Some critics
claim that the Book of Mormon's discussion of the relationship between the
justice and mercy of God vis-a-vis the sacrifice of Christ is dependent upon
Anselm of Canterbury and/or other modern theologians. However, it appears in
earlier sources (see Jeff Lindsay, Mercy, Justice, and the
Atonement in the Book of Mormon: Modern or Ancient Concepts?). It also
appears in Origen (185-254) in his commentary on Romans. As William Lane Craig
wrote:
Notice that Christ’s sacrificial death serves
both to expiate sin by discharging the penalty due for sin and to propitiate
God by satisfying the demands of divine justice:
“God pre-determined him as a propitiation
through faith in his blood.” This means of course that through the sacrifice of
himself he would make God propitious to men . . . For God is just, and the one
who is just could not justify the unjust; for that reason he wanted there to be
the mediation of a propitiator so that those who were not able to be justified
through their own works might be justified through faith in him. (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans 3.8.1)
At the foundation of Origen’s atonement
doctrine lie the demands of divine justice, which prescribed the just desert
for sin and which must be satisfied if forgiveness of sin is to be available. (William
Lane Craig, Atonement and the Death of
Christ: An Exegetical, Historical, and Philosophical Exploration [Waco,
Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2020], 96)
