Atonement Theories & Anger, Part 7: Why Penal Substitution Encourages Traumatized People to Freeze

Mako A. Nagasawa

Responses to PSA:  Those Who Freeze

In response to PSA, while some people fight and/or flee, other people freeze.  Post 6 explored those who fight and flee.  This post explores those who freeze.

“Maggie” suffered from chronic and severe trauma at the hands of her two primary caregivers.  She was the daughter of an alcoholic mother.  Her mother was a source of both fear and comfort, which psychologists call “fright without solution.”  That situation produces in children a “disorganized attachment.”  In Maggie’s case, this showed up as both “a fear of abandonment and hyperactivation of the attachment system.”  Children forced to do this will try to draw close to the very parent they fear.  This is an early type of “freeze” where a child will feel emotionally and relationally stuck. 

In addition, Maggie was sexually abused by her father.  When her mother divorced and moved out, Maggie moved out with them, only to be sexually abused again by the man her mother dated, and forced to move back in with her father.  Once again, having no good options made her “freeze.”  Maggie drank excessively during her late teen years, which dulled her anger and pain, and unfortunately made her more vulnerable to “further victimization from peers,” which her later therapists left unspecified. 

At 25 years old, Maggie committed her life to Jesus at a large evangelistic event.  She got involved in a local church, and even served on international “missions trips.”  Noticing some difficulties in relationships, Maggie sought counseling with a Christian therapist named Lauren Maltby.  As she gradually shared details of her life with Maltby, she described God as a “good Father.”  Maltby, though, recalled privately feeling strange:

“All the while, however, something wasn’t sitting quite right with me. I didn’t feel that Maggie was being insincere in these descriptions or reports of her spiritual experience; it was more as if there was a part of the story that wasn’t being told yet, some part of Maggie that wasn’t present in these spiritual experiences. When I would probe in this direction, however, Maggie would dismiss my questions and return to her descriptions of the good father.”[1]

Maltby and her supervisor Todd W. Hall tell the story of Maggie in their 2012 article called “Trauma, Attachment, and Spirituality: A Case Study” in the Journal of Psychology and Theology.[2]  In it, they explore whether a person’s relationship with God compensates for one’s lack of attachment or corresponds to it.  They cite many earlier studies that affirm both experiences.  But they probe the past literature a bit more deeply, examining the limitations of previous work, and accounting for how people grow and develop spiritually.  They argue that a person’s attachment to God, at first, more often corresponds with one’s attachments to other people, which includes negative experiences with parents and community. 

Melissa M. Kelley, a Christian professor of pastoral care and counseling at Boston College, agrees.  In her 2010 book, Grief: Contemporary Theory and the Practice of Ministry, Kelley says that “statistically, correspondence appears to be the more common pattern.”[3]  This correspondence becomes a felt challenge when trying to help people grow in their sense of attachment to God.  This was the challenge Maggie faced.

After four months of seeing Lauren Maltby for therapy, Maggie had a particularly hard interaction with her mother.  Afterwards, Maggie sought comfort from an old friend.  This friend raped her.  This was the first sexual trauma that Maggie suffered after becoming a Christian.  It opened a floodgate of emotions about her past along with doubts about God’s character.  In one counseling session, Maggie said:

“I feel like the floor fell out from under me, and I’m still dropping.  I don’t feel loved by God.  I mean, I know I’m loved by God in my head, but I don’t feel loved by God.  I can’t remember what it feels like to feel that, and I don’t know if I’ll ever feel it again. [Crying] Do you feel loved by God?  I mean, do you really, actually feel loved by God? [emphasis added][4]

Maggie “froze” again.  Although her life circumstances were arguably among the more severe and tragic, Maggie’s struggle to feel loved by God was perhaps not.  Maltby and Hall write:

“Maggie’s explicit knowledge of God told her that she was loved; but at a gut level, Maggie’s implicit experience of God was much different.  She felt abandoned by God, angry with God, and at times even fearful of God.  Being able to identify the great divide between her implicit and explicit experience of/attachment to God and access her implicit experience was the first step in addressing Maggie’s insecure spiritual attachment and beginning to create a coherent spiritual story of Maggie’s life.”[5]

Maltby recounts her counselor-patient relationship with Maggie as offering a form of unconditional love that Maggie appreciated and from which she benefited.  Maltby and Hall then offer five helpful points to other counselors who work with traumatized, attachment-disordered individuals.  The article is well worth reading.  I would like to build upon the insights of Kelley (2010) and Maltby and Hall (2012).  If we are not professional therapists, how might we relate to someone who has “frozen” in relation to God? 

Explanation:  Divine Abandonment and Anger in PSA and MSA

How do anger and atonement theories interact?  Maggie “felt abandoned by God, angry with God, and at times even fearful of God.”  I continue to ponder the significance of Jesus’ anger and grief at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11) and the insight of the fourth century bishop-theologian, Diadochos of Photiki, who described anger as “a weapon implanted in our nature by God when he creates us.”[6]  If that is remotely true, then we should pay attention to any time people like Maggie say they are angry with God.  Why?  Because even though we are fallen creatures, and our anger could be rooted in fear, jealousy, and pride, if we are also made in the image of a God who loves goodness and hates evil (e.g. Isaiah 5:20), then human anger could be a proper response to a wrong concept of God – a concept of God that is implicated in evil.

Would Penal Substitutionary Atonement help Maggie when she “felt abandoned by God, angry with God, and at times even fearful of God”?  As I explore this question, I wish to hold in view both the Calvinist and Arminian variations on the PSA framework, and I will address them below.  Before delving into their distinctive responses and how they tend to address Maggie pastorally, I wish to comment on things they have in common.  These come from my own experiences and reflections on both people and Scripture.  While working with and caring for people with attachment difficulties who have also been shaped by Penal Substitution, I have observed several problems come up.  One very likely possibility is that people will interact with God out of a very deep sense of fear that God will abandon them. 

Some PSA advocates teach that Jesus experienced some form of divine abandonment at the cross.  Sometimes this is put crudely:  worship songs say, “The Father turns his face away,” and, “I’m forgiven, because you were forsaken; I was accepted, you were condemned.”  Other PSA advocates, who try to maintain a more cohesive view of the Trinity, may nuance that to say God the Father turned against Jesus in the spiritual realm in some way, or disappeared from Jesus’ spiritual consciousness, even while being formally united.  Still others suggest that divine attributes like wrath not be coordinated with the divine persons; in effect God’s wrath fell on Jesus without God the Father being the divine person responsible for Jesus having that experience.  These attempts to “nuance” Penal Substitution still jeopardize the traditional understanding of the Nicene Creed, as I have explored here.  In any case, the starting point for all this reflection seems to be Jesus’ quotation of Psalm 22:1 from the cross – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46).  PSA advocates interpret it to say that Jesus experienced divine abandonment in some way, and that God uses abandonment as a tool of anger in some way. 

Let me give a brief assessment of Jesus’ utterance from the standpoint of biblical exegesis before moving onto the emotional implications.  There is a methodological problem with this PSA interpretation of Jesus’ quotation of Psalm 22.  The problem is that biblical intertextuality – how and why a later biblical writer quotes from an earlier, older one – simply does not work that way.  Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus claimed to be the heir of David who was the greater David, who was retelling David’s story.  I have explored this in detail elsewhere,[7] but here are some highlights which have a bearing on how we interpret Psalm 22.  Like David knew he was anointed by the Holy Spirit “from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:13) to be enthroned as king, so also Jesus knew that when he was anointed by the Holy Spirit to be enthroned as king (Matthew 3:13 – 17).  Like David faced Israel’s enemy Goliath in the wilderness (1 Samuel 17), Jesus faced humanity’s enemy, the devil, in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1 – 11).  Like David was persecuted by Jewish leaders, prior to his enthronement (e.g. 1 Samuel 21), so also Jesus was persecuted by Jewish leaders, prior to his enthronement (e.g. Matthew 12:1 – 4 quotes 1 Samuel 21:3).  Like David was forced out into the hands of Gentile enemies (e.g. 1 Samuel 22), Jesus was forced out into the hands of Gentile enemies. 

Quoting Psalm 22 was part of Jesus’ engagement with the Davidic plot arc and parallel.  When David composed Psalm 22, he was lamenting being “forsaken” to the Gentiles.  He did not believe God had abandoned him in an absolute sense.  In fact, David knew he had been anointed by the Spirit “from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:13), and that includes the occasion that he composed Psalm 22.  David never lost the Spirit.  His clearest personal basis for trusting God in the wilderness was the presence of the Holy Spirit who anointed him for the kingship and remained upon him.  Similarly, when Jesus quoted Psalm 22, he was lamenting being “forsaken” to the Gentiles.  Jesus did not believe that God the Father had abandoned him in any sense, or that the Holy Spirit had departed from him.  The Holy Spirit was still resting on him, empowering him on his way to resurrection and enthronement.

That accords with a basic principle of biblical intertextuality, especially where one story is drawn into a comparison with another story by a strategic quotation, indeed multiple strategic quotations in this case, which functions like today’s HTML hyperlinks.  Jesus took upon himself the task of completing and surpassing the story of David, who was a tragic and flawed hero.  That retelling of David’s story coheres with how Matthew presents Jesus as consciously determined to succeed where Israel and David had failed before him.  Jesus did not simply “fulfill” some scattered predictions, but “filled to the full” (e.g. ἵνα πληρωθῇ, hina plērōthē, in Matthew 2:15) entire story arcs of Israel and David before him. 

The interpretation above would also be fully compatible with the Nicene Creed and the historic doctrine of Trinity, where there is no break between the Father and Son whatsoever.  Correspondingly, PSA advocates minimize John’s Gospel, which highlights the unbroken Father-Son union as a major theme, and which was essential to the formation of the Nicene Creed.  In John’s Gospel, when Jesus was telling his disciples that he was going to the cross, he said they would be

“scattered, each to his own home, and to leave me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” (John 16:32)

Accounting for this statement of Jesus while holding to some kind of divine abandonment theory at the same time is very challenging for PSA advocates.  John Stott’s attempt at explaining it shows deep deficiencies, which I have explored in detail.[8]  That is disappointing, since Stott’s exegesis and commentary are otherwise quite impressive.  Of course, portraying God as angry affects people on an emotional level, even if that anger is supposedly in the past and behind the back of Jesus.  I would not agree with the worship song by Stuart Townsend which says, “The Father turns his face away”[9] from Jesus.  The Father did not turn his face from the Son.

Emotionally, between PSA and MSA, the difference in understanding God is night and day.  In the interpretation I have outlined above, God continues to come near to us, press in close, step into our shoes, and succeed on our behalf in the very places we failed.  Unfortunately, PSA advocates go in the opposite emotional direction.  They use this passage to say that God the Father forsook Jesus in some very deep and painful way, because the angry Father would ordinarily abandon us completely.  The atonement, in Penal Substitution, would not work well without this emotional backdrop. 

Explanation:  God’s Help in the Retelling of Our Stories

Curiously, the “retelling” of stories is central to therapy, especially body-oriented therapy.  In MSA, a central feature of how we understand Jesus is how he “retold” stories of those who went before him.  There is, therefore, a resonance that begs to be explored.  Can we bring therapy and Medical Substitutionary Atonement theology into closer dialogue?  I believe so.

“Retelling” the story of trauma is an essential part of emotional healing and recovery.  Trauma occurs when people experience harm in situations that are fundamentally outside of their control, and perhaps violently so.  Simply being in a similar situation again can trigger anxiety.  For example, Maggie might feel anxiety when she is in an elevator with a man, or in other physical situations that remind her of being trapped and sexually abused by both her father and her mother’s boyfriend.  To move through the trauma, and become “unfrozen,” Maggie will need to “retell” the story in a more deliberate way to process and understand the experience.  Bessel A. van der Kolk, in his 2014 book The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, observes that trauma is remembered in the brain and body, but in a fragmented, disintegrated way.  The brain and body, then, need to be reintegrated, but need guidance.  Van der Kolk explains:

“When people remember an ordinary event, they do not also relive the physical sensations, emotions, images, smells, or sounds associated with that event.  In contrast, when people fully recall their traumas, they “have” the experience:  They are engulfed by the sensory or emotional elements of the past.  The brain scans of Stan and Ute Lawrence, the accident victims in chapter 4, show how this happens.  When Stan was remembering his horrendous accident, two key areas in his brain went blank:  the area that provides a sense of time and perspective, which makes it possible to know that “that was then, but I am safe now,” and another area that integrates the images, sounds, and sensations of trauma into a coherent story.  When those parts of the brain are knocked out, you experience something not as an event with a beginning, a middle, and an end but in fragments of sensations, images, and emotions. 

“A trauma can be successfully processed only if all those brain structures are kept online.  In Stan’s case, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) allowed him to access his memories of the accident without being overwhelmed by them.  When the brain areas whose absence is responsible for flashbacks can be kept online while remembering what has happened, people can integrate their traumatic memories as belonging to the past.

“Ute’s dissociation complicated recovery in a different way.  None of the brain structures necessary to engage in the present were online, so that dealing with the trauma was simply impossible.  Without a brain that is alert and present there can be no integration and resolution.  She needed to be helped to increase her window of tolerance before she could deal with her PTSD symptoms.”[10]

Various types of physical exercises are important here because of how the brain processes experience.  The brain is physically impacted and physically develops in certain ways.  Potentially other parts of the body are impacted as well.  Hence, the victim of trauma needs to consciously revisit the memories from new perspectives in order to gather the fragments up into a coherent story, sometimes while engaging in physical movement, like the eye movement of EMDR, which stimulates the brain in an integrative way.  Sometimes, the victim can physically revisit the place where s/he was traumatized, without something bad happening, to prove to one’s brain and body that safety can be found there.  New memories and associations “correct” or “offset” the older one.  Sometimes, rehearsing or preparing a different response can be helpful.  For example, a woman who was physically assaulted might also learn self-defense skills; being able to mentally imagine staying calm and defending herself from attack will help remove the sting of the traumatic memory.  Other victims of physical assault – especially when they were children – are greatly helped by firm and reassuring handshakes and other forms of respectful touch which helps them to know where their bodies end and others begin.  Veterans of war can carefully revisit memories, sounds, and places where trauma or moral injury was done.  Jonathan Shay describes in his 1994 book Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character how veterans have processed PTSD in group discussions of the Homeric epic poem The Iliad.[11]  The Iliad tells stories of soldiers being compelled to fight for vain commanders and other reasons they detest, while rehumanizing one’s opponents, as if with an eye to helping soldiers transition back to peace-time.  Shay wonders if The Iliad and its companion The Odyssey were used by the ancient Greeks in such a manner post-combat.

Resmaa Menakem, a therapist who focuses on the black community and racial trauma, in his 2017 book My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, highlights the importance of what he calls “clean pain.”  “Dirty pain” is simply reactive, reflexive – what most of us do in situations of pain, conflict and threat.  “Clean pain,” by contrast, is done by both reflection and action, “choosing integrity over fear… letting go of what is familiar but harmful, finding the best parts of yourself, and making a leap – with no guarantee of safety or praise.”[12]  Menakem describes five mental and physical exercises involved in experiencing “clean pain.”  First, settle the body and calm the mind.  Second, notice the sensations, vibrations, and emotions in your body instead of reacting to them directly.  Third, accept the discomfort, noticing when it changes, instead of trying to flee from it.  Fourth, stay present to your body as you move through an experience of conflict, accepting ambiguity and uncertainty, and responding from the best parts of yourself.  Fifth, safely discharge energy that remains, perhaps in the form of exercise.[13]  Time and space do not permit me to explore these insights further.  But what should be clear is how much “retelling” is central to the journey of therapy and emotional-bodily healing. 

“Retelling” is also central to biblical patterns in the relationship between God and people.  Literary scholars and theologians alike have pointed out these patterns.  Tim Mackie and his team at The Bible Project provide a very helpful six minute video introduction to this phenomenon called “Design Patterns in Biblical Narrative.”[14]  This is an area of great interest to me, and I have distilled a fair amount of literary-theological scholarship and elaborated on its practical significance.[15]  Scripture’s pattern of “retelling” stories reaches its high point in the journey of Jesus.  For example, as I glancingly mentioned above, Jesus’ intentional retelling of the story of David’s pre-enthronement life is one of the major plot arcs in his life story.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke deploy considerable literary skill portraying Jesus as the “new David,” the “new Israel,” even the “new Adam.”  This is not arbitrary:  The Old Testament itself kept seeing God’s efforts to renew human partnership in terms of a renewal of Adam and Eve in the garden land.  So Israel as a whole was a “new Adam and Eve” in a new garden land; King David was a “new Adam” called to spread the worship and knowledge of the one true God over the world; etc.  Since they all failed in one way or another, Jesus had to regather the stories and retell them through his own life. 

This is the stuff of good stories, where the hero has to struggle under the conditions of the villain/tragic hero, yet make the faithful choice.  And the struggle is all the more difficult for the hero because of the conditions.  Luke must follow in the path of his father Anakin, but not turn to the dark side of the Force.  Aragorn must follow in the path of his ancestor Isildur, but not give in to the power of the Ring.  Harry Potter must follow in the path of Lord Voldemort, but not choose fear of death but love and self-sacrifice instead.  The hero has to choose a path of what Resmaa Menakem calls “clean pain,” which involves suffering, but not the “dirty pain” of retaliation for its own sake, impulsive reactivity, etc. which result in moral self-injury, guilt, and temporary spiritual defeat. 

Noting this pattern leads to a very practical expectation:  When Jesus comes into my life, he will want to retell the stories of defeat and failure by his Spirit, to bring forth victory over sin, healing from its consequences, and to some extent, restoration of relationships that were damaged by the sins of myself or others.  He will lead me through “clean pain” – certainly by processing my emotional memories, and very often through an actual situation that is similar.

When this pattern of Jesus “retelling” all of the important stories of failed human partnership before him is brought into dialogue with the “retelling” of trauma therapy, the one complements the other.  The “retelling” of trauma therapy may be hard internal work for Maggie.  Maggie might notice, though, that Jesus’ “retelling” of the stories of his own human ancestors shows her that God is personally committed to honoring her story by retelling it, and redeeming it by inhabiting it with her.  Jesus is personally attacked and wounded when his followers are attacked and wounded, as he told Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:5; Colossians 1:24).  This has moving implications for Jesus suffering alongside and within Maggie when she was recently raped.  Moreover, Jesus’ interaction with Maggie’s life is not limited to that portion of her life when she was a Christian.  Jesus is angry and grieves for all people because of particular sins done against us, our vulnerability to other forces outside the protection of the garden of Eden, especially death, and the corruption of sin that made human mortality necessary (John 11).  And Jesus is not simply emoting from a distance, but relates himself to the emotional energy Maggie feels and needs to process her trauma. 

Maggie might also note that there are important differences between her “retelling” and Jesus’.  Her retelling is mostly internal, to piece together her personal story.  Jesus’ retelling, though, was both internal and external.  He had to embody the stories before him, charting out a new story that wove them all together, enduring the weight of the challenges while holding to hope and intimacy with the Father (Hebrews 12:1 – 3).  Maggie’s retelling is for her recovery.  Jesus’ retelling was not only for recovery but advancement and fulfillment, not only of his own human nature but for everyone’s.  Maggie’s retelling is assisted by a supportive therapist.  Jesus’ retelling was actively opposed by many people who felt threatened by him, was partially undermined by his supporters who had only a partial understanding of what he was doing, and in the end, was assisted only by the Father in and through the Spirit.

Maggie might find the process of therapy and spiritual growth painfully slow at times.  If so, she may find it helpful to reflect on Jesus’ human journey.  God works at a human pace.  We find powerful statements to that effect in the writings of the second century theologian and bishop, Irenaeus of Lyons (130 – 202 AD), who was developed as a Christian leader in the community led by Polycarp of Smyrna, who was discipled by the apostle John.  Irenaeus discusses Jesus “retelling” the human story before him.  Irenaeus called this the “recapitulation,” named for Paul’s use of the same word in Ephesians 1:10 (ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι, anakephalaiōsasthai, which means “to head up again” and “to gather up”).  Jesus’ task to “re-head up” all things extended all the way into his process of maturing as a human.  This was essential for Jesus to become the “new Adam.”  Jesus fought through the corruption into which Adam and Eve plunged humanity, in order to recover the role of Adam as the “source/head” of a new, restored humanity.

Irenaeus says that Jesus “passed through every stage of life, restoring to all communion with God.”[16]  In Irenaeus’ teaching, human life itself is considered to have an intended, developmental shape, quite naturally from creation, regardless of the fall and notwithstanding it.  So Jesus “passed through every age” because he needed to “fill” not just human nature as an abstract thing, but human nature as a joint partnership project between God’s Spirit and the human person.  Here is Irenaeus’ famous and remarkable statement:

“Being a [rabbinic] Master, therefore, He also possessed the age of a Master [i.e. thirty years at least], not despising or evading any condition of humanity, nor setting aside in Himself that law which He had appointed for the human race, but sanctifying every age, by that period corresponding to it which belonged to Himself.  For He came to save all through means of Himself – all, I say, who through Him are born again to God – infants, and children, and boys, and youths, and old men.  He therefore passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants; a child for children, thus sanctifying those who are of this age, being at the same time made to them an example of piety, righteousness, and submission; a youth for youths, becoming an example to youths, and thus sanctifying them for the Lord.  So likewise He was an old man for old men, that He might be a perfect Master for all, not merely as respects the setting forth of the truth, but also as regards age, sanctifying at the same time the aged also, and becoming an example to them likewise.  Then, at last, He came on to death itself, that He might be ‘the first-born from the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence [Colossians 1:18],’ the Prince of life [Acts 3:15], existing before all, and going before all.”[17]

We picture the young Jesus of Nazareth listening to Psalms sung by Mary and Joseph, soaking in the Scriptures read in the synagogue, pondering every word, and piecing together his vocation.  Jesus’ own human process of learning from childhood to adulthood is glimpsed by Isaiah, Luke, and Hebrews, especially.  Once again, the portrait we draw from Scripture is that in Jesus, human nature is not just a timeless “thing” that had to be united with divine nature in one instant from which the union remained statically true henceforth.  This insight about human developmental stages, combined with the assertion that Jesus assumed a fallen human nature and fought his way through it, leads to an appreciation of Jesus facing age-appropriate challenges – challenges connected to bearing fallen human nature and pressing through these biological and relational stages, along with his vocational roles involving his use of authority.  Maggie might find some comfort in the fact that healing and the undoing of sin’s damage takes time.  It took time and a human journey even for Jesus himself.

Penal Substitution advocates might be able to take up some of these insights under the rubric of the “active obedience of Christ.”  But because of PSA’s focus on the “passive obedience of Christ,” from the emotional and psychological angle of how people are supposed to feel guilt about personal failures, fear because they are “deserving” , relief, then gratitude.  Pragmatically speaking, the “passive obedience of Christ” is more important than the “active obedience.”  That is because God, in His anger and threat of abandonment, are positioned against what we “deserve.”  For that reason, PSA advocates privilege the “passive obedience of Christ” and run the risk of re-traumatizing a traumatized person.

Explanation:  Spiritual and Theological Formation for the Traumatized in PSA

Therapists Maltby and Hall said Maggie “felt abandoned by God, angry with God, and at times even fearful of God.”  PSA would affirm that God the Father does indeed abandon people; God the Father abandoned Jesus the Son in some way that corresponds to how God would abandon unbelievers in hell, where hell is thought of as a prison or torture chamber from which one wants to get out.  Maggie, and anyone like her, must then struggle with various spiritual questions.

First, depending on what kind of other Christians she connects with, Maggie might have to wrestle with the white American evangelical tendency to project a sense of “distance from God” or “abandonment by God” into present-day life.  In my estimation, this is cultural and theological.  For example, Maggie might be exposed to charismatic Christians who expect to hear God’s voice in prayer (which I affirm), who use language like, “God showed up,” as if God had not been especially present before.  But does this mean that God comes and goes?  What would that mean for Maggie?  Would she feel “abandoned by God”?  Or, given the political anxieties of white conservative Protestant communities in the Trump and post-Trump era, Maggie might be confronted by the idea of the “rapture of the church” – a novel but very fairly influential white American evangelical standard.  If Maggie encounters this idea, taught for the first time in church history by John Nelson Darby (1800 – 1882), the Scofield Bible, Dallas Theological Seminary, the dispensationalist position, and the Left Behind book series, she might have to fear a variation on “abandonment by God” because her faith might not be strong enough or sincere enough for her to be “raptured.”  She might be “left behind.”  Or, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Maggie might encounter those Christians who believe that the COVID-19 vaccine is “the mark of the beast” of Revelation 13:16 – 18 and 14:9 – 11.  The notion that a vaccine can cause someone to not belong to Jesus anymore is beyond strange, in my view.  Of course, chances are that Maggie’s fellow evangelicals will interpret current events and end times language differently over time, and from crisis to crisis.  But the running constant, it seems to me, is to trigger an emotion:  concern that God would not “show up” for people, and even fear that God will “abandon” people who thought they were Christians but are not truly so.  I believe both the language pattern of charismatic Christians and the pattern of bizarre “end times” beliefs is a residue of PSA, because if God the Father was willing to “abandon Jesus” at the cross, then why wouldn’t God “abandon” people in some way later, even if just to scare people a bit?  Regardless of the precise form it takes, Maggie will have to contend with her own feelings of abandonment by God, and fear of it.

Second, and more directly related to PSA, Maggie will have to wrestle with whether she respects God in a moral sense, trusts God in a joyful way, and emotionally likes God for God’s moral character.  Maggie might certainly “fear” God, not in terms of making God the highest priority in her reverence, but in an existential way.  Maggie is genuinely terrified of God.  At the same time, she is also angry with God.  Why exactly would she feel drawn to love God?  In what sense is God lovable to Maggie?  Maggie is now catapulted into “theodicy,” the question of God’s goodness in the face of evil. 

Theodicy and atonement are closely related.  Maggie would naturally interpret her present life through the lens of what PSA teaches her about God, and what God did in the past.  What is God capable of?  What is God like?  Melissa Kelley points out that we are story-telling creatures.  Especially when dealing with pain and loss, we make meaning by placing our lives and experiences into a meaningful story.  Kelley considers a statement by William Willimon:  “A great trauma makes theologians of us all.”[18]  She then notes very important questions people ask:

“Is God to blame for one’s loss and suffering?  Does God cause or allow suffering to punish or teach lessons?  Does God prevent suffering if one only prays hard enough?  Is God powerless in the face of suffering?  Is God moved deeply by suffering?  Does God suffer with those who suffer?  Does God care faithfully throughout one’s suffering?  These questions suggest very different concepts of God, and these different concepts will likely shape very different stories and meaning systems.”[19] 

Maggie was deeply shaken when she was raped by someone she knew, after she had become a Christian and four months after she started seeing a Christian therapist.  She had been sexually assaulted and abused before.  What made this occasion so emotionally and spiritually disturbing was a combination of factors:  Maggie was emotionally ready to process the pain in her past, so being betrayed and wounded real-time by an old friend, while in a more vulnerable condition, was especially hurtful.  Maggie may have also hoped that God would protect her from being sexually assaulted again, now that Maggie was a worshipful Christian, investing in Christian community and activity, etc.  Maggie was faced with a fresh crisis of meaning.  Maggie had to ask a new set of questions, with God in the picture:  “Was I raped because God is punishing me for something?  If so, what?  Why would God allow this to happen now?”  What is the “story” that I live in with this God? 

While an explanation about why Jesus died on the cross doesn’t immediately answer the questions about what God is doing right now, there is a certain direction PSA takes.  I will explain below how MSA reposes upon a very different “story,” or theodicy.  Because PSA offers two “faces” of God, Maggie would likely consider both.  One “face” or attribute of God is associated with God’s retributive justice.  This is the stern, strict side of God which calls for perfection, looks upon sin with anger, and threatens “death” as a consequence.  The other “face” of God is mercy.  This is the forgiving side of God which has mercy on the sinner, overlooks the trespasses, and accepts the person.  When Maggie was raped, she did not know what to feel about God, because she was not sure what “face” or attribute of God she was experiencing, if any.  Nevertheless, PSA by itself limits and frames her options. 

To be more precise, PSA would shape Maggie’s emotional development.  Which leads me to my third point:  In the framework of PSA, Maggie’s journey of healing would have to involve putting her own feelings about herself and her life aside, and adopting God’s “feelings” (or perspective) instead, especially God’s desire for “self-satisfaction.”  I explored that in the blog post just prior to this one, when I discussed the concerns about Penal Substitution raised by Roberta Bondi and N.T. Wright.  In PSA, Maggie would have to affirm that ultimately, God’s experience of expecting moral perfection from her and others, yet being offended by human sinful actions including hers, and then having unlimited divine anger towards her and the rest of humanity, which was then resolved by “satisfying himself” by the suffering of Jesus, are more important than her own emotions.  This is what I think would bring Maggie to an emotional impasse.  Narcissists demand that of other people, emotionally.  So if Maggie is sensitive to that dynamic, she may look askance at it, feeling like God is narcissistic. 

In other words, Maggie would have to do the emotional work of setting aside her own frustrations and anger and pain.  But Melissa Kelley cautions about making internal choices to do that:

“Different God concepts lead to different meaning, and theologically speaking, all meanings are not created equal.  To put it baldly, our concept of God may largely shape whether we dwell in hopeful meaning or desperate meaninglessness after loss… Parts of our life stories and meaning systems are handed to us from our families, cultures, and faith groups, sometimes with deleterious results.  Some people are handed terrible stories and ideas about God.”[20]

It is notable that Melissa Kelley finds as a clinician what N.T. Wright finds as a pastor and biblical scholar.  Terrible stories and ideas about God have consequences.  They often erode the internal resources and resolve of the people who hold them.  Dwelling in “desperate meaninglessness” is akin to being “frozen,” caught between fearing an angry God and being angry at God.  Maggie already feels afraid of being abandoned by God, yet she wants to abandon God herself.  It is likely that PSA would intensify that frozenness.

Fourth, Maggie would probably have to at least consider the standard downstream theological questions about whether to believe in the Calvinist model of “limited” or “definite” atonement, compared to the Arminian model of “unlimited” or “indefinite” atonement, and whether she can abide by the logical disconnections in those theological systems.  See post 5 in this series for more explanation.  Depending on her answer to that, she will have to wrestle with the “doctrine of assurance of salvation,” and whether she feels “assured” that God loves her indeed.  Some PSA adherents of the Calvinist variety have said they experience “assurance.”  Others have not.  Since “assurance of salvation” is intended to be the subjective experience of the “perseverance of the saints” in the Calvinist TULIP, many point out that the TULIP – especially the L, or “limited atonement,” of PSA – are decisions entirely made by God, and there is no way for a Christian to know for certain whether God counted her/him among the beneficiaries of that atonement. 

The question, “Is God still angry with me or not?” is of paramount importance, and many regard the question as unanswerable.  Twentieth century Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton remarked about the eighteenth century English poet, William Cowper: 

“Perhaps the strongest case of all is this: that only one great English poet went mad, Cowper.  And he was definitely driven mad by logic, by the ugly and alien deep logic of predestination.  Poetry was not the disease, but the medicine; poetry partly kept him in health.  He could sometimes forget the red and thirsty hell to which his hideous necessitarianism dragged him among the wide waters and the white flat lilies of the Ouse.  He was damned by John Calvin; he was almost saved by John Gilpin.”[21]

Chesterton’s prose is devastating as usual:  Cowper was “driven mad by… predestination… his hideous necessitarianism… he was damned by John Calvin.” 

Peter J. Leithart, a high federal Calvinist theologian, author, and minister with the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA), acknowledges the problem:

“But there is here an existential and pastoral difficulty, if not a theological one.  The righteousness that God loves is, after all, an alien righteousness.  God loves His righteous Son, but that might leave me wondering, Does God love me?  Since I’m not completely righteous, does God receive me completely?  Calvin wants to say yes, but because the thing that God loves seems somewhat detachable from me, he leaves the question.  This is not a hypothetical problem; assurance has been a long-standing problem in Reformed piety.”[22]

In other words, Leithart observes that penal substitution can and does lead some people into emotional anxiety.  We should note that many other examples could be mentioned. 

Bruce Wauchope, director of a ministry called Perichoresis Australia, explores the relationship between theology and mental health.  In his introductory lecture “The Gospel and Mental Health,” available on line, he observes the same thing.  Wauchope says, “A gospel based on separation does not heal people.”[23] 

On a visceral level, Maggie’s life experience to that point would affirm that God seems capable of abandoning her and others.  From Maggie’s standpoint, might God simply be waiting to reveal Himself as the one who abandons her?  And if God is capable of abandoning people, and is perfectly willing to do so in eternity (in both the Calvinist and Arminian systems) for reasons that are knowable only to Him, then why would she have any such “assurance”?  This question may lead to Maggie feeling “frozen.”

Fifth, consider what Maggie’s spiritual journey might be like in a PSA-informed congregation while she is on her healing journey.  A therapist, pastor, or friend who strongly believes in PSA’s power in pastoral ministry would have to do some counseling work with Maggie but ultimately wait for her intense anger and grief to subside.  So other people are likely to interpret Maggie’s internal work as a detour – however important or not – from the “real work” of the gospel.  They might regard Maggie’s emotional processing as a period of time when she is preoccupied with herself, however understandable her reasons are for doing so.  Maggie might experience others as tolerating this phase of her life, until she has the strength to do the more mature work of focusing on her guilt before God, and gratitude for Christ’s atoning work.  Or, Maggie might simply be told by PSA advocates that what she “deserves” is for God to throw her into hell, after all, for perspective’s sake.  They might question Maggie’s desire for healing as if she thought she “deserved” to feel better.  At least one person might suggest, even good-heartedly, that being abused, neglected, and raped pales in comparison with facing God’s anger in hell, and Maggie “deserves” nothing better. 

Most evangelical congregations promote evangelism, and it is worth considering how Maggie will experience that in a PSA framework.  Maggie is likely to feel “frozen” again.  As I explored in post 5, Christians who put out effort in evangelism will oftentimes wrestle with feeling angry about having to do it.  I surveyed Southern Baptist history, for instance, to highlight how anger with non-Christians as “undeserving” and a commitment to evangelism can co-exist.  Maggie’s personal history increases the chances that she will feel anger on some level.  As the child of abusive and neglectful parents who eventually divorced, as the victim of her mother’s new boyfriend, and probably as the victim of her peers in more ways than one, Maggie has had the human experience of trying to navigate deeply fractured relationships.  Maggie already knows the pain of trying to love two people who, at times, hate each other, or simply use each other.  When she transposes that relational dynamic onto herself, God, and others – especially others who are not Christians – she is likely to re-live the emotional pain of her past to some degree. 

For example, Maggie already knows what it feels like to suspect one or more parties of making false statements, or underestimating their own self-centeredness while they promise to try harder, or simply being fake.  Now consider what Maggie might feel encountering the Calvinist doctrine of limited atonement.  She will probably viscerally feel that God is not trustworthy if she reads in Scripture that “God desires that none perish” (Ezekiel 18:23, 32 – 33; 1 Timothy 2:3 – 4; 2 Peter 3:9) and God loves everyone through Jesus (e.g. John 1:29; 3:16), while she reads in J.I. Packer that those passages “cannot on sound principles of exegesis be held to teach any such thing”[24] and in John Stott that God’s desire for “self-satisfaction”[25] is apparently more important to Him than the perishing of people, or her questions.  Will Maggie experience God as trustworthy?  If anger is so intrinsic to God, then will Maggie experience God as playing favorites?  Or, consider what Maggie might feel encountering the Arminian doctrines of prevenient grace and hell.  If she is told that hell is an eternal prison where people want to get out but God keeps them in, yet reads in Roger Olson that hell is “absolutely unnecessary”[26] to God, she will probably feel, quite viscerally, that God will be more arbitrary in his anger than a drunken, abusive man at home.  Will Maggie feel that God is like a gentleman in public before He becomes an angry tyrant in private?  Are either of these backdrops likely to help Maggie in her emotional recovery?

How will Maggie feel about the emotional energy she is called upon to expend in outreach to others?  This will likely make Maggie reflect on other challenging experiences in relationship.  As a child, at some times, Maggie probably wanted her parents to stay together more than they did themselves.  In addition, she might have felt used by one or both parents as a way for one to get something from the other.  So what happens when Maggie compares those experiences to her experience as a Christian?  Such encouragement will likely make Maggie feel burned out emotionally, at some point.  Why?  Because Maggie is not sure if God or the church want to use her to do the legwork of caring about other people.  It is, of course, true that Jesus said to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:38 – 48; Luke 6:27 – 36), and Maggie may see the importance of that.  But if the atonement is “limited” or “definite” as the Calvinist version of PSA says, then Maggie will probably feel that God might care less than she does about a fair number of non-Christian people, who are ostensibly His “enemies.”  Maggie may rightly wonder if she cares more than God does about any particular person.  Or, if God goes from being receptive to people’s repentance now, to being closed in eternity, as the Arminian version of PSA says, then Maggie might fault God for simply turning His back on people arbitrarily and being petulant.  All this is likely to make Maggie further “freeze,” caught between her own anger at God and church, and her worry about the anger from God and church. 

Explanation:  Spiritual and Theological Formation for the Traumatized in MSA

By contrast, in the Medical Substitutionary Atonement framework, Maggie’s spiritual formation would take a very different direction.  First of all, Maggie could identify her own anger as a window into Jesus’ anger on her behalf (John 11), which by definition is God’s own anger on her behalf, too.  She could “be angry but not sin” (Ephesians 4:26), not simply to get her anger “over and done with,” or as a “tolerable hazard,” but as a deep root to Christ. 

Maggie can interpret her childhood need for connection as a gift from God, even if it was abused and neglected by others.  That desire helped her survive.  She can interpret her desire for connection as an adult as a sign that God is at work ultimately to draw her to Jesus by the Spirit.  She can interpret her own anger as evidence that God is at work in her, helping her process the most horrific betrayals of trust by other people, giving her moral courage and outrage to say, “That was wrong, and I deserved better, because God Himself wanted better for me.”  Rather than feeling like God is the basis for her deserving nothing better than being repeatedly abused, God is the basis for her deserving so much more.  Maggie can interpret God as standing on her side, as her advocate.  Her emotional journey could deepen in the same direction she is already going. 

David G. Benner, a Protestant spiritual director who has examined Eastern Orthodox and Celtic Christian understandings of the human, says: 

“Eastern Orthodox and Celtic Christians have also never held a theology of the essential sinfulness of humans as part of their beliefs.  Other Christian traditions, however, consider belief in the depravity of humans to be a cornerstone of orthodoxy.  Unfortunately, this has led many to mistrust their bodies, emotions, sexuality, intuitions, and much more.  This basic mistrust then easily spills over onto others—even onto the natural world.  In short, it leaves people cut off from their deepest selves and misaligned with the flow of life.”[27] 

This is the difference Maggie would experience if nurtured by MSA rather than PSA.  When Benner says that Eastern Orthodox and Celtic Christians did not believe that humans were “essentially sinful,” he does not mean that they deny the fall or the corruption of sin within human nature, or deny our need for Scripture and church.  To be sure, they have a sober view of sin and our capacity to deceive ourselves.  Benner means that these traditions reserved language of “essence” and “nature” to correspond with God’s original creation.  Human beings have an “essential goodness” from the fact that God made us in His image, and continues to uphold all of us, and all creation, by His divine energies (the Eastern Orthodox term) or His providential love (the Western Catholic and Protestant functional equivalent).  What Paul says about our “conscience” of Romans 2:12 – 16 and the “I myself” of 7:14 – 25 attests to this activity of God, and fundamental goodness, that shines through ourselves despite the corruption of sin.  We have a personal moral intuition as evidence to us that we are made in the image of God.  Sin is parasitic upon our “essence;” it is a deformity and corruption of our “nature,” and a disordering of our loves and desires.  But sin is not our essence or nature.  Nor does sin have an essence of its own, or a nature of its own.  Maggie, therefore, can rest assured that God loves her and is at work in her, because in MSA, the focus is on what we desire, not what we have merited or demerited.

When Benner says, “Other Christian traditions, however, consider belief in the depravity of humans to be a cornerstone of orthodoxy,” he is referring especially to the Lutheran, Calvinist, and Arminian traditions of Western Protestantism.  Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430 AD) taught that humans were so sinful that, even though on some level we desired God and the things of God, as he suggested in his famous autobiography Confessions, written and published between 397 – 400, we could not choose Jesus without God’s selective and arbitrary intervention, as he wrote in On the Predestination of the Saints in 426.[28]  This was Augustine’s theory of “double predestination” or selective grace.[29]  He was alone among other early Christians for saying this.[30]  After considerable debates about how to receive Augustine’s teaching,[31] Roman Catholic leaders decided to maintain a respect for Augustine, but asserted that Augustine should not be understood as truly teaching “double predestination.”[32]  Such was maintained by Western Catholics until the Lutheran, Calvinist, and Arminian traditions revived this aspect of Augustine’s teaching with particular vigor,[33] because they inserted Penal Substitutionary Atonement and God’s retributive anger into Augustine’s theory of double predestination to better explain it.[34]  They amplified human inability so much that functionally, they started with the fall, not creation.  Functionally, nothing meaningful remained of the creation in our humanity.  Prior to the intervention of the Spirit to bring people to conversion, they taught, we cannot choose Jesus, nor we do even desire him. 

Here is an oft-repeated prooftext which can serve as an example of the Western Augustinian Protestant tradition.  When Paul tells us we are “dead in sin” (Ephesians 2:1), he refers to the fate of the body outside the garden of Eden, and our moral decline due to our fear of death (Hebrews 2:14 – 15), which was the more Jewish understanding of that phrase.  The Western Augustinians Protestants, though, claimed that Paul meant that our souls are strictly unable to choose God/Jesus, as if we had no more ability to choose like a dead person.  This, despite a clear biblical counterexample.  Israel finalized the biblical canon during the exilic period as its expression of hope in God, even while Ezekiel called Israel a “valley of dry bones” prior to the new covenant (Ezekiel 37).  For “dead” people who supposedly had no ability to choose God, their receiving, collecting, and canonizing Scripture is a remarkable feat.  Those “dead” people, so bleakly understood, desired God and chose God in the most fundamental way.  In any case, the important point here is Benner’s:  He says this current in Western Christianity is what “has led many to mistrust their bodies, emotions, sexuality, intuitions, and much more… [leaving] people cut off from their deepest selves.”  If our souls, wills, and personalities are only “dead in sin” in the Augustinian sense, then there would be little to nothing for Maggie to find in herself that would help her know God better.  Even her body’s desire to survive, and her heart’s desire for attachment, would tell her nothing.

The Eastern Orthodox and Celtic Christians avoided Augustine’s influence, and are a clearer witness to the original Christian teaching, including on matters of atonement.  MSA is what allows Maggie to interpret her own anger as God already giving her energy and emotional direction.  Far from God abandoning Maggie, God is already working in her, because God has never truly left her in an absolute sense.  This can be part of Maggie’s lived experience of the truth that “in him, all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17; Acts 17:28), that her very being is upheld by God in love.  In fact, God is giving her the strength to respond to human evil, even if it mostly internal work for now, because God loves her and is recalibrating her sense of boundaries, her readings of others, her emotional intuition, her ability to respond to present conflicts without the trauma of the past, etc.  Importantly, MSA provides an alternative to Maggie’s sense of being abandoned by God with an appeal to her own personal experience, emotionally – one that honors her emotions and works with them.  This is what we might call a lived experience of a strong creation theology – one where the fall and the reality of our sin is of course present, but do not overwhelm the imago dei in us.  The presence of a good Christian therapist can certainly enhance the evidence that God has not abandoned Maggie.  But I think MSA goes one step further, and much deeper.

As Maggie becomes aware of how trauma left a mark on her brain and body, and needs to be wrestled out in her memory and body, she could consider Jesus as co-inheritor of a deeper trauma.  In MSA, Maggie might consider how Jesus shared with her the experience of feeling damaged and wounded.  Jesus’ struggles were deeply human.  Jesus bore a fallen human nature like we do,[35] so he could struggle with it, resist all temptations, and fully unite it with the Spirit of God through his human journey of faithfulness.  Jesus was tempted in all ways like us (Hebrews 4:15), so he knows what it’s like to be us.  In fact, his struggles were more intense than ours, since we only battle with our sin and self-centeredness up to a point; Jesus battled constantly, all the way to victory in his death and resurrection, to “perfect” human nature and become the “source of salvation” from sinfulness (Hebrews 5:7 – 9).  

Maggie might consider that Jesus, in the framework of MSA, addresses bodily trauma as a general category, through his bodily incarnation in the community of Israel, and also his bodily resurrection.  Jesus shared in our physical, epigenetic inheritance.  He struggled not only against the impact of the fall, but also the impact of Israel’s trauma and injustice.  Maggie might also consider how Jesus specifically became incarnate in Israel, “born under the Law” (Galatians 4:4), where the Sinai covenant made Israel vulnerable to exile and a certain kind of political homelessness (Galatians 3:19 – 24; Deuteronomy 27 – 29).  Paul also says Jesus joined us in our humanity while “we were… held in bondage under the elemental things of the world” (Galatians 4:3), where violence was surely one of many problems.  This sensitivity to trauma, defeat, and struggle is realistic and important, as I showed in the second post of this series, when I considered whether Mary of Bethany evidenced trauma in her response to her brother’s death.  This is also important because people who have endured trauma may experience anger and other emotional responses that are disproportionate to the present situation.  Mary can easily be interpreted sympathetically (and, in my view, should be), as knowing Jesus could and would raise Lazarus from the dead, but feeling a trauma response to the question of whether Jesus cared as much as she did. 

If Maggie is willing to approach Jesus, her approach would be marked, from the emotional standpoint, by curiosity, admiration, and appreciation.  For Jesus struggled to open his humanity up to the gracious Holy Spirit, so the Spirit could embrace, soothe, and rework every part of it, like a potter reworks clay that is still soft enough to rework (e.g. Jeremiah 18:1 – 6).  In an MSA framework, Jesus is more readily understood as the hero who overcomes the tragic failures of people in the past.  As I mentioned before, Jesus seems to have retold the major stories of his people – the narratives of failure while longing and hoping – to relieve them of retelling those stories by themselves, under their own power.  Jesus took that upon himself as a type of vocation, or calling.  He confronted the failures of the past to overcome them, so as to give us hope that when he, by his Spirit in us, retells our stories of failure, he will give us transforming power and hope.  Maggie might feel, therefore, that she shares a connection to Jesus by way of his solidarity with her, and his social circumstances and vulnerability.  That stands in contrast to the emotional response to Jesus that PSA fosters:  pity and a mix of gratitude, guilt, and debt-obligation.  It is to God the Father that the biggest difference can be felt, emotionally.  In MSA, the Father is simply revealed by the Son, so all the emotions that Maggie feels towards Jesus find a straight path towards the Father.  In PSA, the Father is revealed as the one who victimizes the Son at the cross, which is likely to produce deep ambivalence in Maggie.

In MSA, Maggie will more readily find answers to the questions of theodicy.  How could she have been hurt by such evil, if God is good?  Ultimately, what is the Christian explanation for evil’s origin, especially human evil?  Maggie might begin from a posture of considering her own personal experience.  If God’s Spirit is at work in her, guarding her conscience, rebuilding it, stirring up her emotions, and calling her to deeper emotional partnership with Himself, then she can more easily affirm that God must be at work in everyone, too.  As I said before, Maggie’s personal experience would complement those affirmations found in Scripture about the conscience (Romans 2:12 – 16) and the “I myself” (Romans 7:14 – 25; Proverbs 8:22 – 36).  Maggie can perceive God as active (Philippians 1:6), not passive.  The theodicy questions will reinforce for Maggie how God both loves and respects human beings by calling everyone to Jesus – for Jesus is the God’s way of undoing human evil and healing us.  It is one thing to intellectually or verbally affirm that Jesus is the only way God could cleanse human nature and complete it, or that Jesus is the only way God could invest human nature with His life in fullness – first in Jesus, then in us.  Emotionally, Maggie now has a lived, visceral connection to God drawing her towards Jesus by the Spirit, to show her through Jesus’ lived human story the partnership He wants by the Spirit.  

Maggie probably understands already why self-love and disordered love have an addictive quality (Romans 1:21 – 32; Ephesians 4:17 – 19).  She knows about self-medication firsthand, given her history of alcohol abuse.  She also saw her mother’s addiction to alcohol.  She might easily grasp the importance of how the human will needs to be connected to deeper, healthier desires that are more original to us and still present in us, waiting to be explored and developed by Jesus.  That will lead her to ask questions about God’s purpose in creation.  Why did God create us as beings needing to grow, yet vulnerable to the fall, or vulnerable to growing in the wrong direction?  If Maggie can appreciate God’s original desire for human beings, as an expression of His love and goodness, to have agency over the direction of their love, then she can understand how people can tragically choose self-love and disordered love.  If she can appreciate how God needed to make concrete – in the form of the two great trees of the garden – His role in our lives as source of life and source of the definition of good and evil, then she could see God’s love in the original garden:  God wanted us to partake of the former tree and rest our backs against the latter one.  If Maggie is able to appreciate these points, then she has found a way to understand God as good and loving, despite her painful experience of deep evil and brokenness. 

Theodicy is always challenging.  But MSA brings Maggie just a short step away from settling those haunting questions.  PSA does not do so.  This is fundamentally because MSA is oriented along the lines of both biblical history and personal narrative, and finds its answers in Scripture in a more straightforward way:  God, because of His own love, partners with human beings and desires to restore human beings to the conditions of the garden, and while humans kept messing up, that partnership is developed by Israel and resolved by Jesus.  In particular, MSA presents God’s will and human will in a complementary relation, rooted in what the Orthodox and Catholic traditions call “synergy,” or “partnership and participation,” exemplified by Philippians 2:13, where Paul says that God is at work in us to help us “to will and to work,” or “to desire and to do” God’s own good will.  This “partnership and participation” are what undergird the potential for a complementary relationship between God’s anger and human anger. 

PSA, meanwhile, shifts from “participation” to “imputation.”  PSA asks us to imagine an invisible transaction between the Father and the Son that happened on the cross, resulting in lots of talk about what is “deserved” and “undeserved.”  PSA immediately raises thorny questions about the relationship between God’s will and human will, and presents God’s anger and human anger as mostly antithetical, or at the very least, rooted in different emotional arcs because of the question of whether we “deserve” to be angry at all.  As I explored in post 5, PSA advocates tend to interpret people who are angry as “feeling entitled.”  Also, PSA encourages people to read the Old Testament looking for God’s retributive justice on the one hand, and God’s mercy on the other, and therefore “flattens” the journey God took with human partners.  In this framework, the Father’s outpouring of divine anger could have happened at some other point in time, which raises the question of why God took so long, why God needed an Israel, and why Israel suffered so much.  Imagine if Maggie was a Christian of Jewish heritage! 

Consider what Maggie’s experience might be in a congregation informed by MSA.  Maggie’s healing journey might simply be part of the overall emotional journey into which Jesus calls everyone because Jesus shared in it himself.  MSA can rest on a backdrop of human brokenness perfectly well, because it does not require a backdrop of personal guilt and “deserving” negative experiences from which Maggie is trying to distance herself.  In other words, Maggie can and should be reflecting on the evil that other people did to her without her consent, not just ways in which she “broke God’s law” and incurred personal guilt and responsibility for it, although she could certainly grieve those things, too, as she grows in love for others (e.g. Matthew 5:4; 2 Corinthians 7). 

Moreover, MSA-informed preaching need not, indeed does not, make Maggie at any time “deserving” of God’s anger, even in a theoretical and past sense.  It does not rely on the survival-oriented emotions of PSA (guilt, fear, relief, gratitude for being spared).  The pulpit voice can simply assume that people want to grow in Jesus’ love because it assumes that God’s Spirit never stops working in people.  Maggie’s emotional wounds and struggles might be more “fresh” or “on the surface” than those of others.  But Maggie would not be an emotional exception.  In fact, Maggie’s reflections would probably help other people appreciate how they have been damaged and wounded. 

In an MSA-infused congregation, chances are that Maggie would grow in evangelism while she is wrestling with the deepest parts of her healing journey.  That is because, in MSA, Maggie might find it easy to not simply love Jesus, but to find Jesus lovable, and through him, God.  She could invite non-Christian friends into this congregation because her emotional processing resonates so deeply with Jesus’ larger and deeper goals, and the congregation uses the same basic language to talk about Jesus and spiritual growth. 

One reason Maggie is likely to be an effective evangelist even in the depths of her tears and rage is because MSA actively encourages self-discovery as one means of God-discovery, especially through the emotions of anger and grief.  MSA works with Maggie’s sense that she deserved better.  Maggie does not need to set her emotions off to one side.  PSA, by contrast, ultimately works with Maggie’s suspicion and fear that she deserved worse.  In a PSA framework, to the extent that Maggie wants other people to know Jesus, she will have to do emotional work in two realms and in two opposite directions. 

Another reason Maggie might be an effective evangelist in an MSA framework is because hell is understood as the end result of the addictive quality of sin, self-love, and disordered love.  No understanding of hell is pleasant, but Maggie would probably find it more plausible to believe that God respects people’s choices, even while people’s choices to sin will have the effect of increasing their desires to sin again.  Based on her experience seeing other people become more narrowly focused on an addiction – to alcohol, or sex, or some fantasy – and become more closed and more limited in their emotional capacity, she might affirm what C.S. Lewis illustrated in The Great Divorce, that “the gates of hell are locked from the inside”:

 “For a damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself.  Good beats upon the damned incessantly as sound waves beat on the ears of the deaf, but they cannot receive it.  Their fists are clenched, their teeth are clenched, their eyes fast shut.  First they will not, in the end they cannot, open their hands for gifts, or their mouth for food, or their eyes to see.”[36]

 Again, this is not a pleasant picture to imagine.  But Maggie might find this understanding of hell to be the more credible one based on her own experience of God calling her into openness to Christ by the Spirit in the cleansing and healing of her humanity.  And Maggie would certainly notice the shift from what she or other people deserve to what she and others desire.  People in hell will be those who insist on being abusers.  They will despise Jesus’ relentless call to partner with him because, while he calls them to renounce the sins to which they have become addicted, they will maintain that those are not problems, but rather part of who they are.  Jesus will not be doing something different than what he is doing now.  What will change is people’s willingness to repent and ability to change in response to Jesus.  Whether or not God is angry per se at people in hell is not even the most important issue, because of that shift from deserving to desiring.  What is more important is that people in hell will be angry at God because they will desire things that God refuses to grant.[37] 

What about other areas of Christian discipleship?  Chances are high that Maggie would be moved to engage.  She would probably appreciate teaching on Christian friendship principles and community holiness, for example, because she recognizes that we do not want to re-traumatize each other.  She could probably resonate with the idea that Jesus wants to partner with her to show forth the best possible version of herself.  But there is more.  How might Maggie address any residual distrust and fear of others that she feels?  If Maggie understands her human anger as a participation in Jesus’ godly anger, then she might find it possible to view her human appreciation for others as a participation in Jesus’ love for them, too:  a starting point of connection that Jesus starts, continues, and shapes in her.  Paul said that his affection for the Philippians was grounded and shaped by “the affections of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8).  So it is out of love for God, and love and care for each other, that we try to be faithful to Jesus’ teaching.  It is also out of an interpretation of her own lived experience that she can sense God working in her, helping her “to will and to work,” or “to desire and to do” God’s good will (Philippians 2:13). 

Maggie can be challenged to forgive others, too, not because she realizes that she “deserved” becoming the brunt of the anger of a perfectionistic God behind the back of Jesus who is upset about every infraction – a God who cares more about His standards and His experience of us than how we are.  Rather, God forgives us through Jesus simply because we have damaged the things He loves the most – ourselves and our relations – and we are too precious to Him to leave in this poor condition.  God forgives us in Christ, not because His experience of us makes Him angry and He needs to pour His anger out on someone, but because, in and through Jesus, God is like a good doctor or counselor or trainer or art restorer – always ready to resume His partnership with us, to undo the damage we have inherited and deepened, and even the damage in others to which we may have contributed. 

Maggie might even appreciate hearing about Christian social justice, to take another example of a topic that could be discussed in a congregation.  Even while Maggie is in an intense part of her emotional process, she would probably appreciate this topic.  For Christian social justice simply expands our sphere of applying Jesus’ atoning work of healing human beings and undoing human evil.  It calls out the damage done by institutionalized relationships, not just individual people, and considers human evil in human patterns of wealth and power, not just in embodied human beings.  Maggie might not have the energy for much more activity at the moment.  And sabbath rest is a complementary principle for Maggie, disproportionately so because of the season of life she is in.  But it would emotionally resonate.  Why hear and reflect on it?  Because God’s love revealed in Jesus is simply God’s way of addressing human evil in all its forms.

Conclusion

As Melissa Kelley, quoting Willard Willimon, noted, “A great trauma makes theologians of us all.”[38]  From what we have observed about trauma, and also from what we have observed about the emotional and intellectual impact of Penal Substitutionary Atonement on people, I expect PSA to have a negative impact on people who are already traumatized.  It will contribute to keeping traumatized people feeling “frozen,” or stuck in questions about who “deserves” what.  They may feel afraid of God’s anger, yet also angry at God.  They may feel afraid of God abandoning them, yet also feel the urge to abandon God.

To help Maggie recover from feeling “frozen,” Medical Substitutionary Atonement seems to me to promote the best environment for Maggie’s emotional health, spiritual and theological formation, and participation in a church community.It provides an emotional and conceptual environment for her inner world that would be more helpful for Maggie to become “unfrozen,” to resolve the direction of her anger, and her interpretation of God’s anger.Jesus is already at work in Maggie, stirring up not only her anger but her other emotions – like hope and love and desire for healthy connection – calling her to recognize him and consciously partner with him.Jesus breathes into Maggie’s lungs the sweet air that she always deserved better – in fact, the best that God always intended for her.Jesus calls her towards the best possible version of herself, and goes with her as an ambassador to others of his best and theirs.

[1] Lauren E. Maltby and Todd W. Hall, “Trauma, Attachment, and Spirituality: A Case Study,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 2012, Volume 40, No. 4, 306.

[2] Lauren E. Maltby and Todd W. Hall, “Trauma, Attachment, and Spirituality: A Case Study,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 2012, Volume 40, No. 4, 302 – 312; https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lauren-Maltby/publication/277596197_Trauma_Attachment_and_Spirituality_A_Case_Study/links/556e034608aefcb861db96ae/Trauma-Attachment-and-Spirituality-A-Case-Study.pdf.

[3] Melissa M. Kelley, Grief: Contemporary Theory and the Practice of Ministry (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), p.87.  Kelley also cites an earlier 2005 book by evolutionary psychologist Lee A. Kirkpatrick, Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion (New York, NY: The Guilford Press, 2005).  Maltby and Hall (2012) are familiar with the work of Kirkpatrick but do not cite his 2005 book.

[4] Lauren E. Maltby and Todd W. Hall, “Trauma, Attachment, and Spirituality: A Case Study,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 2012, Volume 40, No. 4, 307.

[5] Lauren E. Maltby and Todd W. Hall, “Trauma, Attachment, and Spirituality: A Case Study,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 2012, Volume 40, No. 4, 307.

[6] Diadochos of Photiki, On Spiritual Perfection 62.  Quoted in Joel C. Elowski (editor) and Thomas C. Oden (general editor), Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament IVb: John 11 – 21 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), p.19 – 20. 

[7] Mako A. Nagasawa, ‘My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?’: Why the Father Did Not Turn Against or Away from the Son, The Anástasis Center for Christian Education & Ministry, found here:  https://newhumanityinstitute.wordpress.com/atonement-foundations-my-god-my-god-why-have-you-forsaken-me-new-humanity-institute/.

[8] See Mako A. Nagasawa, ‘My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?’: Why the Father Did Not Turn Against or Away from the Son, The Anástasis Center for Christian Education & Ministry, found here:  https://newhumanityinstitute.wordpress.com/atonement-foundations-my-god-my-god-why-have-you-forsaken-me-new-humanity-institute/.

[9] Stuart Townsend, How Deep the Father’s Love for Us (2010): 

“How deep the Father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure

That He should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure.

How great the pain of searing loss. The Father turns His face away

As wounds which mar the Chosen One bring many sons to glory.”

[10] Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2014), p.221 – 222.  All of chapter 13 is relevant to the topic I am exploring here.

[11] Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (New York, NY: Scribner, 1994).  See also Jonathan Shay, Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (New York, NY: Scribner, 2002).  Timothy Patitsas, “The Opposite of War Is Not Peace: Healing Trauma in the Iliad and in Orthodox Tradition,” Road to Emmaus, Winter 2013 a very helpful integration of trauma studies (especially through moral injury sustained by soldiers), the limitations of modern secular psychotherapy, and a proposal that we need Christian liturgical community as the relational integration and communion.  Patitsas cites Shay’s work on soldiers’ trauma and critiques the Western tradition of just war theory for being pastorally insufficient to deal with war trauma, in comparison with the Eastern Byzantine tradition.  This article is a must read.  Curate Mike, “Healing of Soul and Body,” Curacy blog, September 11, 2017; https://curacy.org/2017/09/11/healing-of-soul-and-body/ writes an appreciative blog post

[12] Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (Las Vegas, NV: Central Recovery Press, 2017), p.166.

[13] Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (Las Vegas, NV: Central Recovery Press, 2017), p.167 – 172.

[14] The Bible Project, Design Patterns in Biblical Narrative, March 29, 2018; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkqsQpck8YU. 

[15] For literary analysis of how the Pentateuch, Isaiah, and Psalms anticipated further actions by God in history to complete the themes already begun, see Mako A. Nagasawa, Hope Filled Full, found here:  www.anastasiscenter.org/bible-study-tools-hope-filled-full.  For the parallels between Moses’ ascent up Mount Sinai and the Jewish sacrificial system, see Mako A. Nagasawa, God as Dialysis Machine: The Sacrificial Calendar as the Renewal of the Covenant and the Retelling of Moses’ Mediation on Mount Sinai, found here:  https://newhumanityinstitute.wordpress.com/2018/10/18/god-as-dialysis-machine-the-sacrificial-calendar-as-the-renewal-of-the-covenant-and-the-retelling-of-moses-mediation-on-mount-sinai/.  To see how Jesus retold the story of Israel, see Mako A. Nagasawa, Hell as Fire and Darkness: Remembrance of Sinai as Covenant Rejection in Matthew’s Gospel, found here: http://www.newhumanityinstitute.org/pdfs/matthew-theme-fire-and-darkness-as-hell.pdf.  Jesus and Matthew, especially, out of all the New Testament writers, engaged with mountains as a theme because of the prior encounters between God and His people on Eden, Ararat, Sinai and Zion; see Mako A. Nagasawa, The Return of God’s Cloud – To the “Wrong” Mountain? Exegesis of Matthew 17:1 – 8, found here:  http://www.newhumanityinstitute.org/pdfs/matthew.17.01-08.exegesis.pdf.  To see how Jesus retold the story of David, see Mako A. Nagasawa, ‘My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?’: Why the Father Did Not Turn Against or Away from the Son, found here:  https://newhumanityinstitute.wordpress.com/atonement-foundations-my-god-my-god-why-have-you-forsaken-me-new-humanity-institute/, especially posts 3 – 6. 

[16] Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 3.18.7

[17] Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 2.22.4; cf.4.38.2

[18] Melissa M. Kelley, Grief: Contemporary Theory and the Practice of Ministry (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), p.87.

[19] Melissa M. Kelley, Grief: Contemporary Theory and the Practice of Ministry (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), p.87.

[20] Melissa M. Kelley, Grief: Contemporary Theory and the Practice of Ministry (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), p.87 – 88.

[21] G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York, NY: Image Books, 1959), p.17

[22] Peter J. Leithart, “Loving Sinners,” First Things, April 1, 2013; http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2013/04/loving-sinners.  I explore this question in some depth in a blog post; see Mako A. Nagasawa, Interpreting Jesus and Atonement – Practical Issue #9: Is God an Asian Parent? What Language of Motivation Does God Use? https://newhumanityinstitute.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/interpreting-jesus-and-atonement-practical-issue-9-is-god-an-asian-parent-what-language-of-motivation-does-god-use/.  

[23] Bruce Wauchope, “The Gospel and Mental Health,” Trinity in You, http://trinityinyou.com/the-gospel-and-mental-health-sample/ (3:45 min mark).

[24] J.I. Packer, ‘An Introduction to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ’, reprinted in J.I. Packer and Mark Dever, In My Place Condemned He Stood (Wheaton, IL:  Crossway Books, 2007)

[25] John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), p.124, 126.

[26] Roger E. Olson, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), p.65.

[27] David G. Benner, Human Being and Becoming: The Adventure of Life and Love (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2016), p.7.

[28] Augustine of Hippo, On the Predestination of the Saints, ch.13 writes,

“We see that many come to the Son because we see that many believe in Christ, but when and how they have heard this from the Father, and have learned, we see not. It is true that that grace is exceedingly secret, but who doubts that it is grace? This grace, therefore, which is hiddenly bestowed in human hearts by the Divine gift, is rejected by no hard heart, because it is given for the sake of first taking away the hardness of the heart. When, therefore, the Father is heard within, and teaches, so that a man comes to the Son, He takes away the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh.” 

In ch.14, Augustine writes,

“Away, then, with the thought that any one comes not, who has heard of the Father and has learned.” 

In ch.16, he says,

“Faith, then, as well in its beginning as in its completion, is God’s gift; and let no one have any doubt whatever, unless he desires to resist the plainest sacred writings, that this gift is given to some, while to some it is not given.”

[29] Mike Barlotta, “Augustine’s Evolving Views on Free Will,” Evangelical Arminians, March 2, 2015; http://evangelicalarminians.org/mike-barlotta-augustines-evolving-views-on-free-will/ is a helpful start in looking at Augustine's early and later views.  David Bentley Hart, “Traditio Deformis,” First Things, May 2015; https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/05/traditio-deformis writes,

“Augustine’s magisterial reading of the Letter to the Romans, as unfolded in reams of his writings, and ever thereafter by his theological heirs: perhaps the most sublime “strong misreading” in the history of Christian thought, and one that comprises specimens of all four classes of misprision… [F]or instance, Augustine’s misunderstanding of Paul’s theology of election was abetted by the simple contingency of a verb as weak as the Greek proorizein (“sketching out beforehand,” “planning,” etc.) being rendered as praedestinare—etymologically defensible, but connotatively impossible.”

“What then of God’s faithfulness to his promises? It is not an abstract question regarding who is “saved” and who “damned”: By the end of chapter 11, the former category proves to be vastly larger than that of the “elect,” or the “called,” while the latter category makes no appearance at all… This, then, is the radiant answer dispelling the shadows of Paul’s grim “what if,” the clarion negative: There is no final “illustrative” division between vessels of wrath and of mercy; God has bound everyone in disobedience so as to show mercy to everyone (11:32); all are vessels of wrath so that all may be made vessels of mercy.”

“One classic Augustinian construal of Romans 11, particularly in the Reformed tradition, is to claim that Paul’s seemingly extravagant language—“all,” “full entirety,” “the world,” and so on—really still means just that all peoples are saved only in the “exemplary” or “representative” form of the elect. This is, of course, absurd. Paul is clear that it is those not called forth, those allowed to stumble, who will still never be allowed to fall. Such a reading would simply leave Paul in the darkness where he began, reduce his glorious discovery to a dreary tautology, convert his magnificent vision of the vast reach of divine love into a ludicrous cartoon of its squalid narrowness. Yet, on the whole, the Augustinian tradition on these texts has been so broad and mighty that it has, for millions of Christians, effectively evacuated Paul’s argument of all its real content. It ultimately made possible those spasms of theological and moral nihilism that prompted John Calvin to claim (in book 3 of The Institutes) that God predestined even the Fall, and (in his commentary on 1 John) that love belongs not to God’s essence, but only to how the elect experience him. Sic transit gloria Evangelii.”

“I have to say that, as an Orthodox scholar, I have made many efforts over the years to defend Augustine against what I take to be defective and purely polemical Eastern interpretations of his thought, in the realms of metaphysics, Trinitarian theology, and the soul’s knowledge of God (often to the annoyance of some of my fellow Orthodox). But regarding that part of his intellectual patrimony that has had the widest effect—his understanding of sin, grace, and election—not only do I share the Eastern distaste for (or, frankly, horror at) his conclusions; I am even something of an extremist in that respect. In the whole long, rich history of Christian misreadings of Scripture, none I think has ever been more consequential, more invincibly perennial, or more disastrous.”

[30] For example, Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.37.1 – 2, considered a schema of “double predestination” hypothetically, and rejected it:  “But if some had been made by nature bad and others good…”  Irenaeus meant this with respect to any schema in which the human will was not free, in which some people but not others would come to Jesus because of some reason related to humanity or God’s will.  For a list of generous and contextual quotations from early Christian writers, see my notes in Free Will in Patristic Theology, found here:  www.anastasiscenter.org/gods-goodness-jesus. 

[31] Seraphim Rose, The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church (Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, third edition 2007) provides a very helpful historical overview of Augustine and his disciple Prosper of Aquitaine, and their reception by other Christian leaders especially in Gaul. 

[32] The second council of Orange in 529 AD condemned “double predestination” as a heresy, and denied that Augustine’s theology taught it.  Gottsalk of Orbais (808 – 867 AD) taught “double predestination” and various councils condemned it as a heresy:  Quierzy (853 AD), Valence (855 AD), Savonnieres (859 AD), Metz (863 AD, with Pope Nicholas I).

[33] Jacob Arminius, like John Calvin, believed that the human will was dependent on God’s “prevenient grace” to draw the human person to Christ.  Arminian theologian Roger E. Olson, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), p.142 – 146 makes the helpful point that Arminius did not so much believe in “free will” as he did in a “freed will.” 

[34] Stanley P. Rosenberg, “Interpreting Atonement in Augustine,” edited by Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III, The Glory of the Atonement (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004) notes that Augustine did not believe in penal substitution, despite the fact that the book was intended to be a collection of essays honoring penal substitution!  See also Thomas Weinandy, In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 1993), p.29.

[35] See Leander E. Keck, “The Law and “The Law of Sin and Death”,” edited by James L. Crenshaw and Samuel Sandmel, The Divine Helmsman: Studies on God’s Control of Human Events Presented to Lou H. Silberman (Ktav Pub Inc, May 1, 1980), p.49 – 50.  The discussion about whether Jesus assumed a “fallen human nature” in his incarnation is important and far-reaching.  I have engaged with multiple scholars in multiple scholarly fields.  For a biblical appraisal, please see Mako A. Nagasawa, God Condemned Sin in the Flesh of Christ: Romans 8:3 – 4 and Medical Substitutionary Atonement, found here:  www.anastasiscenter.org/bible-messiah-paul-romans, and also Mako A. Nagasawa, Jesus, the Bronze Serpent, and the Healing of Humanity, found here:  www.anastasiscenter.org/bible-messiah-john.  For an appraisal of the patristic writings, see Mako A. Nagasawa, Penal Substitution vs. Medical-Ontological Substitution: A Historical Comparison, and also a special analysis of the writings Contra Apollinaris ascribed to the elderly Athanasius in Mako A. Nagasawa, Fallen or Unfallen: Studies in Athanasius’ Contra Apollinarium and the Humanity of Jesus, both available here:  www.anastasiscenter.org/atonement-sources-ec-athanasius-of-alexandria. 

[36] C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1973), p.139.  Lewis also says on p.70 – 71,

“Hell is a state of mind – ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind - is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.” 

[37] As I quoted in post 5 from John of Damascus, Against the Manicheans 94.1569, 1573: 

“In eternity God supplies good things to all because He is the source of good things gushing forth goodness to all… After death, there is no means for repentance, not because God does not accept repentance – He cannot deny Himself nor lose His compassion – but the soul does not change anymore… people after death are unchangeable, so that on the one hand the righteous desire God and always have Him to rejoice in, while sinners desire sin though they do not have the material means to sin… they are punished without any consolation.  For what is hell but the deprivation of that which is exceedingly desired by someone?  Therefore, according to the analogy of desire, whoever desires God rejoices and whoever desires sin is punished.”  

John of Damascus (676 – 749 AD) was a Syrian Christian priest who was among the first generation of Christians to live under the Arab Islamic conquest.  He debated Muslims, among others, and wrote what is widely respected as a very good summary of Christian teaching to that point, closing the patristic chapter and opening the Byzantine.  He is called “the seal of the fathers.” 

[38] Melissa M. Kelley, Grief: Contemporary Theory and the Practice of Ministry (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), p.87.