On the Doctrine of Atonement Doctrines of the atonement have often failed to be rooted in the whole biblical story. An effective one needs to put us in the life of the Trinity in history. by Robert W. Jenson About the author: Robert Jenson was the Senior Scholar for Research at CTI from 1998-2003. Prior to that, he had a long career as a teacher of philosophy and theology. Before moving to Princeton, he served as Professor of Religion at St. Olaf College; Lutheran World Federation Lecturer in Theology at Oxford University, Professor of Systematic Theology at Luther Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, PA; and Professor of Philosophy, and Chairman of Philosophy Department at Luther College. Dr. Jenson was ordained in the American Lutheran Church. In addition, he was the co-founder and coeditor of Pro Ecclesia and the co-founder and Associate Director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. Robert Jenson’s list of publications is extensive. His most recent work is his two volume Systematic Theology, published by Oxford University Press in 1998-1999. Among his other books are Essays in Theology of Culture (Eerdmans, 1995); The Song of Songs (Westminster John Knox, 1995); Unbaptized God: The Basic Flaw in Ecumenical Theology (Fortress, 1992); and more recently Conversations with Poppi about God (Brazos, 2006), co-authored with his eight yearold granddaughter.
By a “doctrine of atonement” we conventionally understand an account of why Jesus’ death on a Cross is important to us, and specifically for our relation to God. Notoriously, “atonement” is a deliberate coinage - though an old one, documented to 1513 - meaning the act of putting things at one, particularly where a previous unity has been broken. The word in its theological use thus presumes that what happened at Jesus’ death was a reunion between God and us - which seems a biblically sound assumption. A doctrine of atonement is then an attempt to say how Jesus’ crucifixion does that. It is a commonplace to observe that there is no dogma of atonement. Although, in Christology there is dogma established at all seven ecumenical councils, no council - or pope or other plausibly ecumenical authority - has ever laid down a dogma of atonement. If you deny that Christ is “of one being with the Father,” or that the Son and Jesus are but one hypostasis, you are formally a heretic. But you can deny any offered construal of how the atonement works, or all of them together, or even deny that any construal is possible, and be a perfectly orthodox believer. To be sure, if you simply deny that Jesus’ death does in fact somehow reunite us with God, you are no Christian at all, but that is a different
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