The Beauty of the Cross: Retrieving Penal Substitutionary Atonement on Jonathan Edwards’ Aesthetic Basis

Abstract

Two concerns in contemporary theology give rise to this attempt to retrieve a key aspect of Edwards’ thought. The first need arises from the more specific realm of Edwards studies. While there have been a number of works produced on Edwards’ doctrine of the atonement, these studies often narrowly focus on whether Edwards espoused a penal substitutionary or a moral governmental motif of the atonement. Because it has been framed in these terms, this conversation so far has frequently been approached from the wrong angle, one that assumes Edwards’ doctrine rests either on a moral or a legal basis. The discussion has not yet centered on Edwards’ broader aesthetic framework.

The second concern arises out of the broader domain of systematic theology. The doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement has largely fallen into disrepute. Mark Baker and Joel Green’s Recovering the Scandal of the Cross will serve below as a representative of some of these contemporary criticisms of penal substitution. Although they convincingly deconstruct legal and moral expressions of penal substitutionary atonement, which are ultimately built on the Anselmian satisfaction theory, Baker and Green nevertheless do not undermine a proper articulation of penal substitution. It is at this crucial point that Edwards can retrieve penal substitution for theology today. Against the background of Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo and John Stott’s The Cross of Christ, it can be shown that, far from articulating either a legal or moral view of the atonement as these two figures do, Jonathan Edwards offers a competing aesthetic vision for penal substitutionary atonement. Instead of being based on legal or moral necessity, Edwards’ understanding of the atonement is based on the beauty of the Trinity.