The Logic of Reparative Substitution: Contemporary Restitution Models of Atonement, Divine Justice, and Somatic Death

Abstract

The doctrine of Christ’s atonement is a subject of recurrent interest to contemporary philosophical-theologians. The Penal Substitution theory of atonement, in particular, has precipitated a great deal of interest. In this article, we offer several reasons—reasons related to the nature of divine justice and somatic death—for thinking that a version of Anselm’s Satisfaction theory of atonement is not only a viable, but preferable, Protestant theory of atonement to penal substitution.