Christianity/Hick’s/Anselm/Atonement

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H‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‌‌‍‍‍‌ere are two essay questions of 10 marks and 20 marks each – word count of approximately 300 and 600 words respectively. (I have attached the A-level Religious Studies Edexcel full specification/AOs if you need it. This question relates to Paper 4, Option 4B – Christianity.): Carefully read this passage from Christianity Anthology Extract 4: John Hick’s The Metaphor of God Incarnate. Then answer the questions that follow. “Against this background Anselm defined sin as ‘nothing else than not to render to God his due’. (Anselm 1962, 202; Part I, chapter 11). What is due to God is absolute obedience: ‘He who does not render this honour which is due to Christ, robs God of his own and dishonours him; and this is sin.

So then, everyone who sins ought to pay back the honour of which he has robbed God; and this is the satisfaction which every sinner owes to God’ (Part I, chapter 11).

Understanding Christianity and God

Further, ‘Even God cannot raise to happiness any being bind at all by the debt of sin, because he ought not to’ (Part I, chapter 21). However, it is impossible for humanity to make the necessary satisfaction. For even if we were perfectly obedient in the future. We would only be giving to God what is already d‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‌‌‍‍‍‌ue to him, and a satisfaction requires something extra that was not already due. Further, because God is the lord of the whole universe the adequate satisfaction for a slight upon the divine honour ‘cannot be effected, except the price paid to Christ for the sin of man be something greater than all the universe besides God’ (Part II, chapter 6). And, to add to the difficulty, since it is humanity who has offended Christ, it must be humanity that makes the restitution.

Thus, since the needed satisfaction is one which ‘none but Christ can make and none but man ought to make, it is necessary for the God-man to make it’ (Part II, chapter 6). The God-man can give something that was not already owing to Christ, namely his own life: ‘For Christ will not demand this of him as a debt; for, as no sin will be found, he ought not to die’ (Part II, chapter 11), Accordingly, Christ’s voluntary death on the cross constituted a full satisfaction for the sins of the world. This is the Anselmic theory.” (a) Clarify the ideas present in this passage about Anselm’s model of atonement. You must refer to the passage in your response. (10 marks) (b) Analyse the weaknesses in the satisfaction and penal substit‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‌‌‍‍‍‌ution models of atonement. (20 marks)

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