The Necessity of the Atonement

[wildboar]

I bought vol. 6("The Death fo Christ") of the Works of John Owen recently and have enjoyed much of it. The last section in the book contains "A Dissertation On Divine Justice." I was wondering if anyone else has read this.(Well I'm sure someone has but anyone here:p) In it, Owen refutes the idea that God could pardon sin by a mere act of the will adn without satisfaction to his justice. Owens opponents are both heretics and some very notable orthodox men (William Twisse and Samuel Rutherford). Owen quotes from Maccovius in support of his position. My own inclination is to simply say that nothing could have happened aside from what did happen and to just leave it at that. However, I would appreciate any comments.

[Robert R. Higby]

Owen refutes the idea that God could pardon sin by a mere act of the will adn without satisfaction to his justice. Owens opponents are both heretics and some very notable orthodox men (William Twisse and Samuel Rutherford). Owen quotes from Maccovius in support of his position.

I have this book in my library and passionately disagree with Owen on this. He is defending the classic theory known as 'consequent absolute necessity.'

God is sovereign in his disposition of the atonement. Justice is not an eternal law that binds God to certain actions. Otherwise, God is in heaven proclaiming "Dang it, I can't save most of these reprobates because of this law and lake of fire I've created"--and weeps not ony over Jerusalem in time but over hell for eternity.

Believe me, Owens opponents are not heretics on this one. Owen has redefined their position contrary to logic. God always satisfies his justice (the atonement included), however, the justice he satisfies is that which he has sovereignly determined to BE his justice. He is not bound by an eternal law outside of himself.

[wildboar]

Believe me, Owens opponents are not heretics on this one. Owen has redefined their position contrary to logic. God always satisfies his justice (the atonement included), however, the justice he satisfies is that which he has sovereignly determined to BE his justice. He is not bound by an eternal law outside of himself.
I have not yet read enough to determine for myself if this is Owen's actual position, however for the time being I will assume that it is. However, I wonder if there might be a better third option. Rather than viewing God as bound by an external law or decreeing that He will be just in a way which He has sovereignly determined, might it be better to view the necessity of the atonement as the result of the nature of God and His attributes? I'm not firmly grounded on any specific position at this point but this seems the better option to me at this time.

[Robert R. Higby]

Well, God's sovereign determination of his purposes is the expression of his essential attributes, so I can find nothing here to differ with.

The point that I find objectionable in some of these presentations goes like this: God had two options, to save man or to leave him in his sin. If he chose to save man, he had to do it like this (the propitiatory atonement).

My perspective is that God's purpose was/is the propitiatory atonement--period. He did not have two options--because in his infinite wisdom and sovereignty he ever and always is determined to execute only one option.

[wildboar]

My perspective is that God's purpose was/is the propitiatory atonement--period. He did not have two options--because in his infinite wisdom and sovereignty he ever and always is determined to execute only one option.Agreed.

Sola Gratia,
WildBoar

[whs1]

This comes from Ages software's version of the Dissertation on Divine Justice by Owen...



PREFATORY NOTE.

This work is devoted to a refutation of the doctrine that sin could be pardoned by a mere volition on the part of God, without any satisfaction to his justice; or, to state the question in the abstract form which it chiefly assumes in the reasonings of Owen, that justice is not a natural attribute of the divine nature, but so much an act of the divine will, that God is free to punish or to refrain from punishing sin. Owen clearly saw that if such a doctrine were entertained, there could be no evidence for the necessity of the atonement, and a stronghold would be surrendered to the Socinian heresy. He was the more induced to engage in the refutation of it, as it was maintained by some divines of eminent worth and ability. Calvin has been cited in its favor; and Owen, without naming him, refers to the only passage in his writings which, so far as we are aware, conveys the obnoxious sentiment, when in the second chapter he speaks of the learned men who, along with Augustine, and amongst orthodox divines, held the view in question. The passage occurs in his commentary on John 15:13: — “Poterat nos Deus verbo ant nutu redimere, nisi aliter nostra causa visum esset, ut proprio et unigenito Filio non parcens, testatum faceret in ejus persona quantum habeat salutis nostrae curam.” An isolated phrase, however, when the question was not specially under his review, is scarcely sufficient basis from which to infer that Calvin held the possibility of sin being forgiven without an atonement; and other parts of his works might be quoted, in which he speaks of the death of Christ as a satisfaction to divine justice, in such terms as almost to preclude the theory for which the sanction of his name has been pleaded. Dr. William Twisse, the learned prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, published in 1632 a large work, now almost fallen into oblivion, but which passed through several editions, and was justly held in high esteem, “Vindiciae Gratiae. Potestatis, ac Providentiae Divinae.” In the midst of his discussions he inserts several digressions on special topics; and the eighth digression contains an argument to prove that God punishes sin, not by any necessity of nature, or under the promptings of justice, as essential to the perfection of his character, but simply in virtue of a decree, originating in a free act of his will, and regulating, in this subordinate sense, all his procedure towards our race. He was followed by Rutherford in his “Disputatio Scholastica de Divina Providentia,” 1649; and in his work on “Christ Dying, and Drawing Sinners,” etc. One extract from the latter gives a plausible and condensed statement of the whole theory: — “If we of God’s absolute power without respect to his free decree, he could have pardoned sin without a ransom, and gifted all mankind and fallen angels with heaven without any satistfaction of either the sinner or his surety; for he neither punisheth sin, nor tenders heaven to men or angels, by necessity of nature, — as the fire casteth out heat, and the sun light, — but freely.” Owen, in one of the public disputations at Oxford, had asserted that the exercise of divine justice was necessary and absolute in the punishment of sin. Though his arguments were directed against Socinians, some divines in the university, it was found, held a different opinion from our author on this particular point, and, in full explanation of his views, in 1653 he published his Diatriba. “It is almost entirely,” says Mr Orme, “of a scholastic nature discovering,” indeed, much acuteness, and a profound acquaintance with the subject, but not likely now to be read with much interest. We concur in this criticism, but must take exception to the last remark. The work, in our judgment, at least deserves to be read with interest, as the conclusive settlement of a question of vital moment, one of the most vigorous productions of Owen’s intellect, a specimen of controversy conducted in the best spirit, and displaying powers of thought which remind us of the massive theology of Edwards, while rich in the stores of a learning to which the great American could not lay claim. In the first part of it. Owen proves that “sin-punishing justice is natural, and its exercise necessary to God,” by four leading arguments, —


1. The statements of Holy Writ;


2. The consent of mankind;


3. The course of Providence; and, lastly, The attributes of God as revealed in the cross of Christ.



Various subsidiary arguments of considerable importance follow. The second part refutes in succession the opposing arguments of the Socinians, Twisse, and Rutherford Thomas Gilbert, so great an admirer of Owen that he was employed to write his epitaph, nevertheless combated the views maintained in the Diatriba, in a work entitled, “Vindiciae Supremi Dei Domini (cum Deo) Initae,” etc., 1665. Baxter, in a brief premonition to his treatise against infidelity, dissented from the doctrine of Owen on this subject. The Diatriba was published in Latin. We have compared Mr Hamilton’s translation of it, which appeared in 1794, with the original, and have been constrained to make some serious changes on it, which we cannot but deem improvements. The title, page is more exactly and fully-rendered; a translation of the dedication to Cromwell is for the first time, inserted; passages which had been placed at the foot of the page are restored to their proper place in the body of the text; several passages altogether omitted are now supplied; minor errors have been corrected: and where the change was so extensive as to interfere with the translator’s responsibilities, we have appended a different rendering in a note. — ED.











I don't know who this editor was, but I did not read "Dissertation on Divine Justice by John Owen. But from reading the preface here I see what the issues were and I must say John Owen was saying that God could not have done it any other way other than how he did do it by requiring that God's justice be satisfied by Christ's propitiation and substitutionary sacrifice of Himself on the cross for the justice of God to be satisfied...I agree with John Owen...



I would dare say...he put more study into than either of you or me.

So, are you both in agreement against John Owen's position?

Bill

[whs1]

This brings up the principles or doctrines that I have heard said: "Eternal law" and the "Law of non-contradiction". Is God subject unto his own law? Or, Is God above the laws he makes and is God a law unto himself?

If God decides to do something or say something that we perceive is "LAW" ; then it is the "LAW". And the question disappears: "Is God subject unto these "Eternal Laws"? God made it and therefore God definately is in accord with it in perfection...that is why it is a "LAW" that he made. God is not subject to some "LAWS" that existed prior to GOD that he has to obey. I disagree that there is such a thing as something that existed before God did, no matter what it is.

Bill

[Robert R. Higby]

Bill asks:

Is God subject unto his own law? Or, Is God above the laws he makes and is God a law unto himself?

Well, this is somewhat of a loaded question. God acts out of the constraint of his own nature; eternal souls also are created in his image (i.e., we also act from the constraint of our inner being). So God creates law in harmony with his nature but is not accountable to any law.

God is eternal and immutable. So I prefer not to ascribe to him the phrase 'a law unto himself' (since to some it implies mutability and subjection to whims of change).

God is indeed above the laws he makes, however, they are the expression of his infinite nature of Deity so he will not repudiate or contradict them.

[whs1]

So, Bob, do you agree that there is something like "Eternal law" ect. that is outside or before God that God had to necessarily conform to?

[Robert R. Higby]

No I do not (Col. 1:15-17).