Everything about Christus Victor totally explained
===Gustaf Aulén's Christus Victor===The term
Christus Victor comes from the title of
Gustaf Aulén's groundbreaking book first published in 1931 where he drew attention back to this classical early church's understanding of the
Atonement. In it Aulén identifies three main types of Atonement Theories: the earliest was what Aulen called the "classical" view of the Atonement, more commonly known as
Ransom Theory or since Aulén's work known sometimes as the "Christus Victor" theory: this is the theory that Adam and Eve sold humanity to the Devil during the Fall, hence justice required that God pay the Devil a ransom to free us from the Devil, which God did by tricking the Devil into accepting Christ's death as a ransom since the Devil didn't realize that Christ couldn't die permanently. A second theory is the "Latin" or "objective" view, more commonly known as
Satisfaction Theory, beginning with
Anselmian Satisfaction (that Christ suffered as a substitute on behalf of humankind satisfying the demands of God's honor) and later developed by
Protestants as
penal substitution (that Christ is punished instead of humanity, thus satisfying the demands of justice so that God can justly forgive).
A third is the "subjective" theory, commonly known as the
Moral Influence view, that Christ's passion was an act of exemplary obedience which affects the intentions of those who come to know about it: it dates back to the early Christian authors and was championed by Abelard.
Aulén's book consists of a historical study beginning with the early church and tracing their Atonement theories up to the Protestant Reformation. Aulén argues that Christus Victor (or as Aulén called it the "classical view") was the predominant view of the early church and for the first thousand years of church history and was supported by nearly every
Church Father including
Irenaeus,
Origen, and
Augustine to name a few. A major shift occurred, Aulén says, when
Anselm of Canterbury published his “Cur Deus Homo” around 1097 AD which marked the point where the predominant understanding of the Atonement shifted from the classical view (Christus Victor) to the
Satisfaction view in the
Catholic and later the
Protestant Church. The
Orthodox Church still holds to the Christus Victor view, based upon their understanding of the Atonement put forward by Irenaeus, called
"recapitulation" Jesus became what we're so that we could become what he is. (see also
Theosis).
Aulén argues that theologians have misunderstood the view of the early
Church Fathers in seeing their view of the Atonement in terms of a
Ransom Theory arguing that a proper understanding of their view should focus less on the payment of ransom to the devil, and more of the liberation of humanity from the bondage of sin, death, and the devil. As the term
Christus Victor (Christ the Victor) indicates, the idea of “ransom” shouldn't be seen in terms (as Anselm did) of a business transaction, but more in the terms of a rescue or liberation of humanity from the slavery of sin.
Unlike the
Satisfaction Doctrine view of the Atonement (the “Latin” view) which is rooted in the idea of Christ paying the penalty of sin to
satisfy the demands of justice, the “classic” view of the Early church (Christus Victor) is rooted in the
Incarnation and how Christ entered into human misery and wickedness and thus redeemed it. Aulén argues that Christus Victor view of the Atonement isn't so much a rational systematic theory as it's a drama, a passion story of God triumphing over the Powers and liberating humanity from the bondage of sin. As Gustav Aulén writes,
Development of the Christus Victor view after Aulén
While largely held only by
Eastern Orthodox Christians for much of the last one thousand years, the Christus Victor theory is becoming increasingly popular with both
paleo-orthodox evangelicals because of its connection to the early Church fathers, and with
liberal Christians and
peace churches such as the
Anabaptist Mennonites because of its subversive nature, seeing the death of Jesus as an exposure of the cruelty and evil present in the worldly powers that rejected and killed him, and the resurrection as a triumph over these powers. As
Marcus Borg writes,
The
Mennonite theologian
J. Denny Weaver, in his book “The Nonviolent Atonement” and again recently in his essay "The Nonviolent Atonement: Human Violence, Discipleship and God," traces the further development of the Christus Victor theory (or as he calls it “Narrative Christus Victor”) into the
Liberation Theology of South America, as well as
Feminist and Black theologies of liberation
This trend among Progressive and Liberal Christians towards the Christus Victor view of the Atonement marks a shift from the traditional approach of liberal Christianity to the Atonement known as the
Moral Influence view espoused by theologians such as
Schleiermacher.
==
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