Spring 2025 · Vol. 54 No. 1 · pp. 69–83
Considering Weaver’s Narrative Christus Victor
This essay offers both an appreciation and a critique of J. Denny Weaver’s model of the atonement as found in his book, The Nonviolent Atonement. 1 As the title suggests, Weaver has focused upon removing divine violence from our understanding of Christ’s work. Vital to Weaver’s approach to the cross is his contention that Christ’s life and work bring the kingdom of God to earth. In this engagement of Weaver, Kathryn Tanner’s work, Christ the Key, will also be discussed; she highlights the objections to atonement models of feminist and womanist theologians who emphasize that Christ’s life elicited the resistance of the earthly powers that eventually resulted in his death. Finally, the critique of Weaver’s work by Hojin Ahn will be assessed.
God cannot will the death of Jesus, according to Weaver, because God is nonviolent, a reality made abundantly clear in the life of Christ.
Narrative Christus Victor
The Christian doctrine of the atonement in the history of the church has been interpreted by a number of different models, all of which seek to p. 70 account for a variety of biblical imagery. Interestingly, no specific atonement model was ever designated in the ancient creeds. Essentially, atonement concerns the nature of Christ’s work in accomplishing salvation, and for many of the models the focus is upon forgiveness of sins through Jesus’ death on the cross. Weaver’s work with the atonement has two major objectives: avoiding the violence of God endemic to some of the other models, and (to that end) broadening Christ’s salvation work to involve more than his death. 2
In order to understand how Weaver’s narrative Christus Victor model elevates the life of Christ, it will be helpful to have a general understanding of the original Christus Victor model. Swedish theologian Gustav Aulén conceptualized Christus Victor (Latin for “Christ the Conqueror”) in a series of 1930 lectures, later translated into English as Christus Victor (1931). 3 Aulén conceived of the label as a means of identifying the overarching theme of conflict and ultimate victory through the atonement according to the early church fathers. This victory is both cosmic—Christ has prevailed over evil and Satan—and temporal—Christ is victorious over the earthly powers that serve Satan. Christus Victor is properly understood as a framework for atonement to which specific atonement mechanisms may be attached. For instance both Irenaeus’s concept of recapitulation and Gregory of Nyssa’s concept of ransom fit inside this framework.
Thus, we can properly situate Weaver’s narrative Christus Victor as a specific mechanism for atonement within the broad motif of conflict and victory. Weaver’s atonement mechanism, the “narrative,” is the “entire history of God’s people, with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as the culminating revelation of the reign of God in history.” 4 Weaver’s treatment is accurately located within the Christus Victor family because it is centered on a cosmic conflict between God and Satan. However, it represents a new development within that family: he presents the conflict as being played out in the discrete experiences of God’s people.
The Nonviolent God and Jesus’ Death
Weaver’s primary goal is to explain the atonement in such a way that God does not will the death of Jesus. God cannot will the death of Jesus, according to Weaver, because God is nonviolent, a reality made abundantly clear in the life of Christ. 5 He writes, “The teaching and the life of Jesus show that the objectives of the reign of God are not accomplished by violence.” 6 So, if God does not use violence as a means to an end, then God cannot have willed the death of Jesus as a means to salvation for humanity.
One obvious question, then, is, Who is responsible for Christ’s death? On the earthly level, Weaver primarily lays blame at the feet of Rome who, he p. 71 says, “bears ultimate responsibility for [Jesus’] death.” 7 Additionally, Weaver notes that Jewish religious leaders were compliant with the civil authorities and seized an opportunity to rid themselves of an irritation. Lastly, Weaver identifies the disciples as playing a role in Christ’s death. Judas is Jesus’ betrayer, several fell asleep in the garden, and Peter denied Christ three times. 8
Another important aspect of narrative Christus Victor is God’s cosmic confrontation with, and victory over, Satan and the powers of evil. “In many ways the teaching and acts of Jesus pose the reign of God in conflict with the powers that oppose it. When Jesus was executed, the powers of evil enjoyed a momentary triumph—Jesus’ very existence is removed.” 9 However, Christians know this is not the end of the story. Christ is resurrected, Satan and evil are defeated, and God and the kingdom are shown to be greater than the machinations of evil. It is this framework of Christus Victor—God and Christ’s victory in the cosmic spiritual struggle—into which the narrative of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is placed.
This conflict, both cosmic and earthly, comes against Jesus to keep him from fulfilling his mission, which for Weaver was to bring about the reign of God on earth. Jesus’ life and mission bring him into conflict with the powers of evil and Satan, both directly in the exorcisms of demons and evil spirits, and indirectly, such as in his teachings regarding a new way of living. As Weaver observes, “The reign of God in Jesus made an ultimate claim, which was confronted by the ultimate claim of the powers of evil. This confrontation of ultimates inevitably resulted in death, but the death was a function of Jesus’ mission and not the purpose or the goal of the mission.” 10 This is a vital distinction for Weaver. Jesus’ death is not willed by God, and it is not the purpose of his life. Nonetheless, Jesus’ death is inevitable because of the nature of his life. Before going further, it is important to explore the distinction between willing an event to happen and an event that is inevitable.
An Inevitable Event
It is a reasonable claim to say that God caused the death of Jesus without willing the death of Jesus. On Weaver’s view, the original action that sets in motion the events that lead to the death of Christ is God sending Jesus to live and redeem humanity. Jesus’ death is only possible if God the Son becomes incarnate first. The incarnation of God the Son as Jesus of Nazareth is an act of the triune God. So in this respect it is perfectly reasonable to say that God caused the death of Jesus.
There are, however, a variety of ways for understanding God’s will. John Frame helpfully identifies some relevant terminology regarding God’s will. “One distinction is between God’s antecedent and consequent wills. God’s p. 72 general valuation of some things as good we may call his antecedent will; his specific choices among those goods . . . may be called consequent.” 11
What then does this mean for Weaver’s claim that God does not will the death of Christ? Weaver rejects the idea, which he identifies with the family of theories he calls satisfaction atonement, that “God established the scenario in which Jesus, the God-man, would die in order to satisfy the divine need.” 12 Using Frame’s taxonomy, Weaver rejects that God’s antecedent will is for Jesus to die. Additionally, Weaver also rejects that God’s consequent will is for Jesus to die. Instead, Weaver understands God’s consequent will to be that “Jesus carry out [his] mission faithfully, even when it meant death.” 13 Despite the fact that God’s consequent will can be rejected, the fact that Jesus is both God and human means that Jesus will not stray from said will. According to Weaver, Jesus’ mission thus results in a conflict with Satan and the powers of evil that makes his death inevitable.
Suppose, for instance, the case of a pedestrian, Jones, who is about to cross the street. For whatever reason, Jones is unaware that she has stepped directly in front of a bus. However, another pedestrian, Smith, notices what Jones has done and determines the only course of action is to knock Jones out of the way with her body. Smith arrives in time and knocks Jones out of the way, but her actions inevitably lead to her being hit by the bus instead of Jones. It would be unreasonable to claim that Smith has committed suicide, that is, that she willed her own death. Instead, her will was clearly to save Jones, but a function of her will was the inevitability of her own death. So it is with Weaver’s position on Christ’s death. God does not will Christ’s death. God wills the salvation of humanity, but because of the nature of Christ’s life, his death becomes inevitable, though not willed.
Jesus’ Death as Unnecessary
Now that the difference between a willed action and an inevitable action has been made clear, the final and most significant part of Weaver’s view can be discussed. One of the defining, and most controversial, aspects of Weaver’s narrative Christus Victor is his insistence that the death of Christ is not needed. Given the gravity of Weaver’s claim, it is vital to explore it in greater detail.
Weaver, we must note, is not in any way claiming that Christ did not actually die or that the crucifixion was some sort of farce. Weaver affirms that the historical event of Christ’s death did in fact occur and even understands it as an important part of the atonement. 14
Weaver’s discussion of the necessity of Christ’s death comes in his explanation of what the death of Christ accomplishes or, to pose a question, p. 73 “Who needs the death of Christ?” For Weaver, in the satisfaction family of atonement theories it is God who “needs” the death of Christ—whether it is for God’s offended honor, as in Anselm’s formulation, or for divine law, as in penal substitutionary atonement. 15 In Peter Abelard’s moral influence theory, it is human sinners who need Christ’s death because humanity needs a supreme example of God’s love to emulate. 16 In classical Christus Victor, Christ’s death is needed by Satan because it is a part of the “contract” into which Satan and God entered; by this contract, Satan will not release humanity from slavery to sin without something of equal value in return. 17
On Weaver’s narrative Christus Victor, the question is not answered as straightforwardly. This is because, as stated previously, Christ’s death is not needed to accomplish God’s purposes. In a partial answer to his own question, Weaver says, “the closest thing to a need for Jesus’ death is that powers of evil need his death in order to remove his challenge to their power.” 18 Thus, it is clear for Weaver that if it is the powers of evil who “need” Christ’s death, then “[Christ’s death] accomplishes nothing for the salvation of sinners, nor does it accomplish anything for the divine economy.” 19 For Weaver, Christ’s death displays Satan’s ultimate weapon, death, and serves as a necessary transition for the display of God’s ultimate weapon, resurrection. Thus, in relation to the forgiveness of sins, Christ’s death does not “accomplish” anything in the same sense that it “accomplishes” the forgiveness of sins in atonement theories from the satisfaction family.
Necessary Conditions
Perhaps the language of necessary conditions can prove helpful regarding Weaver’s understanding of Jesus’ death. For Weaver, Christ’s death is not a necessary condition for the salvation of human beings. That is, the salvation of humanity would have been possible had Christ not died. If Christ’s death is a necessary condition, then the salvation of humanity would not have been possible without Christ’s death. Jesus’ death is, for Weaver, necessary in a different sense. Namely, the death of Christ enables the ultimate display of God’s power: resurrection from the dead.
Of course, in order for one to be resurrected, one must first die. So, in this sense, Christ’s death is necessary, inasmuch as his death enables the ultimate display of God’s power. Weaver affirms that “there is salvific meaning in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus,” but “the purpose of his mission was not to die but to bring life by making the rule of God visible. The ultimate power of the reign of God manifests itself in the resurrection of Jesus because he was killed. Resurrection overcomes death, the last enemy.” 20 p. 74
In narrative Christus Victor the atonement consists of three phases: the life of Christ (of paramount importance), the death of Christ, and the resurrection of Christ. As quoted above, Weaver does not believe Christ’s death is shorn of salvific meaning, but that salvific meaning is not inherently found in being the historical moment where the remission of sins takes place. 21 Instead, Christ’s death signifies Satan’s ultimate response to Christ’s life, and it is the life of Christ that is the initial salvific act. According to God’s will, Christ’s life testifies to and inaugurates the kingdom of God on earth. These events were transforming the world in which Jesus lived and, had they gone uncontested, it is reasonable to conclude that, for Weaver, Christ may have transformed the entire world, achieving God’s ultimate goal of saving humanity and inaugurating God’s kingdom. 22 It would be difficult to make the life of Christ more significant for the atonement than this.
Jesus’ life is so significant and transformational that Satan, working through the Roman Empire and other worldly forces, does everything possible to bring it to an end, even killing the incarnate Son of God. Weaver drives this point home, saying, “Rather than understanding Jesus’ death as a divine necessity, or that Jesus’ mission focused on the effect of his death, I see the death of Jesus as the world’s response to the reign of God made present in the life of Jesus.” 23 Because of God’s omniscience and sovereignty, God is able to take what Satan intended as an impediment to God’s plan and turn it into a demonstration of God’s victory over death and the forgiveness of sins.
Tanner’s Incarnational Model of Atonement
Another understanding of atonement that prioritizes the life of Christ to a significant extent is the aptly named incarnational model of atonement delineated in Kathryn Tanner’s book, Christ the Key. 24 The book as a whole is concerned with reorienting theology around the person of Christ, and the atonement is no exception. Tanner understands the incarnation to be the specific mechanism of atonement. Tanner believes Aulén’s pivotal account of Christus Victor appreciates Christ’s life and the incarnation but ultimately does not go far enough. Her understanding of Aulén is that he views the incarnation as a “necessary prerequisite for the fight to be engaged: God has to enter into the sphere of sin and death by becoming human in order to fight sin and death.” 25 For Tanner the incarnation is not just a prerequisite for the fight but “the very means by which the fight is waged and won.” 26
Tanner’s incarnational theory of atonement elevates the significance of Christ’s life for atonement despite the fact that this was not her expressed goal. 27 She finds more theological significance in the cross than Weaver. Tanner understands Jesus’ death on the cross to be a necessary hurdle to be p. 75 overcome, contrary to Weaver who understood Jesus’ death on the cross to be inevitable but not necessary. Tanner also accounts for the type of life Jesus lived by affirming in a manner similar to, though not identical with, Weaver that Jesus’ ministry exemplified God’s eternal kingdom. She understands the purpose of atonement to be seen in the life of Christ: “the effects of this salvific mechanism . . . are, indeed, much clearer away from the cross than on it—for example, in Jesus’ healing ministry to the sick and the outcast, the advent of the new community of God, and Jesus’ resurrected life.” 28
Therefore, on Tanner’s account Christ’s life is significant for our understanding of the atonement. Tanner’s view is, however, weaker than Weaver’s in its understanding of the life of Christ. Weaver insists that there is something saving in Christ’s actions and not just his union with humanity. Weaver would likely affirm Tanner’s claim that the effects of salvation can be seen in Jesus’ life. However, he would probably go further by saying that there is something within these acts that is salvific, not just a representation of what is to come. His relative neglect of such issues and his locating the means of atonement in the concrete acts of Christ—as opposed to the metaphysical union of the two natures in Christ—form the core difference between Weaver and Tanner on the atonement.
Both the work of Tanner and that of Weaver elevate the life of Christ by locating the saving power of the atonement in Christ’s life and mission, that is, the discrete historical events in which Jesus engaged, including his many teachings, healings, exorcisms, and other miracles. 29
Ahn’s Critique of Weaver’s Atonement Model
We turn now to consider possible shortcomings of Weaver’s view, for it is not without its detractors. Three such objections are his neglect of the salvific significance of Christ’s death for atonement, the potential damage he does to God’s sovereignty and omnipotence, and his neglect of Christ’s divinity.
The latter two of these objections have recently been set out in Hojin Ahn’s work, A Constructively Critical Conversation between Nonviolent and Substitutionary Perspectives on Atonement. 30 The assessment of Ahn’s critique of Weaver will begin with God’s sovereignty.
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A primary issue for Ahn is the “obliteration of God’s divine intentionality” in narrative Christus Victor. It seems that the inevitability of Jesus’ death, and God’s awareness of that inevitability, presents too feeble a picture of God for Ahn, who would prefer that God be directly intending Jesus’ death. p. 76
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Ahn continues the juxtaposition begun by Weaver between narrative Christus Victor and Anselmian satisfaction stating, “While Anselm’s God autonomously willed that Jesus die for the sake of God’s retributive justice, Weaver’s nonviolent God unavoidably intended Jesus’ death for the purpose of realizing God’s reign.”
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Ahn states further, “In order to confirm that the nonviolent God has no divine intentionality in the death of Christ, Weaver deploys the human logic of inevitability.” 31
Ahn understands two different types of intentionality at work in these responses to Weaver: divine intentionality and all other types of intentionality. If there are not two types of intentionality, then there is a contradiction between Ahn’s assessment of “God unavoidably intend[ing] Jesus’ death” (second quote) and “no divine intentionality” in that death (third quote). It is not clear what the difference is between divine intentionality and other types of intentionality, but if it is accepted that Ahn perceives a difference between them, then the issue of divine intentionality can be cleared up without departing from Weaver’s work. The issue is not that Weaver obliterates divine intentionality per se, but, as in the third quote above, Weaver rejects “divine intentionality in the death of Christ.” Weaver affirms divine intentionality but redirects the object of divine intentionality from the death of Christ (as is found in the satisfaction family of atonement theories) to “the purpose of realizing God’s reign.” 32
Additionally, it is unclear why Ahn attaches the qualifier “human” to the “logic of inevitability” in the third quote. If it is intended as a critique of Weaver’s logic, it falls flat, as all of the theological task is done using human logic, whether Weaver’s use of the logic of inevitability or Anselm’s use of the logic of satisfaction.
Another aspect of Ahn’s critique is that “God’s sovereignty only starts to emerge in the resurrection,” and “Weaver’s nonviolent God is too incompetent to save his Son from execution on the cross.” 33 This essay has previously shown that the logic of inevitability is compatible with divine sovereignty when God’s purposes are understood more broadly as the salvation of humanity and creation and not narrowly construed as Christ’s death. Thus, the life and death of Christ are as much a function of God’s sovereignty as the resurrection because Jesus’ life is fundamentally concerned with making the reign of God present on earth. The charge that the “nonviolent God is too incompetent to save his Son from execution” is as baseless for Weaver’s atonement as it is for Anselm’s. In both understandings it is not due to p. 77 incompetence on the part of God that Christ dies, but rather the purpose of a greater plan at work.
Ahn again brings up the issue of God’s divine intentionality with respect to the death of Christ when he claims, “Weaver fails to reckon with the fact that to abandon God’s divine intentionality in Christ’s death is to delete God himself from the history of biblical salvation.” 34 However, it does not follow that to abandon divine intentionality in Christ’s death is equivalent to removing God from the history of salvation. To identify divine intentionality in Christ’s death with the whole of God’s action in the history of biblical salvation is to ignore a great deal of biblical material, not least the life and mission of Christ.
Ahn’s other critique is that Weaver neglects Christ’s divinity in his understanding of atonement. Ahn claims, “For Weaver, the deity of Christ is a stumbling block because his divinity not only means sovereignty but also obviously contradicts the human inevitability or unexpectedness of the crucifixion.” 35 Ahn’s critique that Weaver is being too dismissive of classical Chalcedonian Christology is an astute one. This does not mean Weaver necessarily disagrees with the metaphysical claims being made in the creeds of Nicaea and Chalcedon, but he does have serious problems with them for failing to mention the ethical components of Christ’s life and especially the nonviolent character of God’s reign. 36
It is true that Weaver devalues the creeds by privileging the human aspects of Christ’s life. However, Ahn too easily insinuates that Weaver is edging into the camp of the historical Christological fallacies of Nestorianism or Apollinarianism, or that Weaver’s Christ is “equal to the nineteenth-century liberal portrait of Jesus as the ethical teacher.” 37 A careful reading of Weaver shows that he affirms the divinity of Christ at numerous junctures, such as his affirmation of Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of the living God. 38 Another example comes just one page later where Weaver notes John 18:36, where Jesus says, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here” (NRSV). 39 Weaver consistently refers to God’s kingdom, and here we have Jesus referring to the kingdom in the possessive, thus identifying himself with God (cf. John 3:3, 5). To say Weaver underemphasizes the divinity of Christ is reasonable, but to say that Weaver’s Christ is akin to the “nineteenth-century liberal portrait of Jesus as the ethical teacher” is incongruent with Weaver’s work.
In addition, Ahn’s critique that Christ’s deity “not only means sovereignty but also obviously contradicts the human inevitability or p. 78 unexpectedness of the crucifixion” has problems of its own. As has been shown previously, divine sovereignty—whether that of Jesus or God the Father—is compatible with human inevitability. It is well within reason that something, in this case Christ’s death, can be inevitable and yet still be used to serve God’s sovereign purpose. Next, human inevitability and unexpectedness are not equivalent concepts. Ahn wonders, “. . . is the crucifixion an unexpected horrible event beyond God’s sovereign knowledge and power?” 40 Ahn’s train of thought is unclear, but it appears he is saying that if an event is unnecessary, which Weaver says is true of Christ’s death, it becomes unexpected on the view that unnecessary events would be avoided by an omniscient and sovereign God. However, the role of inevitability again plays a large role as an event can be both inevitable and unnecessary. Further, even a moderately strong view of omniscience would entail God knowing inevitable events.
Even if the issue of the inevitable being completely expected could be denied, Weaver makes it clear that both Jesus and God the Father expected Christ’s death. First, Weaver says, “In carrying out his mission, Jesus was ready to die and he was willing to die . . . . It was a death that resulted from fulfillment of his mission about the reign of God.” 41 Further, Weaver expands on God’s knowledge of the inevitability of Jesus’ death, saying, “It was God’s will that Jesus carry out that mission faithfully, even when it meant death . . . . Jesus could have escaped death at the hands of Rome, but that escape would have meant failing his mission. God willed that Jesus face this death rather than abandon his mission.” 42 Thus, the crucifixion of Jesus is not in any way unexpected for either Jesus or for God the Father.
The final problem with the claim by Ahn that Christ’s divinity is problematic for Weaver’s narrative Christus Victor is that the divinity of Christ is in fact fundamental to narrative Christus Victor. The saving power of Christ’s life and mission is not possible if Jesus is only human. If Jesus is only a human being, then the victory of Christ is impossible. Christ must be sinless in order for the discrete actions of his life to have the kind of significance that Weaver and this essay claim it does. Not only does Christus Victor presuppose the uniqueness of Christ regarding his role in salvation, but Weaver explicitly affirms classical Christology, saying, “Does specifying the absence of ethics and their capacity to accommodate the sword in and of itself render the Nicene and Chalcedonian formulas invalid or intrinsically wrong? No, certainly not.” 43 Weaver’s entire section on Christology (120–26) affirms the metaphysics of the ancient creeds while also pointing out their shortcomings. p. 79
Weaver and the Death of Jesus
Having covered the objections raised by Hojin Ahn, the objection that narrative Christus Victor neglects the salvific significance of Christ’s death for atonement may be addressed. In the summary of Weaver’s narrative Christus Victor it was noted that the death of Christ is necessary only in the sense that it enables the ultimate display of God’s power: resurrection from the dead. This is the most significant drawback of Weaver’s atonement theory, and it provides an opportunity to draw on the work of Kathryn Tanner to address one of narrative Christus Victor’s deficiencies.
As noted, Weaver largely relegates the significance of the cross for the doctrine of the atonement to a tertiary role. For Weaver, the life of Christ serves as God’s initial action to redeem humanity, an action God is aware will lead to the inevitable death of Christ. The death of Christ forms the basis for the resurrection, where God overcomes the ultimate power of Satan with a greater, life-giving ultimate power. Christ’s death is not inconsequential in narrative Christus Victor; it is a vital step in God and Satan’s clash of ultimates, but compared to most theories of atonement that center the act of forgiveness of sins on the cross, Weaver’s formulation significantly diminishes the value of the cross. Thus, it seems that Weaver fails to offer a mechanism for forgiveness of sins, and instead locates forgiveness of sins in an act of divine fiat. 44 On Weaver’s account of the death of Christ, the cross functions as a “springboard” for the resurrection rather than actually accomplishing anything regarding the forgiveness of sins.
However, in the work of Katherine Tanner it was observed that she retains a more theologically significant view of the cross. With the intent of retaining the salvific significance of the cross, Tanner says, “humanity suffering under the weight of sin is reworked in a process of salvation over time, from Jesus’ birth up to and through his death.” 45 For Weaver, the death of Christ forms a transition point from the saving power of the life of Christ to the saving power of the resurrection of Christ, whereas for Tanner the death of Christ has saving power of its own. Tanner understands Christ’s death as another facet, and a vital one at that, of the process of embracing everything that it means to be human.
An important question is whether the atonement theories of Weaver and Tanner can be combined in a way that resists distorting either at the point of the cross. First, adding Tanner’s distinction that Christ is embracing death as a part of his process of taking on a human existence does not clash with Weaver’s desire to establish a nonviolent God. In fact, given that Weaver feels the death of Christ was inevitable, and that God and Jesus knew this, Jesus is in many ways embracing his death by continuing the mission that p. 80 inevitably leads to it. Adding Tanner’s distinction that death is a part of a full incorporation of humanity contributes beneficial theological depth to Weaver’s understanding of the cross.
Next, we can ask whether the addition of Tanner’s understanding of the cross to Weaver’s narrative Christus Victor contradicts Weaver’s understanding of the conflict of ultimates on the cross. It does not seem so. There is no reason the embracing of death as a fundamental part of human existence should necessitate that death cannot also be the ultimate response of Satan. In Romans 6:23 Paul tells us, “the wages of sin is death,” and death is the final word for fallen creation. For Satan to deal death to Jesus, who has not earned such a fate, is for Satan to utter his final word on Christ. Thus, Christ can embrace everything that it means to be human and overcome Satan’s greatest weapon at the same time.
Finally, is the character of Tanner’s understanding of the cross, or atonement in general, negatively impacted by combining it with narrative Christus Victor? Given their shared emphasis on Christ’s life and mission, the narrative aspect of Weaver’s theory poses little problem.
Conclusion
This essay represents an attempt at a constructive Christological account of the atonement based on the life of Christ. It has engaged the work of J. Denny Weaver and his narrative Christus Victor account of the atonement that affords the life of Christ much significance. Weaver identifies the primary act of salvation with not just the incarnation, but the acts of Christ while he was on earth as well. Fundamental to this discussion is the distinction between Christ’s death being inevitable, which is Weaver’s position, and Christ’s death being willed by God, the position of the satisfaction family of atonement theories. Weaver privileges the life and resurrection of Christ and their significance for atonement over the death of Christ while still acknowledging that atonement is a three-part process involving each of these. According to Weaver, we celebrate Jesus’ life and resurrection as well as his death as acts of love, yet God sent Jesus, not to die, but to bring salvation through the divine kingdom.
Kathryn Tanner’s incarnational model of atonement is similar to Weaver’s without being focused on absolving God of violent conduct. Tanner’s model responds to the objections raised by feminist and womanist theologians and in doing so, elevates the significance of Christ’s life for the atonement. Tanner understands the act of atonement as beginning with the incarnation and taking place throughout the historical existence of Jesus, including his life and mission and culminating in his death and subsequent p. 81 resurrection. Tanner hones in on the idea that Christ needed to embrace all facets of human existence up to and including death, and only then could he be truly human. Thus, Tanner affords the cross a greater place in her theology of atonement than Weaver does while also maintaining a greater appreciation for Christ’s life and mission than the satisfaction family of atonement theories.
Weaver’s work remains an important contribution to atonement and peace theology alike. This essay set out to meet some expressed concerns head on and also to offer possibilities for some weaknesses in narrative Christus Victor. The proposals do not contradict Weaver’s work but serve to make his understanding of the cross more robust, to the benefit of both atonement and peace theology.
Notes
- J. Denny Weaver, The Nonviolent Atonement (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011).
- Other prominent models include moral influence (Jesus provides a positive example of love in action), satisfaction (Jesus’ death appeased God’s offended honor), and penal substitution (Jesus took the legal place of sinners, bearing their just punishment for violating God’s laws). For an exploration of biblical atonement imagery, see John Driver, Understanding the Atonement for the Mission of the Church (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1986).
- Gustav Aulén, Christus Victor (London: Society for Publishing Christian Knowledge, 1931).
- Weaver, 85.
- For specific examples of the nonviolent nature of Christ’s teachings, see Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1992), 175–84.
- Weaver, 37.
- Weaver, 44.
- Weaver, 44. Ted Grimsrud offers a similar, though not identical, taxonomy for understanding who is responsible for the death of Christ. He identifies Cultural Exclusivism (Law), Religious Institutionalism (Temple), and Political Authoritarianism (Empire) as the entities responsible for Jesus’ death. Jesus’ life and mission posed a threat to each of these entities and thus they each sought to have him killed. See Ted Grimsrud, Instead of Atonement (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013), chaps. 6, 7, and 8 respectively. p. 82
- Weaver, 45.
- Weaver, 92.
- John M. Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2013) 346 (emph. original). It should be noted that Frame rejects the use of antecedent and consequent because they have been used to accommodate libertarian free will. Instead, Frame offers decretive and preceptive respectively as replacements. A full discussion of the differences between the terms is beyond the scope of this essay, but it should suffice to say that Frame intends the term decretive to exclude libertarian free will (348), which I conclude Weaver is unwilling to do.
- Weaver, 91.
- Weaver, 91.
- Weaver, 160–62.
- Weaver, 88.
- Weaver, 89.
- Weaver, 88.
- Weaver, 89.
- Weaver, 89.
- Weaver, 162.
- Weaver, 45–48. See for instance Mark 2:1-12 and Luke 7:36-50 for examples of Jesus’ temporal forgiveness of sins.
- This is quite a sizeable claim on my part, and given the concrete historical reality that this did not happen given Christ’s crucifixion, it is a hypothetical situation. Nonetheless, it is quite important to Weaver’s proposal that the salvation of humanity and transformation of the world be the “threat” of Christ’s existence for Satan’s rule. This can be seen as the ultimate goal, given that the inauguration of God’s kingdom in the new creation at the eschaton is an anticipated reality for a significant portion of Christians. However, Weaver does not explore the implications of Christ’s life had he not been crucified.
- Weaver, 269.
- Kathryn Tanner, Christ the Key (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)
- Tanner, 253.
- Tanner, 254.
- Instead, her goal is to address issues surrounding abuse and redemptive suffering highlighted by feminist and womanist theologians.
- Tanner, 262.
- In Weaver’s thought, “mission” does not include the crucifixion since death was not a part of Christ’s mandate. p. 83
- Hojin Ahn, A Constructively Critical Conversation between Nonviolent and Substitutionary Perspectives on Atonement: Theological Motifs and Christological Implications (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2021).
- Ahn, 63–64.
- Ahn, 63.
- Ahn, 64.
- Ahn, 64.
- Ahn, 118.
- Weaver, 121. The omission of ethics is an important aspect to consider regarding the creeds. Weaver questions why, if we are to be called followers of Christ, the summative declarations of the Christian faith fail to acknowledge his discrete historical acts.
- Ahn, 118.
- Weaver, 40.
- Weaver, 41.
- Ahn, 66.
- Weaver, 44.
- Weaver, 91–92 (emph. mine).
- Weaver, 126.
- Weaver, 95. “There is absolutely no question of human beings earning any kind of status or standing with God. Yet God offers forgiveness and acceptance . . . and that acceptance is truly grace.” Weaver cites the gospel accounts of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:11), Zacchaeus (Luke 19:9), and the parable of the father receiving home the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-31).
- Tanner, 260.
