Introduction
Introduction
In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's classic work Crime and Punishment the character Raskolnikov commits a murder and is almost driven insane by getting away with it. Raskolnikov only comes to find peace of mind in owning up to the wrong he committed and willingly taking on the punishment that was his due. Dostoyevsky's plot turns on the notion that wrongdoing deserves punishment and that receiving the punishment one deserves is good not only for society and the victim but also for the wrongdoer. But much changes when we turn from Dostoyevsky's mid-nineteenth century Russian context to a late twentieth century, North American retelling of Crime and Punishment in the movie Crimes and Misdemeanors written and directed by Woody Allen. Allen's movie takes place in a historical and cultural context in which not getting caught, or barring that, having one's felony reduced to a misdemeanor is the name of the game. True to this setting, the murderer in Allen's film, Dr. Rosenthal, is able to find peace of mind in getting away with his crime and avoiding punishment altogether. In Allen's tale punishment is more of an obstacle to be avoided than a fitting consequence to be received.1
The difference between these two stories is extremely relevant when it comes to the doctrine of penal substitution, for it seems that most of the contemporary objections to the view that Christ suffered the punitive consequences of human sin on behalf of sinners are fueled by the fact that we in the West find ourselves more in the world of Dr. Rosenthal than Raskolnikov. The doctrine of penal substitution does not make sense to many of us because, unlike Raskolnikov, punishment in general no longer makes sense to us. The idea that the infliction of punishment is required for our offenses, let alone that punishment is good for all involved, is a bit fuzzy in many minds. Indeed, a recent philosophical publication argues that the practice of legal punishment should be abolished altogether.2 While few would go that far, the emergence of such a point of view is indicative of an increasing tendency to see an emphasis on punishment as in some sense outdated or inhumane. The common idea is that we, let alone God, have moved beyond such primitive and violent ways of dealing with our anger. The importance of surfacing this shift in intuitions regarding punishment is to highlight the difficulty that the doctrine of penal substitution will have in receiving a fair hearing in such a Rosenthalian moral climate.
If the moral concepts that once served to make sense of the doctrine of penal substitution are no longer as predominant as they once were, then this will have implications for how the gospel might best be communicated in our contemporary setting. Moreover, it helps to explain why there has been a recent resurgence of objectors to penal substitution.3 The question that is pressed is whether the theory of penal substitution is, shifting moral intuitions aside, an adequate explanation of the cross of Christ.
Certainly the primary arena in which this question should be decided is biblical studies. And yet critics of penal substitution often question the doctrine's moral tenability before questioning its biblical credentials. For instance, Keith Ward writes, “One must therefore reject those crude accounts of Christian doctrine which…say that Christ has been justly punished in our place so that he has taken away our guilt and enabled God to forgive us. Almost everything is ethically wrong about these accounts.”4 Or as Paul Moser puts it:
Unfortunately, some of the Christian tradition has offered a twisted reading of Jesus' role in divine forgiveness. The misguided reading implies that God's forgiveness of humans required that God punish and kill the sinless Jesus as the “just payment” for human sins. The source of this morally distorted claim isn't in the New Testament but rather is in later theology that suffers from a wooden misreading of Isaiah 53:10.5
For many objectors the moral implausibility of the doctrine either precedes or eclipses discussion of the biblical evidence. It will be difficult, no doubt, to openly consider the requisite biblical texts on this matter if it has already been determined that the whole notion of penal substitution is morally reprehensible.6
Hence, the first goal of this essay is to clarify and defend the plausibility of the moral framework required to ground penal substitution. But defending the moral plausibility of penal substitution stops short of determining whether penal substitution is a correct explanation of what transpired on the cross. So the second goal of this essay is to offer an argument that penal substitution is the best explanation of why Christ voluntarily went to His death. Both of these arguments leave untouched the biblical investigation, which remains the ultimate authority in deciding the legitimacy of penal substitution.7 Before turning to these two arguments, it is important to clarify what is (and is not) being defended under the banner of penal substitution.