A Theological Analysis of Three Contemporary Catholic Atonement Models

Introduction: The Enduring Mystery and Centrality of the Cross

The atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ stands as the immovable bedrock of the Christian faith. It is the hinge upon which redemptive history turns, the singular event through which a holy God has reconciled a sinful world to Himself. The Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, declared that he was determined “to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2), establishing the cross not as one doctrine among many, but as the very heart of the gospel proclamation. From this central truth flows every other tenet of our faith: our understanding of God’s character, the depth of human depravity, the nature of salvation, the life of the Church, and our hope for eternity.

To inquire into the meaning of the atonement, therefore, is no idle theological speculation. It is to ask the most profound question a redeemed soul can pose: Why did Jesus have to die? This question drives us into the very heart of God, forcing us to grapple with the perfect harmony of His attributes—His infinite love and His unwavering justice, His boundless mercy and His righteous wrath. Scripture provides a rich tapestry of metaphors and motifs to explain this divine work—sacrifice, ransom, victory, substitution, judgment, and reconciliation. For centuries, the Church has sought to faithfully synthesize these biblical themes into a coherent doctrine that honors the full counsel of God’s Word.

This report will serve as a theological guide through a complex and often contentious contemporary landscape of atonement models. It will provide a thorough exposition and critique of three significant works: Vee Chandler’s Victorious Substitution, Philippe de la Trinité’s What Is Redemption?, and Fleming Rutledge’s The Crucifixion. Each of these authors offers a unique perspective, seeking to articulate the meaning of the cross for our time. This analysis will be conducted from a perspective committed to biblical orthodoxy, evaluating these models against the clear teachings of Holy Scripture and the great theological traditions that have faithfully preserved them.

For the purposes of this report, the Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) model, as articulated by the Protestant Reformers and their heirs in the great confessions of faith, will serve as our primary theological benchmark. [1, 2] This model, which stands as the orthodox understanding for much of evangelical and Reformed theology, affirms that humanity, being guilty of sin, stands condemned under the just wrath of a holy God. [3, 4] In His infinite love and mercy, God sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to be our substitute. On the cross, Christ bore the full legal penalty that our sins deserved, thereby satisfying the demands of divine justice and propitiating the wrath of God. [2, 5] This gracious act vindicates God’s righteousness, allowing Him to be both “just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). This framework, grounded in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament and the explicit teachings of the New, provides the necessary theological clarity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the other models presented.

A crucial observation that will guide this analysis is that all three authors, despite their different theological traditions, share a common starting point: a reaction against what they perceive as a distorted or “crude” version of Penal Substitution. They are troubled by an interpretation that seems to create a conflict within the Trinity, portraying an angry Father who inflicts punishment upon a reluctant or merely passive Son. De la Trinité explicitly critiques the “distorting mirrors” of a theology that posits an “enraged God” wreaking vengeance. [6] Chandler raises “theological difficulties” with PSA, including the appearance of an “inner-divine conflict.” [6] Rutledge acknowledges and engages with the feminist critique of PSA as a form of “divine child abuse.” [6] This shared concern is the primary engine driving their respective theological reconstructions. They are not simply building atonement models from Scripture alone; they are attempting to correct a perceived flaw in an existing model. Consequently, their work must be evaluated on two fronts: first, whether their critique of PSA is fair to its most robust and biblically faithful formulations, and second, whether their proposed solutions are ultimately more theologically coherent and scripturally sound than the view they seek to amend or replace. This report will contend that while their pastoral concerns are significant, their solutions often introduce new theological difficulties by de-emphasizing or reinterpreting the clear scriptural witness to divine wrath, retributive justice, and the penal nature of Christ’s substitutionary death.

Part I: Exposition of Three Atonement Models

Section 1: The Victorious Substitution of Vee Chandler

In Victorious Substitution: Exploring the Nature of Salvation and Christ’s Atoning Work, Vee Chandler presents a model that seeks to synthesize the ancient Ransom theory (Christus Victor) with the Reformation concept of substitution. Her work is structured as a two-part argument: first, a systematic critique intended to dismantle the Penal Substitutionary model, and second, a constructive project to build her alternative “Victorious Substitution” theory upon the reclaimed foundations of the Ransom view. [6]

A Critique of Penal Justice

Chandler begins with a direct assault on the theological viability of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, leveling a series of objections she categorizes as logical, moral, and theological. [6]

• Logical Objections: Chandler’s primary logical challenge centers on what she perceives as a fundamental contradiction between grace and payment. She argues that a debt cannot be simultaneously paid and forgiven. As she states, “Debt cannot be both forgiven and paid back at the same time. If it is paid back it does not need to be forgiven; if it is forgiven it does not need to be paid back.” (Chapter 2, Logical Objections to Penal Substitution) [6] In her view, if Christ paid the full penalty for sin, then God’s forgiveness is not a true act of grace but a legal necessity, and God cannot be considered gracious for remitting a debt that has already been settled. Furthermore, she questions the equivalence of Christ’s suffering, arguing that He did not bear the true punishment for sin, which is eternal separation from God. This lack of direct equivalence, she contends, undermines the legal precision that the penal model claims to uphold. [6]
• Moral Objections: The core of Chandler’s critique is moral. She asserts that the transfer of punishment from the guilty to the innocent is inherently unjust and a violation of God’s own revealed character and law. She posits that “a just God cannot punish the innocent in place of the guilty,” viewing such an act as a “miscarriage of justice.” (Chapter 2, Moral Objections to Penal Substitution) [6] This objection is not merely to the concept of substitution itself, but specifically to penal substitution, where the object transferred is a legal penalty. She argues that this makes God appear to be a “moral monster” who demands blood to satisfy a retributive impulse, a stark contrast to the loving Father revealed in Christ.
• Theological Objections: Chandler identifies several theological difficulties with PSA. First, she argues that it creates the appearance of an “inner-divine conflict,” setting a wrathful Father against a merciful Son, thereby fracturing the unity of the Godhead. [6] Second, she contends that PSA reverses the biblical direction of reconciliation. Scripture, she notes, consistently speaks of humanity being reconciled to God, never of God being reconciled to humanity. The penal model, by focusing on the need to appease God’s wrath, wrongly implies that the barrier to reconciliation lies within God Himself. [6] Finally, she argues that PSA incorrectly places divine justice, understood as retribution, at the center of the atonement, when Scripture clearly identifies the motivation for the cross as the “love of God.” (Chapter 2, An Inner-Divine Conflict; Reconciliation; The Central Idea of the Atonement Is God’s Love) [6]

A Defense of the Classic Ransom Theory

Having laid out her case against PSA, Chandler turns to her constructive project, which begins with a robust defense of the Ransom theory, also known as the classic or Christus Victor model. She argues that this view, which dominated the thought of the early Church Fathers, is the most faithful to the biblical narrative. [6]

Her defense is grounded in what she calls the New Testament’s “narrative of conflict.” She posits that the entire ministry of Jesus, from His temptation to His crucifixion, is portrayed as a direct assault on the dominion of Satan. Christ came “to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). The key themes she marshals in support of this view include:

• Redemption as Liberation: The language of redemption (lutron), she argues, is best understood not as a payment to God, but as the price paid to liberate slaves from bondage. Humanity, through sin, has fallen into slavery under the power of Satan, sin, and death. [6]
• The Bondage of Humanity: Chandler emphasizes that since the Fall, humanity has been held captive. Christ’s mission is to “set the captives free.”
• The Crucifixion as the Decisive Battle: The cross is not a courtroom or an altar where a debt to God is paid; it is a battlefield. It is the moment when “the prince of this world will be driven out” (John 12:31). Christ’s death and resurrection constitute God’s decisive victory over the powers of darkness, breaking their hold on humanity and creation. [6]

A New Synthesis: Victorious Substitution

Chandler’s unique contribution is her attempt to integrate the concept of substitution, which she believes is biblically sound, into the Christus Victor framework. She rejects the idea that one must choose between substitution and victory. Instead, she proposes that “the substitutionary aspect of Christ’s death has its appropriate place as part of the ransom theory and is properly related to the ransom concept.” (Introduction, The Scope of Our Study) [6]

In her “Victorious Substitution” model, Christ’s death is indeed substitutionary and penal, but the penalty is not directed toward God’s wrath. Rather, Christ’s suffering and death constitute the “ransom price” necessary to liberate humanity. But to whom is this ransom paid? Chandler, following early Fathers like Gregory of Nyssa, argues that the payment is directed toward satisfying the legitimate claim that Satan holds over sinful humanity. [6] She reasons that since humanity’s enslavement was a result of its own free choice to sin, God, in His justice, would not simply use arbitrary force to reclaim His people. Doing so would violate the moral order He established. Instead, a “transaction was needed.” Satan, eager to gain power over Christ, was deceived into accepting Christ’s life in exchange for the souls of humanity. Because Christ was sinless, death and the devil had no ultimate power over Him, and in the resurrection, Christ triumphed, breaking Satan’s power and liberating His captives. [6]

Thus, in Chandler’s model, Christ is our substitute in bearing the consequences of our sin, and this substitutionary act is the “penalty” that functions as the ransom. As she summarizes: “God’s justice, however, did not demand substitution or penalty. Rather, substitution is the provision for a necessary exchange, the ransom price that liberated human beings from the power of evil and the evil one.” (Introduction, The Scope of Our Study) [6]

This synthesis attempts to preserve the objective, substitutionary nature of the cross while avoiding the moral and theological problems she identifies in PSA. The necessity of the cross lies not in satisfying God’s need for retribution, but in God’s just and wise plan to defeat His enemy and victoriously reclaim His creation.

However, this model introduces a significant theological problem of its own. By positing that Satan holds a “legitimate right” or a just “claim” over sinners that God Himself is bound to honor through a transaction, Chandler’s model risks elevating Satan to the status of a cosmic legal entity with whom the sovereign God must negotiate. This framework suggests a form of cosmic dualism, where God’s freedom to act is constrained by the “rights” of a creature, albeit a fallen one. This stands in stark contrast to the consistent biblical portrayal of Satan as a defeated usurper and liar who holds no legitimate authority whatsoever, and whose power exists only by God’s sovereign permission. While seeking to solve the perceived problem of a wrathful God, Chandler’s Victorious Substitution inadvertently creates a new problem: a God whose sovereignty is limited by the claims of the devil.

Section 2: The Vicarious Satisfaction of Philippe de la Trinité

Writing from within the rich theological tradition of Roman Catholicism, and specifically from a Carmelite and Thomistic perspective, Father Philippe de la Trinité offers a model of “vicarious satisfaction” in his work, What Is Redemption? How Christ’s Suffering Saves Us. His approach, like Chandler’s, is framed as a corrective to the Penal Substitutionary model of the Protestant Reformers, which he views as a “doctrinal distortion” that misrepresents the character of God. [6]

Rejecting the “Distorting Mirrors” of Penal Substitution

De la Trinité begins by identifying and rejecting what he calls the “distorting mirrors” of a particular strain of atonement theology. [6] He argues that the thesis of penal substitution, which he attributes to Luther and Calvin, is characterized by a “radical error: Christ, it is said, suffered on the cross in order to satisfy retributive justice.” (Chapter I, Distorting Mirrors) [6] From this error, he claims, flow two deeply problematic corollaries: “one is the anger of God the Father with his Son, the other, that the Son suffered torments akin to those of the damned.” [6]

He finds this entire framework to be theologically and morally untenable. His core objection is rooted in the perfect justice of God, which cannot be served by punishing the innocent. He states with force: “But this is false. For it would be unjust and criminal to punish an innocent man instead of those who are guilty, and Jesus was not only innocent but innocence itself, and never bore the anger of God the Father nor any kind of damnation.” (Chapter I, Distorting Mirrors) [6] Drawing on the logic of his master, St. Thomas Aquinas, he asserts that “God the Father did not exercise the right of retributive justice either on Christ himself or on sinners in his person. Therefore, Christ’s sufferings are not punishments.” (Chapter III, No Retributive Justice) [6] For de la Trinité, any model that portrays the cross as an act of divine vengeance or a satisfaction of retributive justice is a grave misrepresentation of the gospel.

The Preeminence of Merciful Love

In place of a justice that demands retribution, de la Trinité erects a theological edifice founded on the “preeminence of mercy.” The entire work of redemption, he argues, must be understood as flowing from the unified, loving nature of the Triune God. The atonement is, fundamentally, a “mystery of love.” [6]

He explains that while divine justice is certainly revealed on the cross, it is a justice that is “wholly penetrated by divine mercy.” (Chapter IV, The Heart of the Mystery) [6] There is no conflict between God’s attributes. Mercy does not overrule justice, nor does justice constrain mercy. Rather, they are perfectly harmonized in the divine nature. However, mercy holds a certain primacy in the economy of salvation. He writes, “Mercy, and mercy alone, proposes, penetrates and decides upon the sacrifice of Calvary. Indeed, it is only by and through mercy that this sacrifice becomes a possibility.” (Chapter III, Vicarious Satisfaction) [6] The motivation for the cross is not an offended sense of honor or a legal requirement for punishment, but the superabundant, merciful love of God for His fallen creatures. This love is the singular source from which the entire plan of redemption flows.

The Nature of Christ’s Sacrifice: Vicarious Satisfaction

De la Trinité’s constructive model is that of “vicarious satisfaction,” a term he shares with the broader Western tradition but defines in a specific, non-penal way. For him, satisfaction is not the payment of a penalty but an offering of perfect love that restores the order of justice disrupted by sin. [6]

Sin, in this framework, is understood primarily as an offense against God that creates disorder and dishonors Him. Atonement, therefore, requires a “satisfaction” that can restore that honor and re-establish the right order. Since fallen humanity is incapable of offering such a satisfaction, God in His mercy provides the means. Christ, the God-man, offers Himself on our behalf. This offering consists of His perfect, loving obedience to the Father, culminating in His death on the cross. [6]

This act of love, because it is offered by a divine Person, possesses an infinite value and merit. This superabundant offering of love is more pleasing to God than all the sins of humanity are displeasing. It does not “pay off” God’s wrath in a transactional sense; rather, it provides a positive good of such immense worth that it outweighs the negative reality of sin, thereby “satisfying” the conditions for reconciliation and restoring the broken relationship.

Crucially, this act is entirely voluntary, an expression of Christ’s perfect freedom. De la Trinité emphasizes that Christ’s obedience was not a coerced submission but an act of profound charity. He quotes Aquinas to show the unity of these concepts: “It comes to the same thing, since Christ fulfilled the precepts of charity through obedience and obeyed his Father out of love.” (Chapter III, A Loving Obedience) [6] The suffering Christ endures is not a punishment inflicted by the Father, but the cost of a love so profound that it willingly enters into the consequences of sin in order to overcome them. The material element of suffering is made efficacious by the “compassionate love for the guilty person.” (Chapter III, Vicarious Satisfaction) [6]

This model successfully avoids the caricature of an angry Father punishing His Son. It presents a beautiful and coherent vision of the atonement as a Trinitarian act of love. From a conservative Protestant viewpoint, however, a critical question remains. By defining satisfaction almost exclusively in terms of a relational restoration through an offering of love, this model significantly softens, if not entirely removes, the biblical emphasis on God’s active, judicial wrath against sin and the necessity of a penalty. It reframes a legal problem (the violation of God’s holy law which demands a penalty) as a relational one (the dishonoring of God which requires an act of love to restore order). While the latter is certainly a biblical theme, it is questionable whether it fully accounts for the stark biblical language of curse, judgment, propitiation, and God’s righteous wrath, which the Penal Substitution model takes with utmost seriousness.

Section 3: The Kaleidoscopic Vision of Fleming Rutledge

In her monumental work, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, Fleming Rutledge, an Episcopal priest and theologian, offers a sweeping and multifaceted interpretation of the atonement. Rejecting any single, monolithic “theory,” she argues for a “kaleidoscopic” vision that embraces the full spectrum of biblical imagery and theological motifs. [6] Her approach is deeply informed by the apocalyptic worldview of the New Testament and profoundly shaped by the theology of Karl Barth. [6]

Foundational Premises: The Gravity of Sin and the Godlessness of the Cross

Rutledge’s entire project is built upon two foundational theological assertions that define the problem to which the cross is the divine solution.

• The “Gravity of Sin”: Rutledge insists that no interpretation of the cross can be adequate without a profound understanding of what she calls the “gravity of Sin.” Drawing a critical distinction, she writes not of “sins” in the plural (individual transgressions) but of “Sin” in the singular. For Rutledge, Sin is “an alien power that must be driven from the field… a dominion under which humanity exists.” (Chapter 4, The Gravity of Sin; Introduction to Part 2, Motifs of the Crucifixion) [6] It is a cosmic, malevolent force that holds the entire created order in bondage. She frequently invokes Anselm’s famous admonition, “Nondum considerasti quanti ponderis peccatum sit” (You have not yet considered the gravity of sin), to argue that the human predicament is a “catastrophic” one, requiring an equally “catastrophic remedy.” [6]
• The “Godlessness of the Cross”: Rutledge powerfully argues that the specific mode of Jesus’ death—crucifixion—is central to its meaning. The cross was not merely a method of execution; it was a carefully orchestrated spectacle of public degradation, designed to strip its victim of all dignity and humanity, to make him an object of scorn and to erase him from memory. It was, she argues, a profoundly “irreligious” event. [6] The ultimate expression of this is Jesus’ cry of dereliction from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In this moment, Christ enters into the deepest human experience of alienation and abandonment, identifying Himself with a humanity that is “without God in the world.” (Chapter 2, The Godlessness of the Cross) [6] He enters the realm “where God was not,” absorbing into Himself the full measure of godforsakenness that is the consequence of Sin.

An Exposition of Biblical Motifs

Rutledge deliberately avoids systematizing the atonement into a single theory. Instead, she devotes the second half of her book to a rich exposition of the various biblical motifs that, taken together, create a “kaleidoscopic” and inexhaustibly rich picture of Christ’s work. She argues that “no one image can do justice to the whole; all are part of the great drama of salvation.” (Introduction, The Role of Sympathetic Imagination) [6] Among the many motifs she explores are:

• The Passover and the Exodus: Christ’s death as the ultimate act of deliverance from bondage.
• Blood Sacrifice: The costliness of atonement, signifying the total self-offering of Christ.
• Ransom and Redemption: The price paid for liberation from the dominion of the Powers.
• The Great Assize: The cross as the place where God’s final judgment against Sin is executed.
• The Apocalyptic War (Christus Victor): The cross as the decisive battle in which Christ triumphs over the Powers of Sin, Death, and the Devil.
• The Descent into Hell: Christ’s ultimate solidarity with condemned humanity in its state of godforsakenness.
• Recapitulation: Christ as the new Adam who lives out and reverses the entire history of human disobedience, creating a new humanity in Himself. [6]

Reclaiming Substitution: “The Judge Judged in Our Place”

While critiquing simplistic and morally problematic versions of “penal substitution,” Rutledge mounts a robust defense of the motif of substitution as biblically indispensable. She argues that “the motif of substitution, rightly understood, is present behind and in all the other motifs.” (Chapter 11, Introduction to the Theme) [6]

Her rehabilitation of the concept relies heavily on the work of Karl Barth, whose formulation in the Church Dogmatics, “The Judge Judged in Our Place,” she champions as the most profound and biblically faithful understanding of substitution. [6] In this view:

• The atonement is a thoroughly Trinitarian act. It is not that the Father punishes the Son. Rather, God the Judge takes the place of the judged. God’s judgment against sin is not deflected onto a third party; it is absorbed by God Himself in the person of the incarnate Son.
• Barth’s summary is key: “Man’s reconciliation with God takes place through God putting Himself in man’s place and man’s being put in God’s place, as a sheer act of grace. It is this inconceivable miracle which is our reconciliation.” (Chapter 11, Karl Barth and “The Judge Judged in Our Place”) [6]
• This divine act is not a static, legal transaction but a dynamic, narrative, and apocalyptic event. It is the story of “the way of the Son of God into the far country” of human sin and death to confront the enemy and reclaim creation. Christ stands in our place to undergo the sentence we deserved, thereby nullifying that sentence and defeating the Powers that enforce it. [6]

Rutledge’s primary contribution is to re-contextualize all the atonement motifs, including substitution and penalty, within this thoroughly apocalyptic framework. The fundamental problem is not a legal imbalance in a heavenly court but a cosmic war for a creation held in bondage. Christ’s death is penal, in that it is the execution of God’s righteous judgment against the Power of Sin. And it is substitutionary, in that the Judge Himself undergoes this sentence in the place of the guilty. But it is not a transaction designed to appease an angry Father; it is the very means by which the Triune God wages and wins the apocalyptic war for the salvation of the world. This makes her model the most dynamic, comprehensive, and, from a conservative perspective, the most biblically robust of the three alternatives examined.

Part II: A Comparative Theological Analysis

Section 4: Shared Convictions and Divergent Paths

A comparative analysis of the atonement models proposed by Vee Chandler, Philippe de la Trinité, and Fleming Rutledge reveals both a significant point of theological consensus and a series of crucial divergences that place their theories on fundamentally different trajectories. Understanding these similarities and differences is essential for a precise theological assessment.

The Common Ground: A Unified Trinity

The most important point of agreement among the three authors is their shared and emphatic rejection of any atonement model that creates a division within the Godhead. Each, in her or his own way, repudiates the caricature of a wrathful Father inflicting punishment on a separate, passive Son. They are united in the conviction that the atonement is the singular work of the Triune God, proceeding from a single, unified divine will rooted in love.

• Chandler objects to the “inner-divine conflict” she perceives in PSA. [6]
• De la Trinité insists that the sacrifice of Calvary is decided upon by “mercy alone,” an act of the entire Godhead. [6]
• Rutledge, following Barth, portrays the cross as an event in God’s own triune life, where “God putting Himself in man’s place” is the central miracle. [6]

This shared commitment to Trinitarian coherence is a valuable corrective to popular-level presentations of the atonement that can lapse into a form of tritheism. It rightly grounds the work of Christ in the eternal being and purpose of God.

Contrasting Views on Divine Justice

While united on the love of the Trinity, the authors diverge sharply on their understanding of divine justice, which in turn defines the primary problem that the atonement must solve.

• Chandler’s Cosmic Legalism: For Chandler, justice is primarily about God’s faithfulness to the cosmic legal order He has established. The problem is that Satan, through humanity’s sin, has acquired a legitimate legal claim or “right” over humanity. God’s justice requires Him to honor this claim, necessitating a “transaction”—a ransom payment—to liberate the captives without violating the established order. [6]
• De la Trinité’s Relational Justice: For de la Trinité, justice is fundamentally relational. It is the right order and honor that is due to God. Sin disrupts this order and offends God’s honor. Justice, therefore, is not primarily retributive but restorative. It is that which is “wholly penetrated by divine mercy,” and its demands are “satisfied” not by punishment, but by an offering of superabundant love that restores the broken relationship. [6]
• Rutledge’s Apocalyptic Rectification: For Rutledge, justice (dikaiosyne) is not a static principle but an active, divine Power. It is God’s rectifying action to judge what is wrong and to sovereignly make right His fallen creation. This justice is executed apocalyptically on the cross, where God’s own judgment against the cosmic Power of Sin falls upon God Himself in the person of the Son. [6]

The Reinterpretation of Substitution

Each author retains the language of substitution but redefines its function to fit their respective models, moving it away from the penal framework of PSA.

• Chandler’s Ransom Substitution: Substitution is the mechanism of the ransom. Christ’s life is the price that is substituted for the lives of enslaved humanity, paid to satisfy Satan’s claim.
• De la Trinité’s Loving Substitution: Substitution is an act of loving solidarity. Christ, as our representative, substitutes His perfect, loving obedience for our disobedience, offering it to the Father in our place to restore God’s honor.
• Rutledge’s Judicial Substitution: Substitution is the event of divine self-judgment. The divine Judge substitutes Himself for us, the judged, taking our place under the sentence of condemnation to nullify its power and create a new humanity.

The Primary Obstacle Overcome

Ultimately, the models differ on the fundamental barrier to reconciliation that Christ’s death overcomes.

• For Chandler, the obstacle is Satan’s legal claim on humanity.
• For de la Trinité, the obstacle is the disorder and dishonor caused by sin, which requires loving reparation.
• For Rutledge, the obstacle is the cosmic reign of the Powers of Sin and Death over all creation, which requires a divine, apocalyptic victory.

These divergent paths, originating from a shared concern, lead to profoundly different understandings of the character of God, the nature of sin, and the mechanics of salvation itself.

Section 5: Theological Traditions in Dialogue

The unique atonement models presented by Chandler, de la Trinité, and Rutledge are not developed in a vacuum. Each is deeply shaped by the author’s specific theological tradition, which provides the interpretive lens through which they read Scripture and construct their arguments. A final assessment requires an understanding of these formative influences.

Analyzing the Authors’ Frameworks

• Chandler’s Evangelical Critique: Chandler’s approach reflects a modern evangelical concern for biblical exegesis and logical and moral coherence. Her systematic critique of PSA is characteristic of a growing movement within evangelicalism that is uncomfortable with the language of retributive justice and divine wrath. However, her constructive proposal—a literal ransom paid to satisfy Satan’s “rights”—is a significant departure from mainstream evangelical thought and represents a minority view, reviving a patristic concept that was largely abandoned for its problematic theological implications. [6]
• De la Trinité’s Thomistic Catholicism: De la Trinité’s work is a masterful expression of classic Roman Catholic theology, filtered through the lens of St. Thomas Aquinas. His careful distinctions between commutative, distributive, and retributive justice; his framework of satisfaction as the restoration of honor through an act of love; and his emphasis on merit and the preeminence of charity are all hallmarks of the Thomistic tradition. His model is essentially a refinement of Anselm’s satisfaction theory, stripped of its feudal language and recast in the more palatable terms of merciful love. [6]
• Rutledge’s Barthian Anglicanism: Rutledge’s work is the most eclectic and, arguably, the most powerful of the three. While writing as an Anglican priest, her theological engine is unmistakably the work of the 20th-century Swiss theologian Karl Barth. Her emphasis on an apocalyptic worldview, her narrative approach to doctrine, her relentless focus on God as the sole acting subject, and her championing of “The Judge Judged in Our Place” are all drawn directly from Barth’s Church Dogmatics. She masterfully integrates this Barthian framework with a broad appreciation for the entire biblical and patristic tradition, resulting in a model of immense scope and power. [6]

A Conservative Biblical Assessment

When evaluated against the full counsel of Scripture, as understood within the conservative theological tradition, each model presents both strengths and significant weaknesses.

• Chandler’s Victorious Substitution: The strength of Chandler’s model is its robust affirmation of the reality of spiritual warfare and the victorious outcome of Christ’s work, themes that are undeniably central to the New Testament. However, its central mechanism—the satisfaction of Satan’s legal rights—is biblically tenuous and theologically perilous. It grants the devil a status and authority that Scripture denies, risking a dualistic worldview that compromises the absolute sovereignty of God. The Bible portrays Satan as a usurper to be crushed, not a creditor to be paid. [6]
• De la Trinité’s Vicarious Satisfaction: The great strength of this model is its beautiful and profound articulation of the indivisible love of the Triune God as the source of the atonement. It rightly rejects any notion of conflict within the Godhead. Its weakness, from a conservative Protestant perspective, lies in what it omits. By focusing so heavily on love and relational honor, it struggles to give full weight to the raw and violent biblical language of curse (Galatians 3:13), wrath (Romans 1:18), and judgment. It provides an elegant solution to the problem of sin as dishonor, but it is less equipped to address the problem of sin as a capital crime against the holy law of God, which demands a penal response. [6]
• Rutledge’s Kaleidoscopic Vision: Of the three, Rutledge’s model is the most biblically comprehensive and theologically satisfying. Its great strength is its ability to hold the various biblical motifs together in a coherent, dynamic tension, rather than prioritizing one at the expense of others. Her apocalyptic framework provides a powerful context for understanding the cosmic scope of Christ’s work, and her use of Barth’s substitutionary model allows for a robust affirmation of both God’s unwavering judgment against Sin and His boundless mercy toward sinners, enacted simultaneously and without contradiction in the cross. It successfully incorporates the penal and substitutionary elements central to PSA while avoiding the common caricatures, framing them within the larger narrative of God’s apocalyptic victory. It stands as a powerful, biblically-grounded articulation of the atonement for the contemporary church. [6]

Part III: A Synoptic Comparison with Penal Substitutionary Atonement

Section 6: The Atonement Models in Dialogue: A Comparative Table

To clarify the precise theological positions of each author in relation to one another and to the benchmark of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, the following table provides a synoptic overview. This format allows for a direct, side-by-side comparison of their views on the core theological questions that define any atonement model. It distills the complex arguments into their essential propositions, making the subtle but crucial differences between the models immediately apparent.

Conclusion: Toward a More Comprehensive Understanding of the Cross

This exhaustive analysis of three significant contemporary atonement models reveals a theological landscape rich with insight yet fraught with peril. The works of Vee Chandler, Philippe de la Trinité, and Fleming Rutledge represent serious and thoughtful attempts to articulate the meaning of the cross. Their shared desire to move beyond caricatures of Penal Substitution and to emphasize the unity and love of the Triune God is a commendable and necessary contribution to the ongoing theological conversation.

From this study, several key conclusions emerge. First, the critiques leveled against Penal Substitution, while often pastorally motivated, frequently fail to engage with the most robust, biblically-grounded formulations of the doctrine. They tend to attack a “straw man” version of PSA, which then justifies their departure into alternative models that, in turn, create their own theological problems.

Vee Chandler’s Victorious Substitution rightly reminds the Church of the non-negotiable biblical reality of cosmic spiritual warfare and Christ’s decisive victory. Yet, in her effort to avoid a God who demands satisfaction for His own justice, she constructs a model where God must satisfy the legal claims of Satan, a position that dangerously compromises divine sovereignty. [6]

Philippe de la Trinité’s Vicarious Satisfaction offers a profound meditation on the merciful love of God, beautifully articulating the atonement as a Trinitarian act of relational restoration. However, its Thomistic framework, while elegant, struggles to give full voice to the stark biblical realities of wrath, curse, and penal judgment, which are essential components of the scriptural witness. [6]

Fleming Rutledge’s kaleidoscopic, apocalyptic approach, deeply indebted to Karl Barth, proves to be the most comprehensive and biblically satisfying of the three. By framing the entire drama of salvation as God’s apocalyptic war against the Powers of Sin and Death, she is able to integrate the full range of biblical motifs—including sacrifice, victory, and substitution—into a coherent whole. Her reclamation of Barth’s “The Judge Judged in Our Place” provides a powerful way to affirm the penal and substitutionary nature of the cross without fracturing the Trinity or diminishing the love of God. It is a model that takes with utmost seriousness both the gravity of Sin and the radicality of grace. [6]

Ultimately, this investigation reaffirms the theological precision and biblical fidelity of the classic Penal Substitutionary Atonement model. It alone gives full and proper weight to the holiness of God, the gravity of sin as a violation of His law, the reality of His righteous wrath, and the necessity of a substitutionary sacrifice that is truly penal in nature. Christ did not merely pay a ransom to a lesser power or offer a beautiful example of love; He bore the curse of the law for us (Galatians 3:13), was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21), and endured the penalty we deserved, satisfying the justice of God so that mercy could be freely extended.

The work of these other theologians, however, should not be dismissed. They serve as valuable dialogue partners, challenging those who hold to PSA to articulate their position with greater care, to always ground it in the love of the Trinity, to never lose sight of the victorious outcome of Christ’s work, and to embrace the full, paradoxical, and glorious mystery of the cross. The cross is not merely a doctrine to be analyzed but a divine act to be adored—the ultimate demonstration of the wisdom, justice, and love of the Triune God.

“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

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