"It will be perceived from these extracts that the Tridentine theologian regarded 'justification' as prospective and not retrospective, in its essential nature. It is not the forgiveness of 'sins that are past,' but the cure and prevention of sins that are present and future. The element of guilt is lost sight of, and the piacular [expiatory] work of Christ is lost sight of with it; and the whole work of redemption is interpreted to be merely a method of purification. Thus the Tridentine theory implies, logically, that sin is not guilt, but only disease and pollution. Furthermore, according to the papal theory, justification is not instantaneous, but successive. It is not a single and complete act upon the part of God, but a gradual process in the soul of man. For it is founded upon that inward holiness or love which has been infused by divine grace."[A]
[Footnote A: History Christian Doctrine—Shedd—Vol. II, p. 326.]
There is still another class of Christians entertaining views upon the Atonement whose ideas ought to be presented and yet are extremely difficult to classify, as they may neither be called Protestant nor Catholic. They are a modern product, accepting the conclusions of what is called "higher criticism," and the doctrine of evolution. They make a wide departure from the old conception of the doctrine of Atonement as of all things else in the old Christian theological schools, and yet retain a respect and I may say a veneration for the Christ, and seek to give him place in the order of things as conceived by them. For want of a better title I have called their conception of the work of Christ, "The Modern Liberal View," which, while it may not be as perfectly descriptive as could be desired, will not, I trust, be offensive, and will serve the mere purpose of classification.
Perhaps the most complete statement, in concise form, of this Liberal View is made by Dr. Lyman Abbott in his "Theology of an Evolutionist," published in 1897. I begin his statement with what he says of sin.
"Innocence, Temptation, Fall, Sin:This is the biography of every man, save only Him who passed from innocence to virtue through temptation, yet without sin. Man cannot grow from innocence to virtue without temptation; he cannot experience temptation without a possibility of sin,—that is, of yielding to temptation; and yielding to temptation is fall. Every man when he yields to temptation and sins falls from a higher to a lower, from a spiritual to an animal condition. He falls back from that state from which he had begun to emerge. It is true that the animal man is worse in his animalism than the animal from which he has emerged or is emerging. The ferocity of the tiger is no match for that of the ferocious man; the intemperance of the brute is far less than that of the brutalized man. How can it be otherwise when the higher powers which God has conferred upon him are subordinated to and made the instruments of his animalism?
"Sin, then, is not a means to good. It is not "good in the making." The fall is not a "fall upward." Every yielding to temptation is a hindrance, not a help, to moral development; but every temptation offers what, rightly employed, is an indispensable means of moral development. For all moral development is through temptation to virtue. There can be no virtue without temptation; for virtue is victory over temptation. An untempted soul may be innocent, but cannot be virtuous, for virtue is the choice of right when wrong presses itself upon us and demands our choosing. How can we have courage, unless there is danger and apprehension of the danger? How can we have patience, unless there are burdens? How can we have fidelity, unless there is some trust to be maintained, and some temptation calling on us to leave the trust and be false to it? The scorn of "goody-goody" is justified, for "goody-goody" is innocence, not virtue; and the boy who never does anything wrong because he never does anything at all is of no use in the world. Temptation is struggle, and virtue emerges from struggle. And we cannot have the choice of right without the possibility of doing wrong; and choosing wrong is sin; and sin is fall; because it is choosing the animal from which we are emerging rather than the spiritual condition into which we have partially emerged.
The Means of Salvation: Saved by the Blood—i. e., The Life of the Christ:"Vicarious sacrifice is not an episode. It is the universal law of life. Life comes only from life. This is the first proposition. Lifegiving costs the life-giver something. That is the second proposition. Pain is travail-pain, birth-pain; and it is a part of the divine order—that is, of the order of nature—that the birth of a higher life should always be through the pain of another.
"This is the law of God,—that is, the nature of God. For the laws of God are not edicts promulgated; they are the expressions of Himself; and the law that life comes only by the pouring out of life through suffering is an expression of the divine nature. This is the meaning of Paul's teaching in the eighth chapter of Romans: first, that it is the universal law that all life is by impartation of life; and, secondly, that this is universal because it is divine; that God Himself is the great Life-giver, and gives by His own suffering His life to the children of men.
"This, too, is what is meant by that statement so dear to some and so shocking to others,—that we are saved by the blood of Christ. Let us try for a moment to disabuse our minds of traditional opinions and see what that phrase means looked at in the light of history. Is 'the blood of Christ' the blood which flowed from Him at the crucifixion? His was almost a bloodless death; a few drops of blood only trickled from the pierced hands and feet; for the blood and water that came from the side when the spear pierced it came after death, when the suffering was all over. Blood, the Bible itself declares, is life; we are saved by the blood of Christ when we are saved by the life of Christ, by Christ's own life imparted to us, by Christ's life transmitted; and by Christ's life transmitted, as life alone can be transmitted, through the gateway of pain and suffering. The suffering of Jesus Christ was not a single episode,—one short hour, one short three years: the suffering of Jesus Christ was the revelation of the eternal fact that God is from eternity the Life-giver, and that giving life costs God something as it costs us something."
Meaning of Revelation and the Struggle for Righteousness:"Knowledge of the truth, clearness of apprehension and tenacity of grasp upon it, are developed by struggle with error. Revelation is not a divine contrivance for saving men from struggle, but a divine incitement to and encouragement in struggle! Virtue is developed by struggle with temptation. Grace is not an easy bestowment of virtue on an unstruggling creature, but such aid as is necessary to inspire the courage of hope and give assurance of victory. But struggle is for others as well as for self: the struggle of love as well as of self-interest; the struggle of parents for their offspring, of reformers for the state, of martyrs for the church. And these struggles all point to and are prophetic for the service and the sacrifice of the Son of God. For this struggle of love is divine. It belongs not to the infirmity of humanity, but is an essential element in that process of evolution which is God's way of doing things.
"It is only by human experiences that we can interpret the Divine. * * * * We shall never enter into the mystery of redemption unless we enter in some measure into these two experiences of wrath and pity, and into the mystery of their reconciliation. We must realize that God has an infinite and eternal loathing of sin. If the impure and the unjust, the drunkard and the licentious, are loathsome to us, what must be the infinite loathing of an infinitely pure Spirit for those who are worldly and selfish, licentious and cruel, ambitious and animal! But with this great loathing is a great pity. And the pity conquers the loathing, appeases it, satisfies it, is reconciled with it, only as it redeems the sinner from his loathsomeness, lifts him up from his degradation, brings him to truth and purity, to love and righteousness; for only thus is he or can he be brought to God. The Old Theology has, it seems to me, grievously erred in personifying these two experiences; in imputing all the hate and wrath to the Father and all the pity and compassion to the Son. But the New Theology will still more grievously err if it leaves either the wrath or the pity out of its estimate of the divine nature, or fails to see and teach that reconciliation is the reconciliation of a great pity with a great wrath, the issue of which is a great mercy and a great redemption. * * * * *
"There are many in the Church of Christ who think of God as a just and punitive God, who must be satisfied either by penalty laid on the guilty, or by an equivalent for the penalty. That is one form of paganism. There are many who, reacting against that conception, think of God, as an indifferent, careless God, who does not care much about iniquity, does not trouble Himself about it, is not disturbed by it! That is another form of paganism. And there are many who try to solve the problem by thinking of two Gods, a just God and a merciful God, and imagining that the merciful God by the sacrifice of Himself appeases the wrath of the just God. That also is a modified form of paganism. The one transcendent truth which distinguishes Christianity from all forms of paganism is that it represents God as appeasing His own wrath or satisfying His own justice by the forth-putting of His own love. But He saves men from their sins by an experience which we can interpret to ourselves only by calling it a struggle between the sentiments of justice and pity."