about God in a philosophical tone of voice, it is equally impossible to “believe” them “by faith.” According to this doctrine of meaning, there is literally nothing to be believed.
This verificational analysis of meaning fell onto hard times in the later part of the twentieth century, since (among other problems) it could not account for its own nontautological, nonemotive, apparently assertive (but not empirically verifiable) meaning. But a closely related challenge to the unfalsifiability of theistic claims forced careful rethinking by theists. If, as Antony Flew demanded, every possible state of affairs is compatible with theistic belief—if, that is, nothing could conceivably falsify such claims—then is anything definite being claimed at all? What is the “bottom line” difference between a theist and an atheist? Has theism died the “death of a thousand qualifications”?
A remarkable episode in twentieth-century Christian theology occurred when certain theologians took all these criticisms to heart and embraced the “death of God” within their theological work. The movement, extending mainly through the decade of the 1960s, was highly diverse in method and content. Gabriel Vahanian was misunderstood if considered an atheist at all; Paul M. Van Buren blended dismissive elements from logical positivism with Barthian neoorthodoxy; Thomas Altizer affirmed genuine atheism of a most unusual sort, holding that God had in fact died at a point in history in order to set human history free and to save it; Bishop John A. T. Robinson spoke of the absence of God “out there” but retained an impenetrable Tillichian ambiguity about what might be real “deep down” at reaches of being accessible only by subjectivity.
Atheism, though mainly a minority opinion, has flourished in different forms since the rise of critical thought in human history. Various atheisms abound in our own time. It is wise to remember that by the standard that condemned Anaxagoras to exile we would all be declared atheists. That the moon is made of rock is not, after all, religiously shocking in the setting of theism today.
The circumstances of theistic belief are constantly changing, though the changes are often too slow or complex for a living generation to notice. One of the agents of this change within any historical context is the atheism of its time. Atheism, as primarily a counterattacking position, is the critical voice that constantly opens new possibilities for thought about the ultimately real. When this voice is heard with care, new possibilities of theism may be suggested. What shall “God” mean in the future? Every meaning of “God” presupposes a theoretical framework of some sort, old or new, familiar or alien. Within these frameworks, whether derived from A. N. Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, Teilhard de Chardin, or some other source, God-talk is provided its function and is related to other domains of thought and life. Atheism is the rejection of some specific sort of God-talk, whether by disbelief or dismissal. As long as such rejection is encouraged to be clearly articulated, theological dross is subjected to cleansing fires of criticism, and the human project of relating cognitively and practically to the most high and the most real is advanced.
FREDERICK FERRÉ
Bibliography
Thomas J. J., Altizer, The Gospel of Christian Atheism.
A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic.
Paul Edwards, “Atheism,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volume 1.
Antony Flew, and Alasdair Maclntyre, eds., New Essays in Philosophical Theology.
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section XI.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology.
Cross-Reference: Agnosticism, Ambiguity, Death of God Theology, Evil, God, Language–Religious, Theism.
ATONEMENT
Atonement (“atonement,” a sixteenth-century coinage) is the reconciliation of sinners with God, especially through the cross, as communicated through the gospel and the sacraments. The cross is proclaimed as somehow resolving the human predicament; but the predicament and its resolution can be understood in quite different ways. Is the problem in humans’ relation to the powers of evil, in their relation to God, or within themselves?
1. The patristic emphasis was on the first of these, the powers of evil. If human beings are in bondage to the devil (collectively the “powers of evil”), then they must be redeemed by paying a “ransom.” But how? to whom? by what? In using the metaphor of the devil’s being lured by the bait of Christ’s humanity, patristic writers suggested that the powers of evil overstepped their authority and discredited themselves. Although the powers of evil may have had a legitimate claim over sinners, who had yielded to temptation and were bound by guilt, they did not have the same claim over Christ, who, after identifying himself with sinners and captives, and being accused and executed as though he were a sinner, was vindicated by God in his resurrection. Thus, all those who attach themselves to Christ through faith and baptism are freed from the devil. In this way patristic theologians considered that Christ provided a ransom for humans’ sins and bondage to evil.
Although this “ransom” motif is often despised as crass and mythological, it manifests some of the processes of scapegoating and victimization of which liberation movements have made us newly aware. Liberation theology concerns domination by the powers of evil, whose claim is expressed in “structures of evil” and enforced through a combination of guilt and fear. In liberation the framework of legalism (which can be “just” as well as oppressive) is not simply abolished; rather, it is brought to defeat itself in its very administration. Through inflicting undeserved suffering the powers of domination are unmasked and discredited, losing moral authority in the forum of public opinion. The captives are not only freed from moral and psychological bondage but are empowered for a new mode of life.
2. Atonement as a change in the human relationship to God is present in New Testament and patristic thought, especially in the motif of sacrifice, either as “expiating” human sins or as “propitiating” God’s anger, but it was not developed into a theory until the medieval and Reformation periods.
Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo set the stage by thinking of God on the model of the feudal overlord whose honor is offended by sinful humanity. God’s justice requires either punishment (involuntary suffering and damnation) or satisfaction (making up for the offense through voluntary suffering, a model for which was at hand in the practice of penance). In keeping with the second possibility, satisfaction is offered by Christ as God-human, whose acts are not only sinless, but of infinite merit.
The Reformers shifted the focus from God’s honor, which can be satisfied through penitential sacrifice, to God’s wrath, which seems rather to demand punishment. Thus Christ is viewed as the “substitute” for sinful humanity, bearing the full force of God’s wrath and rejection on the cross.
Because this theory involves an “exchange” between a sinful humanity, which deserves God’s condemnation, and the sinless Christ, who enacts God’s love, it seems to introduce a division, or at least a tension, into God. Salvation, to be sure, is initiated by God, in order to accomplish God’s initial purposes for creation; but it is presented as resolving a problem “within God,” as though the Son must satisfy the conditions of divine justice, or even propitiate the Father’s wrath, in order that sinners be forgiven or justified.
All theories of this type, furthermore, view suffering, and even punishment, as salvific—an assumption that has been questioned on moral and psychological grounds, most recently by liberation and feminist theologians who see it as a reinforcement of domination and abuse. And yet in today’s theology the cross is often
