Eugene England - Unsatisfactory Theories of Atonement

The question “Why is man’s salvation dependent on Christ and the events surrounding his death?” is the most central and the most difficult question in Christian theology. The answers (and there are many) are, as i have said, the chief scandal of Christianity to the non-believer. Attempts to define logical theories of the Atonement based on New Testament scriptures have been largely contradictory and ultimately futile—mainly because the New Testament is not a book of theology, a logical treatise, but rather gives us the reactions, the varied emotional responses, of men to the Atonement as they experienced it and tried to find images for their joy. Some men clearly felt released from the powers of evil and darkness which they believed, much more literally than any of us today, were all about them. Some believed that their souls had been bought from the devil. Some felt that Christ had taken their place in suffering the just and necessary punishment under the law for their sins. The explanation i have tried to develop, based largely on Book of Mormon scriptures, is at significant variance with most of these theories, especially on one major point: The redemptive effect of the Atonement depends on how an individual man responds to it rather than on some independent effect on the universe or God, which theories such as the ransom theory, the substitution theory, the satisfaction theory, etc., all tend to imply. of course, the rich reality of the Atonement lies beyond any theory or explanation, including the one I am suggesting here, and some men bring themselves into redeeming relationship with God from within the framework of each of these theories as they somehow reach through to that rich reality. But the need for powerful personal response and for a release from the immobilizing demands of justice within man seem to me crucial and best served by an explanation different from the traditional theories.

Eugene England, "That They Might Not Suffer"