Thursday, April 21, 2022

David P. Scaer (Lutheran) on the Theological Problems with Calvinism's Doctrine of Limited Atonement

  

Classical Reformed theology still holds that Christ’s atonement is not as extensive as God’s wrath, even though more recent exponents of the theory of Calvin’s limited atonement theory have attempted to soften this position. See for example Grudem: “Did Christ pay for the sins of all unbelievers who will be eternally condemned, and did he pay for their sins completely on the cross? It seems that we have to answer no to that question” (Systematic Theology, 601). Limited atonement has many ramifications, the first of which is a faulty view of God which understands Him more in terms of wrath than love. Secondly, it reflects the Reformed failure to recognize that Christ’s human nature is entirely permeated with the divine nature (genus maiestaticum). Christ’s atonement by definition must be as extensive as God is. The Reformed view of a limited atonement does not allow this. Thirdly, it understands the atonement not in terms of a trinitarian act which necessarily involves all of what and who God is, but a barter in which the Father accepts the Son’s atonement (payment) only for some sins, but not all. Lutheran theology sees God’s love in Christ extending far beyond and covering divine wrath. Baptism focuses this love into the lives of sinners. In these terms Lutherans speak of Baptism’s necessity. (David P. Scaer, Baptism [Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics 11; St. Louis, Miss.: The Luther Academy, 1999], 17 n. 36)