adeq uately only if w e have the co urage to say:God is “God” and “love” toward us in such a way that,som ehow , h e is wo un ded by o ur sin to the depth o f his interiorrecesses as T rin ity. If sin can thus becom e a myste ry, it is

because G od, in his dow nrigh t foolish love, has opened uphis innermost Being so recklessly and handed it over sovulnerably that men can really w ou nd h im , G od. Sin w ou nd sG od insofar as he is that m ys tery w hich, “ in Ch rist Jes us” ,abandons itself to us: the m ystery o f triune love. T he stab o fthe lance touches God him self,50 and, in the w ords o f PaulClaudel, i t “b ores do w n into the very k no t o f the Trin ity” :51

O blessure vraiment royale, 0 s'eve de Dieu qui s’epanche!O coup si fierement assene contre la cote et la hanche

Qu’il perce jusqu’au noeud de la Trinite!Th e reality o f a “ creation in C h rist” contains for G od therisk that hum an rejection o f sonship m ay affect the intra-


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divine relationship between “Father” and “Son”. With sucha creation G od posits him self as one w ho m ay be “ w ou nd ed ”

by m an, and hum an sin as som eth ing w hose reverberationin him self becomes the pain o f the “Father”.

2. N one theless (and this is the second e lem ent o f the paradox), our sin is G o d’s “ pain” in such a w ay that th is pain , a lthough caused by the crea tu re’s resistance, is no tinflicted upon God from without ! In the last analysis, in hisrelationship to the world God is not “moved” by the worldnor affectively overpowered by it; his love for the worldflows from the freest kind o f divine self-determ ination. Sostated, this is only a gratuitous assertion; we can legitimateit only by referring back to the “ p ro ” -structure o f divineBeing as we have described it above: our assertion rests onthe “immanent Trinity” and, hence, on “that eternal andabsolute self-surrender” which, prior to any possible divinerelationship to the w orld , “ reveals G od to us as being , alreadyin himself, absolute lov e” .52

God does not begin to be interpersonal love only with hisreciprocity to creation, and in this fact are rooted two com

ponents w hich are constitutive for his relationship to thew orld: his freedom and his m anne r o f relating to w orld andhistory. Th e peculiarness o f the intra-divine “ p ro ”-processexplains why God, on the one hand, is not intricated in the

process o f th e w orld and thus does no t need “ the w orld - process and the cross . . . for his ow n self-realizatio n” ;53 but,on the other hand, it also explains how God neverthelessstands “over” the world in such a way that he not onlycond itions the very possibility o f ju s t this w orld -process54 butis also capable o f pa rticipating in it in a real m an ner.55 TheFather ’s mo ve m en t o f self-surrender occurs w ith such kenoticmight that the Father possesses personal subsistence onlyinsofar as he is a pure elan toward the Son as the infinitely“Other” over against himself.

This, however, signifies “such an inconceivable and unsur passable ‘separation’ o f G od from him self ”56 that all other


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possib le distances as m ay be found w ith in the fin ite w orld ,including even sin, have already been “included and embraced”57

by that Prim al Dis tance, and every other k ind o f “ separation

whatever, even the darkest and bitterest, can take place onlyw ithin” tha t first separation o f G od from him self.58 O n the basis o f th e “ creation in C h ris t” , the w orld is m ade so to rela teto the intra-trinitarian “pro”-event that the latter not only

posits the transcendental possibility for such differences asexist internally w ithin the earthly realm bu t also provides the

basis for G od h im self (as possibly suffering the failure o f onerejected) becoming “pain” and even “hell” to the world, ando f the w orld becom ing “ pain” to G od insofar as he is Father.In the trinitarian “kenosis” not only all dramas within theworld but also that supreme “drama between God and the world have from the outset already been bo th encom passed and

surpassed.”59Only the New Tes tament’s knowledge concerning the

T rinity, therefore, frees us from the necessity o f ha ving— forthe sake of sparing G o d ’s div inity— to interpret an thro po -

path ically (and thus to neutralize) G o d ’s affective and self-engaging p articipation in the history o f the w orld, an involve

m ent wh ich is so m assively attested by the O ld T estam ent andwhich the New Testament, far from retracting, rather seesas eschatologically confirmed and sublimated by the Christ-event . Only the New Tes tament reveals a t ru th s implyunknown to ei ther philosophy or the Old Testament, thespecifically divine m od e in w hich G od is “ G o d ” : and this is the

reality o f co m m un ion and love w hich has already reached perfection w ith in the bosom o f the T rin ity .

T o be sure, even the revelation o f this specifically “C hristian”dimension in God does not positively give us an insightinto the com patibility o f G o d ’s divinity w ith his o ngo inginvolvement with the world; but it does furnish us with a

datum, henceforth binding since it is attested by God’s selfcommunication, which allows theological reason to see thatthe “ A ristotelian” argu m ents for the absolute imm ovableness


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o f the “ First M ov er” —should they be applied w ithin C hristian th eo log y— lose their po w er o f evidence. G o d ’s selfrevelation removes the inveterate compulsion to conceive his

(unquestionable) immutability in an “Olympian” manner,that is, in the sense o f an im m ovableness alien to h istory, and itmakes possible the u nde rstanding o f the divine im m utabilityin its authentically Christian form, which includes the involvem ent o f G od w ith the w o rld .60 This m anner o f being o fthe G od o f C hristian ity— w hich, althou gh it is no t directly

comprehensible, still cannot be dismissed as simply contradicto ry—presents itself to us in such a way that it heightens thereality o f G od as mystery precisely with respect to his relationto the w orld . Ju st as G od is the infinity o f Be ing, no t on ly inh im self bu t, as found ational gro un d, also w ith respect to allfinite existents, and this to such a total ex tent that the existence

o f the finite does no t m ake him finite: so, too , on the basis o f hisself-disclosure within the Trinity, we have to conceive ofh im —bo th in him se lf and in his relation to finite h istory—as

being so infinite in m ov em en t, in even t, in action, that we haveno need to relegate him to the realm o f ahistoricity in o rde r tosave him from a fateful historicization o f his d ivinity.

Th is trinitarian c orrective o f the concept o f Being and o fG od the n yields the only valid he rm eneutic for that (genuinely

biblical!) them e o f the suffering G od w hich philosophicaltheology so much perceives (and must perceive) as a threatthat, instead of interpreting the suffering o f G od , it sees itselfforced to eliminate it by reducing it to the suffering o f the

hum anity o f Jesus. N ow , by vir tue o f the “ pro ”-st ructure o fhis being, God can at all be solely as self-giving communionand love, and it is in the m od e o f such sovereign freedomthat he then turns to the world in love. And it is only thekn ow ledge o f this intra-d ivine reality that justifies the fun damental hermeneutical rule—which nonetheless remains para

doxical—that says that, insofar as God is a lover, he must also be a sufferer w hen his lo ve comes up against th e N o o f sin.There is no “ pain ” in G od . . . except as a resu lt o f a divinelove tha t exposes itself vu lnerably following the dictates o f


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its own wholly autonomous and lordly initiative. Insofar asthis principle possesses factual validity, we can now see thelight shed by the cross as atonem en t w ithin this co ntext o f atheology o f the T rinity.

d. T he A tonem ent o f the Cross asEschatological Realization of Trinitarian Sonship

Be tween the m ystery o f the T rinity and that o f the crossthere exists n o t only the relationship o f a struc tural parallelism

based on the “ p ro ”-character o f each reality ; T rin ity and crossare no t like tw o self-contained spheres hang ing alongside eachother: they exist within one another. O u r analysis o f the

process o f lib eration from sin in salvation-history had show nthat “ ato nem en t” becom es actualized as the reversal o f sin intothe suffering, ou t o f love, o f the obed ient servant o f Y ahw eh,the ju s t m an p ar excellence w ho , in short, is called the Son.Atonement for sin takes place when the “Son” “bears” sin.Eschatolog ically, sin is atoned for, once and fo r all, because theSon becomes atonement: the New Testament formulates thisevent very precisely when it says most graphically that this isthe Son w hom the Father has sent into the flesh o f sin (cf.R om 8:3; 1 Jn 4:9f.; Jn 3:16). This form ula exactly describesthe essence o f him w ho is the ab solute center o f the N ewTestament: “ C hrist Jesus” . Jesus is “ the C h rist” and C hrist is“ato ne m en t” because in him the even t o f events is realized: theeternal Son is sent into the m idst o f sin’s rebellion against G od.

According to Thomas Aquinas, moreover, “the sending(imissio) o f the Son is bu t the pro long ation into the w orld o f hiseternal com ing forth (processio ) fro m the Father .” 61 If this is so,then we may, with Hans Urs von Balthasar, develop theimplications o f this christological form ula by saying that, inJesu s’ consciousness o f being sen t, m ore is contained for himthan ju st the kn ow ledge o f a certain task to be pe rforme d.Since this task is the con tinua tion o f the trinitarian event o ffilial procession, it contains his whole divine sonship, andJesus is, therefore, conscious that, “in his innermost ‘I’, he


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him self is identical with his task”62—something which cannot be asserted o f any o ther hum an being. A nd th e specific ta sk o fhis m ission is to “ bear aw ay the gu ilt o f the w o rld ” (Jn 1:29),63

in other words, to be atonement.Th is oug ht to im ply that the atoning for the w o rld ’s guilt byJesus relates to the eternal sonship o f the Logos in a way similarto ho w his missio ad extra relates to his processio interna. Just asth e processio is continued in the missio, so too the generation o fthe Logos is con tinued in the atonem en t o f the cross. T his

would be the form which the ad extra prolon gation o f theeternal processio assumes w hen it enters a w orld o f sin. T herefore, we ought to be able to say that “Christ” (atonement

becom e person) is th e m anner in w hich ete rnal sonship existsin a sinful world, or that the “cross” is the sin-conditionedm odality o f the econom ic T rinity as expressive o f the g ener

ation o f the Logos w ithin the im m an en t T rinity. If w e see thetem poral m ission as being one w ith the eternal procession, andif, with St. Thomas, we understand “mission” as a new

presence o f the divine Person w ith an orientation to a m ission,then we would in fact have to consider “atonement” as them ode, pro per to the Logos, o f being sent into the w o rld ’s

situation o f sin. The cross, m oreo ve r, w ou ld sim ilarly beunderstood as the way the eternal Logos is “Son” within aw orld fallen victim to sin: the cross w ou ld co nsequ en tly be thecounterstroke, against the world’s sinful resistance, resultingfrom that intra-divine “pro”-event in which the filial “I” ofthe Logos is cons tituted as such. If we are attentive to the

meaning o f those scriptural passages according to w hich thesonship o f “Jesu s” empties o ut to becom e that o f the “ C h rist” ,and if we inqu ire as to the deep reasons for such an exaltation,the N ew Testam ent unequivocally answers by p ointing to thecross, understood as an atoning event.64 This answer can beexplained in the light o f the concept o f atonem ent w hich w e

w orke d ou t at the beginning o f this inqu iry. A ccording to thisconcept, the essential content o f atonem ent w ou ld have to bethe reversal o f sin into its oppo site (the suffering fo rm assum ed

by the Son’s love).


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N o w , as the Son, no one is like Christ in a position to effectsuch a reversal. The Logos com es into the heart o f sin and, asthe “ C h rist” , he is really “ So n” here, in the very locus o f sin.

He does this by bearing men’s resistance against sonship asthe suffering o f his love, and he squarely transform s suchresistance into a contrary reality which is all the more realand vibrant: he transforms it into the demonstration andsup erex altat ion o f his o w n son ship. Because Je su s’ f ilialobedience reaches its culm ination here, at the heart o f the

disobedience o f hu m an sin (cf. Phil 2:8; H eb 5:8f.), th ere takes place the redem ptive im -position o f his sonship against thesinful op -po sition o f G o d’s oth er sons. In Jesu s’ aton em en t asecond creation occurs and the eternal Logos proves himself(even with regard to the world’s historical concreteness) to bethe one in w h o m “ all things are firm ly established” , even w hat

is threaten ed by sin (cf. C ol 1:17; H eb i:2f.; Jn 1). Th ere fore,the creative might proper to the Logos as Son asserts itselfagainst the destructive po w er o f sin, and G od answers for hiscreation o f finite, defectible freedom only b y tu rn ing ou r gazeto the Crucified. Insofar as all o f this is true , w e m ay say that inJesu s’ atone m en t his eternal sonship com es to fulfillment at the

level o f salvation-h istory.But “sonship” is a correlative concept. A person is “son”

only w ith respect to his “ father” . Th is applies to Jesus soradically tha t the estab lishm ent o f his sonship is in the endG od ’s self-establishment as Father: the atonem en t w ro ug h t onGolgotha is an intensely “patrogenetic” event.65 It lays bare

the pro fou nd dialogical structure o f the O ld T es tam en t’s process o f forgiveness, dow n to its trinitarian roo ts, stillhidden in the O ld Testament: b ut even there the hea rt o f them atter was the reciprocity o f “ Fa ther” and “ So n” . N o w it isdisclosed that atonem en t is the m od ality w hich this correlationassumes w hen those w ho had been created in the Son and had

been predestined to be sons fall in to sin and are nonethelesskept as sons.

In the cross God’s power to forgive is manifested as theauctoritas Patris : it is show n h ow God is “Father” (as fructifying,


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fostering principle) to those who are sinners. The reconciliation comes w holly o ut o f the sovereignly forgiving will o fthe Father, in such a w ay tha t it constitutes itse lf as theatonem en t o f the Son. As a deed o f the Father, such reconcil

iation possesses its ow n term in the aton em en t o f the Son, andit needs atonement as its own correlative, to the same extentas the Father “needs” the Son for his own constitution as“ Father” . Forgiveness and aton em ent relate to o ne anotheras active and passive generation: in the atoning Christ (byan intensification o f his e ternal sonsh ip at the level o f the

economic Trinity) the sinner is again begotten by the Fatheras a son. This is why—and this holds naturally only forthe dim ension o f so-called “ objective” red em ption —in theatonem ent o f the cross a “ cov en an t” is un fatho m ab ly realized:here the coven ant betw een Father and Son asserts itself againstw hat destroys it, at the level o f the trinitarian econ om y o f

salvation. At the darkest m om en t o f the night o f the cross,G o d ’s glo ry in the covenan t shines forth eschatologically. Thetrium ph , on the cross, o f the intra-trinitarian “ p ro ” takes

place—through the Spirit—as th e overcom ing o f th e abyss o fsin by incorporating it into the First Distinction, into thatPrim al D ifference betw een F ather and Son w hich is at once the

p ro to type and the pro to -im age o f everything else in the w orldwh ich m ay be called “ u n ity” and “ coven ant” . We can also saythat the pro nobis o f the cross is no thing bu t the transfigura tion ,conditioned by sin, o f the trinitarian pro tha t exists eternally inGod.

But all that is entailed in this “overcoming” and “transfigu ra tion ” o f sin is no t yet sufficiently clear fro m ou rreflections to this point. Our attention will now turn, inconc lusion, to a m ore precise definition o f the ob jectivecontent and m eaning o f such transfiguration. We will do this

by exploring critically the applicability, to our set o f problem s,o f the concept o f vicarious “ representation” .


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B. THE “ PRO NOBIS” OF THE ATONEMENT OF

THE CROSS AS THE TRANSFORMATION, WITHIN

SALVATION-HISTORY, OF THE INTRA-DIVINE “ PRO” :

THE TRINITY AND “ REPRESENTATION”

1 . The Question

N o t long ago the attem pt was made to expose the significanceo f the idea o f “ rep resen tation ” as being a universal theologicalcategory,66 and in particular to demonstrate that the funda-mental m ystery o f the T rin ity— precisely as basis for theecon om y o f salvation— could be m ore easily pe netrated at itsdeepest if it could be und ersto od as the primal realization o f“ represen tation ” .67

This concern naturally evokes the fear that such a trans- position from the soterio logical to the trinitarian level m ightdo violence to the integrity o f language by ov erextendingartificially b oth the w ord and the concept o f “ represe ntation ” .The objection becomes m ore precise in the following questions:is it no t a part o f “ rep resen tation” , in the soteriological sense,that the vicarious “representative” does something in the

place o f h im w hom he represents w hich th e other could notaccomplish? Can any analogy be found in the interior life ofthe Trinity that corresponds to the element o£substitution, sonecessary and constitutive in every fo rm o f rep resen tation?68Because it goes to the very h eart o f our subject, this ob jectiondoubtless elicits reflections which will be useful in clarifying“atonement” even further as a theological problem; in partic-ular, they will help us give an answer to the question: towhat extent does the pro o f the im m anent T rini ty become“ transfigured” in the atoning C hrist at the level o f the econo m yo f salvation?


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2 . Structural Comparison between the “Pro” o f the Cross and that o f the Trin ity

Quite significantly, the comparison begins with the so-called “p atrogen etic” character o f the pro o f the cross. Startingfrom this point, we shall be able to discern both similaritiesand divergences.

a. The Similarities

The theological essence of the pro o f the cross w ou ld begrasped o nly ve ry imperfectly if w e w ere to lim it it to theisolated relationship between Christ and the sinner. For this

pro has the quality o f “ aton em en t” w ith respect to G od, and hewho effects it is the Son, which is to say he in whom theintra-trinitarian pro has its term . T he ev en t o f the cross issom ehow strung upo n the bow o f intra-divine generation, soto speak. N ow , in the “p he no -type” o f earthly representationthe element o f “ substi tution” or even o f “ displacement” mayso em erge tha t it totally dom inates the experience and presentsitself as the specific and no rm ative com ponent o f representationas such; this would make the representor appear as a kind of“ sub stitute” o r “ replacem ent” . In spite o f all this, revelationattests to the rep resen tative fun ction o f C hris t’s sufferings as being a second creation and a new b irth , w hich am ounts no t somuch to a “ su b-stitution” as to an “ in-s titution ” o f new life.69

W ithin that total perspective w e have called “patrog en etic” ,the one w ho emerges as being finally responsible for the w orkdone is the Father. It is he who, by sending his Son to thecross (which even t means the con tinuation o f intra-trinitariansu rren de r), begets sinners anew as sons: w ithin the realm o f thecreated, the Father makes the sinner again to be a son, similarto the way he makes the Logos to be the Son within theircom m on divinity. W hatever othe r elements may be pro per toit, the represen tation on the cross exhibits itself un co nd ition -


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ATONEMENT AN D ONTOLOGICAL COHERENCE 2 5 1

ally as an occurrence in w hich the Father, thro ug h the atoningChrist, establishes sinners as sons. This efficacious “in-the-

place-of ” , w hich appears to be exte rnal to th e one represented,

is in fact, fo rm ally and as such, the op ening up o f the placewhich is ontically internal to the sinner: it is the sinner’s own“ repo sitioning” , and therefore the instituting o f w hat has been“ su bs tituted” . As a son, the sinner exists only w ithin the termo f the intra-trinitarian pro as it is prolonged on the cross.

Contrariwise, the pro o f the cross, so strikingly qualified by

the nuance o f an avri, sharpens o ur glance to perceive thatessential element in the intra-trinitarian pro w hich , even thou ghspeculatively and theoretically elaborated by tradition as thedoctrine o f the relatio subsistens or o f nepixcopqoiq (circumincessio), nevertheless continues to stand rather isolated in the averagetheological awareness and has not by far been explored and

made to bear fruit in the manner it deserves.Thepro o f the T rinity does not conno te jus t any posit ing bu ta positing highly qualified and thoroughly structured by theavri-elem ent, and the essence o f this po siting can in no smallmeasure be clarified and described by the use o f the w ord“locus” (or “place” , or “po sition ”). A positing is here invo lved

that is pe rfected through the self-engagem ent or self-“ po siting ”o f the p o sito r.70 A nd here this “ th ro u g h ” carries the force o f aformal cause: just as Christ does not somehow “procure” forsinners their new position as sons but rather himself is this

place or position as the one w ho “ goes o u t” to answ er for them by his atonem ent, so also the F ather’s generative self-surrender

w ithin G od has the ch aracter o f such a specific “ go ing o u t”for the sake o f the Son th at the “ I” o f the Father, as selfgiving and self-communicating reality, itself is the locus andthe w ellspring o f the “ T h o u ” o f the Son, receiver o f thisco m m un ication . The first Person, being essential gift o f self, is the open ing up and establishing o f the ontic space for the

second Person. The Father is the locus o f the Son.The unique meaning contained in this is may be gleaned,first, from the fact that, as already mentioned, in the act


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o f gen eration the Father n ot on ly begets the Son bu t alsoestablishes him self as an “ I” , and, second, from the truth thatthe divine essence does not possess its Being as a fourth

magnitude “alongside” the three Persons but only as a divinelife that is no w ou tpoured, no w received. T his, in turn , meansthat personality and divinity—and, hence, Being as such—may be ascribed to the Father only as Father, and that hetherefore is only on accoun t o f his being the locus o f the Son.He attains to his own subsistence only in being a passing over

to the Son; he is only as movement toward the Son (relatio subsistens ). The relation that the Father is is constituted by theSon as its term . The Son is the term o f that relationship wh ichthe Father is.

In trinitarian inversion, something similar may be said ofthe Son. B eyon d their reciprocal being -in-one -ano ther, form

ally roo ted in their Tainmxria (identity o f substance), there alsoexists for Father and Son a relational immanence, a correlativeinclusion o f one in the o th e r.71 T h ro ug h it all wha t takes placeis the primal act of love which, “by its very nature, meansgiving o f self to the other, going ou t o f onese lf to pass overinto the other. To be sure, this occurs in such a way that the

other, far from being displaced, is rather raised to his ownfullest se lfho od .” A lready here, in G o d’s trinitarian life, thereoccurs

something like an exchange o f places between the Self and the Other. . . . Even the Trinity exists only by virtue o f and within a reciprocal and loving self-surrender o f persons: and this surrender o f self with one’s whole being is like stepping into the place o f the other so as to constitute him as person. The persons o f the Trinity “arise” , if such a graphic expression may be used, on the basis o f a fundamental and constitutive orientation o f their being toward one another which amounts to an interchange of the divine essence among its three different bearers.72

O u r basic concept, then, is tha t o f a self-constitutive steppinginto the place o f the other, and o f an assuming o f answerability


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for one another that is so radical that the one person becomesthe “ locus” o f the other. And w e have sho w n that such aconcept is well-suited to disclose the strict correspondence

betw een the trinitarian and th e chris tological “ p ro ”-event,since Jesus too becom es the C h rist by stepping ov er inatonem ent to the side o f the sinner. W e will no w , therefore,turn ou r attention to how this “ stepping in ” i

atonement and the ontological coherence between the trinity and the cross

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