~Christus Victor~ the classic view - Gustaf Aulén 1969. An influential book that seeks to classify the historical views on the Atonement from the standpoint of a cyclic adoption and rejection of the typical Christian view, or, in Dr. Auléns phrase, the classic idea of the Atonement. While the initial construct is catching the reader should be cautioned that it is a work of a high clergyman and deals with the subject matter at the academic level. The essence of the Christus Victor view is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself- the view that sets the Incarnation in direct connection with the Atonement, and proclaims that it is God Himself who was in Christ has delivered mankind from the power of evil. It is not until later on that the classic idea that ...redemption is, from first to last, the work of God Himself. That should help the unfamiliar reader be sufficiently alerted to the fact that theres some serious qualification of the Christus Victor model yet to come. And they would be correct to be guarded in their reading. In picking up Christus Victor again recently I was going through forward by Jaroslav Pelikan and realize that I had not ever given sufficient attention to that part of the book before. I was troubled to find the following lauded as influential in moving the doctrine in the right direction Nevertheless, if Auléns description of the Classic idea is historically accurate, one has to raise questions about the definition of the absolute nature of God with which many exponents of the idea have linked it. Is such a concept as the divine impassibility or apatheia finally adequate to characterize a God who redeems as the classic idea says he does? In American theology, thanks largely to the influence of the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, the question of the nature of the deity of God has become a vital issue; Aulén shows that Christian theology must raise the question not only as part of its conversation with philosophy, but as part of its own vocation. May want to read that last paragraph again...
Posted on: Sat, 15 Feb 2014 19:51:05 +0000
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