Finding
Here he seems to have fallen into a serious logical error which constitutes a grave, if not a fatal, flaw in his theory.
Paper
Dr. Rashdall's Theory of the Atonement
Abstract
IF Dr. Rashdall's teaching fails to maintain itself when examined on general lines of criticism it fails still more signally under the test of reason. For here he has made the serious error of mistaking secondary for primary causes-confusing the (,AJnditions with the ground of forgiveness. It by no means follows that even though repentance were" the one condition" necessary for forgiveness that therefore it is the reason why, or the ground on which, God forgives penitents. Even if we were to grant that all which St. Paul has taught about faith, and all that can be deduced from the Synoptists and St. John could rightly be set aside, it would still remain to be proved that there is nothing behind repentance, no expiatory sacrifice, no act of adequate spiritual reparation, which makes it possible for repentance to be the only condition required by God for forgiveness. The objective view of the Atonement is in no way opposed to our Lord's teaching that repentance is a necessary condition of forgiveness. The disagreement is with Dr. Rashdall's theory, and it only arises when he assumes that this is the only ground of forgiveness--a position which he makes no attempt to prove, having overlooked the necessity for doing so. Here he seems to have fallen into a serious logical error which constitutes a grave, if not a fatal, flaw in his theory. In view of these various considerations the two great basic positions upon which his theory is built up-viz., (1) that the chief part of the New Testament, including the writings of SSe Paul, John, and Peter, owes the objective nature of its teaching on the Atonement to mistaken interpretations of the prophets by the early Church; and (2) that the teaching of our Lord Himself as found in the Synoptists is opposed to any objective theory of the Atonement-both these foundations of his theory are seriously undermined; and, consequently, all the great mass of textual criticism, immense learning, and careful special pleading by which the structure of his argument is built up, becomes useless for the purpose he had in view. It fails either to eliminate the objective idea of the Atonement or to establish his own Abelardian conception. The same failure attends his attack upon the objective theory from the philosophic position. All through his book we find the mistaken idea that vicarious suffering necessarily
Authors
P. Snowden
Journal
Theology