1930

Aulén, Christus Victor: the classic, or dramatic, idea of the atonement

After Ritschl it was customary to contrast Anselm's "objective" theory (Christ satisfied God's justice) and Abelard's "subjective" theory (Christ's death changes us, not God's attitude to us). Gustaf Aulén of the Lund school argued that in the ancient church there was a third, "classic" or "dramatic" view: the atonement as Christ's "divine conflict and victory" over the powers of evil under which we stood – God's work "from first to last". This idea, according to Aulén, dominates the New Testament and Irenaeus and was voiced again "more boldly and more fully" by Luther; it was neglected because it was expressed in "mythological" language. Aulén refused to interpret the ancient texts about the victory over the Evil One as metaphors: only in the classic theory is there a genuine "drama of redemption".