Julian's Theology of Salvation
Julian's Theology of Salvation
congruence with our "substance" – the dimension of human identity that is irrevocably united with God from our first creation. Thus, "Our sensuality is founded in nature, in mercy and in grace" (chapter 55). In chapter 56
"The profits of our tribulation" that we inevitably experience in our contingent sensual existence are obtained through God's mercy in the power of Christ's Passion. This brings our sensuality "up into the substance."
God is the "substance" (the core) of human nature and from this "spring mercy and grace." "For in nature we have our life and our being, and in mercy and grace [active in our sensuality] we have our increase and our fulfilment." God's "mercy" not only involves kindness and compassion but also a process of drawing us into God's fullness.
Julian's Theology of Salvation Julian's soteriology, her theology of human salvation, significantly undercuts classical "satisfaction" models of redemption. In the time of Julian of Norwich, the most influential satisfaction theory was that of Anselm, the eleventh‐century philosopher, theologian, and Archbishop of Canterbury, in his work Cur Deus Homo. This spoke of human sin in terms of undermining the honor that was due to God. The death of Christ was interpreted as making "satisfaction" for this. It mends what has been broken by human sin. As the ultimate act of obedience, Christ's death reverses human disobedience and restores honor to God. Christ's selfless suffering for humankind pays honor to the Father and therefore makes up for the honor that human beings have generally failed to pay to God. In that sense Christ's suffering and death substitutes for the debt of honor that humans have failed to give God. This is not the same theology as later and much darker penal substitution theories which saw Christ's death as a process of taking upon himself the brutal punishment meted out by God that was otherwise due to all sinful humanity.2 In chapter 12, Julian describes the powerful image of the bleeding body of Christ that she experienced in her visions. However, this suffering, the result of "vicious blows delivered all over the lovely body," is not presented as Jesus taking on God's brutal punishment that was otherwise due to us. Rather it becomes an image of washing and of the sacred drink in the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Then it came into my mind that God has created bountiful waters on the earth for our use and our bodily comfort, out of the tender love he has for us. But it is more pleasing to him that we accept for our total cure his blessed blood to wash us of our sins, for there is no drink that is made which it pleases him so well to give us.
Sin and Salvation
Counter‐intuitively, in her chapter 22, Julian has Jesus "our good Lord" ask her if she is well satisfied. "Arte thou well apaide that I suffered for thee?" When Julian responds positively she hears Jesus Christ say
"If thou arte apaide, I am apaide." This reverses conventional satisfaction theology. Here God‐in‐Christ is satisfied if humans are satisfied. Julian's schema of salvation is not that divine justice is satisfied and salvation secured by an atonement performed by Jesus suffering in our place on the cross. Rather, human need is satisfied and thus humanity becomes
Christ's joy.
In the parable of a Lord and a Servant in chapter 51, Jesus takes upon himself all our blame. However, in context this is not the classic "satisfaction" theory but refers to our own self‐blame, the unproductive sense of guilt and worthlessness which makes us feel separated from God. Jesus redeems or heals our blinded sight and false perceptions that make us unaware of God's irreversible love.
As we also saw in Chapter 3, the parable of a Lord and a Servant acts as an answer to Julian's background problem of how to relate her conventional understanding of human sin to her inner awareness of God's irreversible love for humanity. In chapter 45 of her text she is clear that the teaching of the Church was that human beings as sinners sometimes deserve God's anger. Yet her visionary experience showed her that there was neither blame nor anger in God. The parable may well have been part of Julian's original mystical experience even though it needed further inward instruction over many years before Julian came to understand it properly and to accept what it expressed. This understanding made it clear in Julian's theological reflections that, unlike the theology of Anselm, God neither was angry with humanity nor felt dishonored by human failings. This insight underpins Julian's theology of salvation (or redemption) as an act of compassionate healing on the part of God.
Adam's sin "was the greatest harm ever done or ever to be done until the end of the world" (chapter 29). However, Julian was also taught that "the glorious atonement" was more pleasing to God than sin is harmful.
Indeed, as we have already seen, Julian's fundamental inner insight, or "revelation," leads her to a deep realization of the fundamental nature of God as love rather than as judge. The impact on her is therefore not fear but joy. "And in the same revelation, suddenly the Trinity filled my heart full of the greatest joy" (chapter 4). Also God desires that "we have true delight with him in our salvation, and in it he wants us to be greatly comforted and strengthened" (chapter 23).
Again, as we have already seen, Julian's fundamentally positive theology of human nature is an important partner to her theology of sin and salvation. The image of God as our "clothing" in her chapters 5 and 6 underlines God's intimacy with us. As we have seen, this contrasts with
Julian's Theology of Salvation
the language of the Book of Genesis, chapter 3, where the emphasis is on Adam and Eve's nakedness as an image of humanity's loss of innocence.
For Julian, the essence of her theological anthropology is that humankind is not inherently sinful. As God sees things, sin is "no deed" (chapter 11) and has no substance or "being" even though sin hinders our longing for God (chapter 27). That is, sin is an absence of good rather than a concrete and evil "something." While Julian in her life experience is well aware of human frailty and failings, when she is briefly shown reality as God sees it she could not see sin. While sin is the cause of human pain, Julian is led to understand that it is somehow "appropriate" because our frailty and failings lead us providentially into a deeper awareness of God as love.
In terms of salvation, God's "sight" is of humanity's ultimate bliss as the truth of human existence. So, when God does touch upon the question of sin God carefully affirms that ultimately all will be well (chapter 34).
Equally, when God brings to mind Julian's capacity to sin (chapter 37), she was fearful. However, God responds with the words "I protect you very safely." God also leads Julian to the insight that this applies not just to her but to "all my fellow Christians."
The chapter ends with an anticipation of the detailed discussion of the binary nature of human identity as both substance and sensuality (chapters 45–53). Here Julian simply states that part of the nature of "the soul" is a Godly will that never assents to sin. In the following chapter 38, God shows Julian something equally startling. This is the paradox that "sin will be no shame but honour." This seems to go beyond a common notion that those who are in heaven may well remember their sins but would not be shamed by them. However, Julian is led to see that sin is "wurshipe to man" – that is, honor.
In terms of her theology of salvation, Julian records that she was constantly shown "a great marvel," that God cannot be said to forgive
"because he cannot be angry (chapter 49)."
For it was a great marvel, constantly shown to the soul in all the revelations, and the soul was contemplating with great diligence that our Lord God cannot in his own judgment forgive, because he cannot be angry – that would be impossible….
For I saw most truly that where our Lord appears, peace is received and wrath has no place; for I saw no kind of wrath in God, neither briefly nor for long. For truly, as I see it, if God could be angry for any time, we should neither have life nor place nor being; for as truly as we have our being from the endless power of God and from his endless wisdom and from his endless goodness, just as truly we have our preservation in the endless power of God and in his endless wisdom and in his endless goodness. For though we