moral government, we can make three summary observations that puts initially seems to put greater theological distance between Edwards and his successors on the matter of the atonement. We shall limit ourselves to just three brief observations in order to bring sufficient shape to the foregoing theses, and to set up our discussion of Crisp’s penal non-substitution.
First, we note that for Edwards and his successors alike, the atonement is a distinctly punitive matter. The precise reason for which Christ absorbs this penalty is, however, a question for which Edwards and his successors have markedly different answers. For Edwards, and his doctrine of penal substitution, Christ absorbs the penalty for the sin(s) of particular individuals through his vicarious suffering and death. For later Edwardsians, such as Bellamy or Hopkins or Park, and more specifically for Edwards Jr, the penalty that Christ absorbs is not person-specific, that is, Christ does not die for any particular person(s).45 Second, we observe that for Edwards, Christ’s death is directed primarily toward satisfying God’s retributive justice. For his successors, on the other hand, it is principally rectoral justice for which Christ dies, not the rectoral justice that God requires, but that required by his moral law. Herein lies the apparent mechanism of the Edwardsian doctrine of atonement, which is our third observation. For the Edwardsians, sin appears to be an offence against the moral law, not God. This is perhaps the sharpest distinction between Edwards and his successors. A detailed account of this distinction is something that requires further consideration and is beyond the scope of our purposes here. It is a problem that certainly has more than one explanation. There are three things we ought to understand about this distinction. According to the Edwardsians: 1) God can somehow be entirely insulated from direct insult(s) to his nature; 2) God is chiefly concerned with rectoral rather than retributive justice; and 3) atonement requires that Christ dies as a penal example rather than a penal substitute. With all this in mind, having now a birds-eye-view of what is at stake for the New England moral government model, we transition to Crisp’s account of Jonathan Edwards Jr’s doctrine of Penal Non-Substitution.
II.2. Crisp, Edwards Jr, and Penal Non-Substitution
According to Crisp, Edwards Jr puts forward a fairly robust model of atonement that deserves the attention of contemporary scholarship, not least for which, its having developed (though often unnoticed and certainly under appreciated) at such a unique period and place in the history of theology. In order to re-invigorate this otherwise diminished model, Crisp exposits the theory for contemporary analysis. Interestingly, in as much as Crisp’s efforts to retrieve Edwards Jr’s model for analysis, it is Crisp’s analysis of Edward Jr that deserves further consideration. For, a wider look at Edwards Jr’s works points both to his development of Crisp’s so-called penal non-substitution model, and rather curiously, what appears to be a version of the doctrine of penal substitution model of atonement. Our engagement with Crisp’s work serves the purpose of showing that the New England model of atonement is perhaps more complex or “thicker” (to borrow a term from Crisp) than Crisp’s account boasts. Indeed, there is far more that is of profitable interest in the literature of the Edwardsians than is often recognized in contemporary theology, especially as it relates to the atonement, divine honor, divine justice, the moral law, and legal debts. Let us begin by considering Crisp’s five components of Edwards Jr’s theory of atonement:
A—Necessity of Atonement
Crisp begins by unpacking a common assumption of moral government theories, namely that they do not necessitate the atonement. According to Crisp, the Edwardsian version of the governmental model does in fact necessarily requires the atonement. Drawing recourses from Francis Turretin, Crisp explains the fine-grained distinction between to types of necessity: hypothetical necessity and absolute necessity. On hypothetical necessity, the atonement is, first, merely the most fitting way for to solve the problem of humanities sin against God, and, second, it is contingent on other divinely ordained features of redemption.46 On absolute necessity, divine retribution is not necessary for penal non-substitution. According to Crisp, “Defenders of penal non-substitution regard the atonement as a means of vindicating the moral law and government of God, rather than as a means to satisfying divine retributive justice.”47 This leads Crisp to the conclusion that Edwards Jr’s model could be developed according to either form of necessity.
It is true that the Grotian version of the moral government theory implicitly rejects an absolute necessity concerning punishment. Accordingly, rectoral justice is independent from retributive justice (where God’s justice is penal in nature rather than his right governing of the moral order through the moral law). In this way, God’s righteous governance of the world is primary in terms of his justice, and his retributive justice could be deferred. This is not to say that God would not also be just in his act of retribution, this act is not necessary—if he so deems. In a similar fashion, the Edwardsian theory can articulate the logic of the atonement, as fundamentally depending upon either atonement made for governing the world or retribution. The Edwardsian theory depends upon an absolute necessity in this sense. Accordingly, a contemporary defender of penal non-substitution can supply a rationale for God’s ongoing governance of the world through Christ’s act as a penal non-substitute. Human sin is acquitted, individually, based on the human response to the benefits made in Christ’s act. However, as stated above, the theory could retrieve from the early nineteenth century Methodist theologian, John Miley, a hypothetically necessary atonement because it seems peculiar that God could not bring about atonement in another way in any possible world. Crisp summarizes what is at stake for the necessity of the atonement in three parts. First, “Atonement was necessary for the salvation of some number of fallen human beings.” Second, as “Some act of atonement was necessary for the salvation of some number of fallen human beings.” Third and finally, as “A particular act of atonement was necessary for the salvation of some number of fallen human beings.”48 On a hypothetical necessity understanding of penal non-substitution, atonement becomes necessary based on God’s ordination to save the “elect” and to provide the atonement by one particular means—Christ’s act on the cross. Thus, the atonement is neither random nor is it based on the divine will alone.49
Again, what we aim to show next is that not only did Edwards Jr (also represented in the tradition he inspired—Gelston) affirm penal non-substitution, but penal substitution with some elements of the governmental theory. Accordingly, we will see that retribution is fundamental for penal substitution and that rectoral justice is dependent upon it—retribution is necessary for the moral government of the world and God’s moral government fits into his providential control. And with this we transition into Crisp’s discussion of:
B—Divine will, moral law, and atonement
There appears to be a deeper problem with the moral government theory of atonement. The problem seems to amount to the notion that God is supremely free to save in the manner he chooses. This means that laws are always contingent upon divine arbitration—laws are mutable, and are not internal to God’s nature—and as such not binding on God in any way. Some would call this “legal voluntarism” where the moral law(s) are rooted in an act of God’s will alone. The contemporary defender of legal voluntarism can avert the challenge in two ways. First, he can defend a modified voluntarism. On a modified voluntarism, the moral law is based upon the divine will, this is true, but the divine will is somehow always reflecting of the divine nature in the human context. In this way, if God’s moral law is primarily rectoral in nature, and this somehow reflects his nature, then it is perfectly within his right and just to relax the punitive consequences of the law, once again, so long as God has made right the moral order in which humans find themselves. The moral law, in some sense, then, is binding on God, once it is set in motion, because it reflects his nature and is contingent up what has already been divinely determined about the moral order in which he has created humans. In a similar way, a defender of penal non-substitution could
