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Universal and Particular in Atonement Theology1

  • Colin Gunton (a1)
Extract

The unique philosophical problems of Christianity derive from the fact that it is not a philosophy, but a gospel. That is to say, its teaching and institutions are distinctively what they are by virtue of their relation to particular divine acts rather than because they are primarily a general teaching or philosophy. Whatever general teaching there is is rooted in particularities. It is not, then, difficult to come to a provisional understanding of the reference of the ‘particular’ in the title. Christianity as a particular religion, distinct from other religions and philosophies, is a distinctive way of appropriating what is believed to be salvation, deriving from a centre in a specific pattern of divine action. That centre, to be sure, gives rise to a range of conceptions of salvation sharing a family resemblance, but is none the less common to all those that are recognisably within the Christian fold.

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COPYRIGHT: © Cambridge University Press 1992
References
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2 For an example of how the life and teaching of Jesus as recorded in the gospels appear to a sceptical secular mind, see Robinson, Richard, An Atheist's Values (Oxford University Press, 1964).

3 Anselm of Canterbury, Cur Deus Homo II. xvi.

4 Ibid., I. xvi–xviii.

5 See Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, translation edited by Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F., Vol. 2, Part 2 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), Chapter VII, ‘The Election of God’. It must be noted that the author does not accept that his position entails universalism, although many critics have argued that it does.

6 Feyerabend, Paul, Against Method. Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (London: Verso, 1978, 1st edition 1975).

7 See Gunton, Colin, ‘No Other Foundation. One Englishman's Reading of Church Dogmatics, Chapter V’, Reckoning with Barth Essays in Commemoration of the Centenary of Karl Barth's Birth, edited by Nigel, Biggar (London: Mowbray, 1988), pp. 61–79.

8 Putnam, Hilary, Realism with a Human Face, edited by James, Conant (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1990), esp. pp. 1–29.

9 Gunton, Colin, The Actuality of Atonement. A Study of Metaphor, Rationality and the Christian Tradition (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988).

10 Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger. An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Ark Books, 1984, 1st edition 1966).

11 Havel, Václav. Open Letters. Selected Prose 1965–1990, selected and edited by Wilson, Paul (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), pp. 249f.

12 Steindl, Helmut, Genugtuung. Biblisches Versohnungsdenken – eine Quelle für Anselms Satisfaktionstheorie? (Freiburg: Universitatsverlag, 1989).

13 Michalson, Gordon E. Jr, Fallen Freedom. Kant on Radical Evil and Moral Regeneration (Cambridge University Press, 1990).

1 A paper read to the conference of the Christian Philosophers' Group on the subject of ‘Atonement’ at Pembroke College, Oxford, 17th September 1991.

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Religious Studies
  • ISSN: 0034-4125
  • EISSN: 1469-901X
  • URL: /core/journals/religious-studies
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