REDEMPTION
The following notes about redemption, from a multi-disciplinary viewpoint, have been occasioned
by a request from Fr. Juventius Andrade, C.SS.R., (General Council, Rome), who is seeking to provide
a theological and spiritual background for Redemptorists in their reflection on the mystery of
Redemption.
Much of this material comes from previous work done over many years, in teaching graduate
courses on Redemption especially at Fordham University in New York City, and post-graduate seminars
on Redemption at Australian Catholic University, Sydney.
The approach taken here is predominantly pastoral, in the sense of communicating to good news to
believing Christians. There are two reasons for this pastoral option.
First, a vision of redemption has emerged from scriptural studies, over the past fifty years or so, that
is very rich. It has not been seen - or even heard of - yet by most people. We need to lead people into this
vision, step by step.
Secondly, an understanding of redemption is present in most people, that is the result of historical
and cultural factors that go back a long way, and that is now recognised to be psychologically damaging
and spiritually limiting. In fact, most people at heart find it hard to believe it, while it worries them a lot
in their religious attitudes. We need to take people away from this approach, as soon as possible.
What does redemption mean? It means to be included, through the person and life of Jesus, in God’s
life and love, as a matter of justice – a matter of God’s kind of justice, which is the same as God’s way
of binding God’s self to be infinitely bountiful to us. In this way God has not only delivered us from the
evils that worry us, God has acquired us for God’s own Self. Redemption is much more copious than
pardon for sin.
Most people do not realise how free from worry God wants them to be, and how much they are
redeemed and acquired by God.
Kevin O’Shea, cssr, Kogarah. February 2005
OUTLINE
1. THE PROBLEM OF REDEMPTION
2. THE HISTORY OF REDEMPTION
3. THE BIBLICAL THEME OF REDEMPTION
4. THE KEY MOTIFS OF REDEMPTION
5. THE SACRIFICIAL CHARACTER OF REDEMPTION
6. THE ETHICS OF REDEMPTION
7. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REDEMPTION
8. THE DOWNGRADING OF SIN BY REDEMPTION
9. THE STORY OF REDEMPTION
10. A THEOLOGY OF REDEMPTION: PAUL
11. A THEOLOGY OF REDEMPTION: JOHN 1. THE PROBLEM OF ‘REDEMPTION’
1. THE PROBLEM OF REDEMPTION
I have often been asked to provide a theological presentation on the theme of 'redemption', as a
background and support for a spirituality of 'redemption'. The task is not as easy as it sounds. Spiritual
people seem to presuppose that there is a readily available theology of redemption which supports their
unquestioned spirituality. In fact, the contemporary theology of redemption is much more complex; it
does not offer much support for the going spiritualities of redemption – it is rather a critique of them; and
yet it does promise a new and appealing vision of a 'redeeming' God. We have to work between two very
different worldviews : that of an established ‘theory of redemption’ , and that of a critical research and
a re-discovery of ‘redemption’.
Theological concepts have a history. They are conceived in a culture, and born(e) into another and
often yet another one. By the time they get to us, they are often in their old age. We don't see clearly
where they came from, or what they tried to say. When we find out, it is often a surprise. I would like to
offer something of that kind of surprise, by looking at the concept of redemption, and at the related
concepts of atonement, expiation, satisfaction, reconciliation, etc. Recently the International Theological
Commission spoke of the ‘perceived inadequacy’ of our current theologies of redemption, and of their
‘openness to serious and dangerous misunderstanding’.
There are serious questions today about the theology of redemption.
I would like to begin with a quotation from W. Norris Clarke, S.J., emeritus professor of philosophy
at Fordham University, New York.
Misinterpretation and misunderstanding are very easy here, and Catholic theologians themselves have not
always helped. Some metaphors of Scripture, too, have lent themselves to easy misunderstanding. Such
metaphors like 'ransom', which occur here and there, are used to explain why Jesus died for our sins – as
though a price had to be paid to someone, either to the devil or to God himself, to win our forgiveness; or
as if some kind of bargain had to be made with God who exacted the price of his Son's death and whose
anger was appeased by seeing his Son suffer and die. St. Anselm in the twelfth century even worked out
a whole theological theory of the redemption built on a kind of justice transaction between God and the
human race, where Jesus fulfilled the debt that man could not pay, since an offence against the infinite
dignity of God could only be repaid by someone of equally infinite dignity, like Jesus as divine-human.
I take such expressions as metaphors in the Scripture, which are never in fact spelled out literally as a debt
or ransom paid to anyone. The theological explanations, like Anselm's which tried to build on a literal
interpretation of such metaphors were well-intentioned indeed, and had a certain legal, logical appeal. But
they gave the impression of a not very loving and compassionate God, rather of one insisting on justice,
on the "pound of flesh", so to speak, and satisfied by seeing his own Son suffer. There was a point of truth
in them, but it seemed to get buried in the justice perspective. Few, I believe, would hold such theories
today. (p.56) (his italics)
This is an extremely succinct statement, whose ultimate value may be in its questioning of the kind
of God that is assumed behind the standard model of 'satisfaction' theory and 'redemption' theology, and
in the kind of human being that God is interested in. But that comment anticipates most of this reflection.
Jean-Herve Nicolas, O.P., emeritus professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Fribourg,
Switzerland, and leading representative of the Thomist school, has testified to the same questioning.
He speaks of the 'recoil of many today when faced with the very idea that the liberation of sinful men,
their salvation, has been achieved by the passion and death of Christ'.
He mentions in particular the recent work of Joseph Moignt, S.J., emeritus professor of theology
at Lyons-Fourviere and Paris-Sevres. It is true that Moignt writes :
that Jesus has 'died for our sins according to the scriptures' is a statement of apostolic teaching (1 Cor 15,3)
which is imposed unconditionally on faith and which confers on his death an indubitably salutary
significance. (p.414)
But, as Nicolas points out, Moignt 'then contests the sacrificial and expiatory character of this death:
neither the texts alleged present his death as expiatory, nor above all has Jesus himself given to his death
the meaning of a sacrifice offered to his Father for that purpose' (p.395-454).
The International Theological Commission has included the following statement in its lengthy
'resume' of thinking about redemption:
...some attention should be paid to what one might call the internal Christian debate on redemption, and
especially to the question of how the suffering and death of Christ is related to the winning of the world's
redemption. The importance of this question is heightened today in many quarters because of the perceived
inadequacy – or at least perceived openness to serious and dangerous misunderstanding – of certain
traditional ways of understanding Christ's work of redemption in terms of compensation or punishment
for our sins...
In my opinion, many good people who have invested in various spiritualities of redemption are not
aware of these critiques, and would be, initially at least, surprised by them. This paper is an attempt to
introduce them into a wider look at the question.
At a parish mission recently, the congregation sang the hymn “How Great Thou Art”. Verse 3 goes
like this:
And when I think that God, his son not sparing,
sent him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sins.
This reflects a widespread mentality about redemption. It is found in many other popular hymns and
prayers. Serious theology of redemption at present criticises it severely.
Many people still make acts of contrition, learned in childhood, that contain three statements: they
have committed an infinite offence against God; they expect dreadful punishments as a result; they
believe that each individual sin of the ordinary person down the street has been responsible for the
crucifixion of Jesus. In contemporary theology of redemption, all these statements are untrue. There is
no theological foundation for any one of them. All three are at best a huge exaggeration, and at worst do
harm to people.
There is a quotation from Will Campbell, an American Baptist preacher. He says: “We’re all
bastards, but God loves us anyway.” That notion, that we are not really transformed and transfigured
by the love of God, but are (1996, 209-234) only tolerated, because we are still bastards, is part of the
mentality that present redemption theology is criticising.
This whole mentality could be called ‘atonement’ spirituality. It is very hard to shift this, because
it is not a head trip concept. It is an ingrained psychologically deep thing. It is almost archetypal. A
theology of redemption must still question it.
The basic elements of this atonement mentality would be three metaphors. It is important to realise
that they are indeed metaphors. Atonement mentality almost conaturally treats the metaphors as if you
were talking literal reality.
The metaphors are
1. the metaphor of aggression
2. the metaphor of distantiation
3. the metaphor of repentance
1. Aggression means that whenever we allegedly sin, we injure God, which is an act of aggression,
or we insult God or offend God, which is an alternative word. It is physically or ontologically impossible
for us to do that to God. But the idea is used as a metaphor in this whole atonement tradition and is
treated as if it was equivalent to straight reality.
2. The distantiation metaphor is that, in this theory, when you have aggressively injured God, God
distantiates from you, and God becomes a distant God, who is up on his high horse and is extremely
touchy and doesn’t want to have anything to do with you, and that means that you have to do something
to bring God back in touch with you.
3. The third metaphor is repentance. The core of the word is ‘pent’ – that you are going to ‘pent’
again, which clearly comes from the Greek word ‘penthos’ which is ‘feeling’. The trouble with
re-orienting your feelings is that you don’t really want to do it. You get caught in a double bind of
enjoying what you did when you allegedly sinned, and not enjoying what you are about to do when you
propose to repent. So, what you think you ought to do, and what you are feeling, don’t really sit in any
congruence in either situation. Repentance becomes an extremely ambiguous sort of experience, whose
ambivalence is sometimes not identified.
The Hebrew roots of the idea, (shuv), show that a certain ‘return’ to God is involved. To ‘return’
means that you are separate from God, and want to end the separation. But, as we said above, the notion
of ‘distantiation’ from God, and by God, is a metaphor. It is often used as if it is much more than a
metaphor, and the difference is not clarified.
There is ambivalence in the coexistence in one person of the emotional attitudes of love and hate,
or other opposite feelings, towards the same object or situation. In the atonement mentality, people often
so hate themselves that they are prepared to punish themselves in all sorts of ways. They are also
prepared to suffer for someone else to get them out of that situation, or let someone else suffer for them
for the same purpose. This is the root of the ‘atonement mentality’.
This whole notion of repentance seems to have its origins in a psychology of shame, rather than of
guilt. You are ashamed, you are embarrassed, and the word compunction is often added to it – which
literally means ‘punching holes in a balloon – letting the air out of it, deflating it’ literally. People who
get into this mood feel deflated or put down, which is translated as a loss of self or a death of self. It is
fascinating how the imagery gets more and more absolute, and loss becomes death very rapidly, and you
annihilate self, and that is called ‘conversion’ – not a healthy concept when seen in this light.
You get it in terms of Augustine’s Two Cities – the city of this world and the city of God. We live
in the city of this world, but are meant to live in the ideal city of God. The whole thing comes back to
a mystery of obedience to a set-up that you don’t like, and making amends means feeling the pain of that
transition.
Words that go around it are:
atonement,
expiation,
propitiation or making up to God,
vicarious satisfaction or doing it for someone else, when they can’t do it,
condign satisfaction – ‘condign’ being a more theological term meaning ‘absolutely adequate’,
sacrifice.
When Jesus is seen in terms of these notions, it is said that he identifies with us, and does it for us,
and that is called a redemptive incarnation.
If you ever want to feel the emotional vibes in a crowd, along these atonement lines, just go to the
3 o’clock liturgy on Good Friday afternoon. No matter what the liturgical committee of the parish has
done, or how well the celebrant is performing, the people will almost archetypically bring this notion
with them.
It is useful to look again at the theology of ‘satisfaction’, or ‘redemption’, that lies behind this
atonement mentality. Nicolas' article is an attempt at a critical review of some of the more significant
historical theologies of redemption, and at a balanced case for the retention of one of them. I believe it
represents as good an updated case for an intelligent version of 'satisfaction theory' and 'redemption
theology' as can be made. If we follow his argument, we learn much about the present state of the
question, and erect a launching pad for further developments, and for a serious critique. I use it for this
discussion, since the formation in systematic theology of many, if not most of the intended readership
is in the kind of Thomist theology that Nicolas expounds. I must say at the outset, that though I was
myself formed in this theology and appreciate its inner coherence, I have been forced by biblical data,
and pastoral considerations, to criticise it severely (as I shall do later). I find the entire reflection on
redemption today a classic example of how scriptural data must exercise a liberating, critical and
constructive function in regard to centuries-old theological persuasions which are not well founded in
scripture. But first, let us hear it, somewhat amply, on its own terms.
His position is – in a much more developed presentation – equivalent to that described by Clarke
when the latter writes :
According to christianity, Jesus really died on the cross to atone for human sins, to teach us both the depth
of evil in serious sin and the even greater depth of divine love as willing to forgive us and restore us to an
even higher union with God. He rose from the dead in a real but glorified body to carry out effectively this
restoration of us to an even closer union with God than we had before our sins. (p.84)
Nicolas commences with the position of the scriptures : Christ died for our sins (I Cor 15,3), and
gave his life for us (I Jn 3,16). He takes it as incontestable that Christ has freed man from the slavery of
sin. He notes that the preferred language to speak of this in the new testament, and especially in St.Paul,
is 'redemption'. He takes 'redemption' to mean – in one way or another – 'ransom' – that is, the paying of
a price to someone.
...
He then reviews three unacceptable interpretations of this image or metaphor : first, the 'rights of
the devil' – illustrious names from the Fathers of the Church can be found here, but they always had their
opponents – the position cannot be called 'traditional' in the true sense; secondly, the 'rights of God' –
St.Anselm is the origin of this, and it has been widespread since – Anselm has dominated almost a
millenium of theology in these matters; and thirdly, 'penal substitution' – this idea can be found
sporadically in the ancient tradition, but was articulated strongly by the sixteenth century Reformers, and
then in some Catholic circles, especially in France (e.g. Bossuet).
The first theory is built on the cultural image of the liberation of a slave through the payment of a
price. Man, by sin, that is, by disobeying God, has become the slave of the devil, the first sinner in his
own primordial disobedience. The devil then acquired rights over man. So a divine pardon would have
gone against the rights of the devil. Only Jesus Christ, who did not belong to the devil, could give his life
as a payment to the devil, which would then enable the Father to pardon man, and which would free those
enslaved by the devil.
There are unsustainable ideas here (this phrase is that of Nicolas himself): namely, that the devil
has rights greater than those of God, and that the Son is more merciful than the Father! [This criticism
is exactly that of Nicolas himself.]
The second theory accepts the image of paying a price to another, and gives the 'money' to God. It
is important to note the roots of this theory in the previous one. Wrong has been done to God by sin.
Something has been stolen from God. It is God's honour. This rests in God's claim to sovereignty. As a
result, there is a change in God, and God is angry: aggression has occurred against God. So God's anger
must be appeased, and God's honoured 'satisfied'. God cannot, while keeping his honour, dispense from
these requirements, and just pardon us. This is the real reason for the Incarnation (Cur Deus Homo): God
became man, so that Christ could make vicarious satisfaction for us. Only Christ could do it : first,
because all we have is from God anyway, by virtue of creation, and secondly, because it would take an
infinite person to offer a gift of infinite worth to God, to make up for an offence of infinite malice.
There are unsustainable ideas here: the theory does not rise above anthropomorphism, and metaphor,
and says that God is really damaged, and really angry, and is limited in his ability to respond in mercy.
[Again, the critique is that made by Nicolas.]
The third theory interprets the anger, seen in God in the second theory, as worked out in a will to
punish an innocent substitute for the guilty party. This is seen as making the anger disappear.
This is totally unsustainable: it is a brutal and blind vengeance, that has nothing to do with even
human justice, where it is unjust to punish someone for another’s offence. It is unworthy, not only of
God, but of humans as well. [As Nicolas says well.]
Nicolas then correctly shows that St.Thomas himself has reverently criticised such theories,
especially that of Anselm, (without alluding to him by name) as being locked in to too human a view of
God, and too human a version of justice. (Cf. 3a, q.46,a.2,ad 3um).
Nicolas then undertakes to give an outline of a 'satisfaction theory' that he thinks will not be subject
to such critiques. In effect, he is at pains to make the best and most purified case for a 'satisfaction
theory'. He says that despite its weaknesses, to his mind no other viable solution has been proposed in
exchange for it. He explains what he means by sin, reparation, and vicarious satisfaction, and applies his
categories to Christ, and to us.
Sin is really an intentional rupture of the relationship with God that is implied in the creative act
itself. The total ontological dependency of the creature upon the Creator, implies a full intentional
recognition of the loving God as the absolute source of all being and the absolute Sovereign of the whole
finite cosmos. Creation in its full meaning is a mystery of love, especially of God's love and self-gift to
the created person, which demands a return of that love in reciprocal self-giving. Sin is the counter-acting
of that set of relationships, in the refusal of this Infinite Good and the refusal to be loved in this personal
way by God. It is clear that it is a relational matter: God is in no way 'physically', or ontologically,
touched by sin.
Norris Clarke puts it very clearly :
God is offended by our sins, not because his own dignity is in any way threatened or wounded – which
is impossible for any creature to do – but only because our sins hurt us, and God does not want his beloved
children to be hurt. (p.57) (Clarke's emphasis)
He adds :
Traditional Christianity maintains that human beings have really sinned and turned away from God, hence
have the burden of a genuine (not neurotic) guilt, needing to be forgiven by God. (p.56)
These thoughts are profound. It is in the inner life and love of God that creation has its source, and
sin deprives the creature and God Himself of the – strongly and divinely intended – fruit of that act. As
St.Thomas tellingly says, in Ia,q.48,a.6 :
Malum vero culpae opponitur proprie ipso bono increato : contrariatur enim impletioni divinae voluntatis
et divino amore quo bonum divinum in seipso amatur et non solum secundum quod participatur a creatura.
[The evil of fault is opposed properly speaking to the uncreated good itself : for it is contrary to the
fulfillment of the divine will and to the divine love by which the divine good is loved in itself and not only
in so far as it is participated by the creature.]
Nicolas says that the creature does not know what it has lost. It is a case of 'immense damage' to
itself, much more than it is really aware of.
Reparation for sin is understood by Nicolas as an act by which the one who has sinned annuls the
aggression contained in the sin. He sees the 'contre-amour' of sin as an aggression. Satisfaction is the act
by which the sinner annuls that aggression: it must concern God directly, although the sinner is the
beneficiary. This act can only be one of 'return' to God. This begins with a 'prise de conscience' clearly,
afresh, and in a vivid way, of the depth of evil in the fault. It is accompanied by an intention to love God
totally as God deserves to be loved. This return is called repentance, in which someone who is ashamed,
and humbled and sorrowfully afflicted in a new awareness of what he has done in offending God, loves
God with a love coloured and qualified by this pain, and so wants to re-give himself to God: it is a
penitent love. The classic word for it is 'compunction'. It includes the recognition of fault, and the
awareness of an inability to efface the ingratitude that – one admits and 'confesses' – has taken place.
There is a conflict and a combat within the person, primarily at the spiritual level (on which the sin
originally took place): a conflict and a combat between 'the sinner' and 'the penitent', since their desire
is in different directions. It is as if these are two different personalities. Repentance is hard personal
'work' as one fights the other. This is the real process of liberation of man from the slavery of sin.
It is a love impregnated with this suffering that generates the desire to repudiate the sin and return
to God. In it, there is a hatred of the 'moi-pecheur', which is not a hatred of the real, veritable self. It is
concretised and expressed symbolically in renunciation of self-interest (that is, the interest of the
'moi-pecheur'): this is what 'losing your self' or 'losing your life' mean. It is seen as a value in itself
(irrespective of what may result from it for the good of others). It demands what is called 'conversion'.
Augustine has said it well: two loves have built two cities: the love of God, taken to the point of contempt
for self (that is, effacement and subordination of the self), builds the city of God, just as the love of self
taken to the point of contempt for God has built what we could call the city of self. St.Thomas, reflecting
on this text, said that the disordinate love of self is the principle of all sin (1a-2ae, q.77,a.4). This mental
attitude is expressed most significantly in death: not the taking of one's own life, but the acceptance of
death, as a symbol of the acceptance of the 'death' of one's inordinately loved self. This acceptance of
death is then also seen as a value in itself, its value lying precisely in its expressiveness of the interior
'death to self-interest'. This is an act of 'obedience' (to the implied 'rules' of creation) that compensates
for the 'disobedience' of sin. It is a real deliverance from the slavery of sin.
The 'acceptance of death' mentioned above implies more than that. It implies a certain violence –
as we experience it – in the way life is taken from us. This comes from the fact that our life is made
humanly irretrievable by us, and so eliminated: it is gone and dead as far as we are concerned. Many
spiritualities have asked people not just to accept this, but to offer to God their acceptance of it as a way
of inducing or persuading God to forgive their sin and remove their guilt. The assumption is that God,
prior to this, was not willing to do so. A whole understanding of 'sacrifice' comes from this. It is basically
the substitution of, say, an animal, for the sinner, and a ritual of the violent removal of the animal's life,
as a victim, offered to the God to induce the God's favour in regard to the community offering the victim.
The 'effect' of the sacrifice would then be called 'atonement', or the 'expiation' of sin. [We shall see later
that these destructive interpretations of sacrifice do not correspond to the intuition of the Hebrew
scriptures, and are the foil for, not the content of, revelation in the matter.]
It is important to realise that God cannot 'just forgive' sin without more ado: God cannot pardon the
sinner without bringing him back to God's love. Forgiveness is a restoration, and more. That is why it
is a free gift – a grace – (the crown of creation), and hard work at the same time. It is grace for two
reasons, one that it is a good deal beyond our capacities so to go against our self, and the other that is a
gratuitous re-introduction to the divine life and love.
[Certain theologians, in the past and at present, and indeed those of high repute and great and
deserved merit, have suggested that no one will finally be damned, that is, that the grace of forgiveness
is ultimately given to all. The concrete possibility of the refusal of the grace must be maintained, but...
who knows ? In the last analysis, all is grace, and we cannot determine the limits of grace.]
It is the plan of God that the grace of this reparation for human sin come through vicarious
satisfaction, that is, through satisfaction done for us by someone else, namely Jesus Christ. God could
have given this grace to those who had sinned, individually, and immediately after their sin, but has
preferred to send his Son into our historical world, and give it to all of us through him.
The principle here is that all humanity, that had sinned, is included in him, (and in this way, only
in him – vicarious satisfaction of the kind that Christ has made for us, could not have been done by
anyone else, nor can we do it now for one another in the way that Christ has done for us.) The head and
the members are 'quasi una persona mystica', as Aquinas says (3a,q.48,a.2, ad 1um). This is the fruit of
the grace of Union itself, as he explains in his work on Christology in the Tertia. But this demands that
Jesus himself, as a person, has experienced a penitent love for God, and has accepted death as its supreme
symbol. Christ in no way offended God (indeed, as God, was offended by sin).
But the implication is that Jesus Christ, in his human life, has lived a life of penitent love, and
accepted death as the supreme symbol of his 'self-denial' as inclusive of our 'self-denial'. God has not
spared him from this (Rm 8,32), and he has laid down his life of himself (Jn 10,18), obedient unto death
and that the death of the cross (Ph 2,8), obedient to him who could have saved him from this death but
opted not to, for our sake, and so becoming for those who obey him the principle of eternal salvation
through such obedience (Hb 5,9). Jesus is then never abandoned or betrayed by God, and God never
withdrew God's presence and protection and love from Jesus, but God shared with Jesus his plan, or will,
that others would receive the grace of repentant love only through Jesus' lived experience of it. [As God,
Christ has himself conceived and willed this plan with the Father and the Holy Spirit.] As man, he has
accepted it all, including the passion and crucifixion, as the liberative and redemptive will of God: not
as I will, but as you will (Mt 26, 39).
The death of Jesus is then to be interpreted not primarily from below, as if it were the work of
executioners, or of a Roman prefect, or of Jewish authorities at the time, or even of all sinful men. It is
the will of the redeeming God because without it we could not be liberated from the slavery (to self) into
which our sins have taken us. We are dealing with a mystery of mercy that includes justice, a mystery
called the 'redemptive incarnation'. There is a value intrinsic to the death of Christ on the cross, a value
which is primordially mystical. Some conscious intention on the part of Jesus concerning this mystery
is postulated in this theory. Avery Dulles, John Galvin and Roger Haight, among contemporary catholic
systematic theologians in North America (in Fordham, Washington, and Boston), insist on this.
It is an easy step to conceive Jesus in his work of vicarious satisfaction for our sins as a 'surrogate
victim' in a sacrifice offered to God to atone for our guilt. It would also follow that he could be conceived
as a priest, offering himself as victim in this 'sacrifice of the cross'. The fact of his death by crucifixion,
and the physical dimension of crucifixion would appear as a dramatisation, allowed and intended by
divine providence, to bring out vividly to us the reality of the violent removal of his life, 'for our sins',
and thus, both the depth of evil in sin, and the depth of mercy in God's forgiveness through Christ.
The resurrection of Jesus is seen, in this theory, as the fullness of God's response to the redemptive
work of Jesus. As forgiveness is grace, its gracious character is manifested in the fullness of the new gift
that is given: a grace for body as well as for soul. Just as the 'work' of satisfaction was dramatised in the
reality of the cross, so the 'grace' of God's response is dramatised in the reality of the empty tomb, which
Jesus has merited by the loving work of his redeeming passion.
It is from the images, rather than from the logic, in this entire theory of satisfaction (and 'theology
of redemption') that various spiritualities have emerged in the christian tradition.
There have in fact been two principal periods of history in which this has flourished. The first is the
fourth century in Rome; the second comes from the spirituality of the French oratory, and was the climax
of a French reaction to the Reformation and to the Enlightenment, which saw itself as the flowering of
the theology of the Council of Trent.
It is within that second stream that any 'spirituality of redemption' seems to emerge among
Redemptorists. Both Hitz and Durrwell were formed in theology by Dillenschneider, whose theology is
largely influenced by the French oratory. Both radically qualified the theory in terms of their large
biblical understanding.
We need to look at the history of ‘redemption’.