Moral influence, recapitulation and healing

Program / Course 9: Christology and Pneumatology / Lesson 5.4

What you will learn

• Explain the moral influence view as Peter Abelard and later writers stated it.
• Explain Irenaeus’s idea of recapitulation and the Eastern idea of healing and deification.
• Identify biblical texts used for each model.
• State the main objections to each model and the way its supporters answer.

The big idea

Some models of the atonement look not to a payment or a battle but to a change in human beings. The moral influence view, associated with Peter Abelard, holds that the cross reveals God’s love so powerfully that it awakens love in return. Recapitulation, from Irenaeus, holds that Christ goes through every stage of human life and sums up humanity in himself, undoing Adam’s failure. Eastern theology adds that the Son took human nature to heal it and bring it into the life of God. These models stress transformation, and critics ask whether they say enough about guilt and the need for forgiveness.

Key terms

Moral influence view

The view that Christ’s death saves by showing God’s love and inspiring repentance and love in people. Also called the exemplarist or subjective view.

Recapitulation

From a Greek word used in Ephesians 1:10 for summing up or gathering together. In Irenaeus, Christ repeats and renews the stages of human life, reversing Adam’s disobedience.

Theosis (deification)

The Eastern teaching that human beings are called to share in the life of God by grace. Athanasius said the Son became man so that humans might become divine. It does not mean becoming God by nature.

Ancestral sin

The Eastern way of speaking about the inheritance of Adam’s fall, stressing death and weakness more than inherited guilt.

Exemplar

A model to follow. First Peter 2:21 says Christ left an example, and some theories rest on this.

Abelard

Peter Abelard (1079 to 1142), a French philosopher and theologian whose commentary on Romans gave a classic statement of the moral influence view.

Participation

Sharing in the life of God through Christ, a theme of 2 Peter 1:4 and a key idea in Eastern teaching.

Background

Models that stress transformation have deep roots. They are not new or merely liberal. Irenaeus in the second century, Athanasius in the fourth and many Eastern writers after them taught that salvation means the renewal of human nature. Abelard in the twelfth century stressed the power of love to change the heart.

In the modern period the moral influence view was taken up by liberal Protestants such as Horace Bushnell and Hastings Rashdall. Its critics say it was thinned out to a bare example. This lesson gives the older forms their due and then asks how far they stand alone.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Abelard and love

Abelard objected to the idea that God needed to be paid, whether by the devil or by satisfaction. In his commentary on Romans he argued that it would be cruel to demand the blood of an innocent person. He taught that Christ’s death is the supreme demonstration of God’s love. Seeing it, people are moved to love God in return, and love is what removes sin. Romans 5:8 and 1 John 4:10 are among his texts.

Bernard of Clairvaux opposed Abelard fiercely, and a council at Sens in 1141 condemned some of his propositions. Scholars debate how far Abelard denied an objective effect of the cross. Some argue that he held that Christ’s love really justifies and does more than inspire. Later writers, however, took his view in a purely subjective direction.

Step 2: Modern forms and strengths

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Bushnell, Rashdall and others made the moral influence view central. They argued that the cross reveals the character of God, which is love and not wrath. This model attracts those who find legal or penal language alien. It is also simple and morally powerful, and it fits the emphasis on Jesus’s teaching and example.

Its biblical basis includes 1 Peter 2:21, John 13:15, Romans 5:8 and 1 John 3:16: “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.” The Gospels also present Christ as teacher and pattern.

Step 3: Objections to moral influence

Critics raise several questions. If the cross only reveals love, why was a death needed? A person who risks drowning to save a child shows love, but a person who merely stages a dramatic gesture does not save anyone. Also, many New Testament texts speak of what Christ does for sinners, such as ransom and sacrifice, and not only what he shows.

The model also seems to leave out the power of sin. If people are bound, can a good example free them? Supporters reply that love is the power that changes hearts, and that the cross is more than an example. Many who use the model do so alongside others.

Step 4: Recapitulation in Irenaeus

Irenaeus, in Against Heresies, taught that Christ sums up in himself the whole of human history. He becomes what humans are and passes through every stage of life, from infancy to death, and so renews and sanctifies it. Where Adam disobeyed at a tree, Christ obeys on a tree. Where Eve listened to a serpent, Mary listened to an angel. The pattern of Romans 5 is stretched across the whole of Christ’s life.

Irenaeus also wrote that Christ became what human beings are in order to make them what he is. The idea is that humanity, fallen and bound for death, is restored by being rejoined to God in Christ. This is a model of renewal, and it also includes victory over the devil and the ending of death.

Step 5: Healing and deification in the East

Athanasius wrote that the Son became man so that human beings might become divine. Gregory of Nazianzus said that what is not assumed is not healed. Eastern writers speak of sin as sickness, death as the disease that results, and Christ as the physician. The goal is theosis: sharing in the divine life by grace, as 2 Peter 1:4 says, “partakers of the divine nature.”

In this picture the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection and the Spirit work together. Salvation is a process of union and growth. Western critics ask whether the picture leaves enough room for guilt, forgiveness and the gravity of sin. Eastern writers answer that the West’s legal model risks making salvation external, and they point to the cross as full of divine love and victory.

1. What did Abelard find objectionable in the idea of paying God or the devil?
2. Why is a purely exemplary view of the cross often judged incomplete?
3. How does Irenaeus use the parallel of Adam and Christ?
4. What does it mean to say humans share in the divine nature without becoming God?
5. Why might the language of sickness and healing be helpful, and where does it fall short?
6. How might a supporter of penal substitution respond to the claim that the cross is mainly about love?

Examples

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic teaching includes the themes of love, example and participation in divine life. The Catechism speaks of the cross as revealing God’s love and of grace as a sharing in the life of the Trinity, together with sacrifice and satisfaction. Abelard’s teaching was partly condemned.

Orthodox

Orthodox theology makes recapitulation, healing and deification central. It holds that the incarnation is itself saving, and stresses that sin is a sickness that leads to death. It is wary of making forensic categories primary.

Protestant, liberal

Liberal Protestants have often favored the moral influence view because of its emphasis on love and example. They hold that it avoids the problems of penal and ransom models.

Protestant, Reformed and evangelical

These traditions usually accept the biblical themes of love, example and union with Christ, but hold that the moral influence view alone is inadequate, since Scripture speaks of Christ bearing sin. They sometimes cite John Calvin on union with Christ as the means of sharing his benefits.

Critical perspectives

Some philosophers say the exemplarist view fails because an example cannot cancel sin. Some theologians say recapitulation is not an atonement theory in the strict sense but a larger frame. Others disagree.

Why it matters

These models restore balance by asking what the work of Christ does for human nature and for human love, not only for the debt of sin. They also show the large common ground between East and West on participation in Christ, though they use different words.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. Do you find the cross more convincing as a revelation of love or as an act done for you?
2. What does it mean for a human being to share in the divine life?
3. Which language, sickness or guilt, speaks more to your sense of what is wrong?
4. Can a model be incomplete and still true?

Independent assignment

Three images of renewal

In your own notebook, write 500 to 700 words. Summarize Abelard, Irenaeus and the Eastern teaching on deification in one paragraph each, citing one text for each. Then write a paragraph comparing them with the satisfaction model of the previous lesson, noting what each says about the problem of sin and the way out. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study

• Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies Read Book 3 chapter 18 and Book 5 preface on recapitulation.
• Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word Read chapter 54 for the saying about becoming divine.
• Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church Read the chapters on deification in Orthodox thought.
• Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ Read for a modern discussion of love, example and the cross.
• Romans 5:8 God commendeth his love toward us.
• 1 Peter 2:21 Christ left an example.
• 2 Peter 1:4 Partakers of the divine nature.
• Ephesians 1:10 To gather together in one all things in Christ.