The Meaning of the Atonement from Contemporary Epistemologies

Abstract

For Protestant and Roman Catholic Christianity, the theology of the atonement of Christ is a solid doctrine, which finds its foundation in the reading and interpretation of the biblical texts. The church developed its theology, above all, in the Patristic period, but also in St. Anselm, representative of Scholasticism. He propagated the image of a God offended in his honor by human sins that required satisfaction, which could only be achieved by God himself, in his perfection. In his work "Why did God become man?", Anselm substantiated his thesis that would be a source of reflection in the years that followed, including the period of the Protestant Reformation. The different reformers, even though they disagreed on some points, converged with Anselm's thought, by affirming in different ways the necessity of the vicarious death of Jesus for human sins. Generally, the Theology of Atonement, according to the majority thought, despite pointing to the divine love that comes to meet the human being and redeems him, does not fail to highlight a God who does not forgive, without sacrifices. For certain authors, mentioned in the article, this image of God is not in line with the image of the God manifested in Christ Jesus and they dare to rethink and redefine this image, contributing to the epistemological decolonization of Theology, specifically the Theology of the Atonement. For the Science of Religion, the reflection of this theme is pertinent, since it concerns one of the structuring themes in Christian theology.