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B. HISTORICAL VIEWS RESPECTING THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.
On this subject there has been considerable difference of opinion. The following positions
should be distinguished:
1. THAT THE ATONEMENT WAS NOT NECESSARY.
The Nominalists of the Middle Ages generally
regarded it as something purely arbitrary. According to Duns Scotus it was not inherently
necessary, but was determined by the arbitrary will of God. He denied the infinite value of the
sufferings of Christ, and regarded them as a mere equivalent for the satisfaction due, which
God was pleased to accept as such. In his estimation God might have accepted any other
substitute, and might even have carried on the work of redemption without demanding any
satisfaction at all. Socinus also denied the necessity of the atonement. He removed the
foundation pillar for such a necessity by the denial of such justice in God as required absolutely
and inexorably that sin be punished. For him the justice of God meant only His moral equity and
rectitude, by virtue of which there is no depravity or iniquity in any of His works. Hugo Grotius
followed his denial on the basis of the consideration that the law of God was a positive
enactment of His will, which He could relax and could also set aside altogether. The Arminians
shared his views on this point. One and all denied that it was necessary for God to proceed in a
judicial way in the manifestation of His grace, and maintained that He might have forgiven sin
without demanding satisfaction. Schleiermacher and Ritschl, who had a dominating influence
on modern theology, broke completely with the judicial conception of the atonement. As
advocates of the mystical and moral influence theories of the atonement, they deny the fact of
an objective atonement, and therefore by implication also its necessity. With them and with
modern liberal theology in general atonement becomes merely at-one-ment or reconciliation
effected by changing the moral condition of the sinner. Some speak of a moral necessity, but
refuse to recognize any legal necessity.
2. THAT IT WAS RELATIVELY OR HYPOTHETICALLY NECESSARY.
Some of the most prominent
Church Fathers, such as Athanasius, Augustine, and Aquinas, denied the absolute necessity of
the atonement and ascribed to it merely a hypothetical necessity. Thomas Aquinas thus
differed from Anselm on the one hand, but also from Duns Scotus on the other hand. This is
also the position taken by the Reformers. Principal Franks says that Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin
all avoided the Anselmian doctrine of the absolute necessity of the atonement, and ascribed to
it only a relative or hypothetical necessity, based on the sovereign free will of God, or in other
words, on the divine decree. This opinion is shared by Seeberg, Mosley, Stevens, Mackintosh,
Bavinck, Honig, and others. Cf. also Turretin, on The Atonement of Christ, p. 14. Calvin says: “It
deeply concerned us, that He who was to be our Mediator should be very God and very man. If
the necessity be inquired into, it was not what is commonly called simple or absolute, but