Chapter II: The Redemption of the Human Race through Christ’s Vicarious Atonement

Section I: The Reality of Christ’s Vicarious Atonement

Article 1: Vicarious Atonement Defined

This Chapter deals with the concrete fact of Christ’s vicarious atonement (satisfactio vicaria) rather than with the abstract notion of Redemption, which even heretics do not entirely deny; hence we must be careful to define our terms.

1. Explanation of the Term “Atonement”

a) By atonement we understand the reparation of any wrong or injury, either material (damnum) or moral (offensa, iniuria). Material injury demands restitution; moral injury can be repaired only by satisfaction or atonement in the strict sense of the term. The Roman Catechism defines “satisfaction” as “nothing else than compensation for an injury offered to another.” Satisfaction in the sense of discharging a penance enjoined in confession will be treated in connection with the Sacrament of Penance.

b) Atonement, in the sense in which the term is used in Soteriology, presupposes an offence committed against, or an injury done to, God. It is for our sins that God demands satisfaction. Sin and satisfaction are consequently correlative terms, or, to put it more accurately, they are antitheses clamoring for reconciliation.

The concept of sin contains a twofold element: guilt (reatus culpae) and punishability (reatus poenae). Guilt and punishability are inseparable. Their gravity depends partly on the dignity of the person offended (gravitas formalis) and partly on the character of the offence committed (gravitas materialis). God is infinite in dignity and majesty; therefore every grievous sin, morally considered, involves an infinite offence. “A sin committed against God,” says St. Thomas, “partakes in a manner of infinity, through its relation to the infinite majesty of God; for an offence is the more serious, the greater the person offended.”¹

Considered as a moral delinquency on the part of man, sin is a merely finite evil. In respect of God, however, it is infinite. “Iniuria est in iniuriato.” This applies, of course, only to mortal sin, which seriously disturbs the sinner’s relation to God. This relation, if justice be given free scope, cannot be restored except by means of adequate satisfaction (emptio, redemptio).

c) Grievous sin, as we have said, involves an infinite offence, for which no creature, least of all the sinner himself, can render adequate satisfaction. Adequate in this case means infinite satisfaction, and infinite satisfaction can be given only by one who is infinite in dignity. Hence none but a Godman could redeem the human race. Hence also the necessity of a vicarious atonement.

2. Definition of “Vicarious Atonement”

The notion of vicariatio does not imply that he who acts as substitute or representative for another takes upon himself the other’s guilt or sin as such. No one can be the bearer or subject of another’s sins. In this erroneous sense vicarious atonement involves a contradiction, because no mediator can give satisfaction for another’s sins unless he is himself sinless. Vicarious atonement, therefore, can only mean the voluntary assumption of a punishment due to sin,—not indeed the reatus poenae, which implies real guilt, but the penance imposed by God. In other words, the Godman renders infinite satisfaction in our stead, and this satisfaction by its objective worth counterbalances our infinite offence and is accepted by God as though it were given by ourselves.

To illustrate the case by an analogy. The human race is like an insolvent merchant. Christ voluntarily assumes our obligations and is compelled to pay the whole debt. The sum of this debt is His Precious Blood. (1 Pet. I, 18 sq.)

3. Objections Refuted

The Socinians, and modern Rationalists generally, reject the Catholic dogma of Christ’s vicarious atonement on the pretext that it involves manifest contradictions, (a) with regard to God, (b) with regard to Christ, and (c) with regard to man. We will briefly examine these alleged contradictions.

a) The doctrine of the atonement is held to be contradictory in respect of God for the reason that forgiveness of sins is sometimes attributed to pure mercy and sometimes to strict justice, whereas these two attributes are mutually exclusive.

If the simultaneous manifestation of God’s infinite mercy and justice really involved an intrinsic contradiction, St. Paul would have been the first to incur this charge, for he says in his Epistle to the Romans: “You are justified freely by his grace,² through the redemption³ that is in Christ Jesus.”⁴ In exacting satisfaction for our sins from His own Son instead of us poor sinners, God exercised in an eminent manner both His mercy and His justice. There is no contradiction involved in this proposition. This would be the case only if the sinner were held to give adequate satisfaction in person and his performance subsequently stamped as a grace. Holy Scripture is perfectly consistent in teaching, on the one hand, that “God so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son,”⁵ and, on the other, that: “by sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and of sin, [God] hath condemned sin in the flesh.”⁶

b) The doctrine of the atonement is declared to be contradictory for the further reason that it involves the punishment of an innocent person in lieu of the guilty criminal. It is downright murder, however disguised, for God to exact the blood of His own guiltless Son in expiation for the sins of others, say the Rationalists.

God would indeed be unjust had He imposed the guilt and punishment of others upon His innocent Son as though He were the guilty criminal. But this is by no means the teaching of the Church. Not having personally sinned, Christ could not be punished as a sinner. Hence His death was not a punishment in the proper sense of the word, but merely a satisfactio laboriosa. Furthermore, it was not imposed on Him against His will. He Himself declares: “I lay down my life for my sheep… . I lay it down of myself,⁷ and I have power to lay it down: and I have power to take it up again.”⁸ Volenti non fit iniuria (No wrong arises to one who consents). Hence the atonement cannot be said to involve a violation of commutative justice. Nor does it run counter to distributive justice, for Christ’s dolorous passion and death, besides redounding to the advantage of the human race, also brought Him personal reward and glory. Cfr. Luke XXIV, 26: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into his glory?”

c) In regard to man, the doctrine of the atonement is denounced as repugnant on the score that one who is guilty of a crime should, as a point of honor, give the necessary satisfaction himself, and not shift this painful duty to another. Our Rationalist adversaries add that the idea of a man’s appropriating to himself the fruits of another’s labor is preposterous. They overlook the fact that man was absolutely unable to render adequate satisfaction for sin. God manifested His infinite love and mercy precisely in deigning to accept a vicarious atonement. It cannot be proved that this involves an injustice. The objection will lose much of its force if we take into consideration the fact that Christ represented the human race in the order of grace in much the same manner in which Adam had vicariously represented it upon the occasion of the Fall. Hence the Scriptural antithesis between the “first Adam” and the “second Adam.” Christ is no stranger to us; He is “bone of our bone,” our “brother” as well as our spiritual head. His merits constitute as it were a family heirloom, in which each of us has a share.

The privilege of participating in the merits of Christ’s vicarious atonement does not relieve us of the duty of personally atoning for our sins. That Christ has rendered adequate satisfaction for the sins of the whole race, does not mean that each individual human being is eo ipso subjectively redeemed. This is the teaching of “orthodox” Lutheranism, not of the Catholic Church. We Catholics believe that the individual sinner must feel sorry for his sins, confess them, and render satisfaction for them.⁹