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Atonement and Reconciliation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Vincent Brümmer
Vincent Brümmer
Affiliation:
Faculty of Theology, Utrecht University, Box 80105, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands
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Extract

Religious believers understand the meaning of their lives in the light of the way in which they are related to God. Life is significant because it is lived in the presence of God, and ultimate bliss consists in being in the right relation with God. Through sin, however, our relationship with God has been drastically disrupted. The fundamental religious issue which we all have to face, therefore, is how this relationship can be restored. How can we attain ultimate bliss by being reconciled with God? Basically, this is the issue with which the doctrine of atonement has to deal:

The English word ‘atonement’ is derived from the words ‘at-one-ment’, to make two parties at one, to reconcile two parties one to another. It means essentially reconciliation… In current usage, the phrase ‘to atone for’ means the undertaking of a course of action designed to undo the consequences of a wrong act with a view to the restoration of the relationship broken by the wrong act.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , December 1992 , pp. 435 - 452
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 Atkinson, James, ‘Atonement’, in Alan, Richardson (ed.), A Dictionary of Christian Theology (London 1969), 18Google Scholar. See also Burnaby, John, Christian Words and Christian Meanings (London 1955), 95–96Google Scholar.

2 I have also developed these distinctions elsewhere. See my What are we Doing when we Pray? (London 1984)Google Scholar and chapters 3 and 6 of my Speaking of a Personal God. An Essay in Philosophical Theology (forthcoming: Cambridge 1992)Google Scholar. For a similar distinction between three types of relationship, see Macmurray, John, Persons in Relation (London 1961), chapters 5–7Google Scholar.

3 Strawson, P. F., Freedom and Resentment and other Essays (London 1974), 9Google Scholar.

4 For a similar distinction between ‘primary and secondary relationships’, see Vate, Dwight Van de Jr, Romantic Love (London 1981)Google Scholar, 19f. See also Cooley, C. H., Social Organization (New York 1909)Google Scholar. See also the distinction between ‘personal and business relations’ made in Lucas, John, Freedom and Grace (London 1976), 57–58Google Scholar.

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13 ‘Etymologically, of course, there is no difference between penance and penitence; both come from the same Latin source, poenitentia, but the existence of the two words in English makes it possible for us to distinguish between penitence, as an inner state, and penance, as a manifestation of it in action.’ Hodges, H. A., The Pattern of Atonement (London 1955), 54.Google Scholar

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26 I have also developed these points elsewhere. See my What are we doing when we Pray? 82–85.

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33 V. Brümmer, Speaking of a Personal God, sections 4.3 and 4.4.

34 Phillips, The Concept of Prayer, 63.

35 Burnaby, Christian Words and Christian Meanings, 94–95.

36 This paper was presented at the conference of The Christian Philosophers' Group in Oxford during September 1991. I wish to thank all the participants who helped me by their comments and criticisms, and especially Paul Helm, Colin Gunton and John Hick, whose comments prompted me to alter the original version.