Idle musings by a once again bookseller, always bibliophile, current copyeditor and proofreader. Complete with ramblings about biblical studies, the ancient Near East, bicycling, gardening, or anything else I am reading (or experiencing). All more or less live from Red Wing, MN
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
More than juridical
“To affirm a juridical element in the atonement does not mean, however that we should reduce the atonement to juridical elements, to law court scenes, or to notions of personal forgiveness of sins. When I speak about the juridicizing of the atonement, I have in mind a form of reductionism that limits the divine-human relationship to juridical categories, and that views the cross solely in terms of laws, infractions, judicial pronouncements, forgiveness, and punishment”—Hans Boersma, quoted in A Community Called Atonement, p. 95
I find that really helpful. I find myself deeply drawn to approaches such as N. T. Wright's, but for a long time I struggled with the tension that seemed to pose to my deep love of the doctrine of penal substitution. I was thus deeply relieved to find Write affirming this doctrine (though in the same qualified tones as here) in an article on the website Fulcrum.
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