Christus Victor, Essay Example

Gustaf Aulen, has made a significant contribution to the existing body of knowledge about early church history, by explicitly touching on some of the foundational dogmatic pillars that defined its constitution. The book brings to the fore, the dogma of atonement with regards to its historical evolution and how that became an integral part of what is known in our day and age. It provides answers to the begging questions of atonement as it was known for several centuries of church history before the advent of the latter Christian church leaders who for a number of reasons interpolated the atonement dogma into a hollow concept.

According to Gustaf Aulen, there are three main types of atonement which have been espoused over the last thousand years of the Christian church. Admittedly, the views presented are not exclusively alien to Christian church dogma, except a slight variation in the nomenclature of presentation. For instance, one of the atonement views that Aulen makes mention of is the so-called Ransom Theory accorded to earlier theological details. However, in his book, Aulen calls it the Classic view. In principle this theory traces its foundational stance on the creation story chronicled in the book of Genesis of the Holy Bible. What it essentially seeks to make known is that the advent of Satan’s dominion on earth came upon the heels of the very moment the whole human race fell due to overt disobedience to the statutes of the sovereign God.

Notwithstanding this tragedy, God out of his infinite wisdom still had an alternative plan of redemption for the human race which worked out perfectly on the cross of Calvary when Jesus Christ was crucified thus making both atonement and redemption complete. Therefore the human race had been offered a new clean sheet upon which to operate.

Be it consciously or unconsciously, Aulen has chosen to add the Satisfaction Theory for good reasons. At the root of this theory is the belief that the birth and death of Jesus Christ is in direct fulfillment of God’s innate desire to make good his sovereignty. It is known that the “wages of sin is death” as the Bible says, on this occasion however, God chooses to carry out the process of substitution of justice in satisfaction with the dictates of His law. The renowned Anselmian is a well known proponent of satisfaction theory.

Following in the sequence is the Moral Influence Theory, espoused and propagated by Abelard. It connotes an inclination towards diligent obedience along a specific laid down standard—a standard that traces its allegiance to the very teachings and life of Jesus Christ.

It should be noted that the atonement theory was not exclusively confined to a rigid place in church history. Each of the various dispensations in the history of the early Christian church plays a part in the formation of the benchmarks of the Christian atonement dogma. Prior to the advent of the Martin Luther initiated Protestant Reform wave, the satisfaction theory of atonement was the most professed belief that was widely accepted within the Christian church. History took a different course with the advent of Anselm of Canterbury, whose work opened a significantly new page in the position of the Christian church on the question of atonement.

According to Aulen’s account of the varying forces between the Ransom and Satisfaction theories are the specific niche they each carve out for the place of God on the one hand and His holy laws on the other hand. In what might be seen as a departure from the conventional path, Aulen comes out with an analogical discourse of what the Apostle Paul wrote along the lines of what Martin Luther the reformer later taught and advocated for. Both characters have set the baseline clear by making it known that fundamentally the law is wrought in antagonistic positions with the cause of humanity. But the the point of reconciliation arises when he strenuously comes out with the comparative angles of the satisfaction theory and the substitution theory. Both the former and the latter are visibly placing the onus of atonement on the human agent as measured by the standard of God’s commitment to adhering to his own law.

On the contrary what is seen is that the unjust shameful death of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary worked out to unilaterally disrobe the law off its potency to condemn man. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s representative human agent therefore created a reconciling platform upon which the broader goals of atonement leading to salvation have being achieved though at great cost.