Featured Bonhoffer, Barth, Lewis....should Christians consider the words of "non-traditional" thinkers?

Who has claimed that the Father was punishing Jesus due to what Jesus had done?

Is this a "strawman"? If so, good job at knocking it down (for what its worth).

Actually, Wright believes he holds to Penal Substitution Theory. And, to be fair, he does insofar as it has been defined here (using the definition from Pierced for Our Transgressions). C.S. Lewis strait out rejected the notion.

Here's some irony for you, @Yeshua1 .

The Gospel Coalition website affirms that N.T. Wright holds to Penal Substitution Theory while questioning his view of Justification.

But the same site urges caution for any Christian wanting to read Lewis' Mere Christianity because it rejects Penal Substitution Theory.

 

I agree. But on the other thread about Penal Substitution Theory we had pretty much excluded that expression from the definition. Wright has explained that he does believe Christ was our substitute and suffered the consequences of sin on our behalf as a propitiation for our sins. He believes this is not the primary view of the Atonement Scripture provides, but his definition meets the definition that has been offered for Penal Substitution Theory.

C.S. Lewis simply denies the possibility. Yet you've read Mere Christianity several times. I take it you find value in the rest of Lewis' ideas. Why not just pass over where you and N.T. Wright disagree and take from his other works (he is much closer to your view than is Lewis).

 

But you have read Mere Christianity several times? Did you read:

According to that theory [the theory that Lewis had believed a part of Christianity when he was an atheist] God wanted to punish men for having deserted and joined the Great Rebel, but Christ volunteered to be punished instead, and so God let us off. Now I admit that even this theory does not seem quite so immoral and silly as it used to; but that is not the point I want to make. What I came to see later on was that neither this theory nor an other is Christianity. The central belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. (pg. 57-58)

The one most people have heard is the one I mentioned before [Penal Substitution Theory]–the one about our being let off because Christ had volunteered to bear a punishment instead of us. Now on the face of it that is a very silly theory. If God was prepared to let us off, why on earth did He not do so? And what possible point could there be in punishing an innocent person? None at all that I can see, if you are thinking of punishment in the police-court sense. On the other hand, if you think of a debt, there is plenty of point in a person who has some assets paying it on behalf of someone who has not. (pg. 59)

But you are right that both Lewis and Wright depart from the Reformers. So do many. Even during the Reformation you had Anabaptists who opposed the Reformed view. And they identified the same type of issue as Lewis, Wright, Weaver, Barth, etc. have observed.

So the question comes full circle - since even C.S. Lewis, who was not a theologian, found Penal Substitution Theory a stumbling block to his own salvation AND Christian scholars for centuries have questioned its accuracy, should we not at least re-examine the presuppositions it holds as true?

 

Lewis is one of my favorites. I think the first I read was Surprised by Hope. But I think you almost have to reject Lewis' Atonement ideas because he directly rejects Penal Substitution (but he does leave room for a more general substitution).

I do not advocate adopting any of these guys views. That said, do you believe the "problems" they saw worth considering?

I ask because N.T. Wright has several times said that his view of Justification is probably flawed. He lamented that so few were open to even consider the possibility the Reformers had made an error in understanding the first century worldview.

 

I don't know that we have to (or really can with any degree of certainty) reconstruct the first century worldview. But I do believe we can revisit our own views and ask ourselves why this philosophy or that worldview best suits the biblical narrative.

 

Oh....yea... thanks.

Surprised by Hope is N.T. Wright.

I'm getting old. Next stop....nursing home .