Atonement by Eleonore Stump

Abstract

Reviewed by: Atonement by Eleonore Stump Meghan D. Page STUMP, Eleonore. Atonement. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. xv + 536 pp. Cloth, $85.00, paper, $35.00 This book presents a novel framework for thinking about Christian atonement and provides an innovative solution to the question of how Christ’s death on the cross restores peace between God and humanity. Stump begins by problematizing both Anselmian and Thomistic accounts of the atonement. On Anselmian accounts, reconciliation is hindered by God’s requirement of a sacrifice to satisfy humanity’s debt rather than by human resistance to divine grace. Moreover, forgiveness that is conditional on a very specific sacrifice does not seem like forgiveness at all. In addition, Stump claims, Anselmian views do little to resolve either the “backward-looking problem of sin,” namely, guilt and shame, or the “forward-looking problem of sin,” which is the need for a change in sinners to prevent sin from recurring. Thomistic accounts, on the other hand, effectively resolve the forward-looking problem of sin by appealing to a specific dispensation of divine grace, but neither explain how the giving of this grace is related to Christ’s death on the cross nor offer a solution to the backward-looking problem of guilt and shame. Stump then endeavors to show how Christ’s death on the cross connects to a Thomistic model of grace and resolves the problem of guilt and shame. For Stump, guilt and shame are objective properties that depend on an agent’s relationship to others; they correspond to two desires of love posited by Aquinas: (1) the desire for the good of the beloved and (2) the desire for union with the beloved. Guilt arises when others have reason to relinquish (1) on the grounds of an agent’s action (for example, when others might rightfully desire an agent be punished). Shame arises when an agent’s nature warrants others to reject not only the agent’s good but the agent herself. The solution to guilt and shame, according to Stump, begins on the cross when Christ engages in a mind-reading of all individuals that allows for mutual indwelling between Christ and humanity; that this occurs while Christ dies on the cross is the “most promising way to melt the resistance that keeps a person hardened against love,” thus offering to humanity the grace needed to receive the divine gift of salvation. While this latter point is used to explain how the Thomistic solution to sin connects with Christ’s death on the cross, the former point is crucial to the absolution of guilt and shame. Stump claims that the honor bestowed on humans in virtue of metaphysical union with Christ is of such great value that it counteracts and absorbs whatever otherwise shameful traits obtain within a person. [End Page 400] The problem of guilt is resolved by the regenerative nature of union with Christ; indwelling changes agents so radically that they can no longer be identified as the agents deserving certain punishments. Moreover, indwelling changes an agent in such a way that her future actions work to satisfy the righteous anger of her community in response to the suffering invoked by her previous sinful acts. Whatever debt her good works cannot cover is fulfilled in Christ’s offer of union with God—the ultimate good— to all persons. The account summarized here is fleshed out in detail in the book, which brings clarity to the view as well as potential points of confusion. For example, Stump maintains that shame is objective and attaches to an agent in virtue of others being warranted in rejecting him, but she also claims that shame can properly attach “in consequence of being victimized by sinful acts on the part of other people.” These two views in conjunction seem to imply that God (or others) would be warranted in rejecting an agent because of a wrong committed against that agent. Additionally, although Stump sets out to explain how the cross is related to indwelling, she primarily argues that the cross is when this mind-reading occurred (as evidenced by the cry of dereliction) but says little about why such a mind-reading...