Scott Steinkerchner OP
Final Paper for The Saving Work of Christ with professor S. Mark Heim
May 17, 2001
The Preferential Option for the Poor & Atonement Theology
The preferential option for the poor is a central tenet in liberation theology, the Catholic Church's social teaching, and Christian revelation itself. Jesus, in his earthly ministry, preached that "the last shall be first and the first shall be last" (Mt. 20:16) in the Kingdom of God and constantly went out of his way to care for the most marginal members of society. Inspired by his example, Christians throughout the ages have cared for the poor and sought to make a more just society. It would be difficult to read the Gospels and not come away believing that while Jesus may have loved everyone, he loved poor people most, just because they were poor.
Jesus' preferential love for the poor is not the totality of Gospel revelation, however. It seems certain that Jesus was brutally executed by crucifixion. If we are to believe Christian sources, Jesus willingly accepted this fate, after "three days" rose again to new life, and because of this, defeated death itself so that he could extend to his followers eternal life with God in heaven. One way of understanding this is through atonement theology, an explanation of how we are saved precisely through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Liberation theology and atonement theology are often pitted in competition with each other. In this paper, I would instead let them collaborate with each other for their mutual benefit. I believe that when they are read side by side with selections from some of their leading exponents, they will reinforce what is best in each and together forge a better understanding of Christian revelation.
To proceed we will begin with a look at the preferential option for the poor as explained by Gustavo Gutiérrez, one of the founders of liberation theology and perhaps still its greatest advocate. Then we will take up our second starting point, atonement theology, beginning with Anselm of Canturbery's classic exposition in Cur Deus Homo, through Thomas Aquinas, to a contemporary reappropriation in the work of René Girard. In the end, we will read these two ideas together with the help of clues given to us by Ignacio Ellacuría.
Gustavo Gutiérrez: The Preferential Option for the Poor
"The Preferential Option for the Poor" was the title of a chapter of the final document from Third General Conference of Latin American Bishops, convened at Puebla, Mexico in January 1979. This usage concretized it, but it was a phrase that had already been in use in the theology of Latin America. The idea first appeared in the Document on Poverty from the second bishops' conference in Medellin in 1968 which had encouraged "preference to the poorest and neediest, and to those who are segregated for any reason" (Gutiérrez 1993, 26). "Preference" indicates a priority, not an exclusivity, in care, concern and love. As Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis when speaking of characteristic themes of recent magisterial documents: "Here I would like to indicate one of them: the option or love of preference for the poor. This is an option, or a special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the Church bears witness" (§42). The poor should be in the forefront of our concern and be the first ones to receive our charity, not the only ones with whom we are concerned.
The reason for the preferential option for the poor is simply because it is God's way, revealed through the scripture and particularly through Christ. Jesus cared first for the poor, despite their standing as "sinner" or "saint." As Gutiérrez says,
God has a preferential love for the poor not because they are necessarily better than others, morally or religiously, but simply because they are poor and living in an inhuman situation that is contrary to God's will. The ultimate basis for the privileged position of the poor is not in the poor themselves but in God. (On Job 94)
As an example, Gutiérrez cites the parable which ends with "thus the last shall be first and the first shall be last," Matthew 20:1-16 (Option 27-28). In this parable, a man hires workers for his vineyard at different points throughout the day, but eventually pays them all the same, a full days wages-even the ones who had only worked and hour. The workers who worked all day point out that this is unjust and begrudge the owner of the vineyard the generosity extended to others. The owner maintains his freedom in extending generosity to whomever he pleases, not being bound by their narrow notions of justice. The parable teaches that no one can lay conditions on God's generosity and love. "The parable transmits a clear lesson concerning the core of the biblical message: the gratuity of God's love. Only that gratuity can explain God's preference for the weakest and most oppressed" (28). God gives to those who need simply because they need, not because they earn it. God's concern is first with those whose need is greatest, the poor. As Bartolomé de las Casas said, "Because the least one, the most forgotten one, is altogether fresh and vivid in the memory of God" (quoted in Gutiérrez, Option 27).
There is a three-fold distinction in the understanding of poverty which helps to make sense of this. "The term poverty designates in the first place material poverty, that is, the lack of economic goods necessary for a human life worthy of the name" (Theology 163). To be materially poor is to be hungry, illiterate, to lack access to medicines and doctors, to be powerless to change these injustices. It is to be exploited by others and not even to know that you are exploited (164). In all these ways, it is to be constantly fighting death. It is a subhuman situation. "In the Bible poverty is a scandalous condition inimical to human dignity and therefore contrary to the will of God" (165). It is nothing to strive for, it is rather something to strive against. It was to rescue the people from poverty in servitude to Egypt that God had Moses lead them out of Egypt and into a land where they could live in human dignity, a land "flowing with milk and honey." The Deuteronomic laws sought to assure that no one lived in poverty with concrete measures designed to protect the most vulnerable of society, such as leaving part of the harvest in the fields for the widows and orphans (Dt. 24:19-21).
Second, there is spiritual poverty, "availability to the will of the Lord" (Option 22). This is spoken of in Matthew's first Beatitude, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (31). It is the prayer of Jesus in the garden, "Father not my will, but your will be done" (Lk. 22:42) and Paul's claim "Therefore it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). It is the attitude of a disciple, required for disciples of Jesus.
Third is voluntary poverty, poverty taken on as a commitment of solidarity and protest. It is to take on the evil of material poverty which is the lot of one's own brothers and sisters in order to be in solidarity with them, to witness against this evil, and to struggle to abolish it. This is the example of the early Christian community in Acts 4 who held all things in common. The rich sold what they had "to distribute to any who stood in need. The meaning, of the community of goods is clear: to eliminate poverty because of love of the poor person" (Gutiérrez, Theology 173). Preeminently, this is the kenosis of Jesus, his self-emptying for our sakes which manifests his spiritual poverty in doing the will of the Father (Phil 2:6-11). Jesus takes on the sinful human condition to be in solidarity with humanity and to heal, to put an end to that sinful condition.
When Jesus says "Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" (Mt 19:14) he is not simply speaking of an attitude of childlike trust. In his society, children were considered defective and inconsequential. "To be 'such as these,' therefore, to be as children, means being insignificant, someone of no value in the eyes of society" (Option 29). These are the ones who have access to the Reign of God. Having a preferential option for the poor, then, is to align ourselves with those whom God cares for first and most. We are called to be in solidarity with all people, but being in solidarity with the poor first means adopting some form of material poverty. We do this because our will is God's will and God's will is that there be no more material poverty.
Anselm of Canterbury: Atonement Theology.
Cur Deus Homo? Why did God become human? This is the title of Anselm's famous letter of 1089 AD, giving a theological framework to a belief central to Christianity-that in Jesus Christ, God has become human for the salvation for humanity. Anselm's analysis focuses on human sin and how it left us diminished in such a way that we could not make right what we had made wrong and how God therefore reconciles us through the life and death of his son, Jesus. Anselm's answer came to be known as "atonement theology." In this section I will outline Anselm's argument, adding to it a few clarifications made by Thomas Aquinas.
Anselm saw theology as "Faith seeking reason." By faith, Anselm knew that our sins were forgiven through God's saving work accomplished in Jesus Christ. It was precisely this fundamental issue he was seeking to explain more fully in Cur Deus Homo, how Jesus was the divine solution to a problem created by human sin. Being a fairly rationally rigorous writer, Anselm states most of his important starting points before he builds on them. Since he was writing Cur Deus Homo as a dialogue between himself and another Christian named "Boso" his starting points are usually given with a statement such as "Let us agree that... ." One example of this is in chapter 10 where he states his view of the fundamental human condition:
And let us agree that (1) man was created for happiness, which cannot be possessed in this life, that (2) no one can attain happiness unless his sins have been forgiven, and that (3) no man passes through this present life without sin. And let us agree about the other things with respect to which faith is necessary for eternal salvation. (1.10)
These are three separate but related assertions. (1) and (3) are evaluations based on Anselm's experience of life and Christian revelation. They are somehow connected, but not posited as logical necessities of each other. (2) is more along the lines of a conclusion springing from the other two assertions, but not directly.
(1) makes two assertions which point to a fundamental discrepancy in the human condition, no one is happy even though we were created for happiness. It is important to recognize that the kind of happiness Anselm is speaking of is complete happiness, the eternal bliss of heaven, not simply a transitory happiness. He is not denying that in this life we can have momentary happiness. Later in the work he will say that "happiness is a state of sufficiency in which nothing needed is lacking" (1.24). And again, "We are speaking about that ultimate mercy, by which He makes man happy after this life" (ibid). In this life we have moments of happiness when we have all that we need at the moment (physically, spiritually and emotionally) and moments when we are unhappy because we are lacking something. When Anselm speaks of "happiness", he is not simply talking about these passing moments. He is talking about the perfection of heaven which is related to these moments but exceeds them. They are eternal, for once attained in their heavenly fullness they are eternal. Eternal happiness is beyond the happiness that we can experience here in this life because we can never have a totality of our needs met here, but they will be in heaven.
This is a basic starting point. If we instead posited that humanity was created for unhappiness, there would be nothing to explain. Jesus' bloody death would be a perfect example of what should happen to every person. Life is full of suffering and that is simply the way it is. Here Anselm is alluding to the fact that God created us for a better destiny than then we are currently experiencing. This destiny is glimpsed in moments of fleeting happiness, but the fullness of happiness which is our destiny is beyond any of the joys we can experience here. Jesus was sent to restore to us this happiness that was meant to be. In his ground-breaking book A Theology of Liberation, Gutiérrez elaborates on this point at length, that God wants what is good for God's people, not what is evil. Though obvious, Gutiérrez sees that in abstract discussions about the glory of "evangelical poverty," one of the three vows that religious brothers and sisters make, theologians and spiritual writers often hold up material poverty as a good, an end in itself (162-5). Against this he asserts that God is against people starving to death. God is against material poverty. God is against suffering. Suffering in itself is a bad thing. It can only be seen as a good thing if it is for the sake of something better. This is the rationale of solidarity through voluntary poverty.
Point (3) adds another datum to the argument: everyone sins. Somehow (2) is related to or springs from (1) and (3), but there are pieces missing to make a logical connection-an analysis of what sin is, why sin leads to unhappiness, and how the relationship between sin and unhappiness can be broken by something called "forgiveness" or later "the remission of sins." These then are the questions Anselm will address in the subsequent essay.
Anselm immediately addresses the first, what is sin:
A: To sin is nothing other than not to render to God what is due.
B: What is the debt which we owe to God?
A: The will of every rational creature ought to be subordinate to the will of God. (1.11)
Anselm goes on to say that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the non-subordination of will and sin, and that this subordination of will is the "sole and complete honor we owe to God" (ibid). At this point, Anselm switches to "honor/dishonor" language. It is important to keep in mind that dishonoring God is not ruining God's reputation with the boys at the local pub but is placing your own will above God's will. Through doing this, God's will for the world is subverted.
Using "honor" language, we say that by sinning we harm God, depriving God of the honor that is rightly due, that is, disrupting God's plan for the world. Is there a way to right a wrong such as this once it has occurred? We can begin acting in accord with God's plan, but can we make up for the damage that was done when we were not following that plan?
Anselm turns to other kinds of wrongs which can be righted to analyze this. If we steal something from someone, we remain under the pale of guilt until we repay what we have stolen. But consider, for instance, if we did stole someone else's health. To right this wrong we would of course have to restore them back to health, but in justice we should also give them some compensation for the suffering they endured while they were sick. Doing just one or the other would not be enough, they would still be worse off for having encountered us. The repayment we would make over and above what we had stolen, intended to make up for the suffering caused, is called "satisfaction." In the case of sin as described above, stealing God's honor, we must not only restore God's honor but we must also make satisfaction for the dishonor done to God. Decoding this "honor" language, since we have gone against God's will in following our own will, we need to 1) begin to subordinate our will to God's will, and 2) offer God something more to make up for the damage done while we were following our own will against the divine will. This is what justice demands.
Here we run into a problem. In chapter twenty Anselm points out that we already owe everything to God, so that it is impossible for us to make satisfaction for our sin. Since God is our creator, we owe complete obedience to God, acting everywhere and always in conformity to God's will. From our definition of sin, we see that to do otherwise for even an instant would be to sin again. What more can we do, therefore, than to follow God's will each and every moment? Nothing. Therefore we can never make satisfaction for our sin against God. We have nothing to offer to God to make satisfaction with beyond that which we already owe to God.
It could be argued, then, that God should simply "forgive" the debt owed, not requiring satisfaction for the wrong incurred since we cannot pay it. This could be thought of as the "merciful" thing for God to do, abrogating justice in favor of mercy.
Anselm takes up this option and rejects it for several reasons. For one, it would introduce disorder into God's kingdom which would be "unsuitable" (see 1.12-15). In a related line of reasoning, Anselm argues that there can be no contradiction in God, so God's mercy could not act in opposition to God's justice. Forgiving a wrong without satisfaction or punishment is against justice and "therefore, as it is impossible for God to be at odds with Himself, so it is impossible for Him to be merciful in this way" (1.24). Since there is no contradiction in God, all of God's actions must be truly just and truly merciful. If there are actions which are more merciful yet unjust or more just yet unmerciful, they are not possible options for God.
In more modern terms, citing God's preferential option for the poor, one could argue that God could/should forgive this debt just because we are too poor to pay it. Seeing our poverty in this regard should so move God as to almost compel a response. But Thomas Aquinas has an additional insight which sheds more light on this question. God's mercy is beyond human mercy and beyond human understanding. In responding to our sin, God goes beyond healing it, forgiving the debt as it were, and uses it as an opportunity to give us more than we had in the first place. Aquinas begins by rejecting the possibility that there could be a divine action which is merciful yet unjust. Such an action would not actually be merciful at all. This is ultimately because not only is there no contradiction in God, but all good things come together as a unity in the perfection of God. In his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, an early work, Aquinas poses Boso's objection based on mercy thus:
It would have been more fitting for God to show the greatness of his mercy than the severity of his justice. Mercy dictates forgiveness of sins without satisfaction. Thus God could have saved man without assuming a human nature and even have wrought greater praise from mankind since he manifested greater mercy. (I.1.2, trans. Cessario 73)
His reply is essential for our development. From the principle of divine non-contradiction Aquinas argues that mercy which eliminates justice would have to be a false mercy. Saving humanity through the Incarnation is actually more merciful and just than forgiving without requiring satisfaction. To quote Romanus Cessario, Aquinas teaches that:
It manifests (God's) mercy because the Incarnation is a greater demonstration of mercy, given all that it entails concerning the kenosis of the Word, than would have been the case had God chosen to absolve man without the satisfaction of the God-man. (77)
The Incarnation is more merciful than other possible responses God could have made to human sin. Aquinas argues that God's kenosis and God's coming among us in the Incarnation is better than God forgiving us from afar by divine fiat. In God's superabundant mercy, the Incarnation does for us what was impossible even before the fall, it allows us to enter into union with God. This grace is beyond our nature, even our perfected nature.
We can see in Aquinas' response here themes that are essential to contemporary liberation theology and the preferential option for the poor, especially that of solidarity. God voluntarily becomes poor as a prophetic action against poverty. One cannot opt for the poor if one is not in solidarity with the poor, and there is always some defect in our solidarity if we are not with the poor, in contact with them, sharing life experiences with them. Christ's incarnation reveals that love at a distance is always somewhat lacking.
I was once discerning which ministry to accept, one raising money for the poor or one working with the poor. I asked Gustavo Gutiérrez about it and without hesitating he said to work with the poor. The poor, he said, have a way of converting us and so it is important to work with them rather than for them or on their behalf. God wrought our salvation in solidarity with us. If we wish to assist in the salvation of the world, we need to be in solidarity with it, especially with the most marginal. Later in this paper we will explore an even deeper reason why this is so.
Returning to Anselm's analysis, we see that while not demanding these principles added by Aquinas, his argument is in line with them. Anselm argues against God's forgiving us by divine fiat from the point of view of the sinner. This is a good place to center the argument, since true mercy should always spring from the perspective of the recipient of mercy. In chapter 24 Anselm puts forward this argument:
A. Assume that the reason why God forgives someone who does not pay what he owes is that he is unable [to pay it].
B. I wish it were so.
A. Now, all the while that this person would not make payment, either he would be willing to make payment or he would not be willing. If he willed [to pay] what he was unable to [pay], he would be needy. On the other hand, if he were unwilling [to pay what he was not able to pay], he would be unjust.
B Nothing is clearer than this.
A Now, whether needy or unjust, he would be unhappy.
B This is also clear.
A Therefore, as long as he did not make payment, he could not be happy.
When I was growing up, there was an interesting news story which made quite an impression on me. I lived near Amish country. The Amish are known for eschewing modern technology and modes of life in favor of living more simply so that they can live out the Gospel more deeply. One tradition they have is to not drive automobiles and instead to walk or use horses and buggies. Every so often, however, a buggy would be struck by a speeding car or Amish pedestrians would be hit by a car driving down one of the narrow winding roads through the countryside where they live. In the case I remember most, a young man had struck four children on their way home from school, killing at least one of them. It was determined that he had been drinking alcohol and was driving recklessly, and he faced the death penalty if convicted. At the trial the parents of the dead child testified that being Christians, they did not believe in the death penalty and did not want it applied in this case. The young man was so moved he tearfully apologized to the parents, admitting his wrong, and pledged to do anything in his power to help relieve their suffering, even accepting life in prison. The father then got up, walked over to him, put his arms around the young man and said "I forgive you."
This was the most powerful story I had ever heard about forgiveness and about what it meant to be a follower of Jesus Christ. The young man could never make up for the loss his actions caused. His true sorrow and repentance prompted the father of the victim to simply forgive the debt out of mercy for him. This is what Boso is wishing God would do for all sinners. Since we cannot repay the debt of satisfaction, couldn't God simply forgive it, telling us that we don't have to pay since we cannot?
Anselm's takes up the argument from the sinner's perspective, the young man in my story. Think about this young man. He was certainly touched by the mercy shown him by the father, but could his wrong ever be righted? Every morning he woke up, for the rest of his life, he would know that there was another who was not waking up and those who were waking up without a loved one, and there would be nothing he could do about that. If it did not bother him, he would not be a just person. If it did bother him, he could not be truly happy. In either case, complete happiness was lost to him. As Anselm would say, "whether needy or unjust, he would be unhappy." Remember that Anselm is speaking of ultimate happiness, the happiness of heaven "a state of sufficiency in which nothing needed is lacking." This happiness is not separate from earthly happiness, it is the perfection of it. We could ask, therefore, what would allow the young man in our example to be happy in this life and in heaven. In this life, the only way for him to ever be completely happy would be for the child's life to be restored. This is naturally impossible. Even Jesus's death and resurrection doesn't bring this about. In the life to come, however, the child could once again be alive in God due to the salvation won by Jesus. Would the young man still need more than this to enter into the perfect happiness of heaven? Perhaps he would also need to pay satisfaction for the good that went undone in this life by the child he killed. Does salvation address this as well? I think it does, but only if we believe that salvation has effects in this world as well as in heaven. Let us note this for now and come back to it later.
At this point Anselm has shown that it would be impossible for anyone to reach eternal happiness left to their own devices. All people owe a debt which cannot be paid and cannot enter into eternal happiness until that debt is paid. Though we were made for eternal happiness, because we sinned we have lost that possibility, and God's plans for us are seemingly thwarted. As Anselm rhetorically asks, by our sin "Did [humanity] not remove from God whatever God had purposed to do with human nature?" (1.23).
In book two Anselm shows how the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ achieves what humanity could not on its own, our salvation. He begins "We ought not to doubt that God created rational nature just in order for it to be happy through enjoying Him" (2.1). Due to God's omnipotent goodness, what God plans to do cannot be thwarted, and so we must believe that God will find a way to carry out this plan of salvation (2.4). To do this, a human person would have to live completely in accord with the will of God and give something else as satisfaction. While we have seen that this is impossible for any merely human person, it was not impossible for Jesus, the God-man.
Jesus is both truly human and truly divine, two natures united in one person. What Jesus does is therefore done by a human person and it is also done by a divine person. Because Jesus is human the satisfaction he makes is rightly the act of a human person. Because Jesus is divine, he can make satisfaction because he has something to offer beyond what is already owed to God-he can offer his life. The former assertion stands on its own, the latter needs more explanation.
The first step in this argument is to see that Jesus did not need to die, and in fact, could only die if he freely chose to:
I think that mortality pertains not to sinless human nature but to corrupt human nature. Indeed, if man had never sinned and if his immortality had been immutably confirmed, he would have been no less a real man; and when mortals will rise unto incorruptibility, they will be, no less, real men. (2.11)
Anselm reasons that Adam and Eve were immortal before the fall yet were truly human. Also, we will be immortal in heaven, and yet still be truly human. In both of these cases, what is different is sinlessness and immortality. Thus Anselm concludes that it is sin which leads to mortality. Jesus is human yet without sin and so there would be no reason why he would have to die unless he freely chose to die. "If He is willing to permit it, He will be able to be killed; and if He is unwilling to permit it, He will not be able to be killed" (ibid). His human life, then, is the thing which he possesses which could be given for satisfaction, over and above what is owed to God.
That the human Jesus could have lived forever in this life because of his sinlessness might seem untenable to a modern reader. It is important to note Anselm's view so as to follow his reasoning, but his entire argument does not rest on it. Thomas Aquinas differed from Anselm on this point, making a useful distinction which might keep other dissenters on track. Aquinas followed Anselm's reasoning in principle, that being sinless meant that Jesus would not have to die of necessity, but added that Jesus chose to take on our broken human condition, including death, in the act of becoming incarnate itself. In ST 3.14.2 Aquinas gives three reasons why this is so. The first is that Jesus came to redeem our broken human condition, so it is fitting for him to take it on as it is, with its brokenness of which death is a part. The second is that if he would have been incarnated with a "perfect" human nature, such as we had in the Garden of Eden or will have in heaven, we would not have believed that he was truly incarnated. We only know human nature as it is broken. Third, he is a better example of patience for us, since he bears these ills which plague everyone. In Aquinas' view there would therefore be no incarnate Jesus who could live forever, yet Jesus still freely chose to die. He just made this choice in his heavenly preexistence choosing to be born as he did.
Human sin stole the honor that was due God. Satisfaction, therefore, has to restore to God the honor which was lost. Anselm addresses this final central question in book two, chapter eighteen. Jesus would do this if he allowed himself to be killed for the sake of following God's will:
When He endured with patient kindness the injuries, the abuses, the crucifixion among thieves... He gave men an example, in order that they would not, on account of any detriments they can experience, turn aside from the justice they owe to God[.] He would not at all have given this example if, as He was able to do, He had turned aside from the death that was inflicted upon Him for such a reason.
How is God's honor restored? By helping humanity to live more in line with God's will. Getting back to Anselm's original definition of sin which links dishonoring God with choosing one's own will over God's, Jesus' death is an example meant to inspire others. As Jesus subordinated his will to that of God's even unto death, others are encouraged in their struggle to do the same. This is how Jesus' passion has effect in this world, not just in the next. It changes our hearts so that we might more easily follow God's plan. Under the influence of Christ's passion, therefore, the world here and now is brought more into line with God's will.
In Anselm's view the atonement works both on the moral and ontological levels, repairing the damage done by sin both in the order of God's justice and in the human heart. To be more precise, it can only work on the ontological level as satisfaction for sin because it works on the moral level winning people over to follow God's will more closely.
But for whom is salvation? Who gets saved? On a purely human level, anyone who heard the story of Jesus' passion would be free to adopt it as example of how to live their own life, thus becoming followers of Jesus. Anselm believes that such people are precisely the ones who would also rightly share in the supernatural benefits as well. In chapter nineteen he points out that though God would naturally reward such a great deed as Jesus'. But Jesus, being God, lacks nothing in himself to be given as a reward:
One who rewards another either gives what the other does not already have or else remits what can be exacted from the other. Now, even before the Son performed so great a deed, everything that was the Father's was also the Son's; and the Son never owed anything that could be remitted. Therefore, what will be recompensed to one who needs nothing and to whom there is nothing that can be given or remitted?
The solution: to give the rewards of Jesus's action to humanity, for whose sake Jesus became incarnate. Particularly, to give it to those people who follow Jesus' way, for "they would imitate Him in vain if they would not share in His merit" (ibid).
To receive this salvation attained by Jesus the God-man, one would need to be human (In chapter twenty Anselm points out that angels could be saved only by a God-angel, though angels can't be saved anyway) and one would have to be a follower of Jesus:
B: For it seems to me that God rejects no human being who approaches Him under this name.
A: This is true--provided he approaches as he ought. Sacred Scripture everywhere teaches us how we are to approach the participation in such great grace and how we are to live under this grace. (2.19)
For Jesus' followers, the atonement works at the natural and the supernatural levels. At the natural, moral level it preaches to us, challenging us to live as we know we should. This transforms the concrete world we live in as more people live as they should. At the supernatural level, it opens to us the gates of heaven by making satisfaction for us, restoring to God and to the world what our sin took away. On the natural level, in this world, it addresses the heart of sin, helping repair the damage done by humanity's failure to follow the will of God. On the supernatural level, being offered for this purpose and being over and above what was required, it is able to suffice as satisfaction. Some of the prophets had given their lives as an example as well, but they had not given up anything which they were not going to loose some day anyway. Only Jesus had something to offer God which he did not already owe.
Anselm leaves his argument at that and finishes his letter. Turning again to Aquinas, we see a further analysis of the mechanism by which the grace of this merit won by Jesus is distributed to others. Aquinas argued that God does not simply "choose" to whom to distribute the merit won by Jesus, but that there is a real connection between Jesus and those who receive it. He sums up this reasoning in his Summa Theologica, P3.Q49.A1. There he says that Christ's Passion causes the forgiveness of sins three ways. The first way is Anselm's, involving our wills: by enduring death the way he did, Jesus gave us an example of love (charity) which strengthens our own ability to love. "It is by charity that we procure pardon of our sins, according to Luke 7:47: 'Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much.'"
The other two ways in which Christ's passion forgives the sins of others extend Anselm's view. They involve Jesus' human and divine natures. In short, through Jesus' human nature he is accessible to humans and through his divine nature his actions have salvific power. First, since Jesus is human, we can be joined with him and share in his merit, "in the same way as if a man by the good industry of his hands were to redeem himself from a sin committed with his feet" (ibid). This means more than that we share a human nature with Jesus. Not all who share human nature receive salvation. Jesus' human nature makes him encounterable by us. To share in his salvation we must also be joined with him, as a member of his mystical body, the church. Those are forgiven their sins "who share in His Passion by faith and charity and the sacraments of faith" (ST 3.Q49.A5). Faith and charity spring from believing Jesus and following his ways, but it is through the "sacraments of faith" that we are actually joined to Jesus' mystical body and so have a real connection to him and the salvation he won.
By "sacraments of faith" Aquinas is referring primarily to the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church and particularly to the sacrament of baptism by which we are joined to Christ by becoming a member of his mystical body the church. But in addition to the "baptism of water" Aquinas denotes the baptisms of blood and repentance which are also efficacious in joining one with the salvific grace of Christ's passion. In ST 3.Q66.A11 Aquinas offers that one can receive the sacramental effect of Christ's passion without baptism of water by either suffering for the sake of Christ (a baptism of blood) or by believing in and loving God and repenting of one's sins (a baptism of repentance). Aquinas judges that some level of faith is required however. This can be seen in his opinion that children who died without the sacrament of baptism by water could not be saved by Christ's resurrection. They could not have a sacrament of faith since they could not have faith, dying before the onset of their ability to reason (ST 3.Q52.A7).
Circling back to Anselm, this "baptism of repentance" seems to fit his description of those who would be saved in the loosest sense, while the "baptism of water" is the standard way one becomes a follower of Christ and therefore the most straight forward understanding of Anselm.
Aquinas also comments on how sacramental grace affects us here and now. Not only does Jesus' example inspire us, it gives us a sacramental grace to assist us in following God. Aquinas takes seriously our fallen human state, believing as does Anselm that we were created to be happy and to follow God's will, but we are unable to do that as we should. Fallen human nature is human nature that is flawed, not achieving its full abilities. God's grace enters us with two effects. First, it begins to heal what is broken inside us, so that we can achieve our potential goodness that is in our nature. In this, it helps us to be better people in the same way that good parents and a loving environment can help children to be good. Second, it goes beyond this and gives us gifts that are beyond our nature. An example of this is uniting us to Christ. All the human love in the world cannot raise us to this level. It can do this because it comes from God. By bestowing grace in this twofold manner, God can have a profound effect on the world here and now, helping people to follow the divine plan. In this, Aquinas holds for more than a merely moral effect of Christ's passion. Through grace we are not just exhorted to do better at following God's will, we are given divine assistance in attaining this end (ST 3.Q62.A2).
Finally, Aquinas also clarifies how "necessity" is understood in these theological arguments. In ST 3.Q1.A2 he points out that the "necessity" of the incarnation for our sake is not absolute, as food is necessary for life. Instead, the incarnation of God is necessary for our salvation "as a horse is necessary for a journey." It is "better and more convenient." God, in God's omnipotent power, could have saved us other ways. God chose to save us through the incarnation.
René Girard: A Contemporary Version of Atonement Theology
Though never without its exponents, atonement theory has once again become popular through the work of René Girard, though one can only call his views atonement theology in a loose sense. Girard's theories explain how the death and resurrection of Jesus represents God's definitive saving revelation to humanity, hence my categorization of them as atonement theology. But I say this knowing that Girard would renounce this categorization and instead prefer "anti-atonement theology." My point is to show that it is both, that Jesus atones for sin by standing against atonement, that his sacrifice was an anti-sacrifice. While Girard upholds many of the specific points of Anselm and Aquinas such as the perfection and divinity of Christ and the necessity of a God-man to achieve this salvation, he renounces sacrificial language altogether:
First of all, it is important to insist that Christ's death was not a sacrificial one. To say that Jesus dies, not as a sacrifice, but in order that there may be no more sacrifices, is to recognize in him the Word of God: "I wish for mercy and not sacrifices." (Things Hidden 184)
His views will therefore add another dimension to our investigation.
Girard's basic starting point is anthropological, that human desire is mutual rather than individual. Someone desires something only because he or she sees that someone else desires it. Thus desire springs up mutually between people. This process is called mimetic desire. Since mimetic desire is mutual, it leads to conflict and eventually violence if left unchecked, as individuals become rivals for the object of their mutual desire (I See Satan 10). This makes it difficult for people to live together unless they find a way to deal with the violence which inevitably arises. These mechanisms which people adopt are the basis of all cultures (84).
At times the ordinary means people have to deflect mimetic rivalries break down and spontaneous unfocused violence erupts which can destroy the society. This happens unless another, more powerful mechanism kicks in, the scapegoat. In scapegoats, the unfocused violence let loose in a society is suddenly focussed on one person, the scapegoat. This person is in a sense chosen randomly, but usually bears some trait which marks them as "different" and thus easy to focus on. Becoming the communal focus of violence, the scapegoat is dehumanized and killed (literally), people's desire for violence is appeased and peace returns to the community. This sudden return to peace is so powerful that it is perceived as divine in nature, justifying the killing and wrapping it in a holy mystique. This entire process from crisis to resolution through scapegoating is called a mimetic cycle (30).
This is the birth of myth, religion and culture. Myths spring up to tell the story of what happened from the point of view of those whose society was returned to peace because of the collective murder, covering up the collective violence vented on an innocent person and extolling the blessing accrued to the community. Religion springs up remembering the event, called by Girard the founding murder, and extending its benefits through time by ritually reenacting it so that it will not have to be physically reenacted. This process of forging and maintaining peaceful human relationships is the invention of human culture (82-85).
Christianity is the only notable exception. In the Christian scriptures the stories of violence are often told from the perspective of the scapegoat, the victim of the violence, so they look very different. From this perspective it is no longer possible to cover up the truth that these were unjust murders, lynchings.
An example of mimetic cycle can be found in the Suffering Servant Songs of Deutero-Isaiah. This text reveals an innocent victim, the suffering servant, whose lynching by the community reestablishes order. By boldly proclaiming the servant's innocence, the text exposes the violence for what it is. The suffering servant becomes a prototype for the scapegoating of Jesus in the Gospels. But there are also elements of "myth" which creep into the story as well. Following Girard's lead, Gil Bailie points out that the text also ascribes the ultimate cause of the violence to God with the phrase "Yahweh has been pleased to crush him with suffering" (45). This is evidence of myth-making, the justification of scapegoating violence by venerating it as divinely decreed. Fortunately, as is often the case in the Bible, the empathy for victims overwhelms its attempt to mythologize its violence (44).
The trouble with mimetic cycles is that they are humanly impossible to break. As one completes it creates a temporary stability, but the new society sooner or later reaches another crisis and the process repeats itself on and on (Girard, I See Satan 30). To break it would require someone who could see through the myth, who was not contaminated by its lie and could thus completely expose it. But "within the human community, which is the prisoner of unanimous violence and mythical meanings, there is no opportunity for this truth to be entertained, let alone carry the day" (Things Hidden 191). Everyone is trapped by complicity in their own founding violence. To break this cycle a voice must come from outside. This can only be done by God, who is completely outside the system of human cultures and their tainted creation (190).
Yet it can also only be done by a human so as to be comprehensible to humans. The truth about violence cannot abide long in the community. Being perceived as a threat, it is violently opposed and is either expelled or fights back with violence. Either way it is nullified. The only chance it has to be heard is from the mouth of the victim at the moment she or he is being expelled. As Girard explains:
This unprecedented task of revealing the truth about violence requires a man who is not obliged to violence for anything and does not think in terms of violence - someone who is capable of talking back to violence while remaining entirely untouched by it.
It is impossible for such a human being to arise in a world completely ruled by violence and the myths based on violence. In order to understand that you cannot see and make visible the truth except by taking the place of the victim, you must already be occupying that place; yet to take that place you must already be in possession of the truth. (192)
This represents a "catch 22" for any normal person. God, however, is not subject to mimetic desire and Jesus, being divine, is capable of remaining uncontaminated by violence spawned by mimetic desire. In fact, once one understands how mimetic desire creates culture in a mimetic cycle and how Jesus breaks this cycle, one cannot but proclaim that Jesus is God, the only being able to transcend the violence that had trapped humanity up to that point (193). The early Christians must have at least intuited this fact, though perhaps not explicitly, since they faithfully recorded his passion and death without "mythologizing" it.
Being human Jesus is also capable of being the victim of scapegoating, the other requirement for breaking the cycle of mimetic violence. "A nonviolent deity can signal his existence to mankind only by becoming driven out by violence- by demonstrating that he is not able to remain in the Kingdom of Violence" (193). Jesus came into the world in order to break the hold of violence on the world in the only way possible for one devoted to non-violence, by becoming its victim... but not its silent victim. He preached about a God who loves all people, who "causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust" (Mt. 5:45) and he quotes the prophet Hosea to those who think God desires sacrifice: "Go and learn the meaning of the words, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice'" (Mt. 9:13). Through his preaching and his actions he revealed the God of Love and exposed the hatred and violence inherent in his culture. Thus the powerful who are charged with upholding the peace of the community "can hardly fail to see in him the sworn enemy and corruptor of the very cultural order they are vainly attempting to restore" (182). They respond the only way they know how, by killing him. But having already infected his disciples with the truth, they can see his death for what it is. In Jesus, God has finally revealed the truth, "the real meaning and function of the Passion: one of subverting sacrifice and barring it from working ever again by forcing the founding mechanism out into the open, writing it down in the text of all the Gospels" (179).
Here we have all of the major elements of Anselm's atonement theology affirmed, but within completely different framework. To rescue humanity from its original sin, mimetic desire, God had to become incarnate in a God-man. This God-man, because of his innocence, had to suffer and die and because of this sin's strangle-hold on humanity is broken. This death stands as a witness to divine truth, calling others to follow God's path.
The problem is that these two explanations of the facts seemingly contradict each other. Girard certainly believes that he has discovered something new which exposes and critiques "sacrificial" theologies such as Anselm's. I am not convinced. I believe both theologies, each having its own strengths and weaknesses, and I don't think they are in necessary conflict with each other, at least in the major conclusions. My first indication that this might be so is in how far they agree on the elements noted above.
The key to reconciling these two systems lies in looking closely at what is meant by Jesus' "paying a debt" in Anselm and then at how those same ideas are expressed in Girard. First, let us note that in Cur Deus Homo Anselm never uses the word "sacrifice." Not once. It is not part of his understanding of how Jesus' death "atones for sin." Instead, as I have shown above, what Jesus' death does is restore God's plan for the world, a plan that had been shattered by people instead trying to implement their own plan. This is the significance of seeing that the "debt" we owed but could not pay was following God's will. Jesus, being divine and thus absolutely in line with God's will, acts according to it through the end, reestablishing God's will on earth and revealing to us in a perfect, concrete way what God's will is.
What is new and unique in Girard is his anthropology. His understanding of mimetic desire and how it functions to bring about cultures is very different than Aquinas' and presumably from Anselm's as well. As Bailie said so well, "Is it even remotely possible then that the 'grip of sin' was broken by a public execution and that a new humanity was made possible and even necessary as a result. ... If the Cross is the cure, could the kind of contagious scapegoating that led to it be the disease?" (37)
But there is still this issue of "sacrifice." Does God will sacrifice? It depends on what one means by sacrifice. If by "sacrifice" one means killing a third party for the sake of reestablishing a relationship with the second party, Girard's scapegoating mechanism, he is absolutely right in condemning it as a projection of human violence on God (Things Hidden 188). This is a radical idea, and a useful deconstruction of a theme that is so prevalent in the Old Testament. To hold that God was never in favor of this kind of sacrifice causes a very different reading of the Old Testament (and the Letter to the Hebrews). But if by "sacrifice" one means giving up something one loves for the sake of something of greater good, then Jesus' death is a sacrifice. As Girard says, Jesus gives up his life because "continuing to live would mean a compromise with violence" (187). To compromise with violence, even for a bit, even for a moment, would destroy the thing he most valued, God's unconditional, non-violent love for all creation. In Anselm's view as well, God gives up his very being in heaven through Jesus' kenosis to be in solidarity with us in our fallen state. In his example of patient love, enduring everything through the end in patient kindness, he saves us, revealing God's infinite love for us. This is a God of non-violence.
In his writing on the fundamental option for the poor, Gutiérrez also fights against muddled thinking, people calling good what is bad, due to words having multiple meanings. As Girard says that Jesus takes on the role of scapegoated victim in order that there be no more scapegoating, Gutiérrez recommends taking on poverty in solidarity so that there would be no more poverty. Both are prophetically subversive and make sense only when we see the complexity of the sins they are addressing.
Girard has something important to say in a world that still looks to violence to support its peace and looks to religion to justify this. There have been many wrong uses of sacrificial language used to justify violence. But he is simply wrong in asserting that "there is nothing in the Gospels to suggest that the death of Jesus is a sacrifice" (178). The clear allusions to the Jewish Passover Festival in the Last Supper accounts are at least a "suggestion" of this. Perhaps he is right in eschewing the word "sacrifice" altogether. Perhaps it is too easy to misconstrue. But he needs to come up with another word to explain what Jesus does for the sake of all humanity in giving up his life in order not to give in to violence. Girard uses "non-sacrifice" and "anti-sacrifice" but I prefer "sacrifice as anti-sacrifice" to describe this action. It forces one to grapple with the various understandings of sacrifice in order to see the deeper meaning.
Ignacio Ellacuría: The Crucified People
Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J. was one of the six Jesuits who, along with their housekeeper and her son, were murdered in El Salvador in November 1989 by Salvadoran troops. At the time he was working on an article called "The Crucified People" as part of a larger anthology of systematic theology which he was coediting with Jon Sobrino, S.J.. His article contains a provocative notion of how the poor, who suffer from oppression, might not only be the privileged recipients of salvation, but might also today be privileged bearers of salvation to the world.
I will use his insights to bring together the other sources into a deeper theological foundation for the option for the poor and the place of atonement theology in the ongoing process of healing our world. However, it is important to keep some things in perspective. First I will reiterate what I said at the beginning, that the fundamental option for the poor does not need to be justified. It is clearly the way of God revealed in the Old and New Testaments. This is sufficient justification for our adopting it wholeheartedly. But as Clement of Alexandria said, echoed by theologians through the centuries, while it is possible to believe without understanding, it is better to understand what we believe. Through this analysis I hope to provide a better understanding of the fundamental option for the poor.
It is also important to note that I am using the works of these authors in ways that are not exactly in line with the way they might have originally intended. Exponents of atonement theology and liberation theology tend to cast a skeptical eye on each other. For instance, Ellacuría stresses the historicity of Jesus' death against an abstract theological interpretation. When speaking of the necessity of Jesus' death, he says that it can only be seen after the fact as the result of opposition to his preaching of the coming Reign of God. "This 'necessity' is not based on notions of expiation and sacrifice" (263). He will grant that atonement theology makes some valid points, but he adds that "we cannot simply settle the matter of the 'died for our sins' by means of an expiatory victim, thereby leaving the direction of history untouched" (264). I do not think that this is an accurate description of atonement theology as indicated above, but it certainly has been preached as if this were so. I will try to allow atonement theology and liberation theology to be equal partners in dialogue and in so doing, I believe that they will mutually reinforce what is best in each.
The risen Christ reveals to us the salvation available to each of us in this new life which is Jesus'. But this new life is obviously not already present in our world in its fullness. In heaven there will be no more tears but if we look around our world we can see plenty of them. Ellacuría believes that this can wrongly lead us into thinking that the Reign of God is entirely a thing of the future, either needing no human effort to arrive because it is immanent or that it is reduced to the resurrection from the dead (261). To counter this the early Christians proclaimed the continuity between the Risen One and the Crucified One "so that the immortal life of the Risen One is the future of salvation only insofar as we abandon ourselves to obedience to the Crucified One, who can overcome sin" (ibid).
If we look at the historical reality as portrayed in the Gospels, we see that Jesus rises because he was crucified and that he was crucified for preaching the coming of the Reign of God. These three realities, Jesus' life, death and resurrection, are inextricably bound to each other. If we are to be united to Christ in his resurrection, we must be united to him in his crucifixion for preaching the coming of the Reign of God. In the Gospel portrayals, Jesus did not seek his death. Jesus preached the coming of the Reign of God and did not shrink from that commitment even when that task demanded his death (264). If the life and death of Jesus have any meaning, therefore, the Reign of God which he preached could not be simply at a stage beyond history, disconnected from his own history. When Paul speaks of what is still wanting in the passion of Christ, he is rejecting a resurrection that ignores what is happening on earth" (260-61). For Aquinas, the concern for the present is reflected in grace perfecting our nature and raising us to new potential in following God's will here and now.
The "Reign of God" is a way of signifying the totality of what God wants for all people, where all live in shalom, where joy abounds eternally, where the hungry always have enough to eat and no one lives in material poverty, where every tear is wiped away. This is the salvation Jesus came to bring about. It is more than an individual coming into God's presence, but it includes it. All people will come into God's presence.
What does "resurrection" mean? Obviously it is not the same as "reincarnation," being given another lifetime essentially the same as the last one, but neither is it entirely dissimilar, for Christians believe in a bodily resurrection. Citing Pannenberg, Ellacuría notes that "the Reign of God is not possible as a community of human beings in perfect peace and total justice, without a radical change of the natural conditions that are present in human life, a change that is called the resurrection of the dead" (261). The reign of God cannot come simply by our willing it. Even if every person in the world were to unanimously decide to start living in accord with the will of God, we would not by that fact alone bring about the Reign of God. Without God's help in the form of grace we do not possess within ourselves the ability to live as we should in perfect harmony with God's desires. We need to be changed.
Just so, Jesus' salvific effect must be more than merely moral, convincing us to follow God. It must make some change in us. On this point Ellacuría and Aquinas (as explained above) stand against René Girard. Girard says "For all violence to de destroyed, it would be sufficient for all mankind to decide to abide by this rule. If all mankind offered the other cheek, no cheek would be struck" (Things Hidden 184) and later, "When the single victim mechanism is correctly nailed to the Cross, its ultimately banal, insignificant basis appears in broad daylight, and everything based on it gradually loses its prestige, grows more and more feeble, and finally disappears" (I See Satan 139). This is a very optimistic picture of humanity to which Aquinas and Ellacuría would not prescribe. To completely rid ourselves of sin is impossible without God's help. We will never achieve it without God's grace.
A common starting point in liberation theology is that salvation is not only in some other world, it is here and now. Gutiérrez (quoted above) and Ellacuría (261) both ground this fact in the Exodus event, where God creates a people by calling them out of slavery to a new life. It was in this concrete history that the God of Israel came to be known and it was in subsequent historical interactions that The Lord was seen in a universal context as creator and redeemer of all peoples, not just the Israelites. The Judeo-Christian encounter with God occurring in history keeps any authentically Christian faith rooted in the actual events of history, not only in the past, but also in the present moment. God was encountered in history and so we must open our eyes to ask how God is encountered in our world today. Today, as before, God is encountered through Jesus' ministry which therefore must continue until the end of time. For Aquinas this is accomplished by the sacraments which continue to flow from the mystical body of Christ, the church. This constitutes the locus of God's continuing action in the world.
Ellacuría will situate it somewhat differently and say that in a real way, the privileged place to find the ongoing presence of Jesus Christ the Crucified One is in the poor, the crucified people. By "crucified people" he means the collective body of people who suffer from poverty because of the sinful way in which society is structured (266). This structure gives dominion to a few at the top at the expense of the majority who suffer because of it. It is a collective term rather than an individual one, though it does not exclude individuals who suffer in fighting the prevailing injustice.
He comes to this conclusion through re-looking at the historical situation of Jesus which led to his crucifixion, its Biblical interpretation as the suffering servant of Second Isaiah, and asking who continues this role in our world today. The evangelists who wrote the New Testament saw Isaiah's suffering servant as a prefiguration of Jesus' passion. Ellacuría points out that it also prefigures in an uncanny way what is happening today among the poor who are the vast majority. His hermeneutical stance is critical in both of these steps: he is reading Isaiah's Songs of the Servant from the outlook of the poor, the crucified people noted above. Reading from this social location does not need to be justified since every reading is done from some particular situation, but he shows how alive these passages become from this perspective, and how one could hardly help but see in the suffering servant the crucified people of our day.
Girard also found scripture to come alive when he chose to read it from the perspective of the victim of society rather than from the perspective of the powerful. In fact, he holds that this is what is truly unique about Christian revelation verses other religions-that it allows the victim's voice to be heard and from this comes its power. Perhaps this is another universal application of the fundamental option for the poor, that the poor have a privileged perspective, that their viewpoint is somehow clearer ad more accurately reflects the way the world truly is. Girard would say that this is because the victims no longer suffer from the delusion of sacred violence that myths cover up. When violence is unleashed on them, they see it for what it is. Those who benefit from the violence cannot see it for what it is or else they could not reap its benefits. In the same way, the poor do not suffer from the delusion that the world is perfect. They sin the sinful oppressive structures for what they are. The rich do not. They look out and see a beautiful world and believe that this is so for most everyone. It is for everyone they know. It is a simple idea: if there is indeed a problem with the world that is difficult to perceive, who would perceive it best, the one who benefits from it or the one who suffers from it? There are some things the rich do not see because they cannot see it. Girard has explained the basic mechanism of this in terms of culture and religion, but it is applicable to economic structures as well.
Isaiah's suffering servant has a striking list of similarities to the crucified people of today. He is accustomed to suffering, helpless against death and injustice. As Gutiérrez points out, this is exactly what it means to be materially poor. He has no visible merit, is humiliated and counted as worthless in the eyes of the powerful. This also is true of the poor people when taken as a group, as Ellacuría denotes with his term "crucified people."
Isaiah's servant suffers from the sins of others, not because of his own sin. He suffers sin without having committed it. As noted above, the crucified people are crucified by a socioeconomic system which they did not create and which they cannot control. The few wealthy people control the system and hold the power, using it to benefit themselves at the expense of the majority who remain suffering in poverty. The poor may not be sinless in an absolute moral sense, but as a group they are innocent of their own crucifixion. Gutiérrez points out that God opts for the poor just because they are poor, not because they are necessarily better than other people. Here we see that the crucified people again can be identified with Isaiah's suffering servant just because they are poor, not because they are necessarily better than other people.
In the heart of the Songs of the Servant we see that the servant accepts his lot, and he will justify many because he has taken their guilt on himself. This gets to the heart of atonement theology as well. Jesus accepts his death for the sake of humanity. As Girard points out, "rather than inflicting violence on others, Christ submits to it" (I See Satan 140). In this submission, Jesus unveils the violent underside of society, thus taking a prophetic stance against it. By taking on the penalty of those who would suffer most from the unjust structures of society while at the same time remaining completely innocent of sin and so suffering unjustly, Christ's sacrifice becomes an anti-sacrifice, a sacrifice to end all sacrifices by exposing them as wrong. In Anselm's atonement theology, this is seen in the necessity of Jesus allowing himself to be killed for the sake of following God's will, thus restoring God's honor by helping humanity to live more in line with God's will by his example.
This crucial point is not without ambiguities when cast in terms of the crucified people of today. Ellacuría sees that this is an essential feature of Isaiah's suffering servant (273), but he does not explain how this relates to the crucified people. Perhaps this was because he never got to finish the article. Gutiérrez has explained that the poor accept their own position at the bottom of society because they do not have the education to be able to envision how society could be different. As stated above, to be poor is to be exploited and to not even know it. But this seems to be a weak commonality between the suffering servant and the crucified people on a critical point. Essential to Anselm's atonement theology is Jesus' willing acceptance of suffering for the sake of the salvation of those who inflict it. Girard's theory too requires God's purposeful revelation of non-violence to a world steeped in violence. The poor's unknowing acceptance of this role is not equivalent. On the other hand, all of these theological systems hold that God had a plan for the universe that was subverted by human sin. This was Anselm's starting point. It is the basis for Girard's entire work-how culture has always been based on the mimetic cycle. Liberation theology holds that God wants every person to develop to their human potential and that material poverty is an evil which subverts this goal. In all three of these systems we see that the suffering of the innocent is redemptive only because and only insofar as it exposes the fundamental sin. In exposing sin, it fights sin and moves to restore God's plan. Therefore we can admit degrees of likeness between the poor and the suffering servant in this regard. The poor, the crucified people are like the suffering servant insofar as their suffering is accepted for the sake of being a witness against suffering. Their sacrifice should be an anti-sacrifice.
Establishing a commonality on all essential points between Isaiah's suffering servant and the crucified people is important because it will allow Ellacuría to forward his most far reaching thesis, that it is precisely the crucified people who carry on Jesus' saving work in our world today. The suffering servant of Isaiah was able to be seen by Christians as a prefiguration of Jesus because the texts themselves were oriented towards a comprehensive future in which their events would be realized on a universal scale. In the crucifixion of Jesus, Christians saw the universalizing of the redemptive effects wrought by the Isaiah's servant. In universalizing salvation, Jesus is unique and absolute. His one life, one death and one resurrection extends salvation to all people everywhere. This is what Anselm sought to explain in his Cur Deus Homo. But as Aquinas recognized, there is also the question of how the salvation won by Jesus is applied to any given person. This happens when they are joined to Jesus and therefore joined to his redemptive work through baptism. By this one enters the Church, Jesus' mystical body, his ongoing presence in the world throughout the ages. The Church then is Jesus' instrument of salvation throughout the ages, his ongoing salvific presence in the world. All those who are saved have some connection to the Church, even if they are not formally members. As Pope John Paul II puts it, "For [non-christians] salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation" (Redemptoris missio §10).
Ellacuría offers a different criteria for discerning Jesus' continuing presence in history: through conformity to Jesus' saving work as the Suffering Servant. As early Christians began to understand how it was that they were saved in Jesus, they contemplated how Jesus' death could be understood as prefigured in Isaiah's suffering servant. Through this they began to understand that his death was necessary and that it had salvific value for those who followed him which could be extended to the sins of many (275). For its saving effects to be extended in history, Jesus' passion must continue in history. For Aquinas this happens through the sacraments of faith. Ellacuría argues that it happens pre eminently through those who continue Jesus' ministry as suffering servant. Since this continuation is truly historical, it takes on different forms in different times. It can never be completely fixed. Yet we can say something about this historical continuation- it would conform to Jesus' saving action as the suffering servant. Therefore, "The Suffering Servant of Yahweh will be anyone who discharges the mission described in the Songs and, par excellence, will be the one discharging it in more comprehensive fashion" (274). We have seen that the poor, taken as a whole as the Crucified People, comprehensively conform to this role. It is they who have been crucified for the sins of the world, dehumanized and afflicted not because of their own sins but because of the sins of others:
We cannot say once and for all who constitutes the collective subject that most fully carries forward Jesus' redeeming work. It can be said that it will always be the crucified people of God, but as corrected [sic] as it is, that statement leaves undefined who that people of God is, and it cannot be understood simply as the official church even as the persecuted church. Not everything called church is simply the crucified people or the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, although correctly understood this crucified people may be regarded as the most vital part of the church, precisely because it continues the passion and death of Christ. (276)
Here is a deeper foundation for the fundamental option for the poor. We should opt for the poor not only because God does, but because they are the privileged revelation of God in our world today. We should attach ourselves to the poor so that we are attached to Jesus' salvific presence in our world today. Aquinas is right in seeing the church as the continuation of Jesus' presence in our world, but with this idea, Ellacuría further focuses our attention. Not every part of the church equivalently reveals God's saving grace. It is revealed more fully through that part of the church which conforms more fully to the death and resurrection of Jesus, the poor, God's crucified people.
The suffering servant of Isaiah, though shunned and persecuted by those in power, bore their salvation. Jesus Christ, despised, driven out and murdered, bore the sins of the whole world in his atoning death. In our world today, it is those whom the world despises, the poor, crucified daily by the unjust structures of our world, who bear the salvation of the rich and powerful who oppress them. To opt for the poor is not only to be God-like, it is to opt for God and God's gift of salvation where it is concretely offered. To opt for the poor is not merely to consider the poor first, but to be in solidarity with them, to spend time with them so that one might receive God's salvation from them.
Works Cited
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