Talk:Christus Victor

Overall Quality

This article does not cite its sources where it says that this was the predominant view of the early Church and supported by nearly every Church Father. The article also seems biased towards supporting the theory and proponents of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.128.49.60 (talk • contribs) 16:12, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

By way of response to the above;

Being familiar with Aulen's Christus Victor, I believe that the article is essentially a summary of Aulen's work rather than an engagement with the Christus Victor doctrine within the broader context of Christian theories of atonement. Aulen's intention in his work was to argue in favour of CV as the "classic" view in contradistinction to penal substitution as a later, mediaeval construct. This, I believe, accounts for the article's apparent bias.

It might also be suggested that the article actually DOES cite its one sole source (Aulen's Christus Victor) but not in an appropriate way.

I think what is required here is;

(1) Addition of a bibliography listing Aulen's work as a major source (I know, I know, one book doth not a bibiography make, but then I didn't write the article!)

(2) Clarification that the article as it stands is essentially a "narrow" treatment; presenting Aulen's argument FOR the Christus Victor doctrine and AGAINST penal substitution (or similar) views of the atonement, rather than a "broad" treatment; interacting with other views or responses to Aulen's work.

(3) Some indication of the response to Aulen's work (it has not been uncritically recieved, of course)

And;

(4) Some explanation of the historical context in which Aulen wrote, and why a reappraisal of the widely recieved penal substition position was considered necessary.

Muzhogg 22:16, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The Christus Victor theme has new meaning when seen through the lens of Gregory Boyd's God at War or spiritual warfare motifs. In fact, evangelical Charismatics are profoundly drawn to it. It is a mistake to assume that it is a liberal concept. Still, the NT builds on the sacrificial system theme to the point that substitutionary atonement cannot be ignored. The moral influence theme is the one that is most wanting in terms of biblical precedence. A call to holiness and to model our corporate and private lives after the example of Christ is essential. However, it is not an "atonement" theme.

Bill Payne wpayne@ashland.edu —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.30.217.220 (talk) 16:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Major Rewrite

I did a major rewrite based on the above suggestions and have therefore removed the cleanup flag. Sharktacos 18:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Ransom Theory

Hi,

I'm working on a clean-up of the Atonement (ransom view) article. Should this article and that one be considered for a merge? jrcagle 15:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jrcagle, I think the two could possibly be merged into a larger article, however I would stress that Christus Victor and the Ransom view while related are NOT the same theory and so the two would need to be differentiated if they were merged into one larger article. Some of the differences are:

1) Ransom view is held by almost no one today, where as Christus Victor is held by the entire Orthodox church, a growing number of Protestants especially the peace churches, and Catholics because of Liberation Theology. So the history is quite different, Ransom view can be said to be a "seldom held" theory, while Christus Victor is increasingly growing in its popularity and relevance.

2) The focus of Ransom Theory is on a legal satisfaction of the devil, whereas the focus of Christus Victor is about the conquering of the devil (hence the "victor" terminology) or said differently, Christus Victor is about the liberation of humanity from bondage expressed not in legal but in dramatic terms. Therefore all of the critiques applied to the Ransom view that it is "crude" from a legal point of view do not apply to Christus Victor since it is not a legal theory.

If there was a merge, these differences should be clarified in the article. Also there should be a redirect from the removed entry to the new merged one. Because Christus Victor is a view that is still current, I would suggest merging the Ransom article into this one. Sharktacos 17:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the response. Where would you locate Gregory of Nazianzus' view that the 'ransom' is figurative language? [1] (see sec. XXII). Is he an early Christus Victor-ian? If not, what should we call him? If so, how early should we locate Christus Victor, and how sharply is it distinguished from the Ransom Theory? It would be helpful to users of the articles to be able to see these differences at a glance. jrcagle 19:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey there. Aulen's claim is not that there are two theories, Christus Victor and Ransom held side-by-side by various people, but rather that the ransom view is a crude and incorrect interpretation of the church fathers and that Christus victor is in fact the deeper correct understanding of what they taught. Aulen calls this the "classic" view and claims not only Gregory of Nazianzus but all of the Greek fathers and a good number of tha Latin fathers (see the article for a complete list). Sharktacos | Talk 02:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

One aspect of Aulen's presentation of the Christus Victor model that I note in his book by that name is his assumption that for Aulen the devil is himself seem as an agent of the divine justice, an assumption I have never seen in the Greek Fathers and one that, in effect, brings back the legal through the back door, i.e., if the devil is the agent of the divine justice, the overcoming of the devil is the overcoming of the divine justice, the quintessential Latin/legal argument. In that case Aulen himself remains within the Latin camp.

I would commend the author of the article for his stressing the issue of continuity underlying two theologies of redemption, i.e., that in the Latin/legal tradition it is the continuity of the divine justice which stressed over the continuity of the Trinitarian relations, whereas in the classical/Christus Victor tradition it is continuity of the Trinitarian relations, the unity of will and purpose of the Father and the Son which is maintained over the rational consistency of the Law. To my mind the integrity of the Trinity is the measure of doctrinal orthodoxy, the canon within the canon of theological reflection. Bias are perhaps to some extent inevitable; for example, what justification is there for the assumption that the New Testament supports the Latin/legal perspective? I am not sure I am doing this right but I am adopting the on-line name of Stavros 04:18 January 20, 2011 (Marquette University) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.52.199.50 (talk) 22:20, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

This article suffers from at least two major flaws:

1. In the section on Atonement theories, it conflates Ransom theory and Christus Victor. These are two distinct theories. They should be included under separate bullet points in the listing here. They definitely should not be merged into a single article.

2. In the section on The Incarnation, it conflates Satisfaction theory with Penal Substitution theory. Though Penal Substitution is a further development and modification of Anselm's Satisfaction theory, the differences are sufficiently large that it is a whole different theory of Atonement. Also, Penal Substitution is the reigning theory in Protestantism, whereas Satisfaction theory is the reigning theory in Roman Catholicism. So these two theories represent two very distinct branches of Christianity. (Christus Victor represents a third: Orthodox Christianity.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.67.77.20 (talk) 16:20, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Recentism

I've tagged this article for recentism since it deals almost entirely with the subject only in the context of gaining modern popularity after Aulen's book was published in 1931. It really needs to include information about Christus Victor prior to 1931, since, as the article briefly notes, it was around for a very long time prior to that. --Pstanton (talk) 03:30, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The "Recentism" issue is simply one aspect of a larger issue with the article. Despite numerous edits and a major rewrite by Sharktacos in 2006, I think the original objections by Muzhogg at the top of this Talk page still apply. The problem is that the article wants to source Aulen's book as the seminal work on CV atonement theory, while claiming at the same time that it was the dominant theory for the first millenium of the church. I know that this is what Aulen claimed, but simply assuming it to be true violates npov. What is needed is a rewrite from scratch outlining the major points agreed upon by all CV adherents, finding statements from the Church Fathers on up supporting these points, differentiating (as needed) between CV and Ransom Theory, and fitting Aulen's book in as a clarification and repopularization of that theory. If that can't be done, then Ransom theory is the older view and CV is a modern modification of that view--in which case recentism is appropriate. Bottom line: either Christus Victor is an old view revived and perhaps clarified by Aulen (and perhaps further modified and clarified by others like Boyd), or it stems from Aulen's book. The article can't have it both ways. Schoolmann (talk) 13:49, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

As a matter of clarification: the article as it presently stands would be like an article on Protestantism arguing that Luther rediscovered truths known to the early church but lost due to corruption over time (which is what most Protestants actually believe), and therefore proclaimed Protestantism as the earliest form of Christian theology which nonetheless stemmed primarily from Luther in the 16th century.Schoolmann (talk) 14:11, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Not the Church Fathers, but decent secondary sources. Which do seem to use often the term Christus Victor when treating the ransom thoery; nevertheless, it's quite clear that CV is Aulen's reinterpretation. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:24, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

"Fish-hook theory" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Fish-hook theory and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 May 7#Fish-hook theory until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:06, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

"Fishhook theory" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Fishhook theory and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 May 7#Fishhook theory until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:07, 7 May 2022 (UTC)