The Tyranny of a Punishing Father
Wesleyans need to be Wesleyan
Christian thought and doctrine are shaped by the crucifixion of Jesus. While the entirety of Jesus' life and ministry is key to the Gospel, it is the cross that focuses the imagination. For many Christians, it is the cross that reveals the true heart and nature of God. In that revelation, we can often see what God looks like when considering the language and metaphor we use for the work of the cross in atonement.
The writers of Christian scripture worked out the what and how of atonement through various metaphors and analogies. They viewed the cross through their experience and traditions. We see Hebrew, Greek, Roman, and other influences upon the metaphors used. Ironically, the prominent metaphor in modern, mainly Reformed theology is not as well supported in scripture unless that scripture is ripped from the historic understanding of what it discusses. That view is popularly called penal substitution atonement (PSA). This was popularized as THE theory of atonement by John Piper, who has said that he did not want to confuse his congregation by preaching the breadth of atonement imagery. Of course, he took the one that sees God as violent and bound by justice. I might add ironically Piper’s view of an omnipotent and determinative understanding of God makes a binding of anything upon God illogical. But, I believe that holding so tightly to PSA illuminates attitudes about God and humanity.
I will get to the problems with PSA as we journey together, but first I want to work out why this metaphor so captures the contemporary church. I am intensely curious about why Wesleyans would embrace this motif considering the opposition to it throughout our history. Even though John Wesley held a soft version of PSA, I think we should understand how difficult it would have been for him to totally reject that idea within his 18th century Anglican context. But even with that thought, modern Wesleyans who espouse PSA seem more in tune with Jonathan Edwards than John Wesley, For Wesley subordinated PSA within more scriptural metaphors. (see Randy Maddox)
I hesitate to ascribe motivations to anyone, but there must be a reason that many Wesleyans choose to emphasize PSA even as it is illogical within Wesleyan spirituality. Here are the guesses I have decided most likely explain this rather recent phenomenon.
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The general move of church growth toward generic evangelicalism inundated Wesleyan churches with the idea of PSA through worship music, discipleship materials, and popular speakers.
The fear of being seen as “liberal” or “progressive” as many of the Reformed proponents of PSA claim that rejected of this idea is liberal and progressive. (This is ironic considering PSA is one of the youngest metaphors)
Prominent Christian influencers make bold claims as to their insistence on PSA. One of the most prominent is Alyssa Childers who claims rejection of PSA is rejection of the true Gospel.
Contemporary humanity is so immersed in the market economy that we view everything through transactional frameworks
Ignorance of Wesleyan thought in contrast to Reformed thought
Cynically of me, the race to grab the fundamentalist streams of spirituality within denominations for academic and other pursuits
Attempts to stem the coming tide of evolution of the church if the rhythm of 500-year cycles proves to be consistent
These all have played a part in this, but the Christian influencers get quoted more and more by Wesleyans to support arguments against traditional Wesleyan positions. It is enough to make me grieve the impending loss of our distinctive belief in prevenient grace and the relational aspect of the Gospel and of God. But even more, the image of God displayed in PSA is horrifying from a Wesleyan perspective as it leaves no room for transformative relationship.
The opposition to PSA within Wesleyanism is not new. It is as old as Wesley himself, who used language to soften the hard edges of it. But we can look to several others who have explained the problems with PSA from a Wesleyan perspective.
John Miley explicitly rejected PSA in the 19th century as unbiblical, illogical, and ethically problematic. While Miley emphasized Grotius' Governmental Theory, he saw a multitude of problems with PSA. His primary issues were very similar to contemporary critics:
Distortion of God’s Character: Made God appear vindictive and unjust (punishing an innocent).
Incoherence: Concept of transferring guilt/punishment metaphysically and ethically flawed.
Neglect of Moral Influence: Undermined the call to repentance and transformation.
Misinterpretation of Key Texts: Argued PSA proponents misread passages like Isaiah 53 and 2 Corinthians 5:21.
William Burt Pope also saw issues with hard PSA in the 19th century. His main critique was rooted in the Wesleyan understanding of God as love. Pope saw love, not wrath, as the primary motive for the atonement. Wrath was the reaction of holiness to sin, resolved through redemption grounded in love.
In the 20th century, H. Orton Wiley argued against PSA on several grounds. We will look at H Ray Dunning’s summary of these in a minute, but Wiley rejected the idea of transfer of guilt present in PSA.
Mildred Bangs Wynkoop builds upon the centrality of love and sees the weaknesses of PSA as reducing salvation to a transaction and distorting the true judgement of God. Wynkoop saw the cross as empowering grace for holiness and Christlikeness, not just forensic pardon. Critiqued PSA for potential passivity in the believer. Her students would build on the problem of passivity.
Diane Leclerc builds upon Wynkoop by highlighting the prevenient nature of grace in love. Leclerc reminds us that Christ’s work is kenotic and not penal.
Randy Maddox, also a student of Wynkoop, notes “The problem with a penal explanation of suffering is not simply that the innocent often suffer while the evil prosper. Nor is it merely that suffering often transcends any warranted punishment for our sins. The major problem is that it is solely punitive, lacking a redemptive dimension.” (Maddox p 61)
H. Ray Dunning summarizes Wiley,, but adds much of his own commentary to his critique of PSA as unbiblical.
"H. Orton Wiley advances five weaknesses of this theory that we will do well to summarize:
Its basic premise is that sin must be punished on its own account. This is based on the view that God’s primary nature is justice, which is a legal principle to which He is bound.
The basic fallacy of this way of thinking is in interpreting the substitutionary work of Christ externally as ‘instead of’ rather than ‘in behalf of,’ a distinction with a tremendous difference
The second weakness is in its insistence that the substitution of an innocent victim for the guilty one, the former taking the punishment that justice requires to be imposed upon sin, is the only way of conceiving a vicarious atonement.
The logical conclusion of the penal theory is either universalism or a limited atonement. If Christ suffers the penalty for sin, the justice of God is satisfied, and therefore nothing further is needed.
The fourth weakness is the logical implication of the third. It leads unerringly into a view of irresistible grace.
The fifth weakness addresses a conclusion against which John Wesley manfully struggled and could only manage to avoid by artificial means. The penal satisfaction theory eliminates the practical necessity of a doctrine of sanctification, or as Wiley puts it, ‘it leads logically into antinomianism’
In addition to these problems, we may note that the penal theory does not set well with a doctrine of prevenient grace.
Furthermore, the penal theory builds upon an unbiblical doctrine of God. For the Calvinistic theology, divine love is subject to the will of God, so there is no problem with God hating certain sinners whom He chooses to exclude by divine fiat from eternal bliss. For the Wesleyan (and New Testament thought) love is a manifestation of God’s nature, and this will not allow the whole legal apparatus upon which the satisfaction interpretation is built." (Dunning ch 12)
Here’s an outline of key themes from a Wesleyan perspective.
Key Wesleyan-Holiness Themes in Critique of PSA:
Primacy of God’s Love: God’s essential nature is love; wrath is a response to sin, not a defining attribute.
Rejection of Strict Imputation: Concerns about transferring personal guilt or righteousness in a purely forensic way.
Emphasis on Moral Transformation & Holiness: Atonement must enable and empower actual sanctification, not just legal status.
Diversity of Atonement Motifs: Rejection of PSA exclusivity in favor of a multi-faceted biblical understanding (Governmental, Moral Influence, Christus Victor, Sacrificial).
Human Response & Responsibility: Arminian emphasis on prevenient grace enabling faith and obedience, potentially undermined by overly passive PSA interpretations.
Ethical Concerns: Perceptions of divine injustice, violence, or incoherence in PSA mechanisms.
Why do we Wesleyans continue to look toward PSA? I have a few ideas. First, the reasons I gave above, but also the fact that we begin by misreading sacrifice in the Hebrew scriptures. If you read the sacrificial rubrics in scripture, you see that the sacrifices were sustaining meals. The animals did not bear the sins of the people, but carried the sacrificial consequences of sin and their lives were given to sustain the people. This is a spiritual and physical understanding of sacrifice. The passover lamb was not sacrificed to save children other than as a meal to eat before fleeing to freedom. The one animal which actually carried sin was the scapegoat and that animal was released to the wilderness to carry the sin away from the people not killed in their stead.
This is the beauty of chapter six of John’s Gospel in which Jesus claims to be the bread of life. This is existential foreshadowing. Jesus is the sustaining bread of life. The kenotic and self-giving action of Christ on the cross is not punishment but bearing the pain we would receive through sin on our behalf. Yes, that is very very different from instead of. John Wesley never compared us to vile spiders like Jonathan Edwards did so it is difficult to see why those who should know better defend or embrace a doctrinal belief outside of our core beliefs.
In the end, maybe it is the impulse to be contrary to progressive voices that causes Wesleyans to align with non-Wesleyan and arguably non-biblical and pagan beliefs. Or maybe it is our embrace of transactional centering rather than relational. I don’t know, but I wish Wesleyans would stand up and be Wesleyan and not try so hard to be at the “cool evangelical” table. That table is rapidly crumbling and we should be telling the story of beauty in a God with us who bears the sins of the world in a kenotic act of solidarity refusing to embrace the violence of humanity in order to woo us into a new creation.
Dunning, H. Ray. Grace, Faith, Holiness. Beacon Hill Press, 2011.
Gaines, Timothy R. Christian Ethics. The Wesleyan Theology Series. Kansas City, MO: The Foundry Publishing, 2021.
Keen, Craig. After Crucifixion: The Promise of Theology. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2013.
Leclerc, Diane. Discovering Christian Holiness: The Heart of Wesleyan-Holiness Theology. Kansas City, Mo: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2010.
Leclerc, Diane, and Brent Peterson. The Back Side of the Cross: An Atonement Theology for the Abused and Abandoned. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2022.
Maddox, Randy L. Responsible Grace : John Wesley’s Practical Theology. Nashville, Tenn.: Kingswood Books, 1994.
Wynkoop, Mildred Bangs. A Theology of Love: The Dynamic of Wesleyanism, Second Edition. Nazarene Publishing House, 2015.
Great post!