Is Christ's Penal Substitution Incoherent? | Azusa Pacific University - September 2018

In September 2018, The Department of Philosophy and the Honors College of Azusa Pacific University invited Dr. Craig to speak at their Sophia Forum. In this lecture, Dr. Craig addresses the topic, "Is Christ's Penal Substitution Incoherent?"

MODERATOR: Hello. It's my great honor to introduce today’s speaker. William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology and Professor of Philosophy at Houston Baptist University. Dr. Craig holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham and a Doctorate of Theology from the University of Munich. He has authored or edited over 30 books including The Kalam Cosmological Argument, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom, Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology, and God, Time and Eternity, as well as this more recent book on the atonement which he's going to be talking about today, as well as over 100 articles in professional philosophy journals and theology journals. Professor Craig is also known around the world for his debates about the existence of God and other theological matters. In 2016 Dr. Craig was named by The Best Schools as among the 50 most influential living philosophers. So it's very special to have him with us today. If I may just add an anecdote. Early in graduate school I had the privilege of taking a few courses from him, and I remember in one of those courses I had this idea that I was going to have a little debate with him after class on one of his favorite arguments – the kalam cosmological argument. So I had five or six objections to the argument that I had not seen him address in print or in any of his debates. So I was ready to impress him with my superior knowledge. He kindly met with me to have a conversation, and two things impressed me about that conversation. The first thing was that for every question I posed he immediately had an answer as if he had been thinking about that much before. And I had this picture in my mind of an iceberg where you see the tip of it that's public and then there is a whole bunch of stuff underneath. I walked away realizing that he has so much more, he's thinking through more than what you may ever even know. The second thing which impressed me even more was the humility and the grace by which he expressed his thoughts to me. When you see him in the debate setting, there's a kind of a confidence there, but in this casual conversation I just remember him kind of tilting his head and just saying, “Well, Josh, it just seems to me that . . .” and then he just gave his answer that he had thought through quite a bit. And that was very encouraging and inspiring. I came away with the word that describes his thinking and his character and that word is integrity. So it is our great honor at Azusa Pacific University to invite Craig to give his talk. Will you join me in welcoming him?

DR. CRAIG: Thank you very much, Josh, for those very kind words. Josh asked me if I might say a word or two about the value of philosophy for the Christian life before giving my lecture this afternoon, and I was only too happy to do so. I think that Christian theology is dependent in vital ways upon philosophical analysis. When I think of the big three doctrines of Christianity (as I call them) – the Trinity, the incarnation, and the atonement – all three of these doctrines are permeated by philosophical concepts and raise profound philosophical questions. With respect to the Trinity, the modern concept of a person arose out of the debates among the Christian church fathers on the Trinity. What does it mean to say that God is three persons in one substance? With respect to the incarnation, the doctrine of the deity and the humanity of Christ was expressed by the church fathers in terms of one of those persons having or exemplifying two natures – a divine nature and a human nature – each of which is unattenuated. So the doctrine of the incarnation depends upon this philosophical concept of natures. As for the atonement, which we'll examine today, this doctrine has raised all kinds of philosophical questions. It has been the subject of vehement philosophical attack with respect to the aspect of the doctrine known as penal substitution so that this is a vital area of exploration for philosophical analysis.

Therefore, I am deeply committed to the value of philosophy in my Christian life and thinking. In fact, I would say that I am a philosopher, not in spite of, but because I am a Christian. It is because I am a Christian that I am a philosopher. I remember my Intro to Philosophy professor, Stuart Hackett, my freshman year at Wheaton College saying to us, “In virtue of being Christians, you are already committed to certain philosophical positions like the existence of God, the objectivity of moral values, the knowability of truth, and so forth. Therefore, the question for you is not whether or not you will be philosophers. The only question is: Will you be good philosophers?” I'm convinced that good philosophy is a tremendous benefit for the Christian faith, and we're going to see that over the next two days particularly with regard to the doctrine of the atonement. Had Josh invited me to speak on a topic that would showcase the relevance of philosophy for Christianity, I could not have done better than to choose the doctrine of the atonement. So I think that you'll see as we unfold the issue before us that this is an area of great applicability for philosophy.

Now, if all this is correct, then I want to second what Dr. Woodruff has said; namely, take advantage of some of the courses that are offered here in philosophy to get some training. The way you begin to do good philosophy is to be trained in doing philosophy. You'll probably never have another chance like this again in your life. You've got these four years set apart for full time study. So take advantage of the opportunities that are here. Do not squander these years, but invest them in preparing yourself for the future. I hope that philosophical study will be part of that.

The message of the New Testament is that God, out of his great love for us, has provided the means of atonement for sin through Christ's death thereby reconciling us to God. It is helpful to distinguish between the fact of the atonement and a theory of the atonement. A great variety of theories of the atonement have been offered to make sense of the fact that Christ, by his death, has provided the means of reconciliation with God. Competing theories of the atonement need to be assessed by (1) their accord with biblical data and (2) their philosophical coherence. I believe that any biblically adequate theory of the atonement must include at its heart the doctrine of penal substitution.

One of the most important New Testament motifs concerning Christ's death is Isaiah's Servant of the Lord. In the fourth of his songs about the Servant of the Lord, Isaiah describes his suffering on behalf of the people. The suffering of the Servant is agreed on all hands to be punitive. He is said to bear the people's iniquities. In the Old Testament, the expression “to bear sin (or iniquity)” when used of people typically means to be liable to punishment or to endure punishment. What is remarkable, even startling, about the Servant of Isaiah 53 is that he suffers substitutionally for the people.

Sometimes scholars have denied this, claiming that the Servant merely shares in the punitive suffering of the Jewish exiles. But such an interpretation does not make as good sense of the shock expressed at what Yahweh has done in afflicting his righteous Servant (Isaiah 52:14-53:1,10) and is less plausible in light of the strong contrasts, reinforced by the Hebrew pronouns drawn between the Servant and the persons speaking in the first person plural:

Surely he has borne our infirmities
  and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken;
  struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
  crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
  and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
  we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
  the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:4-6).

The substitutionary as well as the punitive nature of the Servant’s suffering is clearly expressed in phrases like “wounded for our transgressions,” “crushed for our iniquities,” “upon him was the punishment that made us whole,” “the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all,” and “stricken for the transgression of my people” (versus 5, 6, 8).

It is sometimes said that the idea of offering to God a human substitute is utterly foreign to Judaism. But that is, in fact, not true. The idea of substitutionary punishment is clearly expressed in Moses’ offer to the Lord to be killed in place of the people who had apostatized in order to “make atonement” for their sin (Exodus 32:30-34). Although Yahweh rejects Moses’ offer of the substitutionary atonement saying that “when the time for punishment comes I will punish them for their sin” (verse 34), the author is nonetheless clear and Yahweh simply declines Moses’ offer but does not dismiss it as absurd or impossible. Similarly, while Yahweh consistently rejects human sacrifice in contrast to the practice of pagan nations, the story of God's commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac (whom the New Testament treats as a type of Christ) shows that such a thing is not impossible (Genesis 22:1-19). In Isaiah 53, moreover, the idea of the Servant’s substitutionary suffering is treated as extraordinary and surprising. The Lord has inflicted upon his righteous Servant what he refused to inflict upon Isaac and Moses.

By bearing the punishment due to people, the Servant reconciles them to God. While atonement vocabulary in the Hebrew kippur is not used, the concept is clearly present. The Servant, by his suffering, brings wholeness and healing (verse 5). He makes many to be accounted righteous (verse 11). And he makes intercession for the transgressors (verse 12).

New Testament authors saw Jesus as the Suffering Servant described in Isaiah 53. Ten of the twelve verses of Isaiah 53 are quoted in the New Testament which also abounds in allusions and echoes of this passage. Jesus’ words over the cup at the Last Supper is recorded in Mark 14:24, “This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many” echo Isaiah's prophecy of the Servant of the Lord who “poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors” (verse 12). Earlier that evening Jesus had applied Isaiah 53:12 to himself: “I tell you this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was numbered among the lawless’; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled” (Luke 22:37). 1 Peter 2:22-25 is a reflection on Christ as the Servant of Isaiah 53 who “bore our sins in his body on the tree.” Hebrews 9:28 alludes to Isaiah 53:12 by describing Christ as “having been offered once for all to bear the sins of many.” In Acts 8:32-35 Philip, in response to an Ethiopian official’s question concerning Isaiah 53 (“about whom does the prophet speak?”) shares the Good News about Jesus. The influence of Isaiah 53 is also evident in Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Timothy, and Titus. New Testament scholar William Farmer concludes, “This evidence indicates that there is an Isaianic soteriology deeply embedded in the New Testament which finds its normative form and substance in Isaiah 53”.^[1]

If this is correct then any biblically adequate theory of the atonement must include penal substitution as a central feature.

The doctrine of penal substitution, however biblical it may be, has, ever since the time of Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) faced formidable, and some would say insuperable, philosophical challenges. A discussion of such challenges takes us into lively debates over questions in the philosophy of law, particularly questions about the theory of punishment. One’s theory of punishment should offer both (1) a definition of punishment and (2) a justification of punishment.

In my first lecture I proposed to address objections to penal substitution arising from the definition of punishment, and in my second, objections arising from the justification of punishment.

What then is punishment? Punishment involves harsh treatment as is obvious from the typical cases of punishment. Harsh treatment is not sufficient for punishment, however. As Socinus recognized, God may justifiably inflict suffering on some person without its being punishment. So what transforms harsh treatment into punishment? This is where the debate begins. No consensus, in fact, exists concerning the conditions sufficient for punishment. But consider Alec Walen’s characterization of some of the necessary conditions of punishment in a standard philosophical encyclopedia. He says,

For an act to count as punishment, it must have four elements. First, it must impose some sort of cost or hardship on, or at the very least withdraw a benefit that would otherwise be enjoyed by, the person being punished.

Second, the punisher must do so intentionally, not as an accident, and not as a side-effect of pursuing some other end. . . .

Third, the hardship or loss must be imposed in response to what is believed to be a wrongful act or omission. . . .

Fourth, the hardship or loss must be imposed, at least in part, as a way of sending a message of condemnation or censure for what is believed to be a wrongful act or omission.^[2]

This is a version of what is called an expressivist theory of punishment made popular by the legal theorist Joel Feinberg according to which harsh treatment imposed must express condemnation or censure in order to count as punishment.

Some critics of penal substitution have claimed that given an expressivist theory of punishment it is conceptually impossible that God punished Christ for our sins for God could not condemn or censure Christ since he did no wrong. The point is not that it would be immoral of God to punish Christ for others’ wrongs, but that any such harsh treatment inflicted on him by God for those wrongs would not count as punishment because it would not express censure. The problem then with penal substitution is not that it is immoral but that it is incoherent.

The crucial premises of this argument appeared to be the following.

1. If Christ was sinless, God could not have condemned Christ.
2. If God could not have condemned Christ, God could not have punished Christ.
3. If God could not have punished Christ, penal substitution is false.

Thus it follows from the sinlessness of Christ that penal substitution is false.

I think that this criticism of penal substitution is multiply flawed and therefore without merit. To begin with, we need to get clear on what exactly the doctrine of penal substitution asserts. Penal substitution in a theological context is the doctrine that God inflicted upon Christ the suffering which we deserved as the punishment for our sins as a result of which we no longer deserve punishment. Notice that this explication leaves open the question whether Christ was punished for our sins. Some defenders of penal substitution recoil at the thought that God punished his beloved Son. For example, John Stott advises, “We must never make Christ the object of God’s punishment.”^[3] Rather, God afflicted Christ with the suffering which, had it been inflicted on us, would have been our just desert and hence punishment. In other words, Christ was not punished but he endured the suffering which would have been our punishment had it been inflicted upon us. We do not want to rule out by definition such accounts as being penal substitutionary theories since Christ, on such accounts, suffers as our substitute and bears what would have been our punishment thereby freeing us from punishment. Of course, our explication also permits the penal substitution theorists to affirm that Christ was indeed punished in our place and so bore the punishment for our sins.

Now consider several responses available to the Christian theorist to the alleged incoherence objection.

1. Penal Substitution Without Punishment

A penal substitutionary theorist who holds that God did not punish Christ will be unfazed by, and perhaps even welcome, the present objection. For such a theorist denies premise (3) of the argument – penal substitution does not require that Christ be punished. The debate will then move on to the familiar question of the justice of afflicting an innocent person with the suffering which we deserved as the punishment for our sins.

Feinberg thinks that we should not apply the term “punishment” to parking tickets, offside penalties in sports, firings at work, and so on, which he calls “penalties” to distinguish them from punishments technically so-called, which always express censure. In that case, the defender of penal substitution may borrow Feinberg’s distinction between punishments and penalties and say that God penalized Christ for our sins; that Christ paid the penalty for our sins. If God’s harsh treatment of Christ did not express censure then God did not punish Christ for our sins, but he may still be said to have penalized him for our sins. Feinberg himself says that inflicting penalties on an innocent person may be even worse than inflicting punishments on an innocent person, in which case the alleged coherence objection collapses to the moral objection.^[4] Accordingly, if one’s theory of punishment rules out substitutionary punishment by definition, the advocate of penal substitution may simply use a different word than “punishment.”

Seen in this light, the critic of the coherence of penal substitution is simply employing what the eminent legal theorist H. L. A. Hart famously called “a definitional stop” to short circuit debate.^[5] Anthony Quinton had argued that in order for harsh treatment to be punishment the person afflicted with harsh treatment had to deserve that punishment.^[6] The problem with Quinton’s definition was that it made it logically impossible to punish the innocent. Yet it is indisputable that innocent people are often found guilty and subjected to harsh treatment for crimes they did not commit. Quinton was forced to say that such persons, though sentenced and treated harshly, were not really punished, technically speaking. Hart’s complaint was that ruling out their harsh treatment as punishment by mere definition was just a semantic maneuver that masked important questions about punishment.

The critic of the coherence of penal substitution employs a similar definitional stop regarding substitutionary punishment. Historically, substitutionary punishment, like punishment of the innocent, apparently does take place.^[7] Debate over the justifiability of such a practice ought not to be precluded by a definitional stop.

Thus, David Lewis responds to the attempt to short circuit debate over penal substitution by acquiescing to the expressivist’s definition of “punishment” but insisting, “I trust that the reader will understand: I mean that the volunteer undergoes something that would have constituted punishment if it had happened instead to the guilty offender.”^[8] Discussion of the justice of such treatment may then proceed. Lewis’ counterfactual characterization is, in fact, in accord with penal substitution as we have defined it.

This serves to dispatch the coherence objection. But because it raises some important and interesting questions, it would be premature to end the discussion here. Accordingly, let's ask how a theorist who holds that God did punish Christ for our sins might respond to the coherence objection.

2. Punishment Without Expressivism

If the penal substitution theorist holds that God did punish Christ for our sins then it is open to him simply to reject an expressivist theory of punishment. He will deny premise (2) – punishment does not require condemnation. Though popular, it is not as though the expressivist theory has overwhelming arguments in support. Indeed, one of the problems with the theory is that, contrary to the claim of its proponents, the line between punishment and mere penalties in the law does not coincide with the line between condemnatory and non-condemnatory harsh treatment.

Penalties in civil suits plausibly often express society's resentment and stern judgment of disapproval for the wrong done, which is what Feinberg means by censure. This seems undeniable in cases involving torts such as assault, battery, defamation, fraud, and wrongful death. Indeed, some torts are also crimes in which case the act for which compensatory damages are awarded is also the object of condemnation in a criminal verdict. And even for torts that are not crimes, sometimes the damages awarded are actually punitive damages which exceed the aims of merely corrective justice. Very large awards in particular plausibly express society's strong disapproval of the wrong done to the plaintiff. Even in sports, penalties imposed for fouls like unsportsmanlike conduct and taunting seem to carry censure with them. While these infractions are not crimes since they are not violations of criminal law, still the penalties imposed for such infractions plausibly express censure.

By the same token, there are crimes which are punishable even though such punishments do not seem to express censure. For example, there are in criminal law cases of so-called strict liability in which crimes are committed without fault and yet are punishable. These cases are far from unusual, there being thousands of statutory offenses involving elements of strict liability including crimes like the possession of narcotics or firearms or the selling of mislabeled foods or of prescription drugs without a prescription.^[9] Punishments for crimes of strict liability seem to involve no censure of the person involved, and yet are still punishments in our criminal justice system.

In fact, penal substitution in a secular context furnishes a powerful counterexample to the claim that punishment inherently expresses an attitude of censure or condemnation toward the person punished. As Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) documents in his classic defense of penal substitution, A Defence of the Catholic Faith against Faustus Socinus, the punishment of a substitute was well understood and widely accepted in the ancient world.^[10] Not only so, but those who voluntarily stepped forward to die as a substitute for someone else were universally admired as paradigms of nobility. We moderns may regard such a practice as immoral and ourselves as more enlightened for rejecting it, but it would be an example of cultural imperialism to claim that these ancient societies did not really endorse and even practice substitutionary punishment. To think that because it is unjust it is not punishment is to confuse the definition of punishment with the justification of punishment, an error also made by theorists who similarly held that punishment of the innocent is not really punishment. Just as most theorists today recognize that it is possible to punish the innocent, so we should acknowledge the possibility of punishing a substitute.

A defender of penal substitution could therefore avoid the present objection by adopting some non-expressivist theory of punishment according to which punishment is harsh treatment of someone by a recognized authority for an infraction of a law or command.

3. Expressivism Without Condemnation of Christ

But does an expressivist theory of punishment in fact rule out substitutionary punishment, as we have thus far taken for granted?  Not at all, for there are versions of expressivism which are available which are wholly consistent with penal substitution. Consider, for example, Whalen's fourth condition in the definition of punishment given above: The hardship or loss must be imposed, at least in part, as a way of sending a message of condemnation or censure for what is believed to be a wrongful act or omission. This condition does not require that the person punished is condemned or censured for the act or omission believed to be wrong. Censure could be either of the person who did the act or of the act itself. Similarly, on Feinberg’s account “punishment expresses the community’s strong disapproval of what the criminal did. Indeed it can be said that punishment expresses the judgment of the community that what the criminal did was wrong.”^[11]

In fact, it is arguable that the critic of penal substitution has fundamentally misunderstood expressivism with regard to punishment. Expressivism holds that there is a certain stigma attached to punishment in the absence of which the harsh treatment is not punishment. It is no part of expressivism that the censure expressed by punishment target a particular person. Expressivist theories of punishment as typically formulated are perfectly consistent with penal substitution which is just as it should be given the attitudes of those in societies endorsing or practicing penal substitution. Thus premise (2) remains false.

4. The Condemnation of Christ Without Personal Sin and Guilt

Suppose the critic insists that a correct formulation of an expressivist theory of punishment would require that censure be directed toward the person punished. Would even such a theory rule out Christ's being punished for our sins? Not necessarily, for one might espouse a theory of penal substitution which includes the imputation of our sin to Christ such as the Protestant Reformers articulated.^[12] On such a theory, Christ, though personally without moral fault, is legally guilty and so condemned by God for our sins. Of course, because our sin was merely imputed to Christ and not infused in him, Christ was, as always, personally virtuous, a paradigm of compassion, selflessness, purity, and courage, but he was declared legally guilty by God.  Therefore, he was legally liable to punishment. Thus, premise (1) is false.

One might distinguish two possible imputation doctrines. One that holds that our sins (that is to say, our wrongful acts) were imputed to Christ. And one that holds that our guilt for our wrongful acts was imputed to Christ. Critics of the coherence of penal substitution admit that given a doctrine of the imputation of sin, their charge of incoherence fails. But their complaint is in both cases that we do not have any experience of the transfer either of responsibility for actions or of guilt in isolation from actions from one person to another. But is that, in fact, the case? In my second lecture, I propose to examine this objection more fully. But for now, suffice it to say that given the doctrine of the imputation of sin, the objection to the coherence of penal substitution is a self-confessed failure.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the objection to the coherence of penal substitution is not sufficiently nuanced. All of its premises can be plausibly challenged. In the first place, not all advocates of penal substitution hold that Christ was punished for our sin. In any case, it is not incumbent upon Christian or legal philosophers to adopt an expressivist definition of punishment. But if we do, the typical articulations of expressivist theories are perfectly compatible with penal substitution which is just as it should be given the attitude expressed toward penal substitutes in societies recognizing the justice of such a practice. Finally, even if we adopt a definition of punishment that is so narrowly construed as to rule out cases of penal substitution in normal situations, that does not subvert the Reformers’ doctrine of penal substitution predicated as it is on the doctrine of imputation, a doctrine which, as we shall see, is not without legal analogies in our own experience. Thus, there are multiple responses to the coherence objection available to the penal substitution theorist depending on how many of the critics' premises one is willing to accept.

QUESTION: There's one part where I was a little confused about. You go against the objector’s first premise because sin was imputed to Christ as opposed to infused, if I heard you right. If it was infused, let’s say if it was in that circumstance, how would Christ be not . . . well, because he was imputed he was therefore not sinless. So if he was infused is he without sin? If our sins are infused into him or imputed to him?

DR. CRAIG: If our sins were infused into him, that is to say that Christ actually became a sinful person – lustful, angry, self-centered, grasping – that would be incompatible with his deity and his sinlessness. As the second person of the Trinity, it's impossible for Christ to be sinful. So we are talking here about a forensic transaction whereby Christ is declared to be legally guilty before God's bar, but not Christ actually becoming an evil, wicked person. That's the difference between imputation and infusion.

FOLLOWING: So if he was infused, he would have evil qualities.

DR. CRAIG: That's right, and would not be God. So it's logically impossible.

QUESTION: A lot of the different things that people say to go against the penal substitutionary atonement, they'll say that it wasn't present directly after the apostolic era, and that it was created by later legal philosophers like Anselm and others. Do you find any support in the patristic literature that there were actually people directly after the apostolic era that believed that penal substitutionary atonement was actually at the core of the atonement?

DR. CRAIG: Yes. There are abundant references in the church fathers to penal substitution. Let me find an example from Eusebius’ demonstration of the Gospel to quote to you. As I look for it, let me say that's also why I grounded this doctrine in the New Testament’s use and employment of Isaiah 53. Even if the church fathers somehow overlooked penal substitution in their espousal of ransom theories and Christus Victor theories, that's irrelevant if this doctrine is firmly rooted in the New Testament and in Isaiah 53. But, in fact, the church fathers didn't overlook it. One of the surprising things that I discovered in my work on the atonement is how seriously misrepresented classical atonement theorists are in the secondary literature. This is just one aspect of it. The idea that the church fathers were myopically focused upon Christus Victor or ransom theories is just demonstrably false. Let me read to you what Eusebius says in the Demonstration of the Gospel, chapter 10 section 1:

The Lamb of God . . . was chastised on our behalf, and suffered a penalty He did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so He became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because He received death for us, and transferred to Himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonour, which were due to us, and drew down on Himself the apportioned curse, being made a curse for us. And what is that but the price of our souls? And so the oracle says in our person: “By his stripes we were healed,” and “The Lord delivered him for our sins.”

Here Eusebius quotes Isaiah 53 and Galatians 3:13 about Christ being made a curse for us, and clearly anticipates penal substitution.

QUESTION: I have maybe an alternative that might disagree with an element of the premise, although it acknowledges a lot of it. I want your insight on it; you may see some things that I don’t. Part of the disagreement was with the purpose of punishment – what defines punishment. Punishment – I think if we use it in reference to starting with the Garden as being the central point of understanding punishment . . . punishment either has to sort of form two functions. It either has to remove evil or it has to be redemptive. So the suffering component of punishment either has to correct the problem in some manner at the very earliest point. So it either has to be destructive or redemptive; it either has to remove evil or it has to bring it back together in some capacity. Suffering as a part of that has to be redemptive. So the suffering component of punishment has to be – for it to be true punishment . . .

DR. CRAIG: What about your first alternative? You said there was an alternative to its being redemptive.

FOLLOWUP: Destructive.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah, why couldn't you affirm that instead?

FOLLOWUP: Because it wasn't destructive in the Garden – it didn't completely destroy the person – but it actually left evil to remain in some capacity to be worked out. So in the Garden I see this dynamic. And I may be wrong, but I see this dynamic where there was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that gave some knowledge of God, by existing, by being this separating, being a delineator between God and man. When that was transgressed, bypassed, that delineator that allows for a certain type of knowledge of God was restored by the curse. The curse being that there is a feeling of “you're not godness” in the curse. Your work. Your dependent on all these sorts of things around you to survive – death feels present, and it allows you to see that you are not God in a restorative capacity. What if redemption in this sense is . . . so Jesus is bearing the sins is a way of joining with that sin and justifying and acknowledging it in this sort of fundamental way that it is good. That suffering has a good redemptive element to it. And it acknowledges it so that somebody can be totally good, enter into it, and still be blessed, and not have a loss in their doing that. And so by justifying to all humanity by God himself bringing . . . so if you believe that Jesus is God then you are certain that you can still enter into suffering and it still be good even if you're not at fault. So you can enter into your brother’s suffering and bear each other's burdens. I’m just saying this might be an alternative where you reject this idea of penal substitution. Your response?

DR. CRAIG: You've raised a number of very interesting questions which could not be addressed in the lecture for interests of time. I think that what you're expressing is best seen not as an alternative to penal substitution but as a different facet of the doctrine of the atonement. I like to compare the atonement to a multi-faceted jewel which includes not only penal substitution but notions like redemption, satisfaction of divine justice, moral influence, and so forth. My argument is exegetically that penal substitution will be the center of this gem. It will be the central face that the other facets surround. I would see penal substitution as the mechanism whereby the kind of redemption you talk about is achieved. You're certainly right that Christ's suffering on the cross is redemptive. It frees us from death, hell, and sin, but how does it do so? How is his suffering redemptive? I would say through penal substitution. It satisfies the demands of God's justice and thereby enables God to offer us a free pardon of our sin thereby redeeming us. Now, the broader context that you've helped to bring out for this question is that the theory of punishment in philosophy of law is part of one's theory of justice. I didn't talk about that this afternoon. Theories of justice can be broadly classified as either retributive or consequentialist. A retributive theory of justice says that punishment is justified because the guilty deserve it – that the guilty deserve to be punished, and therefore punishment is a good because the guilty deserve it. A consequentialist theory of punishment says that punishment is justified because of the extrinsic benefits that it brings about such as deterrence of crime, sequestration of dangerous criminals from society, or reformation of the wrongdoer. Much of what you said sounded like consequentialism with regard to the theory of justice. I would argue that a consequentialist theory of justice is inadequate to the New Testament data concerning God's justice. Principally because God's justice is eschatological. God does not visit his full justice upon people – as you say Adam and Eve did not drop over dead on the day they sinned – he doesn't exert or put his wrath upon people fully in this life. His justice is eschatological – it is imposed at the final judgment. It is difficult to see how justice imposed at that point could be anything other than retributive because there's nothing that follows it but hell or heaven. So it seems to me that in considerable measure God's justice has to be retributive. Moreover, the Scripture explicitly says that the guilty deserve punishment. In Romans 1:32, Paul lists this litany of sins and he says those who do such things deserve to die. This is an expression of retributivism. If that's right then penal substitution will go to satisfy the demands of God's retributive justice. The penalty for sin is fully paid by Christ, and that then enables him to extend a free pardon to us thereby achieving our redemption. So I think that given retributivism with respect to divine justice, penal substitution provides the best explanatory mechanism for the redemption and the benefits that you want to affirm. I would see those as simply other facets of this multifaceted doctrine of the atonement.

QUESTION: I had a quick question about the origin of . . . let me just read this. I think the concept of free will plays into the argument of penal substitution because beyond the question of substitution is the subject of that which is being substituted, and that is its origin. Does that make sense so far?

DR. CRAIG: You're talking about Christ having free will?

FOLLOWUP: Yes. I'm thinking about it from an origin standpoint. I agree with you that I think this is a bad argument. But I think a better argument to look at is the differentiation between God and Christ in that they both have to have free agency from themselves in order for them to be separate. I think that free agency, Christ from God, is the same agency that we have as humans from God. Let me say this. If our free will is the gateway from which we are penalized under meaning we are punished for when we freely disobey God, then would it make sense that for God to overcome that free agency in ourselves he would need to substitute that free agency from the agency and himself as God in the distance (like mysterious, who is ultimate) to a mortal being that mirrors the free agency of our humanity. Does that make sense?

DR. CRAIG: Not very much. [laughter] But let me say this. I want to affirm, I think like you, free will for both human beings and for God. So I would see Christ as voluntarily and freely giving his life for us. It seems to me that we must freely embrace his proffered pardon in order to be beneficiaries of Christ's death.

FOLLOWUP: But then the question I have is why is penal substitution a thing. This is the argument I'm making. To play devil’s advocate. If God is free and he's mysterious and big – we're talking about “big God” – then how can Christ who's also God be free from something that's also free? How can they be separate if they're both sharing the same free will? So the question is: do they have separate free wills?

DR. CRAIG: Christ is God. Father and the Son have separate wills, but they're always in harmony according to the doctrine of the Trinity. They freely will the same thing. So their wills are in accord. We should never think of the passion of Christ as something imposed on the Son by the Father. This is freely and voluntarily a self-sacrifice.

FOLLOWUP: That's what is so strange. In the story of Christ, it seems that it is imposed because when Christ is on the cross he is like, “Why have you abandoned me?” It seems like it's outside of his own will, which means he seems like to be a free agent of himself.

DR. CRAIG: But in Gethsemane, he prays that this cup would pass from him but submits himself to the Father's will and says, “Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done” and he goes freely to the cross. The expression of abandonment is a quotation from Psalm 22:1 which is the prayer of the righteous Servant of God in distress. So when he is on the cross feeling this forsakenness by God, he's actually praying the words of the psalm, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Psalm 22. So I don't think we should think of the Son as being forced to do something that is contrary to his will. This is a self-sacrifice.

QUESTION: In the understanding, similar actually to the same themes of his question, I wanted to talk about origin, free will, and penal substitution. In the understanding that there is free will, with that assumed, what would you say in terms of the fairness or theological fact that the binary choice of obeying God or not necessitated Christ's punishment. Does that make sense?

DR. CRAIG: I think so. In fact, a good number of the church fathers thought that God's forgiving our sins did not require Christ's incarnation and death. They thought that God could have simply remitted everyone's sin; that he wouldn't need the incarnation and death of Christ in order to save us from our sins. But St. Anselm disagreed with that. Anselm said that in view of God's essential justice, which is retributive, God couldn't just blink at sin. He couldn't just forgive it. The demands of his own essential justice had to be met first in order for him then to pardon sin. Among Protestant theologians, this same disagreement occurred until Socinus. After Socinus’ attack on penal substitution, Protestants tended to line up behind the view of Anselm that, in fact, the passion of Christ was necessary in order to satisfy the demands of God's justice. And that's why it had to happen if we were to be saved. There were dissenting voices. Hugo Grotius, whom I’ve mentioned, thought that the passion of Christ was not necessary for our salvation; God could have just remitted our sin had he wanted to. But Grotius thought that God had good reasons for choosing to punish Christ in our place; namely, nothing could so demonstrate his love of people and his hatred of sin as this self-sacrificial death of Christ to pay the penalty for our sin. So Grotius thought that this wasn't necessary but that it was a contingent and a wise choice on God's part. This is an issue on which Christian theologians disagree, and there are arguments on both sides.

QUESTION: My question is more about clarification. I'm still trying to understand all this. You are articulate and speak with some jargon words so I’m still trying to make sense of it. So to help me out, I think maybe an analogy . . . the analogy of perhaps that says that if you're in front of a judge and you got a death sentence given to you, and Jesus comes in and bails you out. Will that analogy be a good perspective? Because I think a lot of people understand that and accept that in their conscience – that that's a great analogy to tell the Gospel. Would that be a good analogy? Or are any significant differences or similarities a problem, or is it just fine?

DR. CRAIG: Well, it is an analogy. As I say, in many ancient societies substitutionary punishment was practiced. So there are actual examples of substitutionary punishment that one could appeal to. I think your illustration is quite right. What I'll show tomorrow is that in our legal system, in both civil and criminal law, you find instances of substitutionary punishment. Now, because I do accept the doctrine of imputation of sin, the example you gave is lacking that element. There is no imputation in the example you gave. But I think that that's an important feature suggested by the New Testament that needs to be included.

FOLLOWUP: [off-mic]

DR. CRAIG: It's the idea that Christ was declared legally guilty by God because our sins were reckoned to him. Then there's this reflex operation that his righteousness is reckoned to us. So we're not simply declared not guilty by God. We are reckoned positively the righteousness of Christ, Paul says. Think of 2 Corinthians 5:21 which says that “God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” That describes that double imputation. My sin reckoned to Christ's account; his righteousness reckoned to mine.

QUESTION: I am not well-versed in all of these things, so mine is maybe for more information. But my first reaction to the idea of God punishing Christ (which is a phrase that is very familiar to me), I suddenly kind of had the thought that in the crucifixion story in the Gospels Scripture describes the act of punishment and crucifixion coming from God's people (the Jews and even Judas) and that that is where that punishment is coming from. Would it be able to be said that it's more in line with the Gospels to say Christ was inflicted punishment by his people as opposed to by God himself? I interpret it . . . we talked about Christ’s cry of being forsaken, and I don't know the Hebrew so that might be informative, but as a potential for God to actually be forsaken, absent from that act rather than inflicting. Do you have any comments on that or thoughts?

DR. CRAIG: It's very clear in Isaiah 53 that Yahweh is the one who inflicts this punishment upon his righteous Servant. It pleased the Lord to crush him, to inflict him with pain. It's quite remarkable that it is Yahweh who inflicts this punitive suffering upon his righteous Servant. So while you're quite right that in the Gospels it's the Sanhedrin that condemns Jesus to death and the Romans that carry out the execution, this was nevertheless the plan of God all along. The Scripture says Christ was slain from before the foundations of the world. This was God's plan for human redemption. I think if we take seriously what Isaiah says and apply that to Jesus, Christ’s punitive suffering is something that is imposed by God on Christ. And the forsakenness, Protestant thinkers have said that the punishment that Christ suffers is not simply the horror of physical crucifixion but it is that rupture in his relationship with his Father that he had never known from all eternity, and now suddenly there is this rupture between the Father and the Son. It is that abandonment that constitutes the true punishment for sin that he undergoes which is the equivalent of hell. It is the equivalent of the eternal suffering of the damned for all time.

QUESTION: I have a very difficult time with penal substitution – to make somebody else suffer for my crime. Even in the Torah and the Old Testament (we call it the Torah, you call it the Old Testament, that’s fine) it was an animal sacrifice. When it talks about Isaiah 53, of course we take the whole 51 and 52, everything together, we don’t see the way it was translated here, that the Messiah has to suffer and who is the suffering Servant.

DR. CRAIG: I'm not saying it is the Messiah. It is certainly true that when the New Testament authors looked at Isaiah 53 they saw it through Christian lenses and saw that as Jesus. But it's no part of my argument that Isaiah 53 is a messianic passage or is describing Jesus. It's about the Servant of the Lord whom Yahweh punishes in the place of the people. And it reflects these Levitical personal sacrifices of animals. I have a long discussion in the book of these Levitical sacrifices in which the animal plays the role of a substitute. He is not punished, but he suffers the fate (or it suffers the fate) that would have been the worshipper’s punishment had it been inflicted on him.

FOLLOWUP: Yes, but the sociological background, theological background, is that repentance has to happen first before you offer a sacrifice. Something that is close to me that I'm going to offer to God. But if I don't repent, your sacrifice is null and void.

DR. CRAIG: Fair enough.

FOLLOWUP: Save your money, go home, and watch TV. Just a human sacrifice. I'm trying to wrap around this. The idea of having somebody suffer for me. In antiquity, I agree with you. The Greeks have done it. The Persians have done it. The Egyptians have done. The Hebrews avoid it at all cost. You surveyed Abraham and his son. You know, he is about to strike him. “Don’t do it. I just want to know if you love me. I love you”. It’s a good story.

DR. CRAIG: And then don’t forget the story of Moses where Moses offers to die to make atonement for the people.

FOLLOWUP: Exactly. Well mentioned. Yes. And God says, “Absolutely not. He who sins, I'll punish them.” So this penal substitution for my crew, my crowd, it doesn't fly. So I'm trying to understand how it flies here. I'm trying to grasp it. It will take me a while. The whole Western culture about justice. If I have murdered your mother, what pleasure would you have if John over there was convicted and tried? Any justice was done? Absolutely not. So penal substitution for me – that's what brought me here today. What is that? Penal substitution.

DR. CRAIG: That's the lecture tomorrow, on the justice of penal substitution.

FOLLOWUP: I cannot see God condemning the Messiah, or Christ. That wouldn't make sense for me. If you're sinless (assuming the present supposition that the Messiah has to be sinless) then it doesn’t make sense for God to punish somebody who's sinless, I guess. But if the Messiah did have sin (which for us, the Messiah could have sinned – it's not a problem) then that's not an issue. So that's what I'm trying to wrap around. But thank you very much. I appreciate it.

DR. CRAIG: I must say that as a result of this study, I have come to appreciate the Torah and, in particular, Leviticus in a way that I never thought I would have before. The sacrificial system that was operative in the tabernacle and then later in the temple has just come alive to me. I think it's just filled with lessons for this doctrine of Christ's atoning blood.

FOLLOWUP: I hear a lot of Christian theologians – blood, blood, blood – but there's a sacrifice that does not involve blood and was to get forgiveness. And people are like what?

DR. CRAIG: You mean the grain offering?

FOLLOWUP: Yes. There is no blood there.

DR. CRAIG: Right. Not in the grain offering. But the other four all involved blood. Leviticus 17:11 says . . .

FOLLOWUP: But it's not the only way. So my whole thing is you only have forgiveness of your sins if you have blood. I go, no, not really. There's a way out. We're Jews, we find a way out. We’re Jews, we find a way out. And by the way, we did not kill Jesus. I know nobody thinks like that but I've been to other meetings and, “Oh, you guys killed Jesus.” Not really. Not really. It was a different story.

DR. CRAIG: Thank you for your interaction.

QUESTION: This is something that I've never really thought about coming into this. I, first, just wanted to have a clarification question, then I had some thoughts depending on whether or not the clarification is what I think it is. I wanted to clarify basically on the words “punishment” and “penalty.” You basically lay out the objection of the incoherence, and you’ve given multiple responses. One of the responses that I particularly liked suggests that you can hold the expressivist view of punishment but then say that Jesus was penalized and not punished. I think that the way I see punishment – I see it as sort of the expressivist notion. I see that the important part of expressivism is having censure involved. That there's some sort of disapproval. I think that the underlying sort of thing underneath it is that there's some sort of moral wrongdoing that is going on when you are punished. Whereas, I think when you're penalized, I sort of see it as just a breaking of the rules. I think you've said sports analogies. It doesn't necessarily mean that the person did something wrong, but they did something where they're penalized. So I think that punishment involves some sort of a moral underneath it, and penalization doesn't. On the view, as I understand, of the atonement . . . actually, before I get into that, I think the reason why people are punished is sort of to not only show the disapproval of the action but to try to help correct the action.

DR. CRAIG: This relates to one's theory of justice, if I may interrupt again. Whether you're a retributivist or a consequentialist. If you're a retributivist, while there may be such motivations in punishment, the primary justification for why the state can impose this harsh treatment on its citizens is because they deserve it.

FOLLOWUP: The way I see it, I see it as a combination of the two.

DR. CRAIG: That’s fair enough.

FOLLOWUP: You deserve it, and then you also think that you want the person to not do it again. I’d like to think if there's a God, and it's a loving God, that one motivation of it is they want to help the people involved that are making the mistakes. I see that is sort of what the purpose of the punishment is for sort of salvation or whatever. That there's sort of this benefit that's going on. But I don't see the same thing with penalty. With penalty it just seems like it's just simply – they broke the rules and then they get a penalty. One thing that I guess interested me about this is it seems to make sense that . . . I feel like the weight of this whole thing sort of depends on something getting punished. Because I feel like so much about the idea of what they'll get . . . people will be saved or whatever for someone's punishment or whatever. It seems like there's a weight on the idea of punishment as sort of helping. I feel like if you say that Jesus was penalized, I wonder if it maybe loses some of that weight because of the fact that penalty is just something that just seems sort of like . . . it doesn't involve, I guess, a moral component to it. So I guess what I wonder is if there's a coherence . . . there's definitely a coherence of someone's punishment being substituted and someone else bearing that punishment, but is there a coherence to penalty as sort of being a substitute to a punishment under that idea of penalty and punishment?

DR. CRAIG: Since I don't hold to the view that denies Christ was punished for our sins – I think he was punished for our sins – I haven't explored at any length this other alternative which was new to me and rather strange (the notion that Christ was not actually punished for our sins). I guess what you're suggesting is that if you say that Christ merely paid the penalty for our sins that there's something inadequate about that. It somehow lacks weight. Here's what I think. I think that it's difficult to see how such a theory can adequately explain why Christ's death would satisfy the demands of divine justice. If Christ simply bore the suffering that would have been punishment if it had been imposed on me, but it's not punishment for him, then how does his undergoing that affliction do anything to satisfy the demands of God's retributive justice for me? So I think that is a weakness in that theory that those who hold to it need to address. I think that the view that Christ was merely penalized is coherent, and I think it's just. I think it meets those objections very nicely. But there's one that I haven't talked about and won't be talking about during these lectures, and that is the question of whether it's really satisfactory. I think that's where the strength of the view that Christ was punished for our sins emerges. And as I explained, I think, in my third alternative, you can still hold to expressivism if you find that persuasive and hold to substitutionary punishment of Christ because in that case the condemnation and censure expressed by his punishment is directed toward either the wrong that was done or the person who did the wrong rather than the person that's punished. Those who propound this coherence objection based on expressivism I think have really failed to understand the expressivist theory of punishment. I've never found a formulation of it that demands that the censure or condemnation has to be directed to the person punished rather than toward the wrongdoer or the crime itself.

QUESTION: I have a question which is not strictly intellectual which makes me think, “I don't know if this is fit for the occasion.” But my question is for the people who have faith. What are the applications of penal substitution?

DR. CRAIG: I think that it helps to emphasize the holiness of God because it has a strong emphasis upon God's justice. God doesn't just blink at sin. The demands of his justice must be met because of his holiness. So it inspires a view of God as majestic and awesome because of his tremendous holiness. And then it gives you such a sense of gratitude to Christ for what he has done in bearing your just desert, that when you think of the holiness of God and then you reflect on your own sinfulness and the condemnation that you deserve, you see in what Christ underwent – the tremendous love of God for you that he would take this on your behalf. So it results in a great gratitude. I think both the sense of the awesomeness of God and the gratitude that we feel for what he has done for us are practical spiritual benefits of this theory of the atonement.

FOLLOWUP: Should we still hold on to our guilt then?

DR. CRAIG: No. This is something that is in another part of the book when I talk about redemption. There was a question earlier about redemption which I said is another facet of this jewel. Redemption is achieved through pardon. If you take the analogy of legal pardon by governor's or executive powers like the president, the Supreme Court has said that a pardon not only removes the punishment and restores all of your civil rights but it also blots out your guilt so that you become like a new man, as innocent in the eyes of the law as if you had never done the crime. That isn't to deny that you once were guilty, because certainly you were a wrongdoer. But now that guilt is expiated; it is blotted out and you bear it no longer and so you are free of that guilt and your conscience is now clear. So Paul can say there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It's a wonderful freedom that one has in Christ from one's guilt that one once bore.

FOLLOWUP: My question would be: What would be the nuance, what is the correct response after our disobedience? It’s not, “Oh, no big deal.”

DR. CRAIG: No, it isn’t. 1 John 1:9 says that if we say that we have no sin we make him a liar and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So the moment that we sense that we have done something that is wrong and therefore deserving of God's punishment, we flee to the sacrifice of Christ and plead his blood; that, yes, Christ died for this sin as well, and therefore please forgive me for the wrongdoing. I acknowledge it openly; I don't try to hide it, but I confess it and ask for God's forgiveness. And his pardon then is promised to you for that.

QUESTION: I'm going to premise the question real quick. This was kind of inspired by the idea of Erotus: is the need for Jesus’ sacrifice, so keep that in mind, and then the law of excluded middle and free choice. I guess my question is: As I do a lot of work with people in different religions, different backgrounds, the beginning of the question started from a conversation I had with an agnostic. Basically, if Jesus, through his penal substitution, took the full wrath of our sin, and people only have the choice either to obey or not to obey God because of the law of excluded middle, since Jesus did take on the full wrath, is there a potential middle choice that because the full wrath is taken that through extended mercy he just won't give them the full depth of punishment of hell, but just won't give them full life in Christ? Because of the law of excluded middle that you could have that third alternative for people? With a lot of friends I have, they do understand their sin but they are either brainwashed or they think they're a good person and are making choices that they think honor God. But in the truth of it, they aren't fully under the lordship of Christ, but they feel like they're striving to get there. Is there at least that third grace potential of an extended mercy so that they don't have the full death of hell?

DR. CRAIG: I thought you were talking about persons who are not Christians, who are outside of Christ. But you're talking about people who are regenerate Christians and therefore are united with Christ through faith and baptism.

FOLLOWUP: I guess we could do one of each because that's a concern, too.

DR. CRAIG: For those who are in Christ, I think that they are fully pardoned for their sins even though they may flounder and struggle in this life to be all that they are legally in Christ. When I spoke of Christ's righteousness being reckoned to us, this again is a forensic transaction. I don't immediately become a virtuous, godly, selfless, loving, compassionate person. That is the result of a process called sanctification which takes place over time as one is conformed to the image of Christ. And that process is never really fully complete in this lifetime. We will all bear the imperfections and foibles that we have from our sinful selves throughout our lives. For those persons, their sins are, I think, fully atoned for in Christ. They are legally pardoned by God. But, again, the law is very interesting here. A pardon of a criminal does nothing to reform that criminal’s character. It merely makes him legally no longer liable to punishment and restores to him his civil rights. But it doesn't make him a good person. In order for that to happen there needs to be a moral transformation of character. Similarly with a divine pardon, anyone in Christ is justified and forgiven of his sin, but in order for him to be a morally transformed virtuous person he needs to be walking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit day by day over the years gradually increasingly conformed in the image of Christ. That kind of person will be exempt from hell, but he's not going to have the full reward of the person who has lived a morally excellent and virtuous life and therefore deserves reward for that. In fact, Paul, as you probably know, gives the comparison between building on the foundation with gold and silver and precious stones that survived the fire of God's judgment, and wood, hay, and stubble that are burned up. He says of that person whose works are just like wood, hay, and stubble, he himself will be saved but only as through fire. He will not receive some extra reward for his virtuous good works. For the non-Christian, though, someone who is outside of Christ, it's difficult to see, I think, how, if retributive justice is essential to God, that he could receive a mitigated punishment. Because then God would be unjust in not giving him what he deserves. A theory of retributive justice says the guilty deserve punishment. So God could not, I think, if retributive justice is essential to him, mitigate that punishment. What God has done in his mercy is to punish Christ in his place so that that person can be pardoned and set free. But if the person rejects the pardon then just like a criminal on death row who rejects the governor's pardon, has to go to the electric chair. This person will have to bear the full desert that he deserves.

QUESTION: In regards to the doctrine of penal substitution and the doctrine of, say, Christus Victor, does penal substitution stand contrary to Christus Victor or are they complementary?

DR. CRAIG: They are complementary and are different facets of this doctrine of the atonement. So I affirm Christus Victor. St. Augustine had a wonderful expression that I think captures the essence of Christus Victor. He said, “Victor quia victima” – Victor because victim. That is to say, the reason Christ is victorious over sin is because he was the sacrificial victim. He was the Lamb of God who paid the punishment for our sin so that he might thereby triumph over Satan, death, and hell. I want to affirm very heartily Christ's victory but see the mechanism whereby that victory is achieved as being penal substitution just as Augustine said – Victor quia victima.

QUESTION: This is a question – I think I know the answer, but I wanted to be clear. I have a couple students here, and we just went over notions of retributive justice versus restorative justice. My question is . . . It does seem like a lot of the motivation for the penal substitution is a commitment to the idea that divine justice is retributive justice. If one were to argue biblically through the Torah that, in fact, restorative justice is a better, fuller picture of divine justice, would that then push away any motivation for the penal substitution doctrine?

DR. CRAIG: It would seem to me that any fuller theory of justice that incorporated other elements like consequentialism or restorative justice is still going to have to include a significant measure of retributive justice in it. I don't see these as mutually exclusive, but I would just say to those who want to emphasize restorative justice don't neglect retributive justice because that's so firmly anchored in the New Testament and in God's eschatological judgment.

FOLLOWUP: For those that don't know restorative justice, at least one way of understanding restorative justice, the goal of harsh treatment of whatever kind, is to restore both the character of the person (the perpetrator), but also to restore the relationships that have been broken. And that would include the relationship with God and God's people and the people themselves.

DR. CRAIG: Could I ask you a question since you're sympathetic to restorative justice. How would someone who is a champion of restorative justice see God's eschatological judgment? When he pronounces the final sentence on people, “Depart from me you wicked. I never knew you” and they go into everlasting punishment. There's no hope of restoration at that point.

FOLLOWUP: Well, so possibly, this pushes me into a universalist position.

DR. CRAIG: That seems so unfortunate.

FOLLOWUP: I'm not saying it has to. I'm not saying it has to, but I wouldn't be opposed to going there. I could be a Calvinist that just thinks that God lets everybody in. I'm not sure about that. I'm trying to think if it implies universalism. I'm not sure it has to. It may be that if someone says, “I don't want to undergo the process of reconciliation,” if relationships are going to be restored, both parties have to decide they want to participate in that process. So it could be perfectly fine. I mean, I know lots of times, I have lots of relationships where I have no interest in being reconciled. So that will be the end. So it may be that that's the way to recapture that. You’re going to have a separation. It's not going to be punishment in the penal sense. It's going to be the punishment of separation from God which is a lack of reconciliation. So that would be one way of coming back to it. So I think that's how I would do it. That might be one way of doing it.

DR. CRAIG: OK. Good response.

MODERATOR: Thank you so much. [Applause]