St. Gregory of Nazianzus Did Not Teach Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA)
One of the Church's most beloved saints, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, wrote a lot about our salvation in Christ. His views were not similar to the "PSA" teachings of modern Catholics & Protestants.
Mike Winger claimed that PSA is the heart of Christianity and the Gospel, and he said that critics of PSA are either lying, liberal, progressive, “poop-faces” who have stripped away the true meaning of the cross, or else that they are just too ignorant to know better. Unbelievably, he even claimed that the Early Church Fathers taught PSA.
This video is the fifth in a series of 15 podcasts, responding to Mike Winger’s mistaken claims. For those who prefer to read, a full transcript of this podcast is provided below.
The theory of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) is not compatible with the teachings of the Orthodox Church. Though I do not view PSA as a litmus test to determine who is a Christian and who isn't, I do have strong reasons for rejecting the doctrine.
The Orthodox Church teaches the Restored Icon model of our salvation in Christ, in agreement with many venerable Saints and Early Church Fathers. As we saw in a previous post, Jesus saves us by His Incarnation & Resurrection, not by paying a “ransom” to God the Father.
FULL VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Warren McGrew: Mike Winger is a well respected Christian teacher and host of the "Bible Thinker" online ministry. Mike has produced several videos which not only seek to defend PSA, but argue that it is historical and central to the Christian gospel. We strongly disagree and believe it is necessary to present a sincere and well-reasoned counterargument for both Mike and his followers to consider. We do not want this disagreement to be a source of division. Both Bible Thinker and Idol Killer are dedicated to Christ and the truth of Scripture. It is our hope that this will serve to mend divisions and bring the Body of Christ into a deeper love and understanding of the goodness of God.
Warren McGrew: Well, hello and welcome to Idol Killer, a ministry dedicated to destroying sacred cows for the cause of Christ. I'm your host, Warren McGrew, and you're joining us in our continuing response to Mike Winger and some of the claims he's made regarding penal substitutionary atonement. Joining me, as he will be doing for the entirety of this response series, is Paul Vendredi. Paul, welcome back. Thank you so much for taking the time to walk us through some of these refutations, criticisms, counterpoints, giving us another perspective to consider, countering the claims of Mike Winger. What do you have for us today, sir?
Paul Vendredi: Warren, Gregory of Nazianzus, whose dates are circa A.D. 325 to circa 391, is one of the most important Church Fathers in Eastern Orthodoxy. But according to Mike Winger, Gregory of Nazianzus is apparently some kind of fourth-century Calvary Chapel guy. Have a listen:
Mike Winger: So, here we go. Gregory of Nazianzus. Gregory of Nazianzus - another guy, Gustaf Aulén says he's a Christus Victor guy, not a penal substitution guy, right? Here's what he says, Gregory of Nazianzus:
"As for my sake, he was called a curse, who destroyed my curse and sin, who taketh away the sin of the world and became a new Adam to take the place of the old. Just so he makes my disobedience his own, and as head of the whole body”
So, just like Adam represented all of us — let me summarize what I just read — Adam represents all of us when he eats of the fruit, and Jesus represents all of us when He goes to the cross. Adam brings shame, you know, and bondage towards all of us. Jesus brings forgiveness and freedom towards all of us. This is what he's getting at.
"As long then as I am disobedient," he goes on to the end, "rebellious both by denial of God and by my passion, so long Christ also is called disobedient on my account."
So there's clear indications of substitution and representation in the content of Gregory Nazianzus. It's penal because he's speaking of the curse of Galatians 3:13, that a lot of these guys quote Galatians 3:13 in regards to what Jesus did on the cross. Rightly so. It's an important passage. Clearly the curse is the penalty for the law. And that curse was upon Christ. He's suffering the penalty for what I did, according to these Church Fathers.
Warren McGrew: Paul, what is the curse? Is it not death?
Paul Vendredi: Well, what he's talking about there is Galatians 3:13 - "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse himself..." So, Galatians 3:13, 2 Corinthians 5:21, these are favorite passages in the atonement school. They can also sort of trip up Church Fathers, because these are very strange, oddly-worded passages. And consequently, I mean, what he quoted from there was oration number 30, which is known also as the fourth theological oration.
What I want to look at, though, is whether Gregory of Nazianzus really believed that Christ is a curse, because apparently Gregory of Nazianzus is meant to be some kind of PSA guy. If you look at the writings of Gregory of Nazianzus as a whole, you simply cannot take Mike Winger seriously on this.
There is a group of philosophers known as the Pre-Socratics. Everything they wrote has been lost, so all we have from them are a few pithy one-liners. "You can't go into the same river twice." "Man is the measure of all things." "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." These type of things like that, just these pithy one-liners.
Now, Gregory of Nazianzus, much like the Pre-Socratics, wrote quite a bit of material. All of that material notwithstanding, he is remembered for one pithy one-liner. And you know what that one liner is, don't you?
Warren McGrew: I do, I do. Yeah. Nazianzus said, "For that which He has not assumed, He has not healed, but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved." So it doesn't seem to be focusing on punitive. You know, the way that I understand Nazianzus was, he's viewing Adam, who essentially rejected life and chose death, and paralleling this with its opposite in Christ, who set aside His life and died so that we could live. It seems to be assuming our nature so as to heal it. He's going to the cross and dying so that He can conquer the hold of the grave and offer a life to those who would trust in Him. It doesn't seem to be bearing the wrath of God or enabling the forgiveness of God. It seems to see that God was already propitious and desired to, you know, assume our nature so as to heal and redeem it. Am I wrong on that?
Paul Vendredi: I'm fully in agreement with you on that. The statement that you quoted there, "That which he hath not assumed, he hath not healed, but that which is united to his divinity is also saved," is absolutely legendary in Eastern Orthodoxy. If you talk to any Eastern Orthodox person about the work of Christ, why Christ had to go to the cross, why the Second Person had to become incarnate, invariably you will hear that that line quoted, or paraphrased, but you will hear the concept enunciated. That's true whether you're talking to people on a popular level or on a scholarly level. And it's true whether you're reading on a popular level or on a scholarly level. For example, this book right here, "Welcome to the Orthodox Church", which is written by Frederica Mathewes-Green. Frederica writes at a popular level, and here is Frederica quoting that passage:
Frederica Mathewes-Green: The Immaculate Conception is not an Orthodox doctrine; we believe that Mary was born with the same broken human nature as the rest of us. So was Jesus, in fact. As St. Gregory of Nazianzus (A.D. 329-389) said, "That which he has not assumed he has not healed." Christ was a real human being, not an exceptional hybrid. He was not immune to temptation; he was "in every respect...tempted as we are, yet without sin." (Heb. 4:15). So Orthodox believe that both Mary and Jesus were crafted of the same human clay as we are, and like us, were exposed to temptation. (Frederica Mathewes-Green, Welcome to the Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity, p. 139)
Paul Vendredi: That was Frederica Mathewes-Green, writing at a popular level, quoting Gregory of Nazianzus. We have this book right here, "Christ in Eastern Christian Thought", written by John Meyendorff. John Meyendorff writes at a very scholarly level. He quotes the same passage not once, but twice:
John Meyendorff: And Christ's human nature was not deficient, deprived of intellect, as Apollinarius taught, but a complete human nature, "our nature," assumed in its totality by the Word, for "what is not assumed is not healed, and what is united to God is saved," as St. Gregory Nazianzen wrote. (John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, p. 15)
Similarly, the Fathers' argument against Apollinarianism and Eutychianism can be summarized by the following insight of Gregory Nazianzen: "What is not assumed cannot be healed, and what was united to God is saved." If the Son of God has not "assumed" and made his own a true and whole human nature, salvation would remain a vain word. (John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, p. 113)
Paul Vendredi: So, it's quoted not only by Eastern Orthodox people, but it's also quoted by Western Christians, whether Catholics or Protestants. Even people in Western Christianity who disagree with the theology that's enunciated in that pithy phrase of Gregory of Nazianzus, are still aware that the phrase is out there, and that it has to be reckoned with. For example, here's William Lane Craig:
Moderator: Question for Doctor Craig.
Audience member asking a question: Yes, Doctor Craig, in making reference to Solomon and the second commandment, you asserted that God is not material, that His being is immense and universal. How then could such a being be embodied in the person of Jesus Christ?
William Lane Craig: I think that the answer to the question is essentially the same way in which your immaterial self can be embodied in your physical body. I think of you as a combination of soul and body. I'm not a materialist and a determinist as Mr. Zindler is. I believe that human beings are units that have immaterial and physical portions. And in essence, what the incarnation says is that the mind or the soul of, of Jesus of Nazareth was the Second Person of the Trinity. (William Lane Craig vs. Frank Zindlar, Atheism vs. Christianity: Where Does the Evidence Point? Audiotape, 1993)
I think we should agree with Apollinarius that the Logos was the rational soul of Jesus of Nazareth. What Apollinarius correctly discerned, I think, was that if we are to avoid a duality of persons in Christ, the man Jesus and the divine Logos must share some common constituent which unites their two individual natures. (William Lane Craig, The Two Natures of Christ, Disc 1, Track 11/12, Audio CD, 2004)
If Christ lacked a human mind, then He did not redeem the human mind. This inference is based upon the fundamental principle which underlay the entire doctrine of the incarnation: That that which is not assumed, or that which is not taken on by Christ, is not saved. In Latin, "quod non est assumption, non est anatom." What is not assumed is not saved. And apart from the truth of this principle, there is simply no rationale for the incarnation at all. And thus Apollinarius' Christology undermined Christian soteriology or the doctrine of salvation because it undermined the work of Christ. (William Lane Craig, The Two Natures of Christ, Disc 1, Track 5/12, Audio CD, 2004)
Paul Vendredi: That was a three-part clip. In the first two parts of the clip, William Lane Craig is enunciating what's known as Apollinarianism. This is a heterodox theology that tells us that Christ is devoid of a human mind and a human soul. In the third part of the clip, he admits that Apollinarian Christology is problematic, because the classic formulation in both Christology and soteriology is, "That which he hath not assumed he hath not healed."
In Eastern Christianity, Christology is soteriology, so William Lane Craig, even though he espouses Apollinarianism, is aware that that is heterodox by the standards of the Early Church, because the Early Church was abiding by this quote of Gregory of Nazianzus. Now, interestingly enough, that quote comes from a letter that Gregory wrote criticizing Apollinarianism. Here's the entire quote:
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: If anyone has put his trust in Him as a Man without a human mind, he is really bereft of mind, and quite unworthy of salvation. For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved. If only half Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a whole. Let them not, then, begrudge us our complete salvation, or clothe the Saviour only with bones and nerves and the portraiture of humanity. For if His Manhood is without soul, even the Arians admit this, that they may attribute His passion to the Godhead, as that which gives motion to the body is also that which suffers. But if He has a soul, and yet is without a mind, how is He man? For man is not a mindless animal. And this would necessarily involve that while His form and tabernacle was human, His soul should be that of a horse or an ox, or some other of the brute creation. This, then, would be what He saves; and I have been deceived by the Truth, and led to boast of an honour which had been bestowed upon another. But if His Manhood is intellectual and nor without mind, let them cease to be thus really mindless. But, says such a one, the Godhead took the place of the human intellect. How does this touch me? For Godhead joined to flesh alone is not man, nor to soul alone, nor to both apart from intellect, which is the most essential part of man. Keep then the whole man, and mingle Godhead therewith, that you may benefit me in my completeness. (Gregory of Nazianzus, To Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius, epistle 101)
Paul Vendredi: I think it's pretty clear here that the Christology/soteriology of Gregory of Nazianzus has nothing to do with penalties and substitutions. Now that we've established that, why don't we relisten to the Mike Winger clip that we played at the top of the show?
Mike Winger: But here we go. Gregory of Nazianzus. Gregory of Nazianzus - another guy, Gustaf Aulén says he's a Christus Victor guy, not a penal substitution guy, right? Here's what he says. Gregory of Nazianzus:
"As for my sake, He was called a curse, who destroyed my curse and sin, who taketh away the sin of the world, and became a new Adam to take the place of the old, just so He makes my disobedience His own, as head of the whole body."
So, just like Adam represented all of us — let me summarize what I just read — Adam represents all of us when he eats of the fruit, and Jesus represents all of us when He goes to the cross. Adam brings shame, you know, and bondage towards all of us. Jesus brings forgiveness and freedom towards all of us. This is what he's getting at.
"As long, then, as I am disobedient," he goes on, "and rebellious, both by denial of God and by my passions, so long Christ also is called disobedient on my account."
So there's clear indications of substitution and representation in the content of Gregory Nazianzus. It's penal, because he's speaking of the curse of Galatians 3:13. A lot of these guys quote Galatians 3:13 in regards to what Jesus did on the cross. Rightly so. It's an important passage. Clearly the curse is the penalty for the law, and that curse was upon Christ. He's suffering the penalty for what I did, according to these Church Fathers.
Paul Vendredi: As I mentioned earlier, the citation there is from oration number 30. If Mr. Winger is going to quote from oration 30, maybe there's some other things therefrom that he would like to quote. Let me just pull out one here. This is from section three:
"What greater destiny can befall man's humility than that he should be intermingled with God, and by this intermingling should be deified?"
What Gregory of Nazianzus is enunciating there, is an idea that's known as apotheosis or theosis, or divinization. The idea in Eastern Orthodoxy is that the ultimate end of salvation is divinization. That is all over the writings of Gregory of Nazianzus, and it's even more forcefully written in Athanasius's work. Now, this is what the countercult movement would condemn as absolutely beyond the pale. Yet Walter Martin, who 34 years after his death is still the biggest name in the countercult movement, claimed to have done his graduate work in the Church Fathers. But when he railed on Mormonism for their idea of divinization, he never once brought this up. This is going to be a real problem for Protestants as the Church Fathers become more and more accessible. In fact, they're already eminently accessible now with the internet. So, is Mike Winger, who also fancies himself a counter cultist, going to say anything about apotheosis as it appears in the theology of Gregory of Nazianzus?
I also think that this is a bad, bad use of Gregory of Nazianzus. In this passage, it's basically an allusion to 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Galatians 3:13. There are other passages, there are other places in Gregory's corpus, where he deals with those passages much more clearly. Let's take a look at those:
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: For He is made not only a Jew, and not only doth He take to Himself all monstrous and vile names, but even that which is most monstrous of all, even very sin and very curse; not that He is such, but He is called so. For how can He be sin, Who setteth us free from sin; and how can He be a curse, Who redeemeth us from the curse of the Law? But it is in order that He may carry His display of humility even to this extent, and form us to that humility which is the producer of exaltation. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XXXVII: On the Words of the Gospel, "When Jesus Had Finished These Sayings", section 1)
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: And so the passage, The Word was made Flesh, seems to me to be equivalent to that in which it is said that He was made sin, or a curse for us. not that the Lord was transformed into either of these, how could He be? But because by taking them upon Him He took away our sins and bore our iniquities. (Gregory of Nazianzus, To Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius, epistle 101)
Paul Vendredi: Alright, in that first excerpt that we read from Gregory, we find out that Christ is merely *called* sin and a curse. In the second excerpt from Gregory of Nazianzus, we found out that when He is called sin and a curse, that's simply a metaphor for the expiation of sin. Expiation means the taking away of sin. Expiation is not a synonym of atonement, by the way. That's a big problem with these atonement schoolers.
Warren, now that we've got that straightened out, let's talk about Gregory of Nazianzus' theology of the restored icon. This, "What He has not assumed, He has not healed," is very famous in Eastern Orthodoxy. Obviously, it's from many centuries ago. All I did was to put a name on it. I call it the Restored Icon model. The Restored Icon model tells us that God created mankind as an image of Himself. However, Satan and his demons, through their envy of humanity, tempt mankind to sin, and thereby smash the icon. That is the theology that's very clearly laid out in the writings of Gregory of Nazianzus. We're going to look at three excerpts right now:
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: We were deceived because we were the objects of envy. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XLV: The Second Oration on Easter, section 28)
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: The demons...drove us away from the Tree of Life, by means of the Tree of Knowledge unseasonably...For, being of a nature envious and man-hating, or rather having become so by their own wickedness, they could neither endure that we who were below should attain to that which is above, having themselves fallen from above upon the earth; nor that such a change in their glory and their first natures should have taken place. This is the meaning of their persecution of the creature. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XXXIX, Oration on the Holy Lights, section 7)
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: [Man] was created and honored with the hand and Image of God. But...by the envy of the Devil and the bitter taste of sin he was pitiably severed from God his maker--this was not in the Nature of God. What then was done, and what is the great Mystery that concerns us? An innovation is made upon nature, and God is made Man. "He that rideth upon the Heaven of Heavens in the East" of His own glory and Majesty, is glorified in the West of our meanness and lowliness. And the Son of God deigns to become and to be called Son of Man; not changing what He was (for It is unchangeable); but assuming what He was not (for He is full of love to man), that the Incomprehensible might be comprehended, conversing with us through the mediation of the Flesh as through a veil; since it was not possible for that nature which is subject to birth and decay to endure His unveiled Godhead. Therefore the Unmingled is mingled; and not only is God mingled with birth, and Spirit with flesh, and the Eternal with time, and the Uncircumscribed with measure; but also Generation with Virginity, and dishonour with Him who is higher than all honour; He who is impassable with Suffering, and the Immortal with the corruptible. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XXXIX: Oration on the Holy Lights, section 13)
Paul Vendredi: There's a word that came up in all three of those excerpts. You've got "envy" or some variant of the word "envy". Now that's interesting because it's an allusion to Wisdom 2:23-24. The Wisdom of Solomon is a deuterocanonical book that most Protestant bodies reject. Gregory of Nazianzus is referring to that there. And I want to make a point here. That Satan is the serpent in the Garden of Eden, is not explicitly told in the Old Testament.
If you call in to an apologetics radio show and ask, "How do you know that that serpent is Satan?", the answer you will get will be something along the lines of, "Well, Revelation refers to him as 'that serpent of old', so the last book of the Bible clarifies what happens in the first book of the Bible." The problem is, most of the Early Church Fathers rejected the canonicity of the Book of Revelation. That includes Gregory of Nazianzus. Gregory of Nazianzus gives a list of what books belong in the New Testament. It's called the Meter Poems of Gregory Theologus, and he does not list the Book of Revelation.
Now, what he does quote from repeatedly is Wisdom 2:23-24. I'm going to read that to you out of the King James Bible. Yes, the King James Bible of 1611 originally had that book in it. It wasn't taken out until the 19th century. Here's the text:
"For God created man to be immortal and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless, through envy of the devil came death into the world, and they that do hold of his side do find it."
Again, if you look at that, it says KJV Apocrypha. All of those books were in the original 1611. It's the Protestants of the 19th century who have some answering to do about that. But anyway, that's an aside. Let's go back to this.
What is taught there and what is taught throughout the Church Fathers, is that Satan and the demons envied mankind. I'm not going to get into the backstory on that. Let's just leave it at that. Satan envied mankind's position, so he tempted mankind to fall. And in doing so, he basically smashed the icon of God that prelapsarian man was.
Warren, the Restored Icon model tells us that to restore mankind to the icon that he was originally created to be, God becomes incarnate. The Second Person of the Trinity becomes incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth, thereby uniting all of this damaged icon to His divinity, and healing it that way. It has nothing to do with infractions, penalties, punishments, substitutions, anything like that:
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: He lighted a candle—His own Flesh—and swept the house, cleansing the world from sin; and sought the piece of money, the Royal Image that was covered up by passions. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XXXVIII: On the Theophany, or Birthday of Christ, section 14)
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: But if it was that He might destroy the condemnation by sanctifying like by like, then as He needed flesh for the sake of the flesh which had incurred condemnation, and soul for the sake of our soul, so, too, He needed mind for the sake of mind, which not only fell in Adam, but was the first to be affected, as the doctors say of illnesses. For that which received the command was that which failed to keep the command, and that which failed to keep it was that also which dared to transgress; and that which transgressed was that which stood most in need of salvation; and that which needed salvation was that which also He took upon Him. Therefore, Mind was taken upon Him. (Gregory of Nazianzus, To Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius, epistle 101)
Paul Vendredi: Okay, so we heard Gregory of Nazianzus telling us that because of Satan's envy, mankind is damaged. And so Christ is united to us entirely, including His soul and mind, which would be contrary to what William Lane Craig said. The human condition, in its damaged state, includes mortality. Therefore, the Second Person of the Trinity, incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth, also had to have mortality united to his divinity, and thereby heal that:
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: He is lifted up and nailed to the Tree, but by the Tree of Life He restoreth us; yea, He saveth even the Robber crucified with Him. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XXIX: The Third Theological Oration, On the Son, section 20)
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: A few drops of Blood recreate the whole world, and become to all men what rennet is to milk, drawing us together and compressing us into unity. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XLV: The Second Oration on Easter, section 29)
Warren McGrew: You know, Paul, one of the interesting things that you've pointed out here, and I don't think we've drawn a light on it. Maybe we don't want to. But William Lane Craig, in his defense of PSA, is essentially assuming what would be considered a heresy or a heterodox position, and rejecting the very belief of the men that they're appealing to. It just it seems so convoluted. It just seems so absolutely convoluted. I'm shocked that they're able to get away with this sort of approach.
Paul Vendredi: Well, William Lane Craig can get away with it because there are actually two different views within the atonement school. Okay, view number one is that the life of Christ is irrelevant. All that matters is His death. The other view is that the entire life is important. That would be a lot closer to what I'm saying here in my presentation. But William Lane Craig, if he says that Christ does not have the full complement of human aspects, could get away with that by siding with the wing of the atonement school that believes that Christ's life is irrelevant.
That wing of the atonement school includes some pretty important thinkers too. Walter Martin, I mentioned him earlier, he is part of that wing. Walter Martin, 34 years after his death, as I said, is still the biggest name in the countercult movement. Walter Martin, in my opinion, was also the greatest Protestant apologist who ever lived. So the name is revered. Lewis Sperry Chafer, he does not mention the life of Christ in his writings on the atonement. So apparently he may be of that side of thinking. Millard Erickson, it's speculated that he holds that view. These are two very important systematic theologians in Protestantism.
There's another person a lot of people haven't heard of. His name is W.O. Vaught. W.O. Vaught is less famous for who he was, than for somebody whom he pastored. The person whom he pastored was the lying, cheating, not-inhaling, former governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. So he had a very famous pupil. And W.O. Vaught was very much of this opinion. I have in my series, which is available at paulvendredi.com, there is an audio clip of W.O. Vaught saying that very thing, that the life of Christ means nothing. And if you think it does mean something soteriologically, then you're a "liberal". They love that strategy. If you disagree with them, you're a leftist or a liberal.
Warren McGrew: Yeah.
Paul Vendredi: Warren... let me roll back so we can do a little bit of commentary on what we heard from Gregory of Nazianzus. In the first excerpt, it's clearly all about healing. It is not punitive. It is all medical. It's all about healing. And in the second excerpt that we listened to, he talks about the blood of Christ leading to the unity of humanity. That's very similar to what we heard in Athanasius, where Athanasius talked about, Christ had to be crucified rather than killed by some other form of execution, because in crucifixion the arms are outspread. And with your arms outspread, that's symbolic of embracing all of humanity. You're bringing in both the Jews and you're bringing in the Gentiles. You're bringing in the whole world. So what we find from these thinkers is not PSA. We find rather what is much closer to what I call the Restored Icon model.
Something else we find, Warren, is an idea of recapitulation. Sometimes recapitulation is a standalone model, in that this is the understanding of why Christ became incarnate. He recapitulates all the different ages of man. He recapitulates all the features of man, so on and so forth, in order to heal that. And He even heals inanimate things like water or tears, etc. Recapitulation, as I said, is usually a standalone theory, but it's perfectly compatible with the Restored Icon model. And in fact, Gregory of Nazianzus sometimes inclines towards this model:
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: He willed to be born for our sakes who are born. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XLIII: Funeral Oration on the Great St. Basil, Bishop of Caesaraea in Cappadocia, section 62).
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: He was baptized as man—but He remitted sins as God—not because He needed purificatory rites Himself, but that He might sanctify the element of water. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XXIX: The Third Theological Oration, On the Son, section 20)
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: But John baptizes, Jesus comes to him...Perhaps to sanctify the Baptist himself, but certainly to bury the whole of the old Adam in the water; and before this and for the sake of this, to sanctify Jordan; for as He is Spirit and Flesh, so He consecrates us by Spirit and water. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XXXIX: Oration on the Holy Lights, section 15)
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: And perhaps He goes to sleep, in order that He may bless sleep also; perhaps He is tired that He may hallow weariness also; perhaps He weeps that He may make tears blessed. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XXXVII: On the Words of the Gospel, "When Jesus Had Finished These Sayings", section 2)
Paul Vendredi: That was the idea of recapitulation. And we're going to learn a lot more about recapitulation when we take a close look at Isaiah 53. That's down the road.
Warren, in addition to what I've been calling the Restored Icon model, there's what we can call the converse restored icon model, which can be found in the Fathers, or at least inferred from their writings. So we have one side of the coin. This is where Christ has made healing available to us, and we cooperate with Christ in a lifelong struggle. And at the end of our days, the icon is restored. On the other side of that coin, you have the converse. There are people who also have the healing of Christ made available to them, but they choose not to cooperate with Christ, and instead to indulge their sins. As we talk about this converse restored icon model, keep in mind the first two chapters of Romans, and you'll have a very clear idea of what I'm talking about. Now this is laid out, I wouldn't say clearly, but I think it's there at least, you know, latently. It's not patent in the Church Fathers, but I think it is there latently. We're going to hear about this, this idea from Romans one and two, that human beings, when they indulge in their sins, become debased by their sins. And this is the first step in their downfall:
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: ...that, as Paul says, they might receive in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. In the very objects of their worship, not so much honouring them as suffering dishonour by them. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XXXIX: Oration on the Holy Lights, section 6)
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: For this, God's image was outraged; and as we did not like to keep the Commandments, we were given over to the independence of our error. And as we erred, we were disgraced by the objects of our worship. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XXXIX: Oration on the Holy Lights, section 7)
Paul Vendredi: What we just heard there in those excerpts from Gregory's work, sound very much like the early chapters of Romans. Now, what happens when a person has become debased by his sins, is that ultimately, the person becomes an icon of the sin that he most cherishes. So whatever sin you happen to be indulging, if you've indulged that sin all throughout your life and have obstinately refused the healing that's made available to you through the incarnation of Christ, why then you simply become the icon of the thing you cherish, which is your particular sin. Basically, these people have turned themselves into subhumans:
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: All have one family—if you look at what is here below the dust—or if you look higher, that inbreathing of which we are partakers, and which we were bidden to keep, and with which I must stand before my Judge to give an account of my heavenly nobility, and of the Divine Image. Everyone, then, is noble, who has guarded this through virtue and consent to his Archetype. On the other hand, everyone is ignoble who has mingled with evil, and put upon himself another form, that of the serpent. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XXXIII, Against the Arians, and Concerning Himself, section 12)
Paul Vendredi: Warren, what's interesting is that in the theology of the Church Fathers, we have human beings who become icons of Christ, which is what we were made to be at the beginning. And you have humans who become icons of Satan. These are people who have exchanged the heavenly icon for a satanic icon. But what's even more interesting to me is that it isn't just eastern thinkers who see this. This is perceived even among Western Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant. What we're going to listen to now is a clip from the Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft:
Peter Kreeft: A fourth objection is how any good and loving person could ever be happy in heaven, if they knew any of their friends that they love are in hell. That's a very difficult question to answer. Logically, it seems there's only three possibilities. Either they don't know there is anyone in hell, but then their happiness is based on a lie. Or else they do know this and they're happy about it, but then they're selfish, unfeeling stinkers who shouldn't be in heaven. Or else they know it and they're not happy about it, in which case heaven is not perfect because its inhabitants are unhappy.
The only two answers I can imagine to this objection are to deny that there are any people in hell that ought to be pitied, or else to deny that the people in heaven ought to pity them. If there are souls in hell, they might not be persons anymore, but only ex-persons who have lost their personality, their "I", their very ability to say "I". When a great painting falls into the fireplace and burns, it's no longer a great painting, but ashes. So perhaps in hell you make an ash of yourself, an ex-person. (Peter Kreeft, Faith and Reason: The Philosophy of Religion, Track 10d: Hell, Audio CD, 2005)
Warren McGrew: Reminds me of that C.S. Lewis quote that I'm often referencing, where we become more like that which we are following, that we're spending time with, that we're submitting to, you know, that we become more like the devil himself or more like Christ, depending on whom we're committing our lives to, who we're following. So are we becoming images in His likeness of God in Christ, or are we becoming essentially the devil himself? And you see, I think, God warning this even in Genesis four, to Cain. He says, "Sin is at the door, its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it." And we see what happens when Cain didn't. So I think that while we're focused on the Church Fathers, you know, for most of this, because we're talking about church history, I do not want to ignore the fact that there is strong scriptural evidence that they drew from.
Paul Vendredi: I'm delighted you brought up C.S. Lewis, because there is a great example of what we've been talking about in the novel Perelandra. In chapter 12 of that novel, the good guy, Ransom, is battling it out with the bad guy, Weston. As Ransom is engaged in this mortal combat with Weston, he realizes it's no longer Weston. It's just a husk of Weston that's now possessed and animated by a demon. What used to be Weston is now just a subhuman object. Therefore, Ransom has no qualms about killing this subhuman object or this satanic icon. That's why we have a clip of that, actually, right here. And this is a clip. This is an excerpt from chapter 12 of Perelandra:
He wavered. Then an experience that perhaps no good man can ever have in our world came over him—a torrent of perfectly unmixed and lawful hatred. The energy of hating, never before felt without some guilt, without some dim knowledge that he was failing fully to distinguish the sinner from the sin, rose into his arms and legs, till he felt that they were pillars of burning blood. What was before him appeared no longer a creature of corrupted will. IT WAS CORRUPTION ITSELF to which will was attached only as an instrument. Ages ago it had been a Person: but the ruins of personality now survived in it only as weapons at the disposal of a furious self-exiled negation. It is perhaps difficult to understand why this filled Ransom not with horror, but with a kind of joy. The joy came from finding at last what hatred was made for. (C.S. Lewis, Perelandra, chapter 12)
Warren McGrew: You know, growing up in a Christian home, my first experience with Lewis was The Chronicles of Narnia. And someone at my dad's work, I happened to be in his office one day and they said, "What do you think of his space series?" I said, "What space series?", and immediately ran to the bookstore, found the collection of the three books, and dove in, and I loved it. It challenged my understanding of science fiction, because instead of going out into the cold void of space, Lewis made it warm and radiant, like you're, you know, leaving the sinful planet stained by human sin and getting maybe a little bit closer to the divine. There was some really beautiful imagery there. It was really interesting.
Paul Vendredi: If you hand out C.S. Lewis's novels to people who don't believe in Christianity, it's almost a great form of covert evangelism, because all of the themes are there, but he's not hitting you over the head with them. So, yeah, I mean, C.S. Lewis is, yeah, he's kind of a treasure. C.S. Lewis was a Protestant. Everybody wants to claim C.S. Lewis.
Warren McGrew: ::laughter: They do. They do.
Paul Vendredi: Yeah, the Orthodox want to claim him. The Protestants can claim him, even though he said some things that are upsetting to traditional Protestantism. And Peter Kreeft, who's a Catholic philosopher and theologian, loves C.S. Lewis. He quotes from his writings profusely.
Warren McGrew: Well, he was greatly impacted by George MacDonald, who was a Christian Universalist. And so, it made him really reconsider that harsh Protestant view of black and white. And I think that it drove him to deeper consideration of the Scriptures. I'm not a Christian Universalist, but I do see that impact that MacDonald had on Lewis. It was really interesting.
Paul Vendredi: Right. So, I think that Lewis in Perelandra has given us a really great image of what a converse restored icon model is. Now that we know that human beings can become either an icon of Christ or an icon of Satan, what happens in the afterlife? I think a good way of putting it is that — and in fact, you see this in Eastern Orthodox icons of the Last Judgment — there are rays radiating from the throne of God. These are the unmitigated rays of God's love, rays of light. Those people who have spent their life cooperating with Christ and have restored the icon, experience these rays as heavenly rays. But the people who have rejected Christ all through their life and have turned themselves into almost an incarnation of sin, an icon of Satan, they are exposed to the same unmitigated rays of God's love and experience them as hellfire. Now, what this represents is a change in the human beings. It does not represent a change in God.
There's an allusion to this, I think, in the book of Exodus, where it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Well, what's this all about? Well, think about it this way. This is the illustration that comes from a number of eastern writers. If you have a kiln and you put into the kiln mud brick, and you put into it also wax, both of these are exposed to the same fire. However, the mud brick hardens because of its nature, whereas the wax, because of its nature, melts. They are both exposed to the same flame within the kiln. Basically, what happened is, Pharaoh had already conditioned himself to think that he was "above the law", so to speak. So when he encounters the energies of God, it hardens him. So when it says God hardened Pharaoh's heart, it doesn't mean that this is some kind of predestination. It doesn't mean that this is a puppet-master. It means that Pharaoh had made his nature of such a kind that any kind of exposure to God would harden him. And that's what happens in the afterlife, according to this model. Let's look at another excerpt from Gregory of Nazianzus. And that's where he enunciates this idea:
St. Gregory of Nazianzus: And whosoever has been depraved by being knit to the flesh, and so far oppressed by the clay, that he cannot look at the rays of truth, nor rise above things below, though he is born from above and called to things above, I hold him to be miserable in his blindness, even though he may abound in things of this world; and all the more, because he is the sport of his abundance, and is persuaded by it that something else is beautiful instead of that which is really beautiful, reaping as the poor fruit of his poor opinion, the sentence of darkness, or the seeing Him to be fire, Whom he did not recognize as light. (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration XXI: On the Great Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, section 2)
Paul Vendredi: What we had there from Gregory, is a description saying that what should be experienced as light is instead experienced as fire. So the people who have undergone the converse restored icon process are experiencing the light of God as fire. Again, this is something that's not isolated to eastern thinkers. There are Western thinkers, Catholic and Protestant, who come up with similar concepts. Let's listen to another clip from Peter Kreeft:
Peter Kreeft: And it seems pretty clear from the Bible and the Quran that whatever the nature of hell consists of, its existence is real. So how is that compatible with the God of Love? One bold answer from many of the saints and mystics is that the fires of hell are made of the love of God. That it is the very love of God for the sinner that tortures them in hell. Because the sinner is in hell only because he's made himself the enemy of love. And God's love tortures his egotism. But God can't turn off his love any more than the sun can turn off its light. The sinner is like a small child in a fit of rage. He hates his parents and wishes they'd fight with him so he could feel self-righteous, but instead they forgive him and hug him and kiss him and tell him they love him. And that's torture to the kid. Or take an adult example, the very beauty of a great piece of music may be torture to someone who's blindly jealous of the composer. (Peter Kreeft, Faith and Reason: The Philosophy of Religion, Track 10c: Hell, Audio CD, 2005)
Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures say that hell is punishment, but there are two kinds of punishment, because there are two kinds of law. There's positive law and natural law. Positive law is law that's posited or willed by some will, human or divine, some will that chose to make that law but could have chosen differently. Natural laws are not willed, and they couldn't be different. They're necessary because they're the laws of the nature of a thing, whether a physical thing or a spiritual thing. "Don't drive on the left" is a positive law in America, but not England. "If you jump off a cliff, you'll break your bones" is a natural law. "Remember to think about your tax return each year" is a positive law. "Those who think, have curiosity" is a natural law. "If you steal that cookie, I'll send you to bed without supper" is a positive law. "If you eat too many cookies, you'll get a stomachache" is a natural law. Now, the punishments for violating positive laws are changeable and negotiable, like going to bed without supper because you stole cookies. And mercy can change those laws and those punishments. But the punishments for violating natural laws are unchangeable and necessary. Mercy can't change them. If you jump off a cliff, gravity can't be merciful to you. So, hell would seem to contradict God's mercy if it were his positive law, but not if it were the natural and necessary punishment for being a contrary-to-God kind of person. C.S. Lewis puts it this way. He writes, "We are at liberty to think of the bad man's perdition, not as a sentence imposed upon him, but as the mere fact of being himself. Our egotist has turned everything into a province or appendage of the self. The taste for the other, that is, the very capacity for enjoying good, is quenched in him, except insofar as his body still draws him into some contact with the outer world. Death removes this last contact. He has his wish to live wholly in himself, and to make the best of what he finds there. And what he finds there is hell." I think what Lewis is saying in that quotation is that hell is not an added punishment for being evil, but the very state of being evil come to fruition and eternalized. And that heaven is not an added reward for being good, but the very state of being good made perfect and eternalized, so that the saying, "virtue is its own reward and vice is its own punishment", would then be true not only in time but also in eternity. (Peter Kreeft, Faith and Reason: The Philosophy of Religion, Tracks 10e-10f: Hell, Audio CD, 2005)
Warren McGrew: It reminds me of this idea that some people, they get so consumed with bitterness and hatred, that if they see somebody that they perceive as an adversary being blessed, it drives them insane. So they perceive the good, but it does them great harm, because of the condition of their own heart and unforgiveness and resentment and bitterness. And yeah, I think we see that in the clips that you've presented. I think we see that in the excerpts of the writings. And I think that gives us a good idea or a good framework in which to understand Nazianzus and the way that he viewed the work of God in Christ. And there doesn't seem to be any aspect here of what we would consider to be the fundamental classic mechanisms for PSA. I think you've done a really good job in this episode of dismantling those claims.
Paul Vendredi: Well, thanks for the compliment. You know, to be honest here, most of the work here was done by Gregory of Nazianzus. All I tried to do was systematize it a little bit and put a name onto the process.
Warren McGrew: Well, thank you so much for doing that today, Paul. This has been a really enjoyable series. I hope that the audience sees this as challenging. Again, this is intended to be a respectful, thoughtful response to the claims Mike has made. And we hope that this is being used to edify the body, perhaps challenge some preconceived ideas about penal substitution or those who just do not affirm it. We're not all a bunch of liberal hippies and God haters, but we really do have a heart for God. We really do love the scriptures. We really do have an appreciation for church history. And we're really concerned with truthfully representing that. And so hopefully the audience is being blessed for that.
But thank you guys so much for tuning in. Continue to watch these episodes in their order. As, as as you're going through this, we hope that this will be a challenge. Until next time, guys. Thanks so much and God bless.
Please be sure to watch each episode in this series. As we are responding to the claims Mike Winger put forward addressing the historicity and biblical basis of penal substitutionary atonement. Thanks for watching.